The dumbest epidemiology

Last week, the BBC publicised the results of a study which claimed that sugar consumption in early life increases the risk of dementia. People who don’t eat much sugar in the first years of life are supposedly 23 per cent less likely to develop the condition when they are older. “Our findings suggest that limiting sugar during the earliest stages of life may have lasting benefits for brain health,” said the study’s lead author Jiazhen Zheng.

How does he know this? He looked at data from the UK Biobank and found that people born between 1940 and 1953, when sugar was rationed, were less likely to develop dementia than those born afterwards. 

 

Of 15,025 who experienced sugar rationing before birth and during their first year of life, 388 developed dementia. Of 15,256 who experienced sugar rationing before birth and during their first two years of life, 456 developed dementia. Of 23,774 born after sugar rationing, 504 developed dementia. 

 

If you get your calculator out, you will find that these figures show that the rate of dementia actually fell over time, with 2.1 per cent of the youngest cohort suffering from the disease, compared to 2.6 per cent of the oldest cohort and 2.5 per cent of the second group. The claim that the people who endured sugar rationing were 23 per cent less likely to get dementia is based on numbers that have undergone substantial adjustment. 

But that is not the real problem with this study. The real problem is something that has doubtless already occurred to you and that would be obvious even to a small child. If people born between 1940 and 1953 are healthier than people born after 1953, there could be any number of explanations for it. There is no more reason to attribute it to sugar rationing than to anything else, including meat rationing and egg rationing. There is no reason to assume that it has anything to do with diet, nor indeed to anything people do in their first two years of life. These individuals grew up and lived in different times when the prevalence of some diseases declined and others increased. Focusing on one event and giving it the credit for everything that happened afterwards is so stupid that there is a name for it: the post hoc ergo proctor hoc fallacy. 

 

It gets worse. Read about it at The Critic. 

 

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A nation divided!

Nineteen years after the hated smoking ban was introduced, more than a third of the public still think smoking should be allowed, in designated smoking rooms at least. Simon Clark has the news at Taking Liberties.

  

Still, it is pretty worrying that 51% of UK adults refuse to mind their own business.

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The ongoing saga of the energy drink sales ban

You may not care about the freedom of teenagers to buy caffeinated fizzy drinks, but it will not just be children who find things more difficult if a ban is introduced. There are 170,000 vending machines in the UK selling cold drinks, none of which will be able to stock energy drinks once the ban comes into effect. This is ridiculous because, according to the Vending & Automated Retail Association, more than 82 per cent of vending machines are in places that either ban children or are of no interest to children, such as offices, factories and warehouses. Millions of adults will be inconvenienced for no obvious gain. 

Furthermore, adults will have to prove their age to buy these drinks. This is already a common complaint from those who shop at the virtue-signalling supermarkets that have brought in a voluntary ban. It will soon apply to every shop in England. 

 

Read all about it at The Critic. 

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Today's quack science

 You wait ages for the worst quack science of the year to show up and then two contenders arrive at once.

 Read about them on my Substack. 

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Repeal the smoking ban

Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore, incited howls of outrage even from his own supporters this week when he espoused the low-status opinion that pubs should be allowed to have a separate, well ventilated room in which people can smoke, as is the norm in much of Europe. “I detest smoking.” he said. “I would not use these rooms, but should that stop others?” In my view, Lowe did not go far enough. If a landlord wants to allow smoking throughout his pub, that is no business of the government. But even Lowe’s watered down policy proposal, accompanied by an elucidation of the most basic liberal principles, was treated as if he was calling for the slaughter of the first-born. 

No cliché went untouched. Why should I be forced to breathe someone’s ghastly cigarette? Why should I come home with my clothes stinking of smoke? What if the smoke drifts into another room? What about the poor bar staff? It was the only good thing Labour ever did!

Most of these arguments are undermined by the fact that no one would be forced to enter the smoking room. Insofar as bar staff would be obliged to enter it from time to time, the solution would be to make this part of the job description and only hire people who are smokers or who have no objection to going into a room in which people are smoking. In any case, with modern air conditioning the air in the smoking room would probably be cleaner than the air outside.

But the smoking ban was never really about secondhand smoke. The simple fact was that many nonsmokers disliked the smell of tobacco and, flattered by decades of propaganda which portrayed them as superior beings, they felt entitled to demand that it be eliminated from any building they might ever choose to enter. That this required a step-change in state control was welcomed by socialists and progressives as another milestone in the regimentation of society. More surprising was the failure of so many conservatives and liberals to push back on this assault on personal liberty and property rights. Instead, they joined forces with a “public health” lobby that was now unshackled from liberal norms in a broader war against other supposed vices.

 

Read the rest at The Critic.  

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More cash for ASH

The government has created a £450,000 Tobacco and Vapes Implementation Grant "to support implementation and impact of the Tobacco and Vapes Act". It looks tailor-made for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

 

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is making £150,000 per year available for the financial years 2026/27, 2027/28, 2028/29. A total of £450,000 of grant funding is available. The intention of this grant is to support implementation and impact of the Tobacco and Vapes Act which introduces a range of new measures making major changes in the tobacco and vaping landscape.

 

What "support" does this legislation require? Mainly, it seems to require some propaganda to make it look like a success...

 

Surveys and polling

•  Working with DHSC, identify surveys and polling which could support implementation of the Tobacco and Vapes Act.

• Undertake agreed surveys and polling. 

• Feedback findings to DHSC in an accessible format. 

 

And...

 

Support for local communications for a smoke-free UK, building on national communication plans. 

 

But it's not all about "support". Either ASH keeps moving or it dies. It must always find new dragons to slay and it has always relied on taxpayers' money to develop exciting new policies. Therefore part of the £450,000 can be used to... 

 

Work with DHSC to identify and develop the right research and investigative frameworks to support the development of future vaping and nicotine product policy, e.g. analysis on the health impacts of specific substances or ingredients.  

 

Produce and disseminate supportive evidence-based resources to make the case for continued tobacco control measures and investment, with a focus on cost-benefit analysis. 

 

If you're thinking that anybody could do that, you're wrong because...

 

Eligibility

Funding is available using the powers set out in section 70 of the Charities Act 2006. To be eligible to apply for the grant organisations must therefore be charities, or charitable, benevolent, or philanthropic in purpose.

 

By a stroke of luck, ASH is a charity.

 

Ker-ching!  

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Inside the Sausage Factory - with Martin Durkin!

I've been speaking to the great filmmaker Martin Durkin about my book Inside the Sausage Factory. Check it out...

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