This is pretty shocking. Seven 'public health' researchers looked at a survey which showed that self-reported alcohol consumption rose sharply in March/April 2020 and remained significantly higher than average for several years. Although they knew that the survey method had changed from face-to-face to via telephone in March 2020, and that people under-report alcohol consumption more in face-to-face interviews, they assumed the rise to be real. At no point did they consult either the alcohol sales figures or the alcohol duty receipts which show that no such rise took place - on the contrary, per capita consumption fell. Instead, they conclude that the rise in alcohol-specific deaths during the pandemic shows that consumption probably rose.
This is your tax money at work (thank you SPECTRUM). One of the authors is Sarah Jackson who is normally relatively sensible. Two of the others are part of the Sheffield University alcohol modelling team and have therefore been living in a world of fantasy for years. Even so, this strikes me as a bit of a milestone in post-truth 'public health' academia. The field of alcohol research seems to be more detached from reality than ever. They model policies which don't work and then conduct modelling studies to show that they worked. Now they're arguing with basic facts. They have got away with conning people for so long that they think they can say anything in a peer-reviewed study and make it become the truth.
Where were the peer reviewers anyway?
I've written about it for The Critic.
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