tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post7497896409051371967..comments2023-10-17T15:56:22.827+01:00Comments on Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: Drinking and deceitChristopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-7883640144672143232011-05-30T23:11:47.457+01:002011-05-30T23:11:47.457+01:00A bit late to comment on this really, I suppose, b...A bit late to comment on this really, I suppose, but I will.<br /><br />In the DT Business section of 29th May 'Lansley takes on Supermarkets over alcohol'. <br /><br />We can see how Alcohol Concern et al are following the program set out by ASH. The article says that they have withdrawn from the 'responsibility deal' (supermarkets not putting alcohol promotions at the front of their shops) 'because, they said, Gov is not being tough enough'. Sounds a lot like the initial ban on smoking at the bar, to me, which ASH also said 'was not tough enough'.<br /><br />What surprised me reading that was the inference that Alcohol Concern has any involvement with supermarkets' policies at all. What is Alcohol Concern? It is just a pressure group with a few employees, paid for with grants. It has no legal or parliamentary standing whatsoever.<br /><br />I wonder if supermarkets have learned from the tobacco experience? If they have any sense, they will have. If they have any sense, they will refuse to have anything to do with these pressure groups and deal only directly with the Gov. No fake charity involvement at all. (In fact, I suspect that this is what has happened).<br /><br />I just thought that it might be of interest.<br /><br />PS. Won't Lansley be far, far too busy trying to defend his NHS reforms? Who, then, in the Health Dept is pushing this stuff?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-78114032050412079172011-05-29T01:56:44.977+01:002011-05-29T01:56:44.977+01:00And so we see a constant accumulation of UNTRUE AN...And so we see a constant accumulation of UNTRUE AND FRAUDULENT statistical misinformation. <br /><br />We commenters do not have the funds to contest these lies. Who does? It really amazes me that there are indubitably people who are smokers (wealthy celebrities, for example), who must be as angry as the rest of us about this vicious law, but who are not prepared to do us all a favour and contest it. If I possessed, say, £20 000 000, it would not bother me to risk £1 000 000. Or would it? It may be true that 'the more you acquire, the more you want to acquire'. <br /><br />My real point is that there seems to be no way in out democracy for false assertions to be contested. Studies conducted by this university or that cannot be contested. They are FACTUAL, regardless of their veracity. <br /><br />In the end, one way or another, when politicians pass a law which is based upon statistics, the truth of the statistical conjectures must be confirmed. <br /><br />As regards the smoking ban, statistical conjectures were accepted without question, by a committee appointed for that purpose - the purpose being, to accept the statistical conjectures as fact. <br /><br />The Government is actually stupid or fraudulent. It is stupid if it accepts statistical conjectures as fact without proper scientific scrutiny, or it is fraudulent if it deliberately sets up scientific scrutiny which is tainted. I read somewhere that scientists are just as fallible as everyone else - offer them enough money and they will produce the result that you want. <br /><br />The serious idea is that epidemiology is not scientific. It is an educated guess. <br /><br />No law should be based upon an educated guess.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-41219980130883897232011-05-28T10:51:51.696+01:002011-05-28T10:51:51.696+01:00"Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics"
A po..."Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics"<br /><br />A powerful lobbying tool for legislation to suit a minority's "wish list" and VERY dishonest.<br /><br />Take a road accident where a car runs into the rear of one at red lights. Breathylisers used, the waiting car's driver shows over the limit, the "crash" driver not. Who gets arrested? What shows on the statistics? <br /><br />Sadly we do not have MP's with savvy, Life experience or understanding, well able to see what's put to them and through ploys.Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-90602460051442520902011-05-27T23:32:07.490+01:002011-05-27T23:32:07.490+01:00Nigel Hawkes:
"Of course, much greater contr...Nigel Hawkes:<br /><br /><i>"Of course, much greater contributions to the total are made by conditions such as high blood pressure, which accounted for 383,900 admissions – more than a third of the total. Around a third of admissions for hypertensive diseases in men aged between 25 and 65 are attributed to alcohol, and around a fifth in women. There are far more of these admissions than there are for fires or accidents, so they contribute a huge proportion of the total."</i><br /><br />Spot on! I downloaded the NHS report yesterday and rapidly identified this ludicrous statistic of 384k admissions with 'alcohol-related' hypertensive diseases. <br /><br />I checked with the official numbers at <a href="http://www.hesonline.nhs.uk/Ease/servlet/ContentServer?siteID=1937&categoryID=202" rel="nofollow">hesonline</a>. In 2009/10 there were <b>39,739</b> admissions <b>for</b> high BP (hypertensive disease) in England, <b>regardless of whether alcohol-related or not</b>. <br /><br />That means the number of admissions for hypertensive disease that were alcohol-related (383,900), as claimed by this report, <b>was nearly ten times higher than all admissions for all types of hypertensive disease!</b><br /><br />Bizarre? Yes!<br /><br />A lie? Well not quite. <br /><br />Clearly there were something of the order of 1.8 million admissions to English hospitals <b>where high BP was mentioned</b>, ie was included in the list of (up to 20) diagnosis codes recorded in the admission records, but only 39,739 (2.2%) of these were admissions that were <b>directly due to</b> (ie whose <b>primary diagnosis</b> was) that high BP. As for the other 97.8%, well they were poor souls who were admitted for a variety of other reasons, but who just happened to have high blood pressure as well!<br /><br />And of course, there is absolutely no evidence, none at all, that a single one of the 1.8 millions admissions had high BP that was in any way related to alcohol at all. Not the 'guessed' 383,900. No, not a single one!<br /><br />Finally, you might want to look at the way in which the 'alcohol attributable fractions' are worked out for each condition. The majority of these seem to have been based on one meta-analysis, carried out in 2000 at the University of Milan (Corrao et al), of various studies conducted <b>over the period 1966 to 1996</b>! It beggars belief that risk factors calculated from a heterogeneous set of epidemiological study samples, recorded between 15 and 45 years ago, can be seen to somehow represent the inherent risks in the drinking habits of the population of England in 2009/10!<br /><br />I've said this many times before, and I will go to my grave saying it: <b>Meta-analysis is cheating</b>! It's an insidious method of trying to make strong statistical (causal) chains out of incredibly weak (and insignificant) links.<br /><br />It is, of course and not surprisingly, a methodology well loved by the innumerate creeps who infest the public health professions nowadays.<br /><br />But this is just another application of the tried and tested anti-tobacco template is it not? This report is just as dishonest as Comrad - er sorry - <b>Konrad</b> Jamrozik's 2005 <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7495/812.abstract" rel="nofollow">classic piece of numeric prestidigitation in calculating the number of deaths due to passive smoking</a>.<br /><br />And we all remember what that led to!BrianBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-4482187141137260482011-05-27T18:55:45.018+01:002011-05-27T18:55:45.018+01:00Wish I had enough money for a drinking epidemic.Wish I had enough money for a drinking epidemic.James Highamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14525082702330365464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-67155732359844188582011-05-27T18:36:37.975+01:002011-05-27T18:36:37.975+01:00I saw that SS piece this morning, it's truly e...I saw that SS piece this morning, it's truly excellent. Yet again online sources trump the MSM for rigour in reporting.Dick Puddlecotehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01481866882188932892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-66048590733779065772011-05-27T17:50:01.164+01:002011-05-27T17:50:01.164+01:00They have been doing the same for motorcycle "...They have been doing the same for motorcycle "accident" rates for years, as well.<br /><br />I burned my leg on the exhaust whilst the bike ENGINE was "bench running" in the garage after a rebuild. (I.e, it was not even IN the bike) The hospital put it down as "Motorcycle accident". Which kanckered 15 years of "no claims".Furor Teutonicushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13856575077967523322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-41755439381856987992011-05-27T14:27:32.165+01:002011-05-27T14:27:32.165+01:00Somehow, I'm not the least bit surprised at th...Somehow, I'm not the least bit surprised at this. Haven't they been pulling the same kind of underhanded gimmicks with the smoking statistics for years? Here in the States, I get the impression that if a smoker dies in an auto accident it will get counted as a "tobacco-related death."Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14933723134287388292noreply@blogger.com