Yeah verily, we are all going to die unless we follow the Righteous path of abstinence and Righteousness, trumpets the BBC:
"Drinking more than a pint of beer a day can substantially increase the risk of some cancers, research suggests..."
And so it drones on for several paragraphs, my personal highlight in terms of lies-per-paragraph is this:
Cancer Research UK director of health information Sara Hiom said that many people did not know that drinking alcohol could increase their cancer risk. (1) "In the last 10 years, mouth cancer has become much more common and one reason for this could be because of higher levels of drinking (2) - as this study reflects (3) . Along with being a non-smoker (4) and keeping a healthy bodyweight (5), cutting back on alcohol is one of the most important ways of lowering your cancer risk. (6)"
1) We don't know it because it's not true. That's like saying "Many people don't know that Tiger Woods was born a girl".
2) Alcohol consumption has been flat or falling for the last ten years.
3) No it doesn't.
4) WTF does she drag smoking into it?*
5) WTF does she drag body weight into it?*
6) No it isn't.
* I accept that cumulative risks are not additive, i.e. drinking = not dangerous, driving a car = not dangerous, but drinking and driving at the same time = quite dangerous.
Friday, 8 April 2011
Health Scare Story Du Jour
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12 comments:
I used to support Cancer Research UK by collecting for them. If they are going to support such an obviously policy-driven study, then they can forget it. I’ve become suspicious of large national charities anyway.
correlation <-> causation
The Mash
Relevant
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article2697975.ece
AKH, don't bother - they get millions and millions from the government each year.
VFTS, yes, there is a big overlap between 'authoritarianism' and generating a 'climate of fear' (to justify all sorts of illiberal measures like CRB checks, ID cards etc) and 'puritanism' in the old-fashioned sense of 'you will go to Hell' or in the modern sense of 'having fun gives you cancer'. Either way, it's all self-defeating and they KNOW IT.
Den, which is why the 'safe limits' are being steadily revised downwards. Having successfully got away with a Big Fat Lie they are now just making them bigger and bigger.
Last year's press release on this subject from Cancer Research UK is written up by the BBC here.
Well at least they're consistent...
If the numbers are correct then 4.27% of cancers are caused by alcohol. A very tiny amount. Incidence of oral cancer in 2007 was 0.8% (Cancer research UK. Hmmmmm. A very rate concer.
AC, yup, consistently wrong is still consistent.
C, that's a big 'if', but yes, it's handy turning they made up figures against them. As to your second comment (which either disappeared in the ether or you deleted it), yes agreed.
What they say and what they show are 2 different things
GIVING UP BOOZE CAUSES CANCER - shock study - Numbers unarguable: For pity's sake have a drink
A shocking new study has revealed that giving up drinking perceptibly increases your chance of getting cancer. If you stay on the booze, however, your chances of getting cancer will be pretty much exactly the same as if you had never touched a drop in your life
they think - this being based largely on 403 cases of cancer occurring among men who had previously given up alcohol across eight European countries - that ten per cent of all the cancer which ever happens results from being a drinker and then giving up booze. Just three per cent of cancer results from starting to drink and carrying on doing so all your life.
If we assume causality, we can state just as authoritatively that giving up booze causes cancer. The German epidemiologist quoted above by the Grauniad is thus entirely wrong: if more people stopped drinking alcohol at all, there would be a lot more cancer - based on this study.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/08/giving_up_booze_causes_cancer/
Even better than The Mash, El Reg.
Can't fault Lewis' analysis and commentary.
Significant quote -
'In other words they think - [based on the published results] - that ten per cent of all the cancer which ever happens results from being a drinker and then giving up booze. Just three per cent of cancer results from starting to drink and carrying on doing so all your life.'
Oh I think you people are failing to take this seriously - unless I have been misreading the official ONS mortality stats well, according to the Beeb, they are just plain lies - James Gallagher of the Beeb states quite clearly that "Alcoholic liver disease accounts for approximately 5,000 deaths in the UK each year" whereas the official ONS figures suggest it is fewer than that - what clearer evidence do we need of proof that the ONS has been infiltrated by statisticians employed by the booze industry who are falsifying mortality stats for their paymasters ! Something that the campaigning groups and "health professionals" would never indulge in - althogh I do note they arfen't shy of putting up lots of contradictory advice either, which is a shame - perhaps some of them are also in the pockets of the booze industry eh ? This has all got me so shocked I am going to have to sit down and have a restorative brandy and a calming cigar ...
ps - if you follow the "alcoholic liver disease" provided by James Gallagher and then select the "tab" Causes - well that page throws up some seemingly terrific paradoxical information - if you compare "what level of drinking causes alcoholic liver disease" against what level of drinking we are told today causes cancer you might just consider it a major wonder than anyone ever lives long enough to be diagnosed as suffering from Alcoholic liver disease
SK, VFTS and first Anon. Exactly, you can use these stats to 'prove' anything you like.
There are other stat's that say 'giving up smoking makes it more likely you'll later get cancer' but the Righteous counter-explanation is that smokers with early onset cancer lose the desire to smoke, and so they give up spontaneously.
Second Anon, excellent find. But according to the Righteous we all died long ago anyway of multiple causes. The fact that there are any people still alive is a statistical anomaly, rather than the other way round.
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