More interesting stuff re Alcohol Concern...

Posted in the comments by Adam Collyer:

From the Alcohol Concern website:

"The Alcohol Harm Map, produced by Alcohol Concern in partnership with the pharmaceutical company Lundbeck Ltd. The purpose of the map is to reveal the real harm and cost of alcohol at a local level, so that local authorities and local health providers can ensure that alcohol prevention and treatment services are available to those with drinking problems..."

From Lundbeck's website, one of their UK products is called Selincro (generic name nalmefene).

And from the website of NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (the government agency which recommends which products should be used by the NHS):

"NICE has been asked to appraise nalmefene for reducing alcohol consumption in people with alcohol dependence in a single technology appraisal. The expected date of publication of the appraisal is November 2014."

Perfect timing it seems...

Misheard Lyrics

It would appear that failure to consume enough alcohol can damage your hearing and/or impair your cognitive functions:

From The Daily Mail:

Almost one in five songs in modern top tens contains a reference to booze (1) – twice as many as ten years ago and almost three times as many as 30 years ago...

The study attributes the rise of alcohol-related lyrics to an increase in the amount of U.S songs becoming popular in the UK. It uses Katy Perry's Last Friday Night, a still from the music video pictured, as an example and claims the song links drinking to confidence and success...

By 2011, the proportion of songs that glamorised alcohol by linking it to confidence, sociability or good looks clearly outweighed those that blamed it for hangovers and health problems.(2)

1) If you add up the number of pop songs which refer to booze, drugs, sex, violence or arson and/or include swearwords/smut then it probably adds up to about seven or eight out of five. So what?

Vague references to "doing it all night" (it always puzzles me what they are "doing all night". Worrying about a job interview? Revising for an exam?) would bring that to nine or ten out of five.

2) "Last Friday Night" is probably the worst example they could have chosen, it strikes me that the lyrics are all about the hangover:

There's a stranger in my bed
There's a pounding in my head
Glitter all over the room
Pink flamingos in the pool
I smell like a minibar
DJ's passed out in the yard
Barbie's on the barbecue
This a hickie or a bruise?
Pictures of last night
Ended up online
I'm screwed
Oh well
It's a blacked out blur
But I'm pretty sure it ruled
Damn...

And so on and so forth. We've all been there.

It's quite a well written song actually and includes an impossible saxophone solo. The verses are in the first person singular, present tense and the chorus in the first person plural, past tense. They could have given her credit for that at least.

Wot, again ?

Yes, sorry all, but today seems to have become "stats day".

This G headline caught my eye: Hospital admissions linked to alcohol rise to more than a million in year and as might be expected is the G following its now well worn path of regarding anything emanating from Alcohol Concern as impeccable, unbiased, and 'what this avowedly liberal news-organ is 100% behind'. Cue hints that G fully supports minimum alcohol pricing and is not afraid to have a sly dig at politico's who apparently don't:

The bleak figures prompted doctors to call again for minimum alcohol pricing, which is the subject of a legal battle between the drinks industry and the Scottish government and is still formally under consideration in England although there is little ministerial appetite for it.

So, we have "An estimated 1.22m hospital admissions in England were linked to drinking too much alcohol in 2011-12, according to NHS figures – a 51% rise over the past nine years". [minor diversion, why the NHS nowadays uses agencies such as AC to publish their data, who knows, maybe Jeremy Hunt wants to avoid a 'getting on the wrong side of Michael Scholar and UKSA situation' as has befallen IDS and Grant Shapps] and "Hospital admissions for which drink was the main cause rose to 200,900 in 2011-12, 1% more than the previous year, and more than 40% up on 2002-03."

And so on, but the important thing is, as stressed in that G headline, we are now all so permanently sozzled on cheap supermarket lager that we picked up during a visit to actually buy some bottled water but discovering the lager was cheaper bought that instead that the number of us being admitted to hospital where alcohol was a contributing factor (according to the persons recording the reason for the admission, so presumably it includes "broken toe - cause 'dropped twelve pack of ridiculously cheap, almost as if they were giving it away, lager on foot in local Supermarket') rose to more than a million in 2012. S'funny I thought, only I am pretty sure we had already crossed that particular rubicon of shame and reckless waste of NHS resources before. And guess what -- A million-alcohol-related-hospital admissions?
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UPDATE. MW adds, what I like about these tractor stats is that every now and then they drop their guard. In early 2012, the BBC published this shock-horror-stat...

According to Downing Street, there were 200,000 hospital admissions in 2010-11 with alcohol as the primary factor, which was 40% than in 2002-03. The £2.7bn which alcohol abuse is estimated to cost the NHS each year equates to £90 for every taxpayer.

... and promptly withdrew it a few hours later.

Alcohol Concern strongly denies existence of "embedded black ops teams"

Full story at the BBC.

Headline by Bob E.

"Alcohol sales under-reported by fifty per cent"

From the BBC:

The amount of alcohol consumed in England is twice as high as reported sales figures, a study has decided.

Counting units

University College London researchers multiplied the population of the UK by four units of alcohol a day to estimate total consumption and then compared the result with actual alcohol sales figures. They found there was a significant shortfall with all the "missing" alcohol unaccounted for in the sales figures given by HM Revenue & Customs.

This circular logic confirms their pre-conceived notion that everybody in the whole country is drinking above the recommended daily alcohol limit.

Ounting cunits

The experts claimed that much alcohol use went unreported, because anybody who ever touches alcohol is incapable of keeping track and is probably a pathological liar anyway. People are also in denial about their drinking problem when have sobered up. And clearly breweries, importers, distillers, retailers and hospitality sector are running rings round the tax man.

"Sobering thought: British children susceptible to brainwashing"

From The Metro:

They were tricked into telling researchers that alcohol promotions encouraged excessive drinking, pointing out it was 'cheaper to buy a three-litre bottle of cider than buy a ticket to go to the cinema'. The 16- to 24-year-olds had also been persuaded that there was a widespread culture of 'drinking to get drunk' despite there being little evidence to support this.

Tom Smith, from Alcohol Concern, which carried out the study, said that this showed how susceptible children were to the constant lies and propaganda pumped out by his own taxpayer funded organisation.

"This is further proof of the impact which our disinformation is having on the mental health and wellbeing of our young people," he said. "They have dutifully parroted loud and clear that the way in which alcohol is priced influences the way they drink, even though the only reason they said it is because we told them to and then asked leading questions."

The latest findings back up previous research showing British children are more likely to have been brainwashed by the age of 13 than children from almost anywhere else in Europe. Alcohol Concern claims government-funded lies and propaganda is 44 per cent more widespread now than it was in 1980 and that there are 25 per cent more off-licences.

Nearly seven out of ten young people told researchers that cheaper alcohol from off-licences compared with pubs and bars influenced their drinking habits. The Home Office claimed it was working hard to step up the level of brain washing being directed at the general public. It said: "Introducing a minimum unit price is just one of a range of measures the government is taking to create the impression is tackling alcohol-related crime and disorder in our local communities."

"Minimum alcohol price could prolong 5,000 lonely, miserable lives a year"

From The Guardian:

The figure 1.4 million has been plucked out of the air as a wild over-estimate of the number of people over 65 are 'believed' to be tip-toeing slightly faster towards the grave by drinking ever so slightly more than the professional meddlers' completely made-up daily limits.

The number of over-65s admitted to hospital in England has risen by 62% in five years and more pensioners than 16- to 24-year-olds are kept in because of alcohol-related injuries and illnesses. That's probably because very few 16- to 24-year olds are admitted for treatment, which is why we aren't giving you the absolute numbers, but let's just stick to the shock-horror claim.

Statisticians from Sheffield University calculated that if ministers set the minimum unit price at 50p, there would be nearly 50,000 more lonely, miserable pensioners in England 10 years' time...

A spokesman for Alcohol Concern, the charity representing alcohol services, said life-changing events such as retirement or bereavement could prompt older people to finally cast of the strictures imposed by work or a nagging spouse. Although the media often focus on excessive drinking by young people, the problem affects all age groups, it said. While over-65s generally drink less overall than other groups, they are more likely to drink constantly.

"The trouble with problem drinking among older people is that it remains hidden," said Eric Appleby, the group's chief executive. "Most often, it's something that goes on quietly in the home without disturbing anyone. That's why it's so important that professionals who come into contact with older people are well-trained in recognising the signs of problem drinking.

"You could ask why we are sticking our noses in to something which quite clearly isn't a problem for anybody else. But that's just what we do."

Let's stop right at the word 'new'

From the BBC 14 February 2011:

The number of admissions to hospital in the UK because of problem drinking could rise to 1.5 million a year by 2015, a charity says. Alcohol Concern estimates that it will cost the NHS £3.7bn annually if nothing is done to stop the increase... The charity says the number of people being treated in hospital for alcohol misuse has gone from 500,000 in 2002-3 to 1.1 million in 2009-10.

From The Metro 25 August 2011

The number of people treated in hospital every day for drink-related illnesses has risen by nearly half in just five years. In total, there were 1.1million admissions in England in 2009/10 – a rise of 879 a day, new research reveals... Prof Ian Gilmore, chairman of Alcohol Health Alliance UK, told Metro the figures showed the softly-softly policy of working with the drinks industry to combat alcohol abuse was not working.

So all we can glean from all this is that Alcohol Concern have been relegated and the Lib-Cons favoured fakecharity seems to be Alcohol Health Alliance UK* with PIG in charge. You'll note that the first article ends with a quote agreeing that 'something must be done' from an unnamed 'spokesperson for the Department of Health' but the second article ends with such a quote from an actual named 'Health Minister'.

* AHAUK is a super-fakecharity, the full list of its member fakecharities is here

UPDATE: Via Velvet Glove, how they manipulate and exaggerate the number of 'alcohol-related admissions' is explained here.

Completely made up figure revised down by four per cent

BBC, 14 February 2011:The number of admissions to hospital in the UK because of problem drinking could rise to 1.5 million a year by 2015, a charity says.

Alcohol Concern estimates that it will cost the NHS £3.7bn annually if nothing is done to stop the increase... The charity says the number of people being treated in hospital for alcohol misuse has gone from 500,000 in 2002-3 to 1.1 million in 2009-10.

BBC, 26 May 2011:The number of alcohol-related hospital admissions in England has topped 1m for the first time, according to official statistics.

An NHS Information Centre report said admissions had increased by 12% between 2008/9 and 2009/10... The number of admissions reached 1,057,000 in 2009/10 compared with 945,500 in 2008/9 and 510,800 in 2002/3.

Well, the entirely made up figure may be up twelve per cent on the previous year, but at least it's down by four per cent compared to the entirely made up figure of three months ago, eh?

My Answer to Question 11 was...

... "A poster showing Don Shenker choking on his own vomit."

The survey only takes two minutes to complete. Funniest answer wins.

Via Dick P, via Straight Statistics.

ITV: The True Price Of A Pint

I caught this programme just now (on ITV1 + 1) and, in case you were wondering, it was the usual heap of gibberish and fake statistics; they interviewed the usual suspects from Sheffield University; gave a lot of airtime to Professor Ian Gilmore; and cited 'research' by fakecharities like Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust as if it were Gospel.

The spokesmen for the British Retail Consortium and the Portman Group were total wimps. Instead of telling the interviewer: "There is no such thing as a binge drinking epidemic, now f- off" they played along with the charade and mumbled on about what they were doing to 'minimise the harm that alcohol does to society' and all that shit.

UPDATE: JH asks 'What is the true price of a pint?', well according to the programme, the cost of the 'harm to society' when you drink a pint of beer was a staggering 91p or something. They didn't even attempt to quantity that.

The New Maths: small number x big number = big number: Shock.

It's difficult to fight this level of propaganda, as trailed on R4 this morning:

Poor alcohol regulation could cost up to 250,000 lives in England and Wales over the next 20 years, doctors warn. Writing in The Lancet, leading liver disease specialists say measures including a minimum price of 50p per unit are urgently needed...

Hold it right there!

250,000 (being a wild estimate) divided by 20 = 12,500. There are about 500,000 deaths in the UK every year, from whatever causes, so even if they were right (and they aren't), they are talking about 2.5% of all deaths, which is within the bounds of measuring error anyway.

In any event, the rather more reliable NSO reckon that there are currently 9,000 'alcohol-related deaths' a year in the UK, and even those figures are dubious as they claim that the number of 'alcohol-related deaths' more than doubled since 1992.

So the Bansturbators-at-large aren't even talking about an actual reduction of 12,500 a year, they are talking about the reduction of a hypothetical increase.

In related news: "Smoking set to kill entire UK population over next six centuries".

Fake Statistics Of The Day

The BBC wheel out their fakecharity template yet again (the clue is at the end where a government spokesman agrees that 'more must be done'):

The number of people admitted to hospital in the UK because of problem drinking could rise to 1.5 million a year by 2015, a charity says. Alcohol Concern estimates that it will cost the NHS £3.7 bn annually [up from £2.7 bn at present] if nothing is done to stop the increase...

The charity says the number of people being treated in hospital for alcohol misuse has gone from 500,000 in 2002-3 to 1.1 million in 2009-10.

I try and keep track of the constant doubling of chocolate rations alcohol-related admissions, so here's a quick summary:

Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2008:

Alcohol is thought to cause about 17,000 cases of cancer a year and £2 bn of NHS money [sic] is spent every year treating patients with alcohol-related diseases...

Office for National Statistics figures showed last month that in 2005/6, hospitals admitted 208,000 people with diseases caused by drink. That was double the figure 10 years before... Officials estimate that the true figure for alcohol-induced admissions last year was 811,000.

BBC, 15 March 2009 (who clearly hadn't read the memo):

The NHS bill for alcohol abuse is an estimated £2.7 bn a year. The most recent figures show hospital admissions linked to alcohol use have more than doubled in England since 1995. Alcohol was the main or secondary cause of 207,800 NHS admissions in 2006/7, compared to 93,500 in 1995/96.

I think that the real giveaway is that they appear to be sticking with the £2.7 bn figure, which if correct would mean that the NHS is now treating twice as many people as it did a few years ago for the same cost*. And Alcohol concern are now going for broke, not only do they claim that the number admissions went up five-fold between 1995-96 and 2002-03 (they never revised up the earlier, lower figure of course) but that it will have trebled yet again between 2002-03 and 2015 (i.e. a fifteen-fold increase in twenty years, a compound annual growth rate of 15% at a time when alcohol sales are flat or falling).

* If you take their entirely made up figures and divide £3.7 bn cost by 1.5 m admissions, that works out at a princely £2,467 cost per admission, which seems a tad over the top for an X-ray, a bandage or whatever.

Don Shenker Fun

Pub Curmdugeon reminds us to do a Google search on Don Shenker.

If you have a moment, click through the relevant result in the Google search to make sure it stays at the top.

Well, it worked a treat with cocaine and heroin.

Notwithstanding that there is no binge drinking epidemic, 'alcohol related admissions' are not bankrupting the NHS, booze-related violence is not increasing and so on and so forth, from today's Evening Standard (much better value now it's free):

Ministers were accused of “betrayal” today as health campaigners said a new minimum price for alcohol was too low to deter excessive drinking. The Home Office said shops will be banned from selling alcohol for less than the tax they pay on it, resulting in minimum unit prices of 21p for beer and 28p for spirits... Don Shenker, of Alcohol Concern, said he felt “let down” by the minimum price, which is less than half that recommended by a government-commissioned study.

This whole high pricing malarkey, did it work for cocaine and heroin?

Methinks not, if anything, the harm they cause increases when prices increase (more crime, more incentives for drug dealers etc.). Admittedly some drugs like ecstasy tablets and cannabis are quite good value compared to booze and fags, but they are the ones that cause the least harm - whether in spite of or because of the low prices, or indeed whether there is no correlation whatsoever is a separate debate.

See also: Make cigarette packaging plain, government urges.

As everybody knows, since drug dealers weren't allowed to use fancy branded packaging, their sales went through the floor.

Didn't we have a General Election eight months ago, with a new Prime Minister and everything?

From the BBC:

Plans for a minimum price for alcohol in England and Wales are to be announced by ministers. Shops and bars will be prevented from selling drinks for less than the tax they pay on them.

The minimum pricing would work out at 38p for a can of weak lager and £10.71 for a litre bottle of vodka. The aim is to prevent binge drinking, but campaigners say the proposed new rules do not go far enough...

The government is planning to ban the sale of alcohol below "cost price", which is defined as the tax drinkers pay - duty plus VAT...

How is that any different to the sort of shite that Labour came out with, year in year out? As a flourish, they are even proposing a measure that is nigh unenforceable on an administrative level, rather than something nice and simple like increasing alcohol duty (not that I'm recommending this, I'm just saying).

The BBC being the BBC, it has rent-a-quotes from the usual subjects, the BMA, Alcohol Concern, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and Drinkaware, and no doubt the major supermarkets are cheering to the rafters.
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UPDATE: FormerTory in the comments links us to this vox pop:

Tom Logan, a trainee accountant from Peterborough, said: "So what you're saying is, they've fucked up the economy, forced the country to the point of bankruptcy and put my job and my home in jeopardy while at the same time paying themselves a hundred grand a year in expenses and are now telling me I shouldn't be allowed to buy a couple of cheap bottles of wine on a Friday night so I can forget my troubles for a few hours instead of hunting them down and roasting them on a spit like the shit-caked, trough-guzzling pigs that they are?

"Interesting."

Junior Spies

It's good to see the BBC wheel out their fakecharity fakenews story template for one its increasingly rare outings.

More than 100 children a week are contacting the ChildLine helpline with worries about their parents' drinking or drug use, according to the NSPCC... Two-thirds of those callers had mentioned their parents' drinking...

Although concerns about parental drug and alcohol abuse made up only a small percentage of them, the head of ChildLine, Sue Minto, said: "The fall-out from parental drug and alcohol abuse is a ticking timebomb in many children's lives. It's vital these children are helped before lasting damage occurs."

Thirty-five per cent of those had reported suffering physical abuse, which was more than three times the rate among other children who called. Twenty per cent mentioned issues with family conflicts, while 10% spoke of sexual abuse.

It's not like old times though.

Although the NSPCC is clearly a fakecharity, they/the BBC couldn't organise a couple of rent-a-quotes from other fakecharities to pad out the article at the bottom (yes, Don Shenker of Alcohol Concern, that means you).

Drinkaware is not a fakecharity, it's organised by drinks manufacturers to coordinate their counter-propaganda, And the article does not end with a spokesperson from the relevant government department agreeing that 'more must be done'.

At least you're not alone...

From The Metro:

More than half a million staff turn up to work with hangover on any given day, claims a report. And it is only going to get worse when the World Cup starts, said Drinkaware, which is teaming up with Bupa to advise employers about workers’ drinking. Figures show that on an average day around 520,000 workers in the UK are suffering from the night before...

Interestingly, there's no rent-a-quote from Alcohol Concern in that article. NB, Drinkaware is not a fakecharity, it is funded by the alcohol industry as a PR exercise (which is fair enough).

They've been doing overtime in The Department of Fakestatistics

From The Daily Mail (where the crowd is lapping it up of course):

Children as young as 11 are drinking the equivalent of 15 shots of vodka a week. An NHS survey of children between 11 and 15 last year found that one in six - an estimated 550,000 - said they had drunk alcohol in the previous week. Their average consumption was 14.6 units - equal to a pint of beer a day.

Had they done a survey on children between 7 and 15, then no doubt they would have found that only one-in-twelve had drunk alcohol, but the article would have started with "Children as young as 7..." Presumably they mean that the one-in-six who drink drink a pint a day; surely that's not the average for all 11-15 year olds?

...Almost as many girls as boys admitted drinking.

They could have said "Boys hardly drink more than girls", couldn't they?

The survey by the NHS Information Centre found that children are much more likely to drink if there is another drinker in their family. Only five per cent of youngsters in teetotal households ever touch alcohol, compared to 31 per cent in households where three or more people drink.

Well duh.

Around half of all pupils said their parents would not mind them drinking as long as they did not have too much.

That's the whole point, isn't it, the concept of "too much" which is by definition usually A Bad Thing.

The survey, which questioned pupils in 263 secondary schools across England, also found small falls in drug-taking and smoking. Eight per cent of pupils said they had taken drugs in the previous month while six per cent were smokers.

Junior spies.

Nannies in a tizz

From the BBC:

People are drinking more alcohol by "stealth" because of the stronger drinks on the market, an analysis of consumption in the UK suggests.

The amount of alcohol consumed per person has risen by 10% since 2000 - despite drink sales remaining steady. Researchers Mintel said wines and lagers were becoming stronger and people were unaware of the changes.

It comes as latest figures show a third of men and a fifth of women* drink more than the recommended daily limits. The NHS recommends a limit of three to four units of alcohol per day for men, and two to three units for women...

Yadda, yadda, blah, waffle, I'm sure you get the picture. My personal highlights from that crock of shit are these two claims:

"Consumers have limited information to help them make healthy choices about their alcohol consumption" Don Shenker, of Alcohol Concern

I was at a barbecue recently where a Japanese lass stared fascinatedly at my beer can and told me that in Japan, beer cans were not covered in little charts, tables and warnings telling you how much alcohol is in it and how much, when and where you should and shouldn't drink.

The report said the changes were likely to be down to the stronger drinks that were on sale. The alcohol content of wine is now normally around 13%, while in the past it would have been closer to 11%. Premium 5% lagers were also becoming more popular.

The clue as ever is in the name - "Premium" lager. Given that every can or bottle of drink is plastered with charts, tables and warnings (see above) anyway, I think all but the daftest punter knows that when he (or she) pays a few pence extra for "premium" lager that they're doing this (at least in part) because it is stronger. Or do Alcohol Concern genuinely believe that drinks manufacturers are doing this as part of some evil plot?

* I'm not sure where they get that from. Seven months ago they claimed "Over a third of adults in Britain drink over the recommended daily amount at least one day a week, figures show." A fifth is a lot less than a third, n'est-ce pas?