 | | | | |  | An antidote to panics based on dodgy statistics and dubious arguments.
Edited by Rob Lyons. |  | | |  |  |
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| | | 16 December 2003 | 'Drug' rape
Panic: The Roofie Foundation, a group that seeks to highlight the dangers of 'date-rape drugs', has urged the UK government to launch a Christmas campaign to highlight the dangers of drinks being spiked. According to the group, named after the street-name for rohypnol that has been implicated in drug rape, cases of people being sexually assaulted after consuming drinks spiked with drugs have risen to over 1000 cases in the UK in the past year. Most UK police forces are already running their own campaigns on the subject and drugs like rohypnol and gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB) have already been restricted, with stiff prison sentences for those caught in possession unlawfully. The Roofie Foundation suggests that: 'Everyone is aware of their own, personal tolerance to alcohol. If you feel odd, nauseous, slightly drunk, tipsy or wasted after only a couple of drinks, or you know that you cannot be drunk, there is more than a chance that your drink has been spiked. If so get yourself immediately to a place of safety.'
Don't panic: While there have been isolated incidents of such drugs being used, evidence of widespread use is rather thin on the ground. The BBC News report tells us that Essex police found eight spiked drinks among 200 in one club, and that Cumbria police 'received up to seven reports a month from people who believe their drinks may have been spiked'. As for the suggestion that everyone knows their personal tolerance for alcohol, surely painful experience demonstrates that we all get it wrong sometimes? It beggars belief that every time we are unexpectedly inebriated, we should assume we've been slipped a Mickey Finn.
The UK Institute of Biomedical Science noted in December 2000 that: 'Despite a large number of requests for flunitrazepam [rohypnol] analysis, very few positives have been found. Although this could be due partly to the long time delays before the victim has sufficient recall of events to report the incident to the police, it could also indicate that the use of flunitrazepam for this purpose in the UK is not that widespread.... There have also been relatively few seizures of flunitrazepam in the UK, and so it is felt that its use in "date rape" is vastly over estimated.'
A study published in 1999 in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology examined 1179 samples from across the USA. These were from victims of alleged sexual assault where the assailant was accused of drugging. It was found that in around 40 per cent of cases nothing was found at all, not even alcohol. In the other cases, various substances were found including alcohol (38 per cent), cannabis (18 per cent), cocaine (8 per cent), benzodiazepines (8 per cent), amphetamines (four per cent), and GHB (four per cent). In New Zealand in September 2003, a spokesman for the Institute for Environmental Science and Research noted that none of the 162 samples passed on by police over a two-year period in relation to drug rape allegations tested positive for GHB or ketamine.
Rather than showing an epidemic of 'drug rape', these alarmist campaigns look more like an attempt to scare people off drink and sex.
Read: |  | Campaign call over spiked drinks | | BBC News, 13 December 2003 | | How to tell, and what to do if you've been spiked, | | The Roofie Foundation | | About the Forensic Science Service, | | Biomedical Scientist, December 2000 | | Date rape: drink more common than drugs, | | Dominion Post, 1 September 2003 (reproduced by NZ Drug Foundation) |
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| | | 26 November 2003 | Passive smoking
Panic: A letter to The Times (London) by a group of leading members of the medical establishment has brought discussion of a ban on smoking in public back into the news. 'We believe that the time has come for legislation to make public places smoke-free. Passive smoking causes an estimated 1000 deaths in adults each year and causes asthma, lung infections and middle ear disease in children', they write. This follows moves to ban public smoking in California, New York, Norway and Ireland, and a recent UK government advertising campaign featuring smoke coming from the mouths of babies.
Don't panic: While a link between second-hand smoke (SHS) and a slightly increased level of illness seems plausible on the surface, no link has ever been proven. Even where studies have found an increased risk of cancer, the increase has been too small to be practically significant. ASH's website suggests that the risk of lung cancer for non-smokers is about 10 cases per 100,000 people (1 in 10,000) (1). An ASH factsheet from July 2002 suggests that 'Non-smokers who are exposed to passive smoking in the home, have a 25 percent increased risk of heart disease and lung cancer' (2). In other words, 12.5 cases per 100,000 population (1 in 8000).
Moreover, studies that show no link are often not published. When these were taken into account by researchers at the University of Warwick, the relative increase in risk fell to about 15 percent (2). An effect this small would usually be dismissed as potentially the product of other kinds of research bias. For this reason, researchers are usually advised to treat with extreme scepticism increases in risk of less than 100 percent. A more recent report by Enstrom and Kabat, published in the British Medical Journal in May 2003, suggested that the links between passive smoking, lung cancer and heart disease may not be significant at all (4).
For anti-smoking campaigners, the passive smoking debate is a perfect stick to beat smokers with. It suggests that, even if a smoker doesn't care about their own health, he should be more careful as regards the health of others. The argument seems to have been very successful, as the recent spread in outright public bans suggests. But is it really the place of the authorities to micro-manage our lives through dubious morality dressed up as science?
| | (1) Factsheet no.5: smoking and respiratory disease, | | Action on Smoking and Health, July 2001 | | (2) Factsheet no.8: passive smoking, | | Action on Smoking and Health, July 2002 | | (3) Passive smoking risk 'overstated', | | BBC News, 11 February 2000 | | (4) Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98, | | British Medical Journal, 16 May 2003 | | Read: | | Passive smoke gets in your eyes, | | by Brendan O'Neill |
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| | | 24 October 2003 | Sweet truth
Panic: Eating a lot of sugary foods during pregnancy could lead to an increased risk of birth defects, according to research to be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN). Mothers who ate a lot of foods with a high glycemic index, which cause a rapid rise in blood sugar followed by a sharp fall, apparently doubled their risk of having children with neural tube defects, such as spina bifida. Obese mothers were found to be four times more likely to have children with such problems.
Don't panic: By focusing on the 'double' or 'quadruple' supposed relative risk of birth defect, the headlines disguise the fact that the absolute risk of birth defect remains very small. Department of Health figures suggest that there are about 800 cases of neural tube defects in England and Wales each year - about one case for every 1000 live births. Most of these cases are detected by routine antenatal screening. The majority of such pregnancies end in termination, so that very few children are born with these conditions.
Studies like the one published in AJCN should never be taken at face value. For example, Andrew Russell of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus told BBC News: 'The idea that a sugar surge in the maternal blood could cause spina bifida, while not impossible, would need quite a lot of corroboration because there are so many other things that feed into the metabolic process which controls development and closure of the spinal column.' The safest thing that any parent-to-be can do in relation to reports like these is generally to ignore them.
Whatever the merits of the science, the effect of such news reports is further to increase the nine-month guilt-trip that is pregnancy today. Mothers are already lectured about giving up cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine. Now, it is suggested, they should avoid eating a range of foods from white bread to cooked carrots - despite the fact that the medical basis for most of this advice is shaky at best.
Andrew Russell says: 'I would not feel at all comfortable about telling a mother that because she ate a cream bun in the early stages of pregnancy she was responsible for her child's lifelong disability.' Exactly. The stress of such guilt-trips is the last thing an expectant mother needs.
Read: | | Sugary foods 'birth defect risk', | | BBC News, 24 November 2003 | | Folic acid and the prevention of spina bifida: new campaign plans, | | UK Department of Health, 13 July 2003 |
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| | | 7 November 2003 | Floating fears
Panic: 'US Toxic "ghost fleet" not wanted in the UK', says Greenpeace, in response to the imminent arrival of two rusting, World War II-vintage US ships into the port of Hartlepool, in north-east England. The ships, the first two of 15, are due to be recycled by Able UK. However, a High Court ruling on 5 November 2003 will prevent any work being done on them for a month, and the UK Environment Agency has called on the US authorities to take the ships back. The ships contain hazardous chemicals including asbestos and PCBs, which campaigners like Surfers Against Sewage claim cause birth defects.
Don't panic: There appears to be nothing special about these ships apart from their age. Able UK say that they have regularly dismantled ships and platforms that have been much worse, including the Brent Spar platform. The quantities of hazardous substances on board are not remarkable either, and are unlikely to pose a health hazard in the form they are in on these ships. There is only sufficient fuel oil in the vessels to power the bilge pumps - they rely on tugs to move - so there is no chance of a big oil spillage. Any chemicals that can't be reused would be buried in purpose-built landfill.
Why all the fuss? What the company proposes to do with the ships is exactly what campaigners want - safe disposal with as much recycling of materials as possible. Greenpeace even states that 'the actual conditions under which the ships will be scrapped are far more advanced than those which are employed on the majority of ships.'
The main complaint appears to be about the danger of ships in the future breaking up and sinking in the Atlantic. But this in fact would seem to be the safest and simplest way of disposing of them. The benefits of deep-sea disposal were clearly demonstrated by the research done in relation to Brent Spar, but ignored in the emotive backlash against Shell's plan to sink the platform.
There are thousands of other World War II ships already down there (2753 Allied ships and 783 U-boats were sunk in the 'Battle of the Atlantic'), with no apparent harm resulting. Any leakages would be so heavily diluted by the volume of water as to be insignificant and natural events like deep-sea vents actually introduce far more heavy metals into the ocean than could ever arise from sunken ships and platforms. Serious accidents during the recycling process might be unlikely but why make workers handle toxic chemicals when there is no need? The impact on marine life would not necessarily be negative, either. Many of the weird and wonderful animals and organisms that live in the deep ocean would actually benefit from the presence of a rusting wreck.
The reaction to the 'ghost ships' is out of all proportion to any harm that they could cause, but they would not even by heading for these shores if a more rational approach to disposal hadn't already been ruled out in the wake of Brent Spar.
Read: | | US Toxic 'ghost fleet' not wanted in the UK, | | Greenpeace | | The Brent Spar saga, | | Environmental Health Perspectives 103 | | The Battle of the Atlantic | | Greenfield History |
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| | | 4 November 2003 | Flights of fancy
Panic: 'Long-haul flights raise DVT risk', reports CNN, announcing a new Australian-government funded study into the association between long-haul flying and deep-vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT first shot to public attention after 28-year-old UK resident Emma Christoffersen collapsed and died following a 20-hour flight from Australia in October 2000. Since then, articles announcing the risks of flying have become commonplace - and DVT victims in Australia and Britain have launched legal action against airlines.
Don't panic: What the Australian government's study actually shows is that flying causes a 'tiny' increased risk of DVT. The study surveyed people admitted to a hospital in Western Australia with DVT - and found that travelling one long-haul flight a year was associated with a 12 per cent increase in the chance of developing DVT. Australia's chief medical officer reported that, for the average middle-aged traveller, this would mean that 'DVT would occur only once in 40,000 flights, with a death about once in two million flights'. According to reports, the risk would be smaller for younger people, and larger for high-risk groups such as heart patients or women on the Pill. That the Pill is cited as a risk-factor might worry many women - but the increased risk is only three to four times normal levels, corresponding to one possible case of DVT per 10,000 flights.
As an island a long way from everywhere else, the Australian government has a certain interest in promoting long-haul flights. But these results are consistent with other studies - in 2000, a House of Lords Select Committee report concluded that the increased risk of DVT from flying was 'exceedingly small' for the majority of passengers. When it comes to DVT, it's better to look at the facts, not the headlines.
Read: | | Long-haul flights raise DVT risk, | | CNN.com, 4 November 2003 | | Study reveals 'tiny' flying risk, | | BBC News, 3 November 2003 |
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