 | | | | |  | An antidote to panics based on dodgy statistics and dubious arguments.
Edited by Rob Lyons. |  | | |  |  |
|
| | | 4 March 2005 | Smoke alarm
Panic: '11,000 killed every year by passive smoking', said the UK Mirror, in response to a report published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Various estimates of increased risk associated with passive smoking were combined with figures for known deaths, overall populations, and populations working in specific industries. The results suggest passive smoking in workplaces is responsible for 617 deaths per year, with one death per week in the hospitality industry.
The study also concluded that 2,700 deaths of people between 20 and 64 years of age occur due to passive smoking at home, with a further 8,000 deaths in those aged 65 or over. Professor Konrad Jamrozik of Queensland University, who wrote the report, said: 'Adoption of smoke-free policies in all workplaces and reductions in the general prevalence of active smoking would lead to substantial reductions in these avoidable deaths.'
Don't panic: This report doesn't provide us with any new information on the risks of passive smoking. It merely takes existing research and calculates all the number of people who would die if all the suggested risks proved to be accurate. This is an extremely dubious practice, taking uncertain but probably small risks and then multiplying them by very large numbers to produce startling headlines.
The true risks of passive smoking remain as controversial as ever. For example, in 2003 the BMJ published a study of 120,000 adults in California over a 40-year period, which concluded that 'the results do not support a causal association between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality, though they do not rule out a small effect'. As a BMJ editorial concluded at the time, 'the considerable problems with measurement imprecision, confounding, and the small predicted excess risks limit the degree to which conventional observational epidemiology can address the effects of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke'.
For the record, it's worth noting that even if Jamrozik's figures are correct, restricting public smoking will have little impact, as most of the deaths are due to passive smoking in the home. The vast majority of these are people over the age of 65, people who would have lived through much smokier environments than exist today. Clearly, their lives will not have been shortened by much even if Jamrozik's numbers add up. As for the supposed risks to bar and restaurant workers, the most prominent justification for smoking bans these days, we should note that it amounts to 54 deaths per year out of a workforce of well over a million - a risk factor of 21,000-to-one.
What you probably won't read in the papers is Jamrozik's acknowledgement of assistance from Deborah Arnott of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the UK's main anti-smoking campaign. Nor will you read his note that 'the calculations in this paper were commissioned by SmokeFree London, a collaboration of 33 local borough councils in London concerned with extension of smoke-free policies in that city'. Jamrozik's report is a piece of advocacy dressed up as science and should be treated with considerable scepticism.
Read: |  | Estimate of deaths attributable to passive smoking among UK adults:database analysis, | | British Medical Journal, 2 March 2005 | | We have ways of making you stop smoking, | | by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick | | spiked-issue: No smoking, |
| |
| | | 21 February 2005 | The dangers of dye
Panic: The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) hit the headlines last week by demanding the removal from supermarket shelves of 350 processed foods which may contain traces of the banned dye Sudan-I. The dye appears to have been used to colour chilli powder imported from India, but it is illegal to use it in food sold in the EU. The chilli powder was added to worcester sauce, which in turn was added to processed foods, including canned soups and ready meals. 'At the levels present the risk is likely to be very small but it is sensible to avoid eating any more', said Dr Jon Bell of the FSA.
Don't panic: Sudan-I is not, as frequently stated, a 'known carcinogen' in humans. In large quantities, it does increase the frequency of liver tumours in rats, but not in mice. It is classified as a 'category 3' carcinogen - that is, something for which not enough information in relation to humans is available to make a firm judgement but which has carcinogenic potential.
The old adage 'the dose makes the poison' also suggests there is little risk here. The quantities contained in these ready meals must have been tiny. The chilli powder must only have contained a small fraction of Sudan-I. In turn this was added to the sauce, which therefore only contained a small fraction of the chilli powder. Finally, the finished products will have contained only a small fraction of worcester sauce. The quantities of Sudan-I in the end products must be measured in micrograms.
Nor is Sudan-I peculiarly harmful. When it is consumed, it breaks down into a number of by-products called amines. As the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment notes, 'the carcinogenic action in animal experiments are attributed to the release of amines and their ensuing metabolic activation.' Their report goes on to note that the same amines are found in significant quantities in cabbages and carrots. For example, a day's worth of Sudan-I contaminated chilli powder will, at most, contain the same amount of the amine alinine as 20 grammes of raw carrots. This exposure is in turn thousands of times lower than the levels which produced cancers in rats.
The FSA seems to have self-consciously made a media splash on this issue, in an attempt to reassure the public that it is watching over us. But such tactics tend to have the opposite effect to that intended. These alarms make us more fearful about what we eat, and lend credence to the bogus arguments of those who believe that supermarkets and food processors are reckless about safety in the pursuit of profits. Sudan-I is unnecessary in food preparation, and banning it may be a sensible precaution. But the actions of the FSA in relation to this particular incident have been excessive and counterproductive.
Read: | | Action taken to remove illegal dye found in wide range of foods on sale in UK, | | UK Food Standards Agency, 18 February 2005 | | Dyes Sudan I to IV in food, | | Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, 19 November 2003 [pdf format] | | Food Scares Agency, | | by Jan Bowman |
| |
| | | 18 February 2005 | Pandemic precautions
Panic: 'Sleepwalking to disaster' screams the UK Daily Mail, shocked to find the UK government has not made preparations for a possible pandemic of bird flu. The disease is becoming endemic among poultry in eight Asian countries and has led to over 50 confirmed deaths in humans. However, new findings suggest that the disease may be even more common in humans, as the symptoms can be more varied than first thought, which means some cases are missed. The danger is that the virus could merge with an existing human influenza virus, becoming considerably more contagious to humans while also proving deadly. Yet the UK government has no plans to buy vaccines or anti-viral drugs.
'Bird flu threatens to be the most serious world pandemic since Spanish flu killed some 50million people around the world in 1918-19', writes the Mail's Geoffrey Lean, arguing that the government's inaction is 'nothing short of a scandal'.
Don't panic: Bird flu has been around for some years now, including a major outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997. Yet it has never resulted in many human cases, and the vast majority of these have been as a result of direct infection from birds to humans, rather than human-to-human. Since most people in the UK do not live in close proximity to poultry, such transmission in this country is almost impossible.
The assumption is that we are 'due' another pandemic. But while it is right and proper for the authorities to monitor the situation in Asia, and to continue attempts to eradicate the infection in birds, whether a new form of virus comes into being is otherwise largely out of our hands. What we can say for certain is that conditions in the UK are very different to those in Asia, and to those that existed in the shattered society after the First World War.
There is no vaccine for this 'super flu' - you can't produce a vaccine for a virus that doesn't exist. The options open to the government are vaccines for similar strains to the one that might emerge, which might be of no use at all, or anti-viral drugs which have been shown to be effective but are expensive and would be needed in very large quantities. With overstated alarm on one hand, and no obvious solution on the other, 'wait and see' is almost certainly the best policy.
What we can say is that in other ways, we are much better prepared for a pandemic than in the past. The SARS outbreak showed the value of tracing and isolating those who have come into contact with infected people. And acute health facilities are much better. For example, life-support didn't exist in 1918.
The biggest danger, as also illustrated by SARS, is that the fear of disease can cause more damage than the disease itself - with serious consequences for economies in Asia and beyond. A measured approach, with well-placed experts keeping an eye on the situation while continuing to research the treatment of those already infected with the existing virus, makes far more sense than serial scaremongering.
Read: | | Sleepwalking to disaster, | | Daily Mail, 18 February 2005 | | Fearing flu, | | by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick |
| |
| | | 3 February 2005 | Sudden death
Panic: Experts from the European Society of Cardiology have recommended that young athletes in organised sport should have a detailed health check, an analysis of their family medical history and an electrocardiogram (ECG) before they take part in sport. Sporting activity does not cause heart problems but can induce a sudden heart attack in those with 'silent' disease, as in the case of Cameroon footballer Marc-Vivien Foe, who collapsed and died during an international match in 2003. One of the lead researchers, Dr Domenico Corrado, told the BBC that adolescents and young adults in competitive sport have 'a two-and-a-half times higher risk of sudden death' than those not involved in competitive sport.
Don't panic: Sudden death is extremely rare. The BBC story notes an Italian study which suggests such deaths occur in one in every 50,000 athletes a year. As the medical director of the British Heart Foundation, professor Peter Weissberg, told the BBC: 'To identify these rare cases, you'd have to screen a large number of individuals at great cost to the health service.'
These tests are often not very clear cut. Some results can be difficult to interpret. So situations would arise where perfectly healthy people were told, on a precautionary basis, not to take part in sport - denying them access to a fulfilling activity. That such an idea could have any credence illustrates the problems of our safety-first culture. Once we pursue the goal of a risk-free existence to its logical conclusion, we can end up incurring considerable expense and worry on rapidly diminishing returns, while avoiding things that are probably harmless.
And such scares then start to contradict one another. How does this report sit with the wider goal of preventing heart disease through vigorous physical activity? Better to take part in sport and exercise because they are enjoyable rather than fretting about health risks and benefits.
Read: | | Call to check athletes' hearts, | | BBC News, 2 February 2005 | | Cameroon star Foe dies, | | BBC News, 26 June 2003 |
| |
| | | 28 January 2005 | Global warning
Panic: 'Alarm at new climate warning', says BBC News, reporting on a new study by researchers at Oxford University's Department of Physics. Simulations of climate change were run using a screensaver programme by over 90,000 participants around the world, looking at a variety of combinations of different climate parameters. The results indicate that a much wider range of outcomes is possible, with global mean temperatures rising by up to 11 degrees Celsius. Project leader David Stainforth told BBC News: 'I think these results suggest that our need to do something about climate change is perhaps even more urgent.'
Don't panic: No new measurements have been taken in the real world - instead, these results are derived from models making a whole series of assumptions. Unsurprisingly, with many different variables being altered, the range of possible outcomes is very wide, with some scenarios producing a temperature rise of only two degrees Celsius.
As spiked contributor John Brignell has pointed out: 'computer models are dangerous tools' unless the assumptions they make are valid, clear to all, and can be tested against real-world experience. However, proper understanding of the physical processes involved in climate, and the very complex interactions between different elements, is simply not good enough to be able to produce accurate models.
For example, the most important greenhouse factors are water vapour and clouds. Any temperature rise due to carbon dioxide alone will be quite small. It is positive feedback effects on water vapour and clouds that produce the big temperature increases widely discussed. But we do not know if such positive feedbacks will happen, let alone to what degree.
We can be reasonably certain that there has been an increase in global temperature over the past 100 years. But the rise - 0.6 degrees Celsius - is small. Whether this really is unusual, and whether it is caused by carbon emissions or is due to natural variability beyond our control, is disputed. This latest study doesn't answer these questions.
What is absolutely certain is that climate has always changed, and that humans already live in a wide range of different conditions. The real problem with the climate change alarmists is their unwillingness to believe that human society can adapt. Why bother producing these complex models if the most important assumption is that we're doomed before we start?
Read: | | Alarm at new climate warning, | | BBC News, 26 January 2005 | | Computer modelling, | | Numberwatch |
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is spiked?
spiked is an online publication with the modest ambition of making history as well as reporting it. spiked stands for liberty, enlightenment, experimentation and excellence.
Read on...
|
| |
|
|
