The US Constitution declares that "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The House of Representatives is considering exercising this power by passing the so-called "Stop Online Piracy Act" - SOPA for short. There is strong and well-reasoned concern about the technical requirements of the proposed Act, outlined here, and internet companies are near-unanimous in their opposition.
There's no doubt that SOPA would damage the internet; the question is what would be gained in return. The media conglomerate Viacom has produced an online video putting its case. They seem to be trying to persuade us that there will be no more SpongeBob Squarepants without new copyright protections online. I don't believe them. Successful films, television programmes, and books are more profitable than ever before. J.K Rowling is past half-way to being a sterling billionaire. The truth is that the content that's attractive to 'pirates' is the content that's already enormously profitable. This Act is aimed at making very rich people even richer. It is not necessary for the promotion of making children's television programmes that there should be no unauthorized Rugrats toys, nor does songwriting depend on the ability of Warner Brothers to collect royalties for online performances of Happy Birthday.
Intriguingly, SOPA has the support of AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. It says it believes that SOPA would increase employment. In many circumstances Trades Unions add balance to the unequal relationship between employers and employees, but they are essentially economic actors who are interested not in employment in general but in the employment of their own actual and potential members. It would be possible for a government to raise funds by auctioning the right to collect tolls on roads, and the Amalgamated Union of Tollbooth Operators would be pleased to support it. That doesn't make it a good idea.
It's possible that if Warner Brothers made even more money out of Harry Potter and Happy Birthday it would spend more supporting potential new hits from otherwise struggling artists. I'd be interested to hear from any such who believe in this. Pending that, let's not break the internet: I'm willing in exchange for that to allow media multi-millionaires to struggle on with what they've already got.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Slow roasting
Chris Dillow seasonally enjoins us to 'stick it to The Man' by cooking stuff. (I suppose it's implicit that The Man should not be allowed to eat what we cook.) I claim no great proficiency in the kitchen, but what's on my mind today is the right way to cook turkey. There is a way that gives much better results than the usual method, which is to roast it slowly overnight.
Before I try to persuade you of this, a word of warning: this method is widely disrecommended. However you cook the bird, it's important that every part of it get hot enough: the USDA recommends 165F/74C. This is comfortably above the temperature at which vegetative bacteria such as salmonella and staphylococci will die. This paper takes a look at the bacteriology. The concern with slow roasting is, or at least should be, that the meat will spend longer at intermediate temperatures at which bacteria multiply rapidly and may secrete toxins. This creates "a small reason to set a minimum time for raw food cook come-up".
You should choose a bird that's been reared non-intensively. I like to think that such birds are less likely to be contaminated with harmful bacteria, but in any case you owe it to a creature you're going to eat that it should have enjoyed a life worth living. And it will taste better. It will cost more too: most families in the UK can afford it, if you can't then you'll have better things to worry about than my culinary advice.
So to the cooking. The problem with roasting large pieces of meat at 160C or higher is that the outside will have spent a long time at a high temperature before the inside gets hot enough to be safe. That's ok with meats like beef for which it creates an interesting variation in texture and flavour, especially if there's a good covering of fat to keep the outside moist. But turkey just dries out. You can avoid this by cooking at much more gentle temperatures. And it makes the whole process of cooking a meal much easier, because there's no need to be exact with the timing provided you give it long enough. In one way, this method is safer because you won't be tempted to take the turkey out too soon because the outside is getting overcooked or because the rest of the meal is ready.
I hesitate to point you to any specific procedure: I mix and match from various sources. But the key points are:
- Cook stuffing separately. This leaves the cavity empty for the turkey to cook from the inside too.
- Start the turkey at a high temperature to kill surface bacteria. (Or boil it for a few minutes instead if you're equipped to do so)
- Cook overnight on a rack at a temperature just below boiling point (cooler and bacterial toxins are more of a concern, hotter and it's harder to keep the meat moist, though a foil tent completely covering the roasting pan may do it)
- Use a meat thermometer to make sure the turkey is hot enough all the way through. If you do this with time to spare you can always turn the heat up at the end to speed things up if necessary.
Best get started in the next hour or so...
Before I try to persuade you of this, a word of warning: this method is widely disrecommended. However you cook the bird, it's important that every part of it get hot enough: the USDA recommends 165F/74C. This is comfortably above the temperature at which vegetative bacteria such as salmonella and staphylococci will die. This paper takes a look at the bacteriology. The concern with slow roasting is, or at least should be, that the meat will spend longer at intermediate temperatures at which bacteria multiply rapidly and may secrete toxins. This creates "a small reason to set a minimum time for raw food cook come-up".
You should choose a bird that's been reared non-intensively. I like to think that such birds are less likely to be contaminated with harmful bacteria, but in any case you owe it to a creature you're going to eat that it should have enjoyed a life worth living. And it will taste better. It will cost more too: most families in the UK can afford it, if you can't then you'll have better things to worry about than my culinary advice.
So to the cooking. The problem with roasting large pieces of meat at 160C or higher is that the outside will have spent a long time at a high temperature before the inside gets hot enough to be safe. That's ok with meats like beef for which it creates an interesting variation in texture and flavour, especially if there's a good covering of fat to keep the outside moist. But turkey just dries out. You can avoid this by cooking at much more gentle temperatures. And it makes the whole process of cooking a meal much easier, because there's no need to be exact with the timing provided you give it long enough. In one way, this method is safer because you won't be tempted to take the turkey out too soon because the outside is getting overcooked or because the rest of the meal is ready.
I hesitate to point you to any specific procedure: I mix and match from various sources. But the key points are:
- Cook stuffing separately. This leaves the cavity empty for the turkey to cook from the inside too.
- Start the turkey at a high temperature to kill surface bacteria. (Or boil it for a few minutes instead if you're equipped to do so)
- Cook overnight on a rack at a temperature just below boiling point (cooler and bacterial toxins are more of a concern, hotter and it's harder to keep the meat moist, though a foil tent completely covering the roasting pan may do it)
- Use a meat thermometer to make sure the turkey is hot enough all the way through. If you do this with time to spare you can always turn the heat up at the end to speed things up if necessary.
Best get started in the next hour or so...
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Racial abuse update
There were developments yesterday in two of the cases I discussed six weeks ago.
First, John Terry is to face criminal charges detailed here:
I confess that I overlooked in my earlier comment that section 5, unlike section 4A, does not require anyone actually to have been distressed. It would be improper for me to speculate at this stage as to the outcome of the case, but I note that if convicted Terry faces a fine he would find trivial (a maximum of £2,500 if I read the scale correctly). I cannot see how the public interest has been served by the police and CPS pursuing the case rather than allowed the FA to get on with its proceedings.
Meanwhile, the FA has shown how seriously it intends to take this sort of thing by banning Luis Suárez for eight matches and fining him £40,000. The financial penalty imposed on Suárez, in whose case the police have shown no interest, is much heavier than the maximum fine faced by Terry, but even so it's the ban that will really hurt. Suárez is paid about £4m a year by Liverpool, and they paid Ajax about the same per year again for his contract, so the value to the club of his services is of the order of £200,000 a game. It's not surprising that the club is very disappointed by the penalty.
Reportedly Suárez admits to calling Patrice Evra either "negro" or "negrito", speaking in Spanish, where the words do not carry all the same overtones. And there's an unclear allegation that Evra started it by referring in some way to Suárez's origins in South America. I suspect that neither player could hold butter unmelted in his mouth for very long, and that this case is on the borderline between racial abuse that ought to be stamped out and playground tit-for-tat that ought to be left on the field. It's possible that the FA has decided that a salutory ban reduced on appeal to a slap on the wrist is the way to send the required message - the FA statement emphasized that Suárez "has the right to appeal" and suspended the ban to give him the chance to do so: good luck to them sorting this out.
First, John Terry is to face criminal charges detailed here:
On 23 October 2011 at Loftus Road Stadium, London W12, you used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress which was racially aggravated in accordance with section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.31 (1) (c) says "a person is guilty of an offence under this section if he commits an offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 (harassment, alarm or distress) which is racially or religiously aggravated for the purposes of this section". Section 28 defines "racially or religiously aggravated": I think it safe to assume that any case against Terry will have no problem satisfying that definition. Section 5 of the POA says "A person is guilty of an offence if he...uses threatening, abusive or insulting words...within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby...It is a defence for the accused to prove that that he had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress, or...that his conduct was reasonable."
Contrary to section 31 (1) (c) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
I confess that I overlooked in my earlier comment that section 5, unlike section 4A, does not require anyone actually to have been distressed. It would be improper for me to speculate at this stage as to the outcome of the case, but I note that if convicted Terry faces a fine he would find trivial (a maximum of £2,500 if I read the scale correctly). I cannot see how the public interest has been served by the police and CPS pursuing the case rather than allowed the FA to get on with its proceedings.
Meanwhile, the FA has shown how seriously it intends to take this sort of thing by banning Luis Suárez for eight matches and fining him £40,000. The financial penalty imposed on Suárez, in whose case the police have shown no interest, is much heavier than the maximum fine faced by Terry, but even so it's the ban that will really hurt. Suárez is paid about £4m a year by Liverpool, and they paid Ajax about the same per year again for his contract, so the value to the club of his services is of the order of £200,000 a game. It's not surprising that the club is very disappointed by the penalty.
Reportedly Suárez admits to calling Patrice Evra either "negro" or "negrito", speaking in Spanish, where the words do not carry all the same overtones. And there's an unclear allegation that Evra started it by referring in some way to Suárez's origins in South America. I suspect that neither player could hold butter unmelted in his mouth for very long, and that this case is on the borderline between racial abuse that ought to be stamped out and playground tit-for-tat that ought to be left on the field. It's possible that the FA has decided that a salutory ban reduced on appeal to a slap on the wrist is the way to send the required message - the FA statement emphasized that Suárez "has the right to appeal" and suspended the ban to give him the chance to do so: good luck to them sorting this out.
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Intellectual-property rights: academic papers
I wrote earlier that I'm opposed to intellectual property rights wherever plausible alternatives exits. I'll start my review of the alternatives with perhaps the easiest case: academic papers.
My relevant experience is all in science and finance: conceivably things work differently in the humanities. In the fields I know about, which are overwhelmingly the ones that matter to the vast majority of the population, the way that journals work is that authors submit papers for publication, the editor asks experts in the field to review the paper, the reviewers make recommendations for changes and for or against publication, the authors are invited to make any changes the editor thinks advisable, and the editor eventually publishes the paper or rejects it. The journal, which has contributed the least to this process, ends up with the copyright to the paper: the author and reviewers work for notional fees or none.
Copyright is therefore no incentive for the production of academic papers. Its only function is to provide incentives for journals to carry out a filtering process by which readers get an indication of which papers are worth reading, and funding bodies get an indication of whose research is worth funding. Since there are too many papers to read, and too many researchers to fund, both these filters are valuable.
In practice, authors often circulate their papers to peers before submitting them for publication, both as a courtesy to anyone whose work they cite, and in the hope of getting helpful feedback. Also,they often make a version of the paper freely available on their personal websites - this is worth knowing if a paper you want to consult is hidden behind an expensive paywall. I suppose that journals disapprove of this practice, but think it prudent not to draw attention to it by objecting publicly.
The alternative is simple: authors, as they do now, should consult whomsoever they wish until they think their paper ready for general release. Then they should publish them on websites dedicated to the purpose. arXiv does this already for some of the geekier fields. Here's an outline of how it works, and here are some comments by its founder on its implications for academic publishing. Here are some thoughts on its disadvantages: none of them seem to me to be fundamental to the question of copyright. Interestingly, there is no suggestion that prestigious journals in Physics have been unable to operate without exclusive publication rights.
It may be that copyright restrictions are necessary in most cases to make it worthwhile to operate pre-publication peer review: here are some comments by Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, on how small a loss it would be to do without.
I submit that medical research in particular would benefit from free publication along the lines of arXiv. That would get results out quicker, make them easier to consult online, and encourage publication of negative trial results.
If filtering mechanisms are required, something along the lines of Amazon's book-review system would be possible. The user should have the option to apply weightings to the reviewers, favouring for example ones with high academic titles, or ones whose views, positive and negative, he shares regarding other specified papers.
Let's abolish copyright on academic papers now. I predict that a few prestigious journals will survive, and the rest will be more than adequately replaced by free on-line publishing.
My relevant experience is all in science and finance: conceivably things work differently in the humanities. In the fields I know about, which are overwhelmingly the ones that matter to the vast majority of the population, the way that journals work is that authors submit papers for publication, the editor asks experts in the field to review the paper, the reviewers make recommendations for changes and for or against publication, the authors are invited to make any changes the editor thinks advisable, and the editor eventually publishes the paper or rejects it. The journal, which has contributed the least to this process, ends up with the copyright to the paper: the author and reviewers work for notional fees or none.
Copyright is therefore no incentive for the production of academic papers. Its only function is to provide incentives for journals to carry out a filtering process by which readers get an indication of which papers are worth reading, and funding bodies get an indication of whose research is worth funding. Since there are too many papers to read, and too many researchers to fund, both these filters are valuable.
In practice, authors often circulate their papers to peers before submitting them for publication, both as a courtesy to anyone whose work they cite, and in the hope of getting helpful feedback. Also,they often make a version of the paper freely available on their personal websites - this is worth knowing if a paper you want to consult is hidden behind an expensive paywall. I suppose that journals disapprove of this practice, but think it prudent not to draw attention to it by objecting publicly.
The alternative is simple: authors, as they do now, should consult whomsoever they wish until they think their paper ready for general release. Then they should publish them on websites dedicated to the purpose. arXiv does this already for some of the geekier fields. Here's an outline of how it works, and here are some comments by its founder on its implications for academic publishing. Here are some thoughts on its disadvantages: none of them seem to me to be fundamental to the question of copyright. Interestingly, there is no suggestion that prestigious journals in Physics have been unable to operate without exclusive publication rights.
It may be that copyright restrictions are necessary in most cases to make it worthwhile to operate pre-publication peer review: here are some comments by Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, on how small a loss it would be to do without.
I submit that medical research in particular would benefit from free publication along the lines of arXiv. That would get results out quicker, make them easier to consult online, and encourage publication of negative trial results.
If filtering mechanisms are required, something along the lines of Amazon's book-review system would be possible. The user should have the option to apply weightings to the reviewers, favouring for example ones with high academic titles, or ones whose views, positive and negative, he shares regarding other specified papers.
Let's abolish copyright on academic papers now. I predict that a few prestigious journals will survive, and the rest will be more than adequately replaced by free on-line publishing.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Assholocracy
This blog is usually restrained in its use of language, fondly imagining itself to be read by relatives as well as its sometime trading-floor colleagues. However, it is resolved to express itself with vigour when the occasion demands. And so it now does: Geoffrey Pullum, whose book The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax made me briefly regret never previously having perceived the attraction of a career in linguistics, thinks it important that the title of this post should get more google hits. I am delighted to be able to render him this trifling service.
Intellectual-property rights
Tangible-property rights are a good idea. They both encourage the supply of additional stuff and provide a mechanism for apportioning finite supply to where it's most wanted. (This would work better if wealth were shared more equally.)
Intellectual-property rights are a bad idea. They encourage the creation of new intellectual property, but they impoverish humanity by restricting the use of non-rivalrous goods.
Starting from scratch, would anyone really want the system we have now? I think one would explore every other idea for rewarding innovation and creativity before being willing to settle on what we have as the least bad option. So I'm going to explore other ideas in future posts...
Intellectual-property rights are a bad idea. They encourage the creation of new intellectual property, but they impoverish humanity by restricting the use of non-rivalrous goods.
Starting from scratch, would anyone really want the system we have now? I think one would explore every other idea for rewarding innovation and creativity before being willing to settle on what we have as the least bad option. So I'm going to explore other ideas in future posts...
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Alcohol-Attributable Fractions
This press release on Saturday reported that there were 1,173,386 hospital admissions related to alcohol in 2010-11, an increase of 11% from the previous year and more than double the number in 2002-3 (Hospital Episode Statistics are calculated from 1st April to 31st March). Andrew Lansley for the government said:
The press release was reproduced, quotes and all, in most of the papers. The Guardian fleshed it out a bit. The Daily Mail took Ms Abbott's word for it that all the admissions were to A&E. The Times [paywall] got a quote from Mark Bellis, director of the North West Public Health Observatory which compiled the figures "These things are working their way through the system from a massive increase in alcohol consumption over the past two or three decades. We've probably got more of this to come...Particularly at this time of year, we've got to address our relationship with drunkenness."
There's one dissenting voice, which calls the story a lie and links to this description of how the figures are calculated (the analysis dates from when the 2009-10 figures were published in May this year - the calculation seems to be quicker now). The statistics are compiled not, as you might think, by asking people admitted to hospital whether they've been drinking (in A&E) or how much they drink (on the heart, liver, and cancer wards), but by applying an "alcohol-attributable fraction" to each admission according to diagnosis, age, and sex. This methodology is confirmed in a comment by Andy Sutherland of the NHS Information Centre (I'm fairly confident that it's really him, because the press release correction he promises did appear).
The calculation of AAFs specific to England is described in this pdf (the purpose of which is described here). The method for each diagnosis is to identify the best available research on the increased (or decreased) risk associated with various levels of alcohol consumption (by age and sex where the data were available), apply the levels of alcohol consumption determined by the 2005 General Household Survey (by age and sex, adjusted using new estimates of the alcoholic content of drinks), and hence calculate what proportion of hospital admissions in 2005 were related to alcohol consumption. Ideally alcohol consumption figures integrated over time should be used for diseases which take many years to develop, but the method seems broadly reasonable to me.
The data for all other years since 2002-3 have been calculated using the same AAFs. Collated data can be downloaded in a spreadsheet here, showing a steady rise in alcohol-related hospital admissions.
Let me say that again: "calculated using the same alcohol-attributable fractions". So what has happened is that researchers into each diagnosis have analysed data on alcohol consumption for people with and without the disease, and fitted those data to a model in which the diagnosis is due to two perfectly uncorrelated factors, one for alcohol consumption and one for everything else. Applying this model to data on alcohol consumption in 2005, statisticians have deduced what fraction of 2005 hospital admissions for each diagnosis was due to the alcohol factor - the 2005 AAF. And then these two perfectly uncorrelated factors have been assumed to be perfectly correlated in every other year, so that the AAF remains constant. I am shocked that reputable statisticians have put their names to this method. I can see no good reason not to repeat the 2005 analysis each year (except perhaps that it would take longer to get the numbers out). Certainly that would give different results, since current alcohol consumption would actually be an input to the analysis.
What are the data on alcohol consumption? The General Lifestyle Survey reports on weekly alcohol consumption above safe limits:
It would seem that any increase in hospital admissions must be due either to the after-affects of long-term abuse which may have increased in the years up to 2002 or so before declining thereafter, or to occasional binge drinking not captured by weekly averages. So I looked at data for three diagnoses: "toxic affect of alcohol", which should be an indication of binge drinking, "alcoholic liver disease", to capture the effects of long-term alcohol abuse, and "atrial fibrillation and flutter" to look at what's happening with a common diagnosis with a small but non-zero AAF. These are available here, based on the same data as the alcohol-related admissions figures.
I've included series for total admissions and for the alcohol-related admissions data I'm writing about. All the series are normalized to 2002-3, when the numbers were: total admissions 11,414,074; alcohol-related admissions 510,780; atrial fibrillation and flutter 68,731; alcoholic liver disease 11,582; toxic effect of alcohol 1407.
What's striking is that the alcohol-related admissions numbers have increased far faster than any of the other series (admissions for the toxic effect of alcohol have not increased at all). How can this be explained? I looked through the diagnoses to find any that had at least doubled from at least 10,000 since 2002-3: there were 27. But only one of them had a non-zero AAF: hypertensive renal disease. I must be looking at the wrong data - AAFs for many diagnoses are higher for younger patients, so there must have been a big increase in these admissions among the relatively young, which don't appear in the totals I looked at. (The data are there in the spreadsheets, but you get only so much for your money.)
One thing did catch my eye however, which is the increase in admissions for "obesity" from 1,297 to 11,740. This may be associated with increasing availability of bariatric surgery, but it's no secret that there have been big increases in obesity. Furthermore, obesity is linked to hypertension and diabetes, both of which will increase hospital admissions among the relatively young (not least for hypertensive renal disease).
This is speculative, but my guess is that the alleged rise in alcohol-related hospital admissions is in fact a rise in obesity-related hospital admissions, which are linked to some of the same diagnoses at similar ages. Perhaps the statisticians behind this weekend's newspaper stories could find time to look into this hypothesis.
These figures are disturbing evidence that, despite total consumption of alcohol not increasing recently, we have serious problems with both binge-drinking and long-term excessive alcohol abuse in a minority of people.Whereas Diane Abbott for the opposition was of the view that
These consistent rises show that Labour took their eye off the ball on tackling alcohol abuse during their 13 years in power. Their reckless policies, such as the decision to unleash a 24-hour drinking culture in our country, only made matters worse.
The alarm bells should be ringing with the publication of these figures. It is clear that this Government is rapidly pushing us towards a binge-drinking crisis.So there you have it. For the Tories, the problem is one of both binge drinking and long-term alcohol abuse, and it's Labour's fault. For Labour it's just binge drinking encouraged by big business that's the problem, and the Tories are to blame (Ms Abbott was talking about a different report: I haven't traced it but it's mentioned here)
It is clear that for Andrew Lansley, the be-all and end-all is whether his friends in big business are happy, and, unfortunately, it is costing our NHS and British families an absolute fortune. A recent report predicted that binge-drinking will cost the NHS £3.8 billion by 2015, with 1.5 million A&E admissions a year.
The press release was reproduced, quotes and all, in most of the papers. The Guardian fleshed it out a bit. The Daily Mail took Ms Abbott's word for it that all the admissions were to A&E. The Times [paywall] got a quote from Mark Bellis, director of the North West Public Health Observatory which compiled the figures "These things are working their way through the system from a massive increase in alcohol consumption over the past two or three decades. We've probably got more of this to come...Particularly at this time of year, we've got to address our relationship with drunkenness."
There's one dissenting voice, which calls the story a lie and links to this description of how the figures are calculated (the analysis dates from when the 2009-10 figures were published in May this year - the calculation seems to be quicker now). The statistics are compiled not, as you might think, by asking people admitted to hospital whether they've been drinking (in A&E) or how much they drink (on the heart, liver, and cancer wards), but by applying an "alcohol-attributable fraction" to each admission according to diagnosis, age, and sex. This methodology is confirmed in a comment by Andy Sutherland of the NHS Information Centre (I'm fairly confident that it's really him, because the press release correction he promises did appear).
The calculation of AAFs specific to England is described in this pdf (the purpose of which is described here). The method for each diagnosis is to identify the best available research on the increased (or decreased) risk associated with various levels of alcohol consumption (by age and sex where the data were available), apply the levels of alcohol consumption determined by the 2005 General Household Survey (by age and sex, adjusted using new estimates of the alcoholic content of drinks), and hence calculate what proportion of hospital admissions in 2005 were related to alcohol consumption. Ideally alcohol consumption figures integrated over time should be used for diseases which take many years to develop, but the method seems broadly reasonable to me.
The data for all other years since 2002-3 have been calculated using the same AAFs. Collated data can be downloaded in a spreadsheet here, showing a steady rise in alcohol-related hospital admissions.
Let me say that again: "calculated using the same alcohol-attributable fractions". So what has happened is that researchers into each diagnosis have analysed data on alcohol consumption for people with and without the disease, and fitted those data to a model in which the diagnosis is due to two perfectly uncorrelated factors, one for alcohol consumption and one for everything else. Applying this model to data on alcohol consumption in 2005, statisticians have deduced what fraction of 2005 hospital admissions for each diagnosis was due to the alcohol factor - the 2005 AAF. And then these two perfectly uncorrelated factors have been assumed to be perfectly correlated in every other year, so that the AAF remains constant. I am shocked that reputable statisticians have put their names to this method. I can see no good reason not to repeat the 2005 analysis each year (except perhaps that it would take longer to get the numbers out). Certainly that would give different results, since current alcohol consumption would actually be an input to the analysis.
What are the data on alcohol consumption? The General Lifestyle Survey reports on weekly alcohol consumption above safe limits:
Following an increase between 1998 and 2000, there has been a decline since 2002 in the proportion of men drinking more than, on average, 21 units a week and in the proportion of women drinking more than 14 units...This trend seems to be continuing under the new methodology; between 2006 and 2009 the proportion of men drinking more than 21 units a week fell from 31 per cent to 26 per cent and the proportion of women drinking more than 14 units a week fell from 20 per cent to 18 per cent. These falls were driven by falls in the younger age groups...and on average weekly consumption:
The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) makes annual estimates of per capita alcohol consumption using data provided by HM Revenue and Customs. These show a steady increase in consumption from 1998 to 2004, followed by a decline of about 5 per cent to 2006, and then a further decline of about 7 per cent from 2006 to 2009. The decline measured by the GHS is much greater, at about 15 per cent between 2002 and 2006.(there was a change of methodology in 2006 that makes it difficult to produce a single set of numbers)
It would seem that any increase in hospital admissions must be due either to the after-affects of long-term abuse which may have increased in the years up to 2002 or so before declining thereafter, or to occasional binge drinking not captured by weekly averages. So I looked at data for three diagnoses: "toxic affect of alcohol", which should be an indication of binge drinking, "alcoholic liver disease", to capture the effects of long-term alcohol abuse, and "atrial fibrillation and flutter" to look at what's happening with a common diagnosis with a small but non-zero AAF. These are available here, based on the same data as the alcohol-related admissions figures.
I've included series for total admissions and for the alcohol-related admissions data I'm writing about. All the series are normalized to 2002-3, when the numbers were: total admissions 11,414,074; alcohol-related admissions 510,780; atrial fibrillation and flutter 68,731; alcoholic liver disease 11,582; toxic effect of alcohol 1407.
What's striking is that the alcohol-related admissions numbers have increased far faster than any of the other series (admissions for the toxic effect of alcohol have not increased at all). How can this be explained? I looked through the diagnoses to find any that had at least doubled from at least 10,000 since 2002-3: there were 27. But only one of them had a non-zero AAF: hypertensive renal disease. I must be looking at the wrong data - AAFs for many diagnoses are higher for younger patients, so there must have been a big increase in these admissions among the relatively young, which don't appear in the totals I looked at. (The data are there in the spreadsheets, but you get only so much for your money.)
One thing did catch my eye however, which is the increase in admissions for "obesity" from 1,297 to 11,740. This may be associated with increasing availability of bariatric surgery, but it's no secret that there have been big increases in obesity. Furthermore, obesity is linked to hypertension and diabetes, both of which will increase hospital admissions among the relatively young (not least for hypertensive renal disease).
This is speculative, but my guess is that the alleged rise in alcohol-related hospital admissions is in fact a rise in obesity-related hospital admissions, which are linked to some of the same diagnoses at similar ages. Perhaps the statisticians behind this weekend's newspaper stories could find time to look into this hypothesis.
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