Uploads

The following files are available for download:

A CSV file containing data scraped from Beating Bowel Cancer's map site (the data there come from UKCIS).
A spreadsheet for drawing funnel plots
An alternative version of the spreadsheet, converted by Chris for use in older versions of Excel
A spreadsheet which runs a simulation to find the typical range of bowel cancer mortality rates across UK districts

Heartwarming nerd

Guardian readers welcome.  If you want to try playing with funnel plots you could try this spreadsheet.

Sovereign CDS

The Eurozone deal is done.  Judging by the reaction of the equity markets, even the 50% 'haircut' on Greek government debt, when taken together with the rest of the package, is a good deal for the banks. One interesting aspect is that the 'haircut' being taken by private banks has been structured as a 'voluntary' exchange of bonds, with the intention that it should not be a default event triggering CDS payoffs.  ISDA, the body responsible for ruling on CDS, seems willing to go along with this, even while acknowledging that "there has been a lot of arm-twisting".

The effect is that anyone who has insured against loss on Greek government debt by buying sovereign CDS will find that their insurance is worthless and they just have to take the loss.  Conversely, anyone who has blithely written Greek sovereign CDS will make a tidy profit.  It seems strange that we should be encouraging banks to accept downside risk and discouraging them from insuring against losses.  Not that I am going to spend any time feeling sorry for investment bankers - if you trade sovereign debt derivatives you have to be aware that governments can manipulate the market.

I suppose that this will destroy the sovereign CDS market in Europe, especially if the threatened ban on naked buying of sovereign CDS is implement, since that would leave no buyers.  Instead, the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) will be offering insurance.  I doubt that the bond markets will be in a hurry to trust the EFSF actually to be there with the cash should the need arise.

Synecdoche

The answer to the challenge is that "Short" is a verb in the imperative mood, and the rest is a synecdoche for "the shares of companies with powerful CEOs".

Probably you've worked this out already if you care at all, but I don't expect to get another chance soon to write a post whose title is both a figure of speech and part of the title of a favourably reviewed film.

Short Powerful CEOs

I've stolen this title from another blog.  The challenge is to guess what the post there is about.

Eurozone bailout

I apologize to Ed Miliband, who must be chortling to himself this morning.  Despite what I wrote, David Cameron, who I suppose has detected political danger in allowing the Eurozone bailout to be finalized in his absence, is going back to Brussels on Wednesday after all.  I don't suppose he'll enjoy himself much sitting there while Merkel and Sarkozy ignore anything he says.  Sarkozy is unlikely to be charming about it: "We are sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do."

It seems that the bailout deal will include a Greek government default on its debts, in the form of a bond 'haircut'.   The eurozone is no more interested in my advice than it is in Cameron's, but I say that abandoning the absurdity of pretending that Greece can pay its debts is a start.

Alcohol limits

The Royal College of Physicians is advising us to drink no more than 21 (for men) or 14 (for women) units of alcohol a week, and to have two or three alcohol-free days a week.  Ian Gilmore, the RCP's former president and currently the UK government's special adviser on alcohol says:

In addition to quantity, safe alcohol limits must also take into account frequency.
There is an increased risk of liver disease for those who drink daily or near-daily, compared with those who drink periodically or intermittently.
We recommend a safe alcohol consumption limit of between 0 and 21 units a week for men and 0 and 14 units a week for women provided the total amount is not drunk in one or two bouts, and that there are two to three alcohol-free days a week.
At these levels, most individuals are unlikely to come to harm.

So I can drink 21 units a week, provided that I spread my consumption over three, four, or perhaps five days a week (a UK unit is a centilitre, so there are 9 units in a 75cl bottle of wine containing 12% alcohol by volume: nowadays most wine is a little stronger than that).  It seems strange that somewhat uneven consumption should be safer than drinking the same amount every day: what's the evidence?

The BBC report arises (indirectly) from a written report by the RCP to a House of Commons committee.  The most relevent section of the report says:

Current Department of Health sensible drinking guidelines state that regular consumption of between three and four units a day for men, and between two and three units a day by women will not accrue significant health risk. Regular is defined as ‘drinking every day or most days of the week'.

26. This suggestion that daily drinking is low risk runs against evidence which suggests that frequency of drinking is a significant risk factor for the development of alcohol dependency, and the development of alcoholic liver disease.[7]

The report proposes that:

A very simple addition would remedy this problem namely a recommendation that to remain within safe limits of alcohol consumption that people have three alcohol-free days a week.

Reference [7] is this paper, which reports most pertinently that:

A large North American study of over 22,000 also showed that daily drinking carried more than twice the risk of liver damage compared with intermittent drinking once or twice per week [28].

Reference [28] therein is this paper, which investigates the health effects of frequent "risk drinking":

Risk drinking was defined as consuming the equivalent of 5+ standard drinks in a day for men and the equivalent of 4+ standard drinks in a day for women.

It doesn't define a "standard drink", but it seems that in the USA a standard drink contains about 14g of pure alcohol.  The density of alcohol (ethanol) is 0.789g/cm^3, so that's about one and three quarter UK units.  4 standard drinks would be 7 units, 5 standard drinks would be 8.75 units.

This table in the paper quantifies the risk of a list of adverse consequences at various frequencies of risk drinking.  It shows that drinking a bottle of wine nearly every day gives about twice the risk of liver disease of drinking a bottle of wine three or four times a week.  I'm not surprised - that's about twice as much alcohol consumed.

My summary is that the papers cited do not support the RCP's conclusion.  There is no evidence that drinking 3 units of alcohol every day is worse for you than drinking the same 21 units a week spread over only four days.

I suspect that they've made this recommendation because they think if you drink less often, you'll drink less in total.  They may well be right.  But I'd recommend a more honest approach, along the lines of "most people who drink alcohol several times a week consume more than they think they do.  One good way to reduce consumption is to have three days a week on which you drink no alcohol."