Smoking Related Deaths And Middlesbrough

I was just reading an article on the BBC about the perhaps surprising news that 33% of women in Blackpool smoke while pregnant. Then while I was wondering if that meant there were three pregnant women in Blackpool and one was a smoker (as there are no figures given in the piece), I read the following nugget;

Smoking related deaths from lung cancer were highest in Middlesbrough, with the illness claiming 71 victims per 100,000 in 2006-08.

Now how do you define smoking related deaths?

Is it that you were a heavy smoker all your life and then died of lung cancer? Is it you smoked 10 a day from the age of 12 until you were 30, then died of lung cancer? Or maybe you lived with a smoker for your entire adult life, then died of lung cancer?

The reason I suggest the last of those is, well, it's Middlesbrough. You could not smoke a day in your life and get lung cancer in Middlesbrough - as you could, in fact, anywhere in the UK - yet be classed as a "smoking related" death due to you having lived with a smoker (who may not have smoked in your presence at any point).

This isn't to deny the likelihood of smoking being a potential (or probable) cause of lung cancer, but does kinda lump everyone into one group.

In the post, Middlesbrough's ratio of "smoking related" lung cancer deaths is compared negatively to that of Guildford. The main thing that irks me about that is, I don't recall several major chemical plants in Guildford spewing fumes forth into the atmosphere, whereas the football team and supporters of Middlesbrough are known as Smoggies for that exact reason.

I'm not going to call Bad Science, but it does look like sloppy journalism.

Muslim Irony?

Not entirely sure if I missed a memo about it being 'World Irony Day' or something, but surely this can't be anything other than ironic. Can it?

Basically, muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city (where muslims face when they pray) is the true centre of the Earth. One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

Couple of things there, matey, magnetic north moves. As shown in this rather splendid Canadian illustrative website, magnetic north has moved quite substantially. By almost 20 degrees of longtitude in just over 100 years, in fact. So I wonder if the geologist is suggesting we should keep moving the centre of world time every time the magnetic north moves? Sadly the BBC doesn't report the answer.

Amusing enough as that is, it gets ironic shortly afterwards. Deep breath everyone, or you're going to have to drink the irony.

"He (the same geologist) said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed"

Okay. Well, where to start?

How about that GMT was originally used to determine position? The GPS of its day in fact. British mariners kept at least one timepiece on GMT in order to calculate their longitude from the Greenwich meridian, which was by convention considered to have longitude zero degrees. This, combined with mariners from other nations drawing from Nevil Maskelyne's method of lunar distances based on observations at Greenwich, eventually led to GMT being used world-wide as a reference time independent of location.

That's not imposing, dipshit, that's people using it because it worked. It was also only made the legal time of Britain in 1880, some 33 years after it was introduced so that train departure times across the country were correct (which is why some old clocks of that time have two minute hands, fact fans, one for GMT, one for local time). Prior to that solar time was used on a local basis: midday was when the sun was directly overhead. Handy for where you lived, but a bit fucking unworkable once people could travel (or communicate with someone) a couple of hundred miles away.

How about it being adopted worldwide by committee, rather than enforced? GMT was only adopted worldwide at the International Meridian Conference, held in October 1884 in Washington, D.C. to determine the Prime Meridian of the world. It was held at the request of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur. Twenty-five nations were represented by 41 delegates. The vote, fixing the meridian at Greenwich, was passed 22–1 (San Domingo, now the Dominican Republic, voted against); France and Brazil abstained. The French (quelle shock) did not adopt the Greenwich meridian until 1911.

That same conference also proposed "the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient" and that should "not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable". So timezones weren't our fault either. And while most major countries had adopted hourly time zones by 1929, I'm fairly certain we didn't "force" all of them.

Oh, and one last thing. I don't know if you've noticed there, geologist fella, but science yeah, doesn't really mix too well with religion, k? And GMT is used because of science. If you want to fuck about with time for religious reasons, you just piss off and invent a time machine then bring Mohammed, Jesus, or any of those other fuckers back here with you.

Channel 4 Aren't Replying To Me

Following my earlier post about Gillian McKeith's "Three Fat Brides And One Thin Dress" I mailed Channel 4 for an explanation and I received nothing back. Nothing within the 7 days they promise on the website, nor the 10 days they mentioned on the automated response back. Nor in the 10 days after that when I replied to the automated email asking where my reply was.

So I've just mailed the following to Ofcom;

"I am shocked that Gillian McKeith - who until recently purported to be a doctor - is allowed to present a show which forces people to diet in a competitive manner.

This encourages bad eating habits and may well lead to serious medical problems.

The people in these shows often seem to be close to a breakdown and any failure to "win" would surely compound any feelings of inadequacy that they were already feeling.

This, in my opinion, a sick and disgustingly exploitative show, relying on unproven ideas proposed by a woman with no scientific or medical training whatsoever.

I have attempted on two previous occasions to contact Channel 4 regarding this matter and I am yet to receive a reply."

So I'm hoping to get some sort of response from them.

Three Fat Brides

Decided to watch the Gillian McKeith programme on Channel 4 yesterday and it was probably as bad as I was expecting it to be. Which is quite spectacular as I was expecting it to be pretty awful.

Three brides - one a born again Christian saving herself for her wedding night, one a second timer after a brief first marriage, and a Welsh lass who was marrying a footballer - all competed to see who had lost the most weight and the most number of inches around their waistline in the eight week McKeith challenge.

Now, I'm not a dietitian or a psychologist (nor do I play one on TV) but I'm fairly sure I could have pointed out a few things that would have improved the lives of the "contestants" and I wouldn't have been quite as irritating as McKeith while doing it, nor would I have been as interested in their stool samples.

Bride One basically lived on takeaways and had a very low level of self-esteem (which is probably why she became a born again Christian). If this programme had been about saving money, then stopping her and her husband-to-be from eating takeaways every night of the week would have also been the main thrust of the improvement process. Getting her to appreciate that people liked her would probably have been more helpful than having McKeith shouting at her.

Bride Two loved butter. On everything. Digestives mainly, but pretty much on everything. She was in her 40s and seemed to have the most normal personality (apart from wanting to be on TV, natch) and funnily enough was the strongest mentally when listening to her fellow Scot, McKeith. Medically, she really needed to do something as she was very likely to get diabetes, so had quite a large impetus to take part.

Bride Three just drank too much. Then craved crap food after her binge drinking session. She didn't stay on the McKeith wagon, but unusually didn't fall off for a night of binge drinking (and I would drink heavily if I had to have McKeith in my life for 8 weeks) but for some pizza and some trifle. She was ratted out by Bride Two to McKeith who showed her a wedding dress in a coffin and then poured trifle on it. Seriously.

All three brides lost about 28 pounds in 8 weeks of the McKeith regime. Which is quite a spectacular amount. Not entirely sure it's healthy to lose that much weight that quickly, but then again, I'm not sure McKeith knows that either. Seeing as she's not medically trained or anything.

Bride Two won the dress, by the way. But did have to suffer having McKeith turn up on her wedding day. So not really "winning" in the traditional sense of the word.

Oral Sex And Throat Cancer

A 300 person study by the good folks of John Hopkins "showed" that there was an increased chance of contracting a specific form of throat cancer if you'd performed oral sex on more than six people. Now, I won't go into the backgrounds of the scientists who conducted this study, but let's just say they thought SIX people was a high number.

Which is weird, as 300 is definitely not a high number of people for a survey. Particularly one that has been given so much prominence in the press. Although the oral sex part probably made it unlikely that the press wouldn't cover it. But, being the press, they haven't really looked at the underlying information or how the study was done.

First of all, who sponsored the survey? Was there a puritanical reason behind suggesting that oral sex is bad? And the actual results show that age and tobacco are still higher factors in getting the extremely rare form of throat cancer.

I have a suspicion that Ben Goldacre will be covering this far more fully than I could ever hope to on his excellent Bad Science blog when he's calmed down enough to type.