A DRUGS PRICE ‘SCANDAL’
A ‘scientific’ study – backed
by commercial interests - suggested that a drug would be helpful and was
administered on a wide scale. The initial indicators were then challenged and
the US FDA said not to use it -
but an article says it was still being sold in millions. It says that
consumption of the drug led to teenage depression and suicides. The article does not say or show how
this latter link was established. Here is the link to the scenario:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/antidepressant-was-given-to-millions-of-young-people-after-trials-showed-it-was-dangerous-10504555.html
DEATHS FROM AIR POLLUTION
The Independent newspaper reported a couple of days ago a study from
which a projection was made that a
precise number of deaths arises from (a form of) air pollution. How this precise projection was reached
was not explained (with the difficulties of partialling out all manner of other
associated influences on health).
A long story in a Scottish newspaper combines exact estimates of
deaths due to X, with more cautious phrasing in places, and deep in the article
even includes a proviso:
David Newbie, professor of cardiology at Edinburgh
University, pointed out that the combustion of vehicle fuel produced both NO2
and particulate pollution so it was difficult to separate out their health
effects. NO2 could suffer from “guilt by association”, he argued.
The overall gist of the article is to side with
shock-horror rather than with a realistic (?) degree of caution over the
available data and their interpretation:
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/13772083.Air_pollution_is_killing_3500_Scots_every_year/
GLOBAL WARMING AND RISE OF SEAS
The Independent papers reported in late
summer of 2015 that :
research predicts the world
has entered what could be one of the strongest El Niño events in
the past century .
the full link to this ‘story’ is here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/2015-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record--but-experts-predict-2016-will-be-even-warmer-10499220.html
THE SPURIOUS PRESENT
There seems to be a slight oddity in the
use of verb tenses in constructing a report – “predicts” seems to my eye to
talk about the future while “has entered”
speaks of the present. I am reminded of the situation in very many
television documentaries (sadly, many on the BBC) in which “presenters” (how
may the meaning from this word have seeped into affecting behaviour?) speak of
the past as though it remains part of an ongoing present:
“Julius Caesar then decides to cross the
Channel …”
Such verbal tricks may be worth ignoring
as mere elements of style designed to help viewers understand things better (by
inviting them to be involved in the same time frame?) – but perhaps the
reporting of past and present and future should remain sharply distinct.
CROWD NUMBERS
In February 2003 protests took place in
many countries against the possibility of a western alliance invading
Iraq. According to Wikipedia
estimates of numbers varied:
The Wiki review says that the crowd in
Rome constituted a world record – recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.
30 trains brought people in
(estimate? 30 x 1500 = 45,000?) and 3000 buses (estimate? 50 x 3000 – 150,000)
thus the “brought in” numbers may have reached 200,000 people. These could add
to the total population of Rome which wiki gives as 2.9 million, to fulfil the
claim at the head of the article that “the protest in Rome involved around
three million people”. The article
later says that police estimates were that 650,000 “took place in a rally”. It
is perhaps not clear from these different approaches in the Wiki review “exactly”
how many expressed their feelings in the city, and/or took part in the rally.
There is a tendency for organizers of rallies to report that more people came,
than is stgated by police estimates: for example in the same Wiki article it is
said : “Police estimated attendance
as well in excess of 750,000 people[32] and the
BBC estimated that around a million attended.[33] At the
finish rally in Hyde Park, the organisers announced 3 million attended” …..
WAR CASUALTIES
The strongly anti war newspaper the
Guardian provides what seems a conservative or low estimate of the numbers of
military and civilian deaths attributable to the 2003 invasion.
The BBC reported that the Lancet (medical
journal) calculated that well over 600,000 deaths were attributable to the war. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11107739
Overall, it seems that in the chaos of war
– or even the disruptions of civil protests – it has been difficult to fulfil a
notion that “the number” of people involved, or casualties, can be accurately
numbered.
DEATHS FROM HIV/AIDS
From time to time journalists in the press
or charities decide to offer a number indicating the suffering from AIDS –
especially in Africa. A website from the World Health Organisation is notable
for the statement of numbers from countries mired in conflict and where even in peaceful times access to the
hinterland and exact diagnosis would be problematic – thus figures are provided
from the Central African Republic, Malawi, Rwanda and other countries where it
may be difficult to accurately pinpoint such things while in the same table
well-ordered countries like Singapore, and the USA have entered ‘no data’.
A trusted friend informed me:
When we did the natural remedy tests
in Zambia in the 1980s we had to involve the President’s Office to select some
ten people for treatment. It was our tests which established whether or
not they had HIV/AIDS, that information was not already listed within the
system, and it was a huge palaver to get the selected people weighed and
checked each week. In the end I wasn’t at all sure they had put on weight
because the herbal treatment had cured them or simply because, for the duration
of the test, they were being fed and watered on a regular daily basis….
Zambia did make an effort with its HIV/AIDS treatments and monitoring
because Kaunda’s son died of the disease and I think other members of the
family also died; not that it made an exemplar for other African countries
because the work it did was too spasmodic and inconsistent.
Then:
A DEMENTED POPULATION?
The Independent big and little newspaper
decided to headline an accelerating proportion of the population who/which
would be demented. The “story”
included the detail:
The latest findings – which uses mathematical formulae
to combine life expectancy estimates with projections for the frequency of
dementia at different ages – underscore the scale of the potential future
crisis caused by an aging population.
I didn’t really understand how the arithmetic had led to
the conclusion dramatized in the headline story which can be reached at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/alzheimers-a-third-of-britons-born-in-2015-will-develop-dementia-report-says-10510236.html
Nevertheless, back to the reporting of
science – there are other scenarios in which firm figures are offered as
describing results of some process or behaviour, thus:
Reducing speed limits in itself will
reduce (or has reduced) accident numbers;
Application of laboratory-achieved
genetically modified products will cause
such and
such a number of consumer casualties;
Polar bears (on whom an accurate census
has apparently been conducted) will die
out in
some large numbers someone has calculated (how?) ….
A given number of tigers in the huge
nation of India will be reduced to another
said
number, unless particular measures advocated by campaigners, are put in place;
…. This is a beginning to what would
likely be a log list of examples where “the figures” may or may not
substantiate some (political) case being made. Since skill with figures is not
all that widespread, much nonsense develops in “the public discourse”.
