Via Recess Monkey, it appears that a Facebook group has been set up to defend the honour of Arleen Ouzounian, who unwittingly found herself in the Daily Mail after putting her typing fingers into gear without engaging her brain:

Top young Tory hails death of Labour MP

The Tories were today engulfed in a row over a “distasteful website that hailed the death of Labour MP Piara Khabra.

A leading member of Conservative Future, the party’s youth organisation, said the prospect of a by-election in Mr Khabra’s Ealing Southall seat “feels like Christmas has come early”.

The comments were posted by Arleen Ouzounian, deputy chairman of Conservative Future in Ealing.

According to the description on the group’s homepage, which one must assume has been written by its admin, Oliver Cooper, none of this is true and its all a conspiracy by ’shameless leftist bloggers and faceless political hacks’ - oh, and you’ll need a sickbag for the next bit:

Over the past two weeks, Arleen Ouzounian has come under attack from shameless leftist bloggers and faceless political hacks. Arleen has been subjected to the most torturous abuse and suffered the harshest consequences of others’ actions, none of which the fault of her self.

All those that know her know that the accusations couldn’t be further from the truth. The idea that, as a compassionate Christian and pacifist, Arleen could possibly do anything but mourn the unfortunate and untimely death of an innocent human being is an affront not just to her as an individual, but to all the values on which she bases her actions.

We stand by Arleen in her fight to clear herself of the scandalous and scurrilous accusations levelled at her character.

Oliver is presumably banking on the fact that Google’s cache has now been refreshed, destroying the evidence of Arleen’s gaff, which might be all well and good but for UKPoliblog from which this screenshot was taken a matter of minutes ago - The Regalis Blog belongs to Arleen, btw:

I particularly like the ‘The idea that, as a compassionate Christian and pacifist, Arleen could possibly do anything but mourn the unfortunate and untimely death of an innocent human being‘ line - Khabra was 82 years old, which is what we call round here ‘a good innings’.

Cooper, on the other hand, is evidently what we call round here ‘a snivelling little gobshite‘.

UPDATE:

After a bit of prodding from Recess Monkey, Oliver has issued what he’s laughably calling a ’statement’ on Ouzounian’s comments:

Since one of those that has attacked Arleen has demanded a statement on the issue, here is one:

Arleen did not describe the death of Piara Khabra as being like Christmas come early. That is a deliberate misquote. Her blog post consisted of two parts, explicitly divided by belonging to two separate paragraphs, and hence to two self-contained ideas:

1) The first addressed the issue of his death, and was appropriately dignified and respectful on that topic.

2) The second addressed the political consequences. The term ‘Christmas has come early’ referred to the opportunity that Conservatives have to prove the party’s development since the last general election. Arleen is a local political activist, the Regalis is a political blog, and, hence, the political consequences of his death are important. Divorced from its cause: the prospect of injecting vitality into local democracy feels to Arleen like a good thing.

One could only misunderstand Arleen’s post in such a manner with deliberate and malicious intent. Either that or not understanding what a paragraph is. It’s really your choice, Alex.

So the situation is exactly what it appears - an empty-headed Tory student had a flux of the mouth and was more concerned with wetting herself at the prospect of a by-election on her patch than on displaying a modicum of decorum - which is exactly what the Daily Mail reported and precisely what’s been said on all the blogs I’ve seen commenting on this.

In which case, the correct response is the Boris defence - bluster a bit, admit you’ve dropped a bollock, take the kicking with a bit of good grace and move on.

People like Boris. Even lefties and faceless political hacks like Boris - why?

Well, in part, because when he fucks up, he takes his lumps with a measure of resigned good humour and then gets on with things rather than whinging like a stuck pig for weeks afterwards, which is altogether a lesson lost on Oliver and his halfwit Tory mates.

It’s called taking responsibility for your actions. You fuck up. You apologise. You take your lumps and you move on - whining like a bunch five year old and posting vomit-inducing eulogies to a half-wit whose ‘crime’ was a bit of crass insensitivity and nothing more only keeps the whole episode going and makes it worse.

What a twat!

In the last five minutes, I’ve received a very hot tip that Sandwell Councillor, Gurinder Singh Josan, is the new favourite to be selected as the Labour Party’s Candidate for the Ealing Southall by-election.

Cllr Josan, who currently represents the St Paul’s ward in Smethwick, comes from a solid Labour background - his father was a highly respected local councillor for many years - and in highly regarded in both the local party and in the Sikh community in Smethwick, which has close links to community in Southall.

Since being elected to serve the St Paul’s ward in 2004, Cllr Josan has chaired Sandwell Council’s Select Committees on Young People and Community Cohesion and has taken a very active role in local campaigning against the far right, British National Party.

Taking about keeping it in the family, Gordon’s reshuffle means that in ministerial positions we now have the brothers Milliband, the Balls family and, last but not least, the Eagle twins.

Next thing we know we’ll find out that Hazel Blears is the long-lost daughter of Denis Skinner - although I wouldn’t mind seeing the look on Akehurst’s face when that story broke.

Is this a government or the fucking Generation Game and when can we expect to see Brucie appointed Minister for Gameshows?

Oh, and having written so many sex-ed posts in the last week, no one better dare mention ‘Come Dancing’ - that’s just not a mental picture I can work with at the moment.

I had thought I was finished with the whole Playfoot/Silver Ring Thing for the time being – at least until the High Court issued its judgement and we could see whether sense and reason have prevailed, but then I’m a bit of sucker for debunking bad science (and bad social science for that matter) so when I came across some information and the research data that’s in widespread use by pro-abstinence only groups I just had to take a look for myself.

The historical background to this is that since 1996 the US Federal Government has poured around £1billion dollars into the funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programmes – Silver Ring Thing, in the US, had its modest sum of federal funding suspended in 2005 after complaints from the ACLU, amongst others, about its use of federal funds to push its religious agenda in breach of the US’s constitutional separation of religion and state, and then withdrew from the programme entire. It was never, however, a major recipient of federal grants.

And yes, the date is correct and this did all kick into gear under that noted abstainer, Bill ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’ Clinton, a fact that will become rather more ironic in a short while.

These programmes were established under a programme common known as ‘Title V’ under which £50 million per year was distributed amongst States, who are required to match-fund the programme with three State-raised dollars to every one Federal dollar received, and operate these programmes to very specific parameters, such that these programmes must:

• · Have as their exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realised by abstaining from sexual activity;
• · Teach that abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;
• · Teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
• · Teach that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity;
• · Teach that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
• · Teach that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society;
• · Teach young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances, and
• · Teach the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

These programmes are not permitted to advocate or discuss other contraceptive methods other than in the context of their failure rates.

Right, that information should, hopefully, put to rest the idea that abstinence education programmes are about ‘choice’. They’re not, they’re about pushing an agenda derived from a very conservative brand of Christianity and using it as a means of social engineering. These programmes are also, and unsurprisingly, inherently discriminatory as they are constructed in such as way as to entirely exclude any reference to or acknowledgement of same-sex relationships.

These programmes got a further shot in the arm with the election of George W Bush, who introduced a second, and even more lavishly funded abstinence-only programme that bypassed State authorities and funnelled money directly to organisations delivering abstinence programmes, many of which were ‘faith-based’ (naturally). For the fiscal year 2006, the amount of money allocated to this programme was $155 million.

In 2001, the abstinence-only lobby got the real boost they were looking for with the publication of a study by Bearman and Brueckner [Bearman, P. S. & Brueckner, H. (2001). Promising the future: Virginity pledges and first intercourse. American Journal of Sociology, 106, 859-912.] that appeared to confirm the success of these programmes. This research used non-experiemental correlation data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, conducted between 1995 and 2003, which surveyed 20,000 young people from the age of 12 to 18, including 4,000 that had taken a virginity pledge, and arrived at two conclusions that supporters of abstinence-only education immediately leapt upon and promoted heavily as ‘proof’ that their preferred approach to such education was a success.

First, the study indicated that those who took the ‘virginity pledge’ tended to commence their first full sexual activity (i.e. full penetrative vaginal intercourse) anything up to two years later than the control group that had not undergone an abstinence-only education programme and made a virginity pledge. The study concluded that this indicated a causal relationship between abstinence-only education and the decision to delay the commencement of sexual activity.

Second, the study showed a lower incidence of sexually transmitted disease in the ‘pledge group’ (4.6%) than in the non-pledging group (7%).

Which sounds promising, until you consider that a delay in becoming sexually active of a couple of years is only going to amount to abstinence until marriage if the pledge group all get married within two years of taking the pledge. You won’t be surprised to find that the majority don’t – get married within two years, that is. Oh, and, of course, you still have 4.6% of the pledge group contracting an STD, which shows that a fair number of those taking the pledge most certainly do fall off the virginity wagon.

Nevertheless, the pro-abstinence camp were not to be deterred by such trifling details and pronounced themselves to be a resounding success, which in turn had a direct impact on both State education policy and government health policy. By 2002 it was estimated that up to a third of US secondary schools, which cover the ages of 11-18, were using an abstinence-only approach to sex education, and, in 2003, the US Department of Health altered the evaluation criteria for these programmes so that to justify their continued receipt of funding they simply had to report back on numbers taking virginity pledges where, previously, they were required to report “the proportion of program participants who have engaged in sexual intercourse” and the birth rate of female program participants.

The problem with this last policy change should be obvious – the US government have stopped measuring the performance of these programmes in terms of their actual impact on adolescent sexual activity and have, since 2003, simply measured the number of sign-ups on the assumption that that behavioural patterns identified by Bearman and Brueckner will automatically hold valid. So the evaluation method used by the US government tells them nothing of value whatsoever about the actual performance of these programmes.

However, there are a couple of other important problems with the Bearman and Brueckner study and how it has been used by the US government and, particularly, by supporters of abstinence-only education.

Taking the study first, the big problem with it is its conclusion that there is a causal relationship between virginity pledges and the delay in first sexual activity. There is certainly evidence of a correlation between the two but a correlation alone does not imply causation, and Bearman and Brueckner’s assertion of causation is actually based on a post hoc fallacy*, not least because their efforts to apply a statistical adjustment to the data the cancel out the effects of self-selection in the pledge group have been shown to be both logically and statistically invalid.

*post hoc ergo propter hoc (”after this, therefore because of this”)

To explain what all that means, one has to understand when and how one can validly assert causality based on non-experimental correlation data, for which one must turn to John Stuart Mill.

Mill asserted that at least three criteria must be invoked in justifying causal claims:

(1) association (or correlation-the cause is related to the effect),

(2) temporality (the cause comes before the effect), and

(3) elimination of plausible alternative explanations (i.e. other plausible explanations for an effect must be considered and ruled out).

To assert causality, all three are necessary, and yet the Bearman and Brueckner study neglects to consider a number of plausible alternative explanations for the correlation between pledging and delay in first sexual activity, not least that of a pre-existing disinclination to become sexually active. This is where self-selection become problematic as those who take these pledges do so by choice, i.e. they are already likely to predisposed towards delaying their first sexual activity before choosing to take the pledge and this attitude can be accounted for by a number of factors relating to parental and other influences on the behaviour of the adolescent none of which need necessarily stem from or be supported either the taking of a virginity pledge or abstinence-only sex education.

The causal link claimed by Bearman and Brueckner does not stand up to scrutiny.

Moreover, supporters of abstinence-only education have used the data from the Bearman and Brueckner study in, not surprisingly, a highly selective manner that disregards importance evidence about the sexual behaviour within the pledge group that doesn’t fit in with the moral views of the pro-abstinence lobby.

As noted previously, this study shows only up to a two-year delay in first sexual activity, which falls some considerable way short of abstinence until marriage and a recently published study by Mathematica, which was commissioned by the US Congress and followed 2,000 students from age 11/12 in 1999 to age 16, including students who participated in one the four main abstinence programmes and a control group of students who had not received this type of sex education found that around half of all students in both groups abstained for sexual activity through the full period of the study and that those the abstinence-only programme group reported having around the same number of sexual partners as those in the control group, started their sexual activity at about the same age and were just as likely to use contraception as those in the control group, i.e. the abstinence programmes had no effect on sexual activity and behaviour whatsoever.

The response of the pro-abstinence lobby was to claim that the Mathematica study was ‘too narrow’, began when the abstinence-only curricula were in their infancy and ignored other studies that supported their position – i.e. give us more time and money and we’ll come up with better brainwashing techniques.

The STD data, while showing a lower level of STDs in the pledge group still showed that 4/6% of that group contracted an STD despite taking a virginity pledge. The study also showed that not only did taking a virginity pledge only delay first sexual activity for a couple of years, rather than prevent it until marriage, but that virginity pledge group showed marked differences in sexual behaviour compared to the non-pledge group. Only 2% of the non-pledge group indicated that they had consented to oral and/anal intercourse during the period in which the data used in the study had been collected, while amongst those who took a virginity pledge, the number who consented to either oral or anal intercourse rose to 13%.

If you’ll forgive the crudity of the next remark, which is necessary to drive the point home, the Bearman and Brueckner study showed that putting your daughter through abstinence-only education makes them more than six times more likely to give head or take it up the arse than other young women of the same age, leading Bearman to conclude that:

“An abstinence movement that encourages no vaginal sex inadvertently encourages other forms of alternative sex that carry a higher risk of sexually transmitted disease,”

Yes, its the good old law of unintended consequences yet again.

A 2002 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation also found that 55% of girls who had taken a virginity pledge admitted taking part in oral sex while 50% of those in the 15-17 age group considered that giving head did not compromise their pledge of abstinence – suddenly the reasoning behind Clinton’s ‘I did not have sexual relations…’ remark becomes crystal clear.

Oh, and unlike the Mathematica study, the Bearman and Brueckner study did show that those in the pledge group who did fall off the virginity wagon were less likely to use [conventional] contraception – rather than alternative orifices - than those who received sex education that included accurate advice on contraceptive methods other than abstinence.

And finally, to cap it all, a 2004 report issued by California Congressman, Henry Waxman, provided several examples of where Federally funded abstinence-only sex education programmes were providing students with manifestly inaccurate information, including:

• · misrepresenting the failure rates of contraceptives
• · misrepresenting the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission, including the citation of a discredited 1993 study by Dr. Susan Weller, which the federal government had acknowledged , in 1997, was inaccurate false claims that abortion increases the risk of infertility, premature birth for subsequent pregnancies, and ectopic pregnancy
• · treating stereotypes about gender roles as scientific fact
• · other scientific errors, e.g. stating that “twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual” (the actual number is 23)

Little wonder, in light of all this information, that the now Democrat controlled Congress has indicated that it will terminate the Title V programme when it expires this year, after several States indicated that they would no longer accept the funding.

That’s the reality of abstinence programmes, not a silly little girl with her holier-than-thou parents and their crappy jewellery franchise, but a taxpayer-funded billion dollar ignorance economy.

Should sex/relationships education in the UK cite abstinence as an option for young people?

Of course it should, it’s their body, their life and their choice after all. But if you are going to include it, then give young people the facts and the evidence to make informed decisions, which is an altogether alien concept to the pro-abstinence lobby.

You’ve got to admire the chutzpah of the folks over at Tory Home when it comes to making up excuses to cover the decision to draft in Tony Lit, a now former direction of Sunset Radio, as their chosen candidate for Ealing Southall before the ink was even dry on his party membership card, especially in the face of comments like this, from one of the site’s visitors:

CCHQ has approved Tony Lit, not even a party member, as a Parliamentary by-election candidate!!

What sort of message does that send out to those who were kicked off the candidates list or have failed a Parliamentary Assessment Board?

Up until now, only the best candidates were approved to stand as by-election candidates. Now a non-member can. Standards seem to be slipping!

How can we be sure that Mr Lit is a bona fide Conservative and not an infiltrator from another party? Are there no suitable local candidates with a proven track record as a Conservative activist, officer or councillor?

The party could pay a high price for taking such an unprecedented risk.

And…

I was told to become a Parliamentary candidate one has to be a Party member for at least 3 months and must pass PAB, but in this case ??????????????????

His father I have been told supported Labour candidate in 2004 GLA election (Ealing & Hilligndon)and they have never been a Tory supporter.

Only qualification is money, if Tory party thinks that being a Sikh he will get votes from local Asian (Sikh) community they must be kidding.

Labour party candidate will be also from Sikh community and he/she will have support among all the local Asian and religious communities, Sikh, Hindu, Muslims.

Toni lives in Osterly, London Boorough of Hounslow. Party has made a big mistake by chosing him. He will not win. Local politics has changed since his father stood as an Independent in 2001.

And…

The secretive process demonstrated here is typical of the new Cameron approach to selecting candidates. Other local non-Asian candidates were not even informed the Party was actively selecting. It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re a Tory supporter anymore, as long as you fit Cameron’s new candidate profile. Why is it that this candidate with no history of support for the Party is parachuted into a seat which many people believe we have a chance. It is because he is Asian and his father is well-known locally. If we started placing white candidates into seats where the electorate were predominantly white there would be an uproar, and rightly so. Can someone at CCHQ or in the local association (if there is one) tell us how many people applied for this seat and how the process was undertaken, so at least we know that this wasn’t as much of an opportunistic set-up as it appears.

And…

I informed CCHQ the same day MP Piara Khabra died.

This is the reply I got today from a high profile MP.

Dear Atiq,

Many thanks for your email and for your work on pulling together this data.

I am writing to let you know that Francis Maude has decided that our
candidate will actually be from Ealing Southall on this occasion which I’m
afraid does rule you out this time round.

However, with your great knowledge of this area in mind we would be most
grateful if you would still come and support the Conservative campaign in
Ealing Southall throughout this very short by-election. We expect polling
day to be 3 weeks today.

I have told Francis Maude of your interest and he has asked me to thank you
for your interest and also to ask the above question about whether you will
still be prepared to bring in support to help us achieve the best possible
result?

Which eventually brought out this feeble excuse…

Re: some of the comments about how long Lit has been a member, I’ve added an update to the post:

Just to be clear, Tony did become a member of the Party before passing the Parliamentary Assessment Board. He has always voted Conservative but couldn’t join the Party earlier due to his directorship of the radio station, a position which he has duly resigned from. Also, much credit is due to Grant Shapps MP for getting Campaign Together off the ground.

OFCOM might well have had kittens about his staying on the radio station while a candidate, especially after his father’s run in with the then Radio Authority in 2001, which cost the station a £10,000 fine, but whether or not he joins a political party as a member has precisely fuck all to do with OFCOM, not to mention that I can find nothing in legislation, regulation or in the OFCOM codes that would permit them to restrict rights of political affiliation which are, of course, covered by provisions on freedom of association in the Human Rights Act.

This looks a lot to me like making bullshit excuses to conceal a bit of blatant opportunism on the part of CCHQ.

To which I can add only that if holding a directorship of the media company is incompatible with membership of the political party, then perhaps the folks at Tory Home would care to explain this list of directorships, extracted from the House of Commons register of members’ interests

Gerry Adams (Belfast West - Sinn Fein)

Adfero Ltd; news and information services company, of which I am an unremunerated director.

Tony Baldry (Banbury - Tory)

Chairman (non-executive) of Multi Media Television plc (interactive digital television through the Job Channel and interactive digital television consultancy) - no longer in current register

Executive Partner in Diamond Film Partnership; a UK partnership promoting UK film and television production rights.

Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe - Tory)

Director (non-executive) of Independent News and Media (UK).

John Selwyn Gummer (Suffolk Coastal - Tory)

Catholic Herald (non-executive); newspaper.

Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry North West - Labour)

New Statesman Limited

Stuart, Graham (Beverley and Holderness - Tory)

CSL Publishing Ltd; publisher of consumer magazines and newspapers.

Wyatt, Derek (Sittingbourne and Sheppey - Labour)

Non-executive chairman (unremunerated) of opusmedia sports; an IPTV company (resigned
15 March 2006).

As they say on the terraces at football matchs - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-bull-shit-ahhhhhhhhhhh!

One of the more enjoyable (and sometimes inflammatory) habits adopted by the excellent Dr Crippen is his posting of what he calls ‘Quacktitioner Alerts‘, which, in common with Ben Goldacre’s ‘Bad Science‘ provide a valuable public service by highlighting all manner of crap science, piss-poor practice, misinformation and general snake-oilery.

I’m happy to say that I’m very much a fan when it comes to a good debunking, whether its Crippen’s quacktitioners, Goldacre’s bad science, Penn and Teller’s glorious ‘Bullshit‘ or the daddy of the all, and the man who should be regarded as the intellectual father of fisking, James Randi.  And if one wishes to find good quality source material for a good debunking, then I can heartily recommend that you open any newspaper and scour the news sections for the words ‘health correspondent’.

Which bring me to this patronising effort from today’s Indy:

Obese people twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor- Published: 29 June 2007

Britain’s obesity explosion could trigger a second even more serious epidemic - of dementia. Experts warned yesterday that our fondness for fast food and resistance to exercise was not only causing waistlines to bulge - it is also damaging our brains.

Obesity is bad for you. This is well established.
It increases your risk on winding up with all manner of nasty shit, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, gallstones, hernias, fatty liver disease, renal failure, osteoarthritis, stokes, that most people would much rather not have to deal with.

But clearly none of shit is scary enough to stop people pigging out at Maccy D’s, so now the ‘experts’ are wanting to tack going doolally-tap on to the list to make the whole business ever scarier.

An estimated 700,000 people have dementia in the UK and the number is forecast to rise to as many as 1.5 million over the next 50 years, according to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Yes, very nice. But how does that relate to population demographics?

Look, this is not difficult. If 700,000 people have dementia in the UK now, on its present population, and - hypothetically - the population of the UK doubles in the next 50 years, then we are likely to see double the number of dementia cases, but the risk of being one of them will have remained the same.

Let’s make that a bit easier to understand. If two out of every five cats are black, and you own five cats, you likely end up with two black cats, and if you then buy five more, you’ll get another two black cats, giving you four black cats, which is twice the number you started with - but, you’ll also have ten cats (and a serious cat food bill), which is also twice the number you started with.

That’s the basics, let’s look at the numbers.

Well, the main incidence of dementia, which means not just Alzheimer’s but other forms, tends to be in over 60s, so let’s stick just that population to begin with (to get a general picture of thing), which is currently estimated at just over 12 million people. Track on fifty years, using the National Statistical Office’s population pyramid doodad, and the estimate for the age group is 17.7 million, so it looks as if population change isn’t going to account for the full projected increase.

But, hang on - we can actually be a bit more specific than just ‘over sixties’.

The primary risk factor for the most common form of dementia - late onset Alzheimer’s -is aging. At age 65, 2-3% of people show signs of Alzheimer’s, with the probability doubling every 5 years. As for the second most common form, vascular dementia, there are a number of contributory factors that come into play, but aging is certainly one of them, so its reasonable to take another look at the figures but using a higher age group, where the risk factors and incident are greater - Say the over 70’s

That gives us 5.8 million currently, and an estimate of 9.5 million by 2057. Still not the full doubling effect but the extent to which an increased incidence of dementia in 50 years time may stem purely from population demographics is creeping up as the primary risk factor - age, increases.

Let’s take it up again - to over 80. This give a current population of 1.45 million and a projected 2057 population of 2.62 million, and the gap narrows again, leaving only 10% or so of the doubling effect unaccounted for by ageing and population change - and that’s about as far as we can take as the population doodad tops out at 84 years of age.

The point in all this is that if you want people to make informed decisions about their health, then you have to explain things to them properly, not just lob a couple of big scary numbers at them and hope their shit themselves at the thought that they might one day end up as a statistic. As Stalin correctly noted; ‘one death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic’ - people don’t engage with big scary numbers at a personal level. They can’t form a mental picture of wat 1.5 million people drooling insensately in their hospital beds looks like, let alone picture themselves as being one of them. To get you message across, you have to stop patronising people and explain the risks properly, so they get the message at a personal level and can imagine themselves having that kind of future ahead of them.

As this stand, just on the base stats, population changes look unlikely to account for all the increase in numbers over 50 years, so it does look very much as if other factor are also upping the probability of dementia.

But if the population goes on getting fatter, the total could rise to 2.5 million, said Clive Ballard, director of research at the society. “Obesity is a huge risk factor,” he said. “People who are overweight at 60 are twice as likely to get dementia at 75. We have a public health epidemic of dementia given the ageing of the population, and it is essential to reduce the risks. If these factors are not controlled, it may not be 1.5 million but 2 or 2.5 million people affected.”

Currently one in 20 people aged over 65 has signs of dementia, rising to one in five over 80. Increasing obesity could double the incidence among over-65s to one in 10, said Mr Ballard.

Again, Ballard is lobbing yet more big number into the pot without giving any explanation as to why obesity is such a big deal and unless people understand the causal links between obesity and dementia, the message isn’t really going to sink in.

The mechanism of how obesity affects the brain was unclear but it encompassed diet, exercise and physiological effects. Research has shown that people who eat a diet rich in fruit and vegetables have an up to 40 per cent reduced risk of developing dementia. Exercise has a similar effect.

Studies also suggested that amyloid protein which can build up in the brain, causing damage to nerve cells, is cleared from the blood more efficiently when cholesterol levels are low. High cholesterol could increase build-up of the protein and hasten the onset of Alzheimer’s. Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “I remain genuinely mystified why this is still such a low priority. The cost of dementia to individuals, families and the state is £17bn a year. Now there is research suggesting dementia is not as inevitable as we thought. There is no cure but evidence is building that lifestyle choices make a difference to risk.”

Let’s stop there.

Having started out by lobbing numbers at people without explanation, we’ve now gone to the opposite extreme of trying to freak people out with indecipherable gobbledygook.

This section starts out by admitting that they don’t know exactly what the link is between obesity and the brain, drifts of into the usual ‘research has shown…’ stuff which tells us that they think that exercise and eating fruit and veg is good for us - no shit, Sherlock - and then heads off into medical country with all the talk of amyloid proteins, which are ’suggested’ could be building up in the brain and causing nerve damage.

In science, if something is ’suggested’ then that could mean anything from ‘we’ve got some promising initial data but not enough to be sure’ to ‘we’ve got a hunch it might be this and would like some cash and a good stock of monkeys to dissect, please’.

We’re still, even at this stage and despite the headline, not entirely sure whether what this all about is dementia in general, of which there are several kinds with different causal factors, or specifically about Alzheimer’s - which is what it looks like from the comments at the end of waffle about cholesterol and amyloid proteins - largely because throughout the article has used ‘dementia’ and ‘Alzehimer’s’ as interchangeable references rather be clear and precise about what they’re referring to.

We’re also told that the Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Society is ‘mystified’ as to why it is ’such a low priority’ when ‘dementia’ (type unspecified) costs individuals, families and the state £17 billion a year - that last statement is perhaps best understood if you adopt an Irish accent and a grizzled and slightly aggressive tone of voice and then repeat after me: Give us your fucking money!!!

Call me a tad pedantic, but I can’t help wondering if at least part of the explanation for the ‘low priority’ thing might have something to do with the observation that rather a lot of those trying  to ‘educate’ the public about the risks and consequences of dementia appear incapable of expressing themselves in clear and simple terms that everyone can fucking well understand.

Launching a booklet, Be Headstrong, he said that five steps were necessary to reduce the risks - do not smoke, eat less saturated fat, exercise regularly, lead an active social life and have blood pressure and cholesterol checked regularly. “If we could delay the incidence of dementia by five years we could reduce its incidence by 50 per cent,” he said.

That last statement; “If we could delay the incidence of dementia by five years we could reduce its incidence by 50 per cent” is a staggering piece of logic.

You cannot ‘delay the incidence of dementia’ because incidence is a measurement of quantity and proportion, not time. The incidence of a condition is the number of people with the condition divided by the size of the total population and usually expressed in terms there being n cases per 1,000 to make comparisons between different populations easier.

You can delay the onset, the point in time at which the condition begins to develop, which will push back the increasing probability of developing dementia to a later stage in life, but that, in itself, will not alter the incidence of the condition.

What will alter the incidence of a condition or disease is:

a) prevention, say by vaccination (which is inapplicable in this case),

b) effective treatment of, or cures for diseases/conditions that may cause dementia as a secondary effect, such as syphilis, tumours, hyperthyroidism and vitamin B1, B12 and A deficiencies (which is where some element of the eating fruit and veg comes into play) . These account for only about 5% of all dementias, or

c) a reduction in risk factors/behaviours that does result in a lower incidence because limiting exposure to risk results in fewer people developing the condition. This is particularly applicable to vascular dementias arising as a consequence of cerebrovascular disease resulting in neurological damage by way of strokes, ischemia, aneurysms and embolisms.

If we’re talking about dementia in general, then any of the above could reduce the incidence of the condition overall, but only to a limited extent as time (and ageing) is a also a factor in dementia due to vascular degeneration.

If Hunt is referring specifically to Alzheimer’s, for which the three main causal hypotheses, at the present time, all rely on biochemistry and genetics,  then delaying onset will have no impact on incidence other than in terms of it being linked directly to ageing. In other words, if delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years ‘reduces’ the incidence of the condition by 50% that can only because the 50% who don’t develop the condition have died as a result of other conditions and diseases before Alzheimer’s has had chance to set in.

Its like comparing statistics for cancers and heart disease between now and the 1840’s - the incidence of both will be much lower in the 1840s, not because Victorian England was a healthier place to live but because life expectancy has increased massively since then as public health initiatives and developments in medicine and healthcare have taken out of play most of the nasty shit that used to kill people long before stuff like cancer and heart disease had a chance to kick in.

Great message, eh? If you don’t fancy ending your days covered in dribble and with a vivid memory of the 1979 cup final and next to fuck all else besides then the secret is to die of something else before it all kicks in.

Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said risk factors for heart disease were also risk factors for dementia. “We now know that protecting the heart will also protect the brain,” he said. “Treatments that reduce heart disease also reduce dementia. There are very similar pathological processes underlying both.”

Well, yes. But that information is nothing particularly new, novel or innovative - its not as if medics have only just figured out that fucking up your vascular system by living your life as a Maccy D chomping couch potato is bad for you, whether in the context of cardiovascular (heart) disease or cerebrovascular (brain) disease.

The only plus point to this article is that, for once, they’re not making a meal of blaming smoking for all the ills of old age, even though that’s just as good at fucking up your vascular system as a diet of burgers, Big Brother and deep-fried Mars bars. I guess that what this means is that they figure that lung cancer is plenty scary enough to cover the bases when it comes to scaring the shit out of smokers already, so there’s no need to try and dump Alzheimer’s on top, while when it comes to scaring the shit out of fat boy, heart attacks just don’t have the same kind of scare factor because if it nails you it tends to get the job over and done with pretty quickly and it it doesn’t you can always change things round afterward or get things fixed up with a bypass or transplant, which is why you need to rope in something that offers up the prospect of a long, lingering and fucking undignified exit to nail home the point.

It’s the fucking Freddie Kruger school of public health medicine - scare ‘em, scare ‘em good and keep right on scaring the dumb fuckers until they get the message. Never mind that you could just try treating people like fucking adults, explaining the facts, and lets us figure this shit out for ourselves.

Professor Pearson is not wrong is his remarks, merely stating the bleeding obvious - which I’ve no doubt he is perfectly aware of and could happily explain in much more illuminative fashion were his remarks not simply being used as filler by a ‘health correspondent’.

Similarly…

Tony Rudd, consultant stroke physician at Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Trust, said up to one-third of the over-65s who had a stroke would develop dementia within three months. “Public health initiatives to prevent stroke and related risks are essential,” he said.

Absolutely spot-on, as you would expect from a consultant stroke physician at a well known and high profile hospital, but again he’s talking specifically about vascular dementia arising as a direct consequence of a stroke, and the headline on the article states: “Obese people twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s”

Vascular dementia is NOT fucking Alzheimer’s Disease, and unless groups like the Alzheimer’s Society are operating from a broad remit which incorporates and supports research into all areas of dementia, then they and the meejah should steer clear of conflating their specific field of expertise with other fields simply to inflate the numbers and contrive a slightly bigger scare factor.

If anyone is seriously concerned by the obesity connection to dementia then they’re currently much better served by talking, and making the bulk of any donations to, the Stroke Associations that deal specifically with vascular dementia, which accounts for 20-40% of all dementias in Western Europe - because we know damn well how lifestyle impacts on that and what you can do to limit your risks.

As for Alzheimer’s, more research is certainly needed to narrow down its main causes and any causal links to obesity, so a bit of cash in that direction is certainly not wasted, and the general advice on eating the right things, not smoking (and I am a smoker, btw) and getting your lazy asses off the couch and doing a bit of exercise is sound, if much more likely to do you a power of good in terms of stuff like heart disease and the like, where the causal links are already well established and understood.

So its not a complete washout here, the article is just badly written and rather patronising in its attitude to readers, which may well be a function of the journalism applied to the story and not the sales pitch made by the Alzheimer’s Society, who otherwise do a considerable amount of good work and are deserving of public support.

And the best advice of all - if you need more information or are worried about your health then FFS, go make an appointment with your GP for a check-up and a chat. They can explain all this far better than the health correspondent in the newspaper and may well even treat you like an intelligent human being and not an idiot.

Rachel is, I expect, pretty snowed under at the moment, so I’ll break the news…

Cyber-stalker Felicity Lowde Awarded Six-Month Jail Sentence For Terrorizing Rachel North

June 28, 2007 10:36 a.m. EST

Susheela Hegde - AHN News Writer

London, England (AHN) - A cyber-stalker has been handed down six-month sentence for harassing a 7/7 bombing survivor through a web-log and e-mails.

Felicity Jane Lowde, a researcher in Oxford University posted hundreds of messages targeting Rachel North who survived the tragic Russell Square Piccadilly Line bombing which left 26 people dead in 2005.

Judge Malcolm Read said by carrying out a “vicious, vitriolic and vindictive” campaign by posting hundreds of messages accusing Ms North with “making a living on the backs of the dead”, Ms Lowde repeatedly struck at the victim’s terrible traumatic experience.

North, 39, who has been fighting for an independent inquiry into the 7/7 incident, said she is happy over the verdict.

However, Lowde, who has been also given a restraining order and a five-year Asbo, said she intends to go for an appeal.

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Couple of points of note - the reference to Lowde being ‘a researcher at Oxford University’ is unverified and at least in part, inaccurate.

She certainly claimed to be a researcher on her blog, on numerous occasions, but was known to be unemployed for some considerable time prior to her arrest. As for her university background, she attended Oxford Brookes University, which was formerly Oxford Polytechnic and NOT Oxford University.

While a student at Oxford Brookes, she was tried (and cleared) on a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to alleged attempt to hire a private investigator to carry out a ’sting’ on a former boyfriend in an effort to intimidate him into dropping harassment charges against her.

She was, however, convicted of harassing her ex-boyfriend and served three months in prison.

As regards her expressed intention to appeal, the law in Engalnd and Wales does not provide for an automatic right of appeal.

Lowde is entitled to apply for leave to appeal and, if she does, will attend a hearing at which she will be required to show that there a valid grounds for an appeal. Only if the court is satisfied that her stated grounds stack up will an appeal hearing be granted.

Regarding the contents of the restraining order and ASBO: -

a) the restraining order will apply specifically to Rachel, her husband and, possibly, other members of her immediate family - it is entirely up to Rachel whether or not she provides any more information on that subject.

b) as for the ASBO, if I can ascertain whether any of its terms that may be of specific relevance to bloggers and other online users, i.e. whether Lowde is subject any restrictions on her use of the internet,  then I will endeavour to publish that information so that bloggers are aware of what actions may be open to them should she resurface and breach those restrictions.

This just in from the Lib Dems on the upcoming by-elections in Ealing Southall and Sedgefield:

Labour are scared of the Liberal Democrat challenge.

Really? What were the figures for Lib Dem support in the last couple of opinion polls? 15% or so?

In recent years they lost Brent East, Leicester South and Dunfermline to us.

That was then, this is now and you’re deep in the shit in the current polls…

They have called the Ealing Southall and Sedgefield by-elections at very short notice to try to stop us building momentum.

Given the way things have going of late, their best chance of ‘building momentum’ would be to put their campaign team in a shopping trolley and push the fuckers down a hill - just make sure there’s a canal at the bottom.

Ealing Southall has the second largest Asian community in the country.

Right… so the Tories have picked the son of the owner of a local Asian radio station, Tony Lit, who, its been alleged in the comments at Iain Dale’s, may have only just joined the Tory Party specifically to run in this seat - his father stood in 2001 as a independent.

It’s been reported in discussions about the possibility of Labour using an all women shortlist for selecting the candidate for this seat that Khabra wished the candidacy to go to an Asian woman candidate on his death/retirement.

And now the Lib Dems are making a big deal out the size of the local Asian community, which I’d guess puts them down for a South Asian candidate as well.

Stepping back from the general issue of ethnic minority representation, is anyone else feeling just a little queasy at the blatant, obvious and very naked play on communal politics that’s starting to play out around this seat?

We came second here in the General Election and must aim to repeat the successful campaign that won Brent East for Sarah Teather.

That”ll be the usual ‘Winning Here’ and ‘Only we can win’ leaflets in use, complete with the obligatory dodgy bar graphs.

Khabra’s majority in 2005 was about 11,500, on a swing of 6.6% to the Lib Dems, whose vote went up from around 4,700 to 11,500, but on its own that doesn’t tell the real story.

Khabra polled 22,200 votes or so in 2001 and  22,900 votes in 2005, while the entire ’swing’ to opposition parties came from the absence in 2005 of four independent Asian candidates (including Avtar Lit) and an Asian candidate who ran as ‘Socialist Labour’ from the previous election.

But we have to try and do it three weeks - not the three months that we had for that campaign.

Boo-fucking-Hoo!

Sedgefield is next door to Hartlepool where Liberal Democrats came close to seizing Peter Mandelson’s former constituency in the 2004 by-election.

Fuck me, that’s getting pretty thin.

At the last general election, Labour held Hartlepool with a 9,500 majority against a Lib Dem vote of 10,500 a big chunk of which came by way of a 6.5% swing from the Tories.

As for Sedgefield, the Maximum Tone had an 18,500 majority running against a field of 14 other candidates, including Reg Keys.

Our MPs have cancelled their regular parliamentary meetings in order to free up time for the campaigns. Many other party meetings are being cancelled in order to allow party members to come and help the campaigns.

Does that include the guy who concocts the dodgy bar graphs, do you think?

Still you have to give them credit for their optimism - its dumb as fuck, but at least its optimistic.

Via Iain Dale, it would appear that the Tories are keeping it in the family in their choice of candidate for the upcoming Ealing Southall by-election.

The Conservatives have now chosen their candidate for the Ealing Southall by election this lunchtime. He is Tony Lit, MD of Sunrise Radio. He will be in Ealing this afternoon campaigning with David Cameron. I also have news of a new website being launched relating to by-election campaigning. More on that later.

Tony Lit is the son of the owner and chairman of Sunrise Radio, Dr Avtar Lit, who stood (unsuccessfully) for election in the same constituency in 2001.

One dearly hope that Tony has a better understand of broadcasting regulations than his father, whose radio station was fined £10,000 after the election, by the Radio Authority (which is now part of Ofcom), after it was found to have breached regulations covering political content on local radio by broadcasting an interview with Dr Avtar Lit in advance of his candidacy.

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11 June 2001

Radio Authority fines Sunrise Radio £10,000

Sunrise Radio, London’s Asian news and entertainment station, has been fined £10,000 by the Radio Authority for a breach of the Broadcasting Act 1990. The breach concerned an interview given by the owner of Sunrise Radio, Dr. Avtar Lit, in advance of his proposed candidacy in the General Election. Such expressions of opinion on politically controversial matters by providers of Independent Local Radio services are specifically prohibited by law.

On 20 March, Sunrise Radio twice carried extracts from an interview with Dr. Lit. One concerned Dr. Lit’s views about the political dissatisfaction of people living in Ealing, Southall, and the other outlined his policy proposals for this constituency. Members decided at their meeting on 6 June that the interview breached Section 90(2)(b) of the Broadcasting Act 1990.

Richard Hooper, Chair of the Authority, said:

“Those who hold radio licences should be in no doubt that they may not use that privileged position to publicise their own views on political matters. The Broadcasting Act and our Codes make it clear that this applies at all times, not just during elections.”

When making this decision, Members took into account Sunrise Radio’s admission of error and the absence of further breaches. However, they also voiced concern about the implication of this breach for compliance issues at Sunrise Radio. The Authority has therefore asked Sunrise Radio for assurances that suitable action will be undertaken to ensure future compliance with the Broadcasting Act and its Codes.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. The Broadcasting Act 1990 (Section 90(2)(b)) requires “that… there are excluded from … programmes all expressions of the views and opinions of the person providing the service on matters (other than sound broadcasting) which are of political or industrial controversy or relate to current public policy.”

2. If a commercial radio station is found to be in breach of its licence, the Radio Authority can impose a number of sanctions. It can require a broadcast apology or correction, issue a formal warning, or impose a penalty which can include a fine or the shortening or revocation of a licence.

3. Financial penalties are not kept by the Radio Authority but are passed to the Treasury’s Consolidated Funds.

4. The Radio Authority is responsible for licensing and regulating Independent Radio in accordance with the statutory requirements of the Broadcasting Acts 1990 and 1996. It plans frequencies, awards licences, regulates programming and advertising, and plays an active role in the discussion and formulation of policies which affect the Independent Radio industry and its listeners.

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No doubt Tony will be most assiduous in ensuring that Sunrise Radio do not repeat the sins of his father, however I’m sure he’ll also understand if, as a party, or members in the area are just that bit more watchful than usual.

Hewitt leaves Cabinet health job

Patricia Hewitt will not be health secretary in new Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet.

She was widely expected to lose her post after increasing pressure over NHS deficits and doctor training schemes.

It is not yet known if she will be given another job in government, or will return to the backbenches.

File under ‘least surprising announcement of the day’…