Crap Statistics

Via Reader Mike L. comes this nanny article telling us how youngins are drinking themselves to death:

An estimated 1 in 5 deaths of people ages 20 to 49 were attributable to excessive alcohol use in the United States, according to the study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. For people ages 20 to 64, drinking-related deaths accounted for 1 in 8, the study said. The percentage of deaths attributed to alcohol use varied state by state, but nationally it’s a leading cause of preventable death, said lead study author Dr. Marissa Esser, lwho leads the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s alcohol program.

Researchers took national and state mortality data from 2015 to 2019 and looked at deaths either fully or partially attributable to excessive drinking. Those causes of death included vehicle accidents, alcohol poisoning and other health impacts, such as liver disease, Esser said.  The data showed that the deaths fully attributable to alcohol have risen in the past decade, Esser added.

Umm yeah.  Notice how when you add the 50-64 age group’s numbers, the incidence drops from 1 on 5 to 1 in 8 — which should your clue right there that the BULLSHIT STATISTICS bell is clanging loudly.

Ever wondered why beer company commercials tend to show young people drinking at picnics, beach parties, watching the game on TV and so on, and not old farts like me huddling over a pint in a dark pub?

 

It’s because the 20-49 age group accounts for most booze sales (from memory, it’s about 70% although that’s an old number).  Also, youngins (especially young men) are most likely to do stupid stuff, especially when drunk (“Hold my beer!”) and so it’s small wonder that the death rate is high.  Remembering my own misspent youth and narrow escapes, I’m amazed it isn’t higher.

Also from the article is another little snippet which makes me reach for the gin bottle:

“I’m not surprised at the numbers,” said David Jernigan, a professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University. “This is a conservative estimate.”

Health law and -policy?  Allow me to bring in a guest speaker for comment:

It’s all neo-prohibitionism, masquerading (as always) under the mantle of caring.

Fuck off, the lot of you.

16 comments

  1. Lies, damn lies, and statistics….

    As I’ve gotten older, I drink MUCH less on average. When I do decide to tie one on, I have a higher tolerance than I did when I was 16, have much more to lose from doing something stupid, and take much longer to physically recover the next day.

    Speaking of doing stupid things, Instagram related deaths (think mountain-top selfies, turning your back on a gorilla, etc) are much higher than the zero it was when I was a lad.

  2. Once again, thanks for taking one for the team by reading a CNN article so the rest of us don’t have to.

    Chinee fentanyl pouring over the border isn’t a threat, but alcohol is gonna kill us all. (eyeroll)

  3. I’ve read elsewhere that these stats generously attribute deaths to alcohol, which juices up the numbers. Like they did with Covid deaths.

    The flip side to the statistics is that accidents cause most deaths under 45 or so because this age group isn’t dying from disease very often. And drinking too much increases your risk of doing something really stupid and accidentally killing yourself. So this is hardly news.

  4. Forget the number. In a free society, one is entitled to stupid things, as long as one doesn’t hurt anyone else. Including jumping off cliffs, out of airplanes, sleeping with any number of disreputable womens (or mens, as the preference may be), and yes, getting smashed from time to time.

    As long as one is not a hazard on the roads, one’s drinking habits are no business of the State. Neither is whether one wears a seatbelt, for that matter. it harms no one but oneself. And I’m entitled to be do so if I choose – competent adults are perfectly free to do their own risk/benefit calculations.

  5. This is like the statistics that say (some alarming percentage) of auto accidents are due to speed or (some alarming percentage) of child deaths are due to guns…and then you realize they’re torturing the hell out of the statistics and including 3 mph over in a 70 zone and calling gang bangers children.

    1. Is is most likely that no torture was involved in the making of that statistic. You must remember this:
      “The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the Nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of those figures comes in the first instance from the village watchman who puts down what he damn pleases. ”
      Sir Josiah Stamp, UK Commissioner of Inland Revenue, 1896-1919.

      Unfortunately, the Inland Revenue/IRS/CRA etc. are not happy with one of us, putting down what he damn pleases…. would be nice!

      1. “Torture data long enough and it will confess to anything.”
        Nobel Laureate and economist Ronald H. Coase (1910-2013).

  6. Communists never learn from history. Gun ban 1.0 failed in 1775 as did “ass awlt weapons ban 2.0).

    Prohibition 1.0 failed, as will their attempt to impose 2.0 (but cannabis is A-OK).

    Anyone that votes for a socialist (obverse face of the communist coin) is to be rejected with scorn, instantly and automatically.

    Anyone that wants more misery, go ahead, vote for D candidates and Rinos (same as above coin), the end result is the same – failure and suffering which will back splatter on them in spades (or is that with spades? )

  7. Died from alcohol or with alcohol?
    The same reason that COVID deaths were inflated, to make a political point.

  8. I have this little thing called personal responsibilty.

    Statictics are for libs, commies and faggots (lots of ovrrlap there).

  9. Not to mention the TV commercials of two young women looking longingly at the vodka bottles on the table, or Kaley Cuoco flouncing around like a Joanie Appleseed handing out drinks to happy young people, or all the commercials depicting the women with the larger cocktail glasses.

  10. When I was young, we’d all go OUT and ABOUT and get drunk and do various stupid things, often prefaced with the immortal phrase “hold my beer!” My odds of dying were so high I’m frankly astonished to still be here.

    Now that I’m old, I often sit at home, on the patio, with a small fire going and polish off a bottle of bourbon. My chances of dying are much decreased while my alcohol intake is roughly the same. I’ll die, eventually, and hopefully either drunk, asleep, or both.

  11. While being young, dumb, and full of cum has a significant effect on alcohol consumption, I would also attribute some of it to the current state of America. Interestingly, the old Soviet Union led the world in alcohol consumption, and we all know what life was like in that corner of Socialist Hell.

    1. And, alcohol consumption in that Worker’s Paradise was at it’s highest just as the USSR collapsed. I wonder what it is now?

  12. And, alcohol consumption in that Worker’s Paradise was at it’s highest just as the USSR collapsed. I wonder what it is now?

  13. Some alcohol in the bloodstream makes the blood more “slippery” and therefore less prone to clotting for strokes and embolisms.

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