Hilarious medical ignorance

Read the report below and see if you can see what these ivory-tower ignoramuses missed -- something that everyone in their job should have known. I give the answer at the bottom

The frustrating quest to develop a vaginal gel to prevent HIV infection was dealt a fresh blow as researchers said the first prototype to complete advanced clinical trials was ineffective. Carraguard, a candidate microbicide produced by the Population Council that had spent three years in large-scale "Phase 3" trials, was unable to prevent transmission of the AIDS virus, the investigators said.

But the gel was found to be safe for long-term vaginal use, a finding they described as extremely promising. "This is the first phase 3 microbicide efficacy trial to be completed with no safety concerns," said principal investigator Khatija Ahmed. "However, the study was unable to show Carraguard's efficacy in preventing male-to-female transmission of HIV."

The trial ran from March 2004 to March 2007 at three sites in South Africa among 6262 women. Half the volunteers were given the Carraguard gel and condoms, while the other half were given a placebo gel and condoms. All were given HIV education and safer-sex counselling. In the Carraguard group, 134 new HIV infections occurred, slightly fewer than the 151 in the placebo group. But Khatija Ahmed said the difference was not statistically significant and did not constitute evidence Carraguard was effective.

It is the third major setback in the seven-year-long drive to develop a vaginal microbicide, the term for a cream that would block or kill the AIDS virus during vaginal intercourse. Microbicides are one of the most eagerly-sought avenues in the war on AIDS, where at present there is neither a cure nor a vaccine and prevention depends on the condom or abstinence. Scientists are grappling for a means by which women, who are physically more at risk from AIDS infection than men, can protect themselves without having to rely on male consent to wear a condom....

South Africa has become a key testing ground for strategies against the global AIDS pandemic. It has 5.5 million people with HIV or AIDS, the highest number of any country in the world.

Source

What these politically correct South African megabrains missed is that AIDS is almost always transmitted via ANAL intercourse and anal intercourse is the traditional African method of contraception. The gel in the vagina didn't work because the black women got the AIDS through their ASSHOLES!






Bosses less likely to have cancer: Australian study

The stuff below is just a data dredging operation accompanied by a whole heap of speculation. Data dredging is when you look at a heap of data and highlight whatever differences you find there -- ignoring the fact that there will be a lot of differences there by chance alone. But that bosses are healthier is no surprise. That middle class people are healthier generally is a very common finding

Managers are less likely to have cancer, while shop assistants have a greater chance of suffering back pain and nurses have a higher rate of heart disease, according to a new Australian study. The survey, which is published Monday in the Medical Journal of Australia, analysed the records of more than 4,200 workers aged between 45 and 64 and found that about two-thirds had a medical condition.

It found that older workers with chronic conditions were more likely to be employed in certain industries such as retail, and health and community services, researcher Deborah Schofield said. "In the retail trade there was a significantly higher risk of musculoskeletal conditions -- so that's things like back injuries, or if you've injured your shoulder or arthritis," she told AFP on Sunday. "And then cardiovascular disease came out significantly higher in health and community services."

Schofield said that these findings jarred with the expectation that more muscle or bone injuries would be among construction workers or those in the transport, forestry or agriculture sectors where heavy lifting was required. "But, in fact, the reverse is what we found," she said.

"What we think happens is that retail, being part-time and not too heavy an occupation, that people, if they have those sort of injuries, (it means) they can remain in the workforce," she said.

Interpreting the data regarding cancer was also difficult. By occupation, the study found that the relative risk of a manager having neoplasms, or cancerous tumours, was found to be 0.25 compared to 0.40 for a tradesperson and 0.74 for labourers. "We don't know of any reason why they (managers) would be at lower risk as a result of being in that occupation," said Schofield, who is an associate professor at Sydney University, "What we think is that it may be that if you do have cancer that you're in secure jobs with very good sick leave arrangements so you're in a position to take time out of the workforce if you need to."

Schofield said it was possible that bosses sitting up in their corner offices were less exposed to carcinogens than other workers but this could not be proven. "So we don't think that you are necessarily, if you're in those jobs, less likely to get cancer. It's possibly more to do with your work arrangements when and if that does happen," she said.

Schofield said it was likely that illness forced people out of jobs, which resulted in lower rates of diseases in some industries. "This would seem to be the case for occupations such as tradespersons and labourers," which had low levels of all the medical conditions surveyed, she said.

Source.

More details here. Journal abstract here

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre's yield of cotton. He calculated the correlation coefficient between the two series at -0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic conditions and lynchings in Raper's data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his analysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic conditions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum. What a fine fellow!

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