Hushing up the stats: Black Death v Swine Flu

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/ne...rn_of_swine_flu_1_587149?referrerPath=1.48925

Black Death v Swine Flu

Saturday, September 19: Available data - Black Death v Swine Flu


"The ?hushing-up? system is in sanitary matters about as dangerous as anything can well be? - The Lancet, 1870.

I've moaned on many an occasion about the lack of any helpful details on swine flu deaths. The website Straight Statistics shares my exasperation and points out: "When a British soldier dies in Afghanistan, we know within days the sex, age and region of residence of the fatality, together with the immediate cause of death. How different it is for swine flu."

Actually, there's a more stark example than the parallel with soldiers dying in Afghanistan: I can find out more details about people who died during a visit the Black Death to Cumbria in 1598 than I can about swine flu in 2009. For the Black Death I can tell you how many died, their names, where they lived, the precise date of their death, sex, occupation, partner's name, social class and whether they were buried in the churchyard or out on the Fells. No ages are given but it would be easy to work these out by checking with the baptismal records. In contrast the information given to the public about swine flu deaths in modern Britain in 2009 is: the number of deaths and... er, well that's it really.

The latest entrant for my "2009 Hushing Up Award" is the Department of Health in Northern Ireland. You may recall great confusion in the last few days as to whether a baby in the province died of swine flu or not. This wasn't helped by the Department of Health claiming it died of a heart condition not related to swine flu and yet the baby's death seemingly been added to the swine flu death tally in that week's figures released by the Health Protection Agency.

The Department of Health refused to release the sex or age of the baby. For goodness sake why not! One can fully appreciate the family wanting their details kept private but to say, for example, a baby boy of six months has died is hardly likely to intrude on their grief. I can't even tell you with any certainty on what date the baby died but it was probably September 15th, 2009

The medieval peasants scribbling on parchment 400 years ago did, it seem, a better job of recording data than 21st century man.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Hushing up the stats: Black Death v Swine Flu

Source: http://www.straightstatistics.org/article/h1n1-data-still-short-supply

Sheila Bird :: Thu, 03/09/2009 - 13:23

H1N1 data still in short supply

When a British soldier dies in Afghanistan, we know within days the sex, age and region of residence of the fatality, together with the immediate cause of death. How different it is for swine flu.

The numbers, coincidentally, are very similar. Since 27 April 2009, when UK had its first confirmed case of swine-flu, 58 British soldiers, all male and aged between 18 and 42, have lost their lives in Afghanistan. In addition, there had been at least 64 serious (or very serious) non-fatal casualties to mid August.

There have been 65 deaths from swine flu ? but about these we know much less. As pregnant women, doctors and nurses indicate they have doubts about whether they will agree to be vaccinated against H1N1 flu, this gap needs to be filled.

The surveys in which these groups responded have low response rates, and constitute unreliable dence quantitatively. But, qualitatively, they can raise issues that need proper quantitation. At next week?s 175th anniversary conference of the Royal Statistical Society in Edinburgh, Professor Sir John Savill (Edinburgh University?s professor of experimental medicine and Chief Scientist to the Scottish Government?s Health Directorates) will chair a hot-topic session on the issue.

Meanwhile, we need to know:

* The age-distribution of those ever-hospitalised in England for confirmed H1N1 - lacking partly because virological testing, even for those in hospital with suspected swine-flu, is far from guaranteed.
* The numbers of suspect/confirmed H1N1 maternities - defined as live-births or still-birth when foetus had reached at least 24 weeks of gestation - in May to August 2009. UK has around 700,000 maternities a year, has had at least two H1N1 maternal deaths, but how many suspect/confirmed H1N1 maternities have there been? This is not the first time we have called for this data, but it is still lacking.
* The numbers (by age-group) who have been randomized in controlled trials of H5N1 vaccines in UK and world-wide. European Medicines Evaluation Authority website gives an account of GSK?s pre-pandemic H5N1 vaccine as having been tested for effectiveness in dose-ranging studies in some 400 persons aged 18-60 years and in some 400 aged 60+ years. However, this account is unlikely to be the complete picture world-wide; it fails to offer 95% confidence intervals on effectiveness; and it does not concern itself with safety.
* The numbers (by age-group) who are planned to be randomized in controlled trials of both the GSK and the Baxter H1N1 vaccines in UK and world-wide before these vaccines are sanctioned to be provided to priority groups who, in UK, include healthcare workers. Information that is available is limited.
* Will the provision of H1N1 vaccine to priority groups be formally designed so that there is robust evidence about the infrequency of serious adverse events, and real-world effectiveness? Currently, the website of UK?s Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority suggests that a variant of its notoriously-basic yellow card scheme is all that is on offer

Perhaps today?s briefing by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, will refer journalists to more authoritative immunization, pharmaceutical industry and regulatory sources than I, as statistician-member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee (which has not met since swine-flu hit the UK), have come up with.

In particular, where are protocol-outlines for randomized controlled trials of H1N1 vaccines registered which summarise the basic experimental designs and numbers to be randomized?

Scottish schools returned earlier than in England. Today?s update by Health Protection Scotland may signal if school-age swine-flu consultations in Scotland have begun to rise.

 

[JimO]

Re: Hushing up the stats: Black Death v Swine Flu

The medieval peasants scribbling on parchment 400 years ago did, it seem, a better job of recording data than 21st century man.

I laughed out loud when I read this. Maybe I'm getting delirious, but that struck me as extremely funny.