Higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a greater magnitude of weight gain and an increased risk for development of type 2 diabetes in women, possibly by providing excessive calories and large amounts of rapidly absorbable sugars.
Todd Zywicki, who endorsed Milloy's piece as a "devastating critique" has mounted a defence of Milloy. Unfortunately it is clear that Zywicki has not read the article (subscription required) or even the abstract describing the study.
Zywicki dismisses concerns about Milloy's character raised by Davies and John Quiggin as not relevant to the question of whether the JAMA study is a good one or not. It isn't, but Zywicki hasn't read the JAMA study. Instead he is relying on Milloy to accurately describe it. Milloy's character suggests that his description of the study might be misleading; and in fact it is misleading and as we will see below, Zywicki has been mislead.
Zywicki writes:
Milloy says that the once the researchers "statistically adjusted their results for bodyweight (a risk factor for diabetes) and for caloric intake (a proxy measure of consumption of sweetened foods other than soda), the 83 percent increase [in type 2 diabetes prevalence] dropped to an even more statistically dubious (and soft-pedaled) 32 percent increase." Now it seems to me that Milloy is obviously correct here---bodyweight and non-soda caloric intake seem to me to obviously relevant to trying to isolate the marginal effect of the increased soda consumption. So the 83 percent figure is really an irrelevant number
Milloy has mislead Zywicki into thinking that the 83% increase in diabetes was partly caused by confounds---that the women who drank more sugary drinks also happened to be heavier and eat more and that these factors are what caused most of the increase. But right in the abstract they clearly state (my emphasis):
After adjustment for potential confounders, women consuming 1 or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks per day had a relative risk [RR] of type 2 diabetes of 1.83 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.42-2.36; P<.001 for trend) compared with those who consumed less than 1 of these beverages per month.
So what is the 32% figure that Milloy tried to pass off as the "real" increase? Well, they found that increased soda consumption was associated with weight gain and weight gain is known to be a risk factor for diabetes. The 32% increase is the extra risk factor for soda consumption on top of the increase from the weight gain from drinking more soda. It would only be the real risk if sugar-sweetened drinks did not cause weight gain, but they do.
This is not the only matter that Milloy has misled Zywicki about. Zywicki writes:
Milloy similarly notes that the study does not control for genetics or lifestyle issues
But the study did control for genetics and lifestyle issues (my emphasis):
We evaluated whether the association between sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption and risk of diabetes was modified by BMI, physical activity, and a family history of diabetes using analyses stratified by these variables and by modelling interaction terms.
Milloy even accuses the authors of "scientific misconduct" for not mentioning another study that Milloy alleges contradicts their results. But that other study was not about soft drink consumption but about overall sugar consumption. The new study suggests that consuming sugar in a drink where it is more rapidly absorbed may increase the risk of diabetes. This is hardly contradicted by results that suggest that sugar intake including that in solid food is not a risk factor. Zywicki endorses the serious charges that Milloy makes without checking whether they are accurate.
Update: The Washington Times has also published Milloy's misleading article and Reason's Nick Gillespie was also taken in. Matthew Yglesias reckons that libertarians should just argue that they have a right to unhealthy food instead of trying to debunk the science that shows them to be unhealthy.
Update 2: Nick Gillespie links here (thanks!) and to a Tech Central Station article by Jon Robison that criticizes the JAMA study. Robison, like Milloy, tries to pass of the 32% increase in diabetes, which is the extra risk after accounting for the effect of weight gain, as the total increase in risk. Robison also asserts that "Epidemiologists generally agree that relative risks less than 2 should be ignored or at least viewed with extreme skepticism". In fact, epidemiologists do not "generally agree" with this. I explain why in this post.
On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt. ... we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments. ... But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness
On the allegation of withholding temperature data, we find that CRU was not
in a position to withhold access to such data or tamper with it. ... On the allegation of biased station selection and analysis, we find no evidence
of bias. ... We do not find that the way that data derived from tree rings is described and presented in IPCC AR4 and shown in its Figure 6.10 is misleading. ... On the allegations that there was subversion of the peer review or editorial
process we find no evidence to substantiate this ... On the allegations that in two specific cases there had been a misuse by CRU scientists of the IPCC process, in presenting AR4 to the public and policy makers, we find that the allegations cannot be upheld
Yes, it's another vindication. Steve McIntyre isn't admitting that he got it wrong, continuing to insist that Briffa broke IPCC rules while writing AR4. Oddly enough McIntyre fails to quote these IPCC rules that he alleges were broken. Where's the transparency?
The scientists revealed they have been told to "go gargle razor blades" and have been described as "Nazi climate murderers". Some emails have been sent to them without any attempt by the sender to disguise their identity. Even though the scientists have received advice from the FBI, the local police say they are not able to act due to the near-total tolerance of "freedom of speech" in the US.
Marc Morano regularly posts the email addresses of climate scientists to be targetted with such emails over at Climate Depot. (And please do not email him -- it will only encourage him.)
Last week, CEI's Christopher Horner, writing at Pajamas Media claimed that Gabriel Calzada (author of a dodgy study claiming that Spain's green energy program had cost many jobs) had been mailed a dismantled bomb by a solar energy company. As Ed Darrell observes, the story is preposterous (even without considering the source), but a whole lot of self-styled global warming skeptics uncritically accepted it. And even after the story was completely retracted, folks like Anthony Watts and Andrew Bolt did not make corrections.
Thingsbreak finds some value in a New Scientist "He said, she said" story by Fred Pearce on the dreadful McLean et al paper (you know, the one that removed the long term trend and then made much of the fact that after you did that CO2 had little effect on temperatures):
This article should be held up as a model for how reporting should not be done.
I agree.
Also in New Scientist, Chris Mooney reviews Fred Pearce's book about the emails stolen from CRU:
The Investigatory Committee, after careful review of all available evidence, determined
that there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann, Professor,
Department of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University.
More specifically, the Investigatory Committee determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did
not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously
deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing,
conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities.
The decision of the Investigatory Committee was unanimous.
Deep Climate investigates Steve McIntyre's claim that, in the IPCC TAR, Michael Mann used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in Briffa's tree-ring proxy. You will be shocked, just shocked, to discover that:
So, once again, the accusation that Mann "truncated" or "chopped off" the data set is proven to be utterly false.
Following the Sunday Times's retraction of the fraudulent Jonathan Leake story, there are a whole bunch of people who relied on Leake's story that would seem to need to make corrections.
Most notably, The Australianreprinted Leake's story, so you'd think they'd have to retract too, but you never know with The Australian.
Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
