Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen — 3 October 2024 – 850 words/3 minutes
From the annals of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation comes this beauty of a headline above a news story (h/t Matt Briggs) :
Global Stroke Burden Continues to Rise, With Climate Change Gaining Influence
And the news? Nothing really, just yet another Global Burden of Disease paper in the Lancet: “Global, regional, and national burden of stroke and its risk factors, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021”
John Hopkins says:
“A stroke, or brain attack, happens when blood flow to your brain is stopped. It is an emergency situation.”
There are generally three different types of strokes:
“Strokes can be classified into 2 main categories:
Ischemic strokes. These are strokes caused by blockage of an artery (or, in rare instances, a vein). About 87% of all strokes are ischemic.
Hemorrhagic stroke. These are strokes caused by bleeding. About 13% of all strokes are hemorrhagic.”
And two sub-types:
“Hemorrhagic strokes occur when a blood vessel that supplies the brain ruptures and bleeds….
Intracerebral hemorrhage. Bleeding is from the blood vessels within the brain.
Subarachnoid hemorrhage. Bleeding is in the subarachnoid space (the space between the brain and the membranes that cover the brain).”
One more piece of information:
“The occurrence of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a devastating cerebrovascular event that accounts for 5% of all strokes”
You may be asking yourself this question:
“What could be the possible causal connection between Climate Change and the occurrence of stoke in the general worldwide population?”
And a good question is far more valuable than a good answer.
My answer? There is no causal connection – not even a barely biologically plausible connection or association. Nothing whatever.
But as always, The Science must have its way and The Science insists that if something is bad – as in undesirable – then it must be caused by Climate Change.
And sure enough, a dedicated group called “GBD 2021 Stroke Risk Factor Collaborators” (a list of authors 1,700 long) wrote the Lancet Neurology report linked in the first paragraph.
Usually, I suspect immediately that the journalist, in this case, Todd Neale, has paraphrased something he thinks the authors have said. But no, the paper includes this:
“These findings are in line with research showing that rises in ambient temperature (including heatwaves) and climate change are associated with increased stroke morbidity and mortality. Because ambient air pollution is reciprocally associated with the ambient temperature and climate change, all of which synergistically influence cardiovascular disease (including stroke) occurrence and overall health, the importance of urgent climate actions and measures to reduce ambient air pollution cannot be overestimated. Experts have recommended that governments increase implementation of a clean-energy economy, promote unprocessed plant-based food choices, and globally phase out industrialised animal farming.”
If one ever needed additional proof of John P.A. Ioannidis’ finding that “Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” – this is it.
And what is the evidence on which the 1,700 authors base this statement? Here is their visual summary:
[click here to see larger image in new tab/window]
There it is – The Science. Let’s look carefully and see if we can find climate change as a “risk factor” on the left-hand side of each of the four sections.
NOTE: Risk factors are not themselves causes. Risk factors are conditions or behaviors that have been found to be associated with an increase in incidence of some outcome. The graphic above shows risk factors and not causes.
Ah, there is no occurrence of Climate Change as a risk factor. In fact, in the panels A, B and C, there are no risk factors that are components of climate at all – not even components of weather.
But, there is always a way where the outcome is predetermined!
Down on the right, in panel D, which is about risk factors of Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), which represents 5% of all strokes, we see at the bottom of the list, Low Ambient Temperature and High Ambient Temperature.
Yes, by golly, those are components of weather (and long-time weather adds up to climate).
And we can see that they have found that Low Ambient Temperature (How low? Who knows?) to be a risk factor in 4.5% of the 5% of strokes worldwide. This means that COLD may be a contributing factor in 0.225% (0.00225) of the Global Burden of Stroke.
And High Ambient Temperature? (How high? Who knows?) A risk factor in 1.1% of SAH stokes, which are, to repeat, only 5% of total Global Stroke Burden. This brings the risk factor of High Ambient Temperature for the Global Stroke Burden to a frightening 0.055% (or 0.00055).
Hey but where is the evidence for CHANGE? As in Climate Change?
There is none.
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Author’s Comment:
I wish I could say that this kind of reporting is an anomaly – the exception. Unfortunately, it is not. It is now the norm.
We are fed a constant stream of propaganda in place of news – propaganda in place of science news – propaganda in place of science research findings.
Don’t ask me about politics.
Thanks for reading.
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Speaking of strokes, connect these dots..
Afib increases the risk of stroke something like 5 times. Afib is mostly a
problem in the US, Canada, & Europe, it’s very rare in the 3rd world..
. The number of afib cases increased
significantly after the covid vaccine was released. Pfizer and
Bristol Myers holds the patent on elliquis a blood thinner and Pfizer the covid vaccine.
A old friend’s son recently died
in his sleep, young very healthy, athletic , and yes he got the jab..
Yes there is a “climate” and stroke involvement but there is no connection
to weather.
Afib is “… very rare in the 3rd world …”. Or is it just not diagnosed? (And we don’t call it the third world anymore – they are “under-developed nations”.
In England, AF cases increased by 72% from 1998 to 2017, with annual diagnoses rising from 117,880 to 202,333.
No, the rise is not due to Covid vaccinations, it has been under way for decades before Covid was even thought of.
What is it due to? Probably a mixture of improved and more frequent diagnosis, and increases in obesity related conditions such as diabetes.
The increase in diagnosis is due to increased awareness of the risks. For much of the last century Atrial Fibrillation was thought of as just one of those things, of no particular significance.
Elliguis (generic apixaban) is one of several second generation anti-coagulants, the one with the fewest side effects. It is a great improvement over warfarin, the previous treatment for AF. It is largely unaffected by diet, unlike warfarin.
Warfarin works, greatly lessens the chance of a clotting stroke due to the irregularity of the heartbeat. The cause of the increased risk is that the chambers of the heart beat out of sync, and so blood pools in between beats, which raises the risk of clotting.
But warfarin’s effects are greatly influenced by diet, specifically the amount of vitamin K in the diet. Since this can vary wildly from week to week and season to season, clinics keep trying to maintain the INR levels by adjusting the warfarin dose. There is a three day lag however, so if you change the dose that only has an effect in three days time. The effort to control INR by modifying the dose therefore mostly just leads to larger fluctuations.
The right way to control INR with wafarin is to take a high and constant amount of vitamin K. This way ordinary dietary fluctuations don’t much affect the total amount of K. But clinics never go into this in with patients, when they do patients prove unable to control their diets, and so cardio departments spend their time endlessly frustrated with the inability of primary providers to manage their patients’ INR. And even an informed and conscientious patient can see their INR on warfarin move from below 2 to above 4 for no apparent reason.
Apixaban is not totally immune to dietary effects – some spices, particularly turmeric, have potentiating effects on it. But in general its a great improvement over what there was before. Not least because it does not require regular blood testing, and it frees patients from the well intentioned but futile efforts of the nurses to regulate INR by changing the dose, which was is like being a driving instructor when one’s dual control only works with a five second lag!
Apixaban and the other newer anti coagulants have put an end to all that. The developers are greatly to be thanked.
The problem with apixaban and similar drugs is that there is no reversal agent, which can be an issue for example if the person develops a gastrointestinal tract bleed. Warfarin can be reversed with vitamin K in an emergency. If a person presents with a CVA then a scan is required to determine whether it’s thrombotic or haemorrhagic, as the first line for the former is thrombolysis. If the patient has an intracerebral haemorrhage and they’re on warfarin then they are treated with vitamin K and prothrombin, if on direct oral anticoagulants then prothrombin alone.
https://www.strokeguideline.org/?_gl=1%2Axrqmyw%2A_up%2AMQ..%2A_ga%2ANTU4ODQ1ODA5LjE3MjgxMzE1
Apparently these 1,700 authors never considered the possibility of this being a spurious correlation between two variables increasing during the same time span.
My Rule of Thumb is that the value of a research publication is inversely proportional to the number of authors jumping on the Band Wagon.
How many of the 1700 “authors” don’t even know the contents of this paper?
Tony G ==> I suspect that ALL the authors knew what the study would find — before any of the research was done — it was pre-determined by consensus.
Stress. That is a risk factor. and hype about climate change increase stress. There you have it. The final connection linking climate change to strokes. Couldn’t be more simple.
Having suffered a stroke in May and having 8 days in a stroke unit I think the main contributing factor was my age, 86.
My parents lived to 64 and 72.
My grandparents 46,77, 61 and 71.
My G-grandparents 26,29,81,64,68 and 81.
My G-G-grandparents 55,69,83,66,42,57,48,82 and 74.
My G-G-G-grandparents 77,72,77,79 and 82.
All the above younger (some very much younger) than me.
A good medicine aiding my recovery has been my E Mail correspondence with Kip, which has been on going for many years. A Big Thank You, Kip, may we both keep going for many more years.
I can now walk a km to and a km back from the nearest pub so there’s hope for me!!
Alan ==> Raise a glass of England’s best for me! It has long been thought that the UK’s pubs often offered the best therapy.
Good information Kip.
.
If they were looking for the causes of a sudden rise in the occurrence of stroke in the general worldwide population, time would be better spent investigating the effect of so-called mRNA ‘vaccines’ rather than drawing the long bow on ‘Climate Change’.
Another excellent article. Thank you.
Larry ==> Thank you.
First, it isn’t reporting at all.
Second, “… ambient air pollution is reciprocally associated with the ambient temperature and climate change, …“. Does this mean that if “ambient air pollution” decreases, then “ambient temperature and climate change” increase? I don’t think that that statement fits the narrative.
Retired ==> There are two items being discussed: The original research journal article and the report at the web site of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation.
And I confess: I have no idea what they thought they were saying.
Not only does it not seem to fit their narrative, it does not seem to make any sense.
An alternative view is that warmer weather means that people are living longer which means that they become more likely to have a stroke.
OK. Let’s believe them– risk of SAH is 4% in cold weather and 1% in hot…..Doesn’t that mean GW is good for our health?
guido ==> Yes.
This is a revolutionary study, given that it goes against everything known so far <tongue in very cheek, if you please>