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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