What does advertising like this imply? Who is being targeted in this ad?
A study by John Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health reveals that alcohol is behind many ER visits. One step better, a certain well-known, some might even say, iconic, American lager is behind the majority of these visits caused by over-consumption of alcohol.
Say it ain’t so!
The beer is Budweiser, “the king of beers.”
The pilot study, published by Substance Use and Misuse, is the first study of its kind to assess alcohol consumption by brand and type from patients reporting to the emergency department with injury.
“Recent studies reveal that nearly a third of injury visits to Level I trauma centers were alcohol-related and frequently a result of heavy drinking,” said lead study author David Jernigan, PhD, CAMY director. “Understanding the relationship between alcohol brands and their connection to injury may help guide policy makers in considering taxation and physical availability of different types of alcohol given the harms associated with them.”
Got a whiff that there might be something behind these stories, as The Maine Sunday Telegram ran a front page “investigative” story about all the drunks driving Maine’s road ways, implying that Mainers weren’t safe. Oh, the hand-wringing this will cause!
I’m wondering what’s behind these stories and the implication that booze is bad? Is Barack coming for my Bud Light?
While overuse and abuse of any substance can cause harm, what’s being implied in a number of follow-ups to the study concerns me.
Like this CBS News story, where they indicate that “[The] authors said this study shows that there might need to be better labeling of alcohol content on malt liquor beverages, and malt liquor availability and marketing may need to be limited. They also suggested that a tax be put in place that increases according to the liquor’s alcohol content. This could discourage people from drinking beverages with high alcohol content.”
Great! The government again will be enlisted to save us from ourselves.
As for Budweiser, their PR people will be busy spinning this and I bet when things settle, their market share won’t suffer a bit. I’m pretty sure they’ll have a cold Budweiser waiting for me the next time I attend a sporting event. It might be sporting an additional tax, however, at least if politicians win the tug-o-war with the beer industry and its lobby.
Ah, Barack can have the Bud Lite, that stuff’s like sex in a canoe. But you betcha there’s something coordinated here, and given the history of Johns Hopkins, built from scratch to be the “research” arm of the Darwinian project to contain and control us unwashed masses, this doesn’t surprise me.
Taking a look at the abstract, one sees that this was a “feasibility” study, conducted in just one “urban” ER, in which 105 participants (out of how many who came to the ER?) cited 331 alcohol brands (poorly written, leaving unclear whether these 105 boozers drank 331 brands or chose their poison from among that fine selection). Within six hours of arriving at the ER. Followed by a bunch of claptrap designed to make it all sound like “SCIENCE!” (insert Thomas Dolby exclamation here)
Funded by… Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Follow the money. Who pays the piper calls the tune, and CDC obviously wanted something sciencey connecting alcohol to ER visits. So basically, they interviewed drunks who walked into the ER not needing real emergency care (because if they did, they shouldn’t be filling out netbook surveys) . Sciencey report in hand, they now lobby for social policy–jack up the taxes on the unwashed masses before they eat us out of house and home with their ER visits!
However, correlation is not causation. All this “feasibility” study showed is that some people in the emergency room are able to recognize brand names of alcoholic beverages. And from there the blowhards get “there might need to be better labeling of alcohol content on malt liquor beverages, and malt liquor availability and marketing may need to be limited. They also suggested that a tax be put in place that increases according to the liquor’s alcohol content. This could discourage people from drinking beverages with high alcohol content.”
Jim, this is nothing short of blatant fraud. The study did not find this, and said nothing of the sort, either. I hope Joe Sixpack finds Mr Jernigan, PhD, and punches him in the nose for the liar he is.
LP,
Your comments always liven up the JBE, but you’ve outdone yourself with this one.
“Readers, forgo the post, and go directly to the comment section!”
Nice work.
You know you need a blog in the worst way, right?
Wasn’t that how Lincoln introduced himself to Mary Todd? “I would like to dance with you in the worst way?” And according to Mary Todd, that’s exactly how he danced with her.
Thank you for your kind words, but I’ll stick to drive-bys for now.