We may have been born at night, but we weren't born last night.

The BBC don't seem to expect people to read their articles anymore. They just think we will read the scary headline and say, "Please think of the chiiilldren!"

Children aged four in Wales' A and Es for drink and drugs

Children aged four drinking and taking drugs? This is the bit where you are supposed to scream, pull your hair and proclaim that something must be done. Please don't read on though as you may be disappointed.

More than 800 children have ended up in casualty in each of the past three years having drunk alcohol

32,325 children were born in Wales in 2004. That means 2.4% of children have been to casualty for alcohol related issues, or 31,525 children haven't.

Of course these figure will not relate to 800 individual children, some of these will be repeat visitors to A and E. Still, 2.4% is quite high, should we not be working to bring down these figures? Well what the BBC does not tell you is that these figures are declining year on year. The BBC even supply these figures, they just think we are too stupid to read them:

Look at the totals in the bottom line. That shows an increase of admissions from 605 in 2006 to 833 in 2010. An overall increase of 228.

Won't someone think of the.... Oh, wait. Take a look at the figures from Cardiff and Vale. They haven't supplied any for 2006/7.

If we take the average for 2008/9/10, 262, and apply that to the total figure for 2006 we get 867. That's an overall decrease of 34.

It's not a huge decrease but it's going in the right direction.



Won't some one please... Oh, wait. I really must start reading all the way through before tearing my clothes.

14 under 11's were admitted to A and E in 2006 and 12 were admitted in 2010. I wonder how many of them were aged four. Was it one? I bet it was one. And notice the trend? The figures, small as they are, are decreasing.

So overall, admission to A and E for under 18's with alcohol related illnesses are on the decline. This is good news right?

Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh secretary of the British Medical Association, said the issue was "increasingly worrying".

Increasingly worrying? It's increasingly worrying that admissions are decreasing. Concerned about funding are we?

"I think it's pretty well recognised by health services and health professionals that there's an increasing problem with both alcohol and drug-related incidents with younger and younger people," said Dr Lewis.

It's not though, is it. The figures above were included in the BBC report and they show a year-on-year decrease.

"We see year-on-year increases with attendances at A and E departments, particularly for alcohol."

Liar! This is BBC reporting at it's best. Get a set of figures, don't bother to read them, don't expect us to have the capacity to understand them and bring on a 'health professional' to lie his arse off and tell us the figures show exactly the opposite of what they do show.

One young person in casualty as a result of alcohol and drugs was one too many, he said.

No it isn't. I can't stand the, "If it saves just one life" argument. Responses to problems need to be proportionate. The lobbyists will happily make alcohol unobtainable to adults in their efforts to stop children drinking it. We do need to keep child consumption as low as we can, but not so that it penalises responsible adults in the process.

This problem, like many others, will not go away entirely.

"It is increasingly worrying. The BMA and the health profession have been advancing for some time the importance of raising the awareness of alcohol in particular," he added.

I think we are all well aware of alcohol by now. The figures for child admissions to A and E are on the decline. Maybe it's time to rein yourselves in a bit.

The former North Wales Police deputy chief constable said efforts to prevent the sale of alcohol to children was "easily circumvented" by older people buying it on their behalf.

Yes but that's still illegal, it isn't a get out clause.

"The second reason [for alcohol's popularity] is the general thrust of marketing," he added.
"The drink companies are on social networking sites and there's still a lot of direct advertising going on through sports sponsorship and so on.

This new belief that the nasty alcohol companies are targeting children of social networking sites is an utter con perpetuated by Don Shenker and his taxpayer funded cronies.

Alcohol companies advertise, as does anyone with a product to sell. They are not trawling Facebook trying to recruit the next generation of teenage alcoholics.

And as for the BBC, if it is always going to be necessary for bloggers to clean up and clarify your reports, maybe you should be paying us for the service.