D*** happens!

Data may be just another "four letter word" to some. And for some advocates, data gets in the way of a good story. That's what's been happening as evidence unfolds about the bogus "salt hypothesis" where blood pressure-based computer modeling projecting health benefits from cutting back on dietary salt have been crushed by peer-reviewed studies showing worse outcomes and questioning even the physiologic possibility of modifying salt intakes.

Well, data is happening in other areas, too.

Recently, the American Heart Association journal Circulation published an analysis of 30 million Medicare beneficiaries' data (repeat, 30 million Americans' actual experience, not a computer projection). The data clearly documented that (surprise!) heart attack rates are in decline - just the opposite of what computer projections and prominent public health "experts" have claimed.

Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Yale University of Medicine and principal investigator for the study told the Wall Street Journal that the findings "breathtaking" and attributable to evidence-based prevention strategies. The same results are found in the general population, he claimed.

Of course, the new data came after the fear-mongers' success in enacting a government takeover of healthcare arguing the current situation was deteriorating. And consider a second point: these same big-government-knows-best "experts" are telling us we have a crisis in salt intake causing, according to recent headlines, a half million heart attacks a year based on their computer projections - when salt intake levels are unchanged over many decades and now we know that heart attack rates are in decline.

As Jeff Stier of the American Council on Science and Health notes: "This isn't consistent with their storyline that we need more government intervention like fast food bans to keep us healthy."

So, who to believe? The "experts" or the data?