John Duffy

John Duffy's Linked In profile page, Screengrab taken 1 November 2013.

John Duffy is a retired academic and civil servant who is best known for his involvement in controversy over links to the alcohol industry. In 2012 Duffy co-wrote a report for the Adam Smith Institute with Christopher Snowdon attacking research from the University of Sheffield which supported Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol. This drew a twenty three page rebuttal from the Sheffield researchers.

Duffy lists his interests on his LinkedIn page as: 'Double standards in medical research - how public health advocates oversell the "evidence"'.

Education

• University of Reading M.Sc. in Biometry 1969-70


• University of Edinburgh B.Sc. Mathematical Science 2nd 1965-69
(1st in class Mathematical Statistics 4)

Career

After an early spell with British Steel Duffy got a job with the Department of Statistics at the University of Edinburgh and the Medical Research Council Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry and was based at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital from 1971. He wrote his first peer reviewed journal article on alcohol in 1977. Among his co-authors was the psychiatrist Jonathan Chick with whom he wrote two articles in 1978 and 1986

In 1989 Duffy was a ‘joint grantholder’ with Martin Plant of a five year award from the alcohol industry funded Portman Group for £500,000. Promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1990 he was seconded to the Alcohol Research Group at the Department of Psychiatry to undertake the Portman Group funded work.

Alcohol is good for you

Duffy was said in late 1994 to have ‘ In a number of recent articles… raised questions about the Government's current safe-drinking levels - 21 units per week for men, 14 for women - for which he says there is no scientific basis.’

Certainly it was the case the John Duffy repeatedly stated that alcohol was either good for you or not as bad as Public Health advocates had suggested. For example:

At a conference held by the Alcohol Research Group in 1991 Duffy reportedly described Alcohol Concern's figures on deaths a year due to alcohol in England and Wales erroneous and ‘based on poor research’:

he told the conference: It could be said that assming the relation between alcohol and mortality to be directly causal, alcohol consumption in the population, far from being a cause of excess mortality, is in fact a protective factor.

In 1993 ‘The Edinburgh International Science Festival yesterday was told that moderate drinking may be healthy.’

Dr John Duffy, of the Alcohol Research Group in Edinburgh… told of evidence from major studies suggesting that modest consumption, of less than two units of alcohol per day, actually improves longevity in comparison to abstinence.

Later that year Duffy advanced the same argument in the New Statesman and Society:

Alcohol is good for you, a researcher said today. The Department of Health's advice on sensible drinking limits may need revision upwards, said John Duffy of Edinburgh University. In an article in this week's New Statesman and Society magazine, Mr Duffy, director of statistics and information at the university's alcohol research group, said more than 20 major studies have now found that the risk of death, particularly from coronary heart disease, was lower among light and moderate drinkers than among abstainers…"Although there are still aspects of the controversy to be resolved, current opinion is that alcohol drinking really does have a protective effect against coronary heart disease and as a result against mortality from all causes," he said. The Department of Health's sensible limits advice may need revision if it is found there are net health benefits linked with consuming more than 21 units of alcohol per week - the "sensible" limit for men, Mr Duffy said.

The article was also reported in the Herald under the headline ‘Alcohol “is good for you”’, and in the Scotsman under the headline ‘A little of what you fancy does you good: it's official Moderate drinkers likely to outlive abstainers’

In December 1993 Duffy was quoted again:

Other experts believe the benefits of alcohol are being kept from the public for fear it will lead to more drunkenness. Control of consumption has dominated the debate while the potential benefits of moderate drinking have been ignored, said John Duffy, co-director of the Alcohol Research Group at Edinburgh University.

Nobody is suggesting heavy drinking is beneficial and most people know it is associated with cancer and liver disease. However, this idea of how many units you should drink has been plucked out of the air and is now interpreted as some sort of magic threshold. What we need is some common-sense advice on what alcohol does to you.

In February 1994 Duffy was again quoted:

Recommendations, embodied in official government documents such as Scotland's Health: A Challenge to Us are unaltered - 21 units a week for men and 14 for women should be your lot.

But one senior figure in the alcohol field believes this has no basis in scientific fact and its widespread promulgation discredits the medical community.

John Duffy, a senior lecturer in the Alcohol Research Group at Edinburgh University, said: "The idea of 21 units a week being a safe cut off was never true but it kind of got misinterpreted over the years. What was really a sensible level of consumption became a safe limit. "What is happening now is a great reluctance on the part of the chairs of these eminent committees that they might have to revise their position.

The medical profession is hierarchical and received wisdom is not readily challenged.

Making mistakes is not something they are very keen on admitting to."

None of these stories in the press revealed that Duffy and his research centre were supported by core funding from the alcohol industry.

Later career

Both his LinkedIn page and his online CV include a period (from November 2003 to August 2009) during which no employment is listed. After he retired (in 2012) Duffy set up a consultancy firm John C Duffy Statistical Consultants. In 2012 he worked with Christopher Snowdon on a report for the Adam Smith Institute published in November of that year.

Career overview

• April 2012 - Director at John C Duffy Statistical Consultants
• August 2009 - retired 30 March 2012 Deputy Director Knowledge Management Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council
• May 2001 – Nov 2003 Department of Primary Care University of Birmingham. Head of Statistics 


• Nov 1999 - May 2001 Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Edinburgh. Director of STATLAB and senior lecturer
• Nov 1996 - Nov 1999 Chief Scientist Office Scottish Office Department of Health. Research Manager (NHS Senior Manager Grade 7) 


• May 1990 - Oct 1996 Alcohol Research Group Department of Psychiatry University of Edinburgh Director of Statistics and Information Professorial Research Fellow – AR4 


• Sept – Nov 1988 Inveresk Research International Full-time Consultant Head of Statistics (secondment) 


• Jan 1971 - May 1990 Department of Statistics University of Edinburgh and MRC Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Joint appointment as lecturer 
and research scientist (Promoted to senior lecturer, 1990) 

• Oct - Dec 1970 Group Technical Department British Steel Corporation Ravenscraig Motherwell. Statistician

Resources, publications, contact, references

Publications

• John C. Duffy and Christopher Snowdon The Minimal Evidence for Minimum Pricing The fatal flaws in the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model London: Adam smith Institute, 2012.

Books

• Duffy, J.C., (1992) Alcohol and Illness: the Epidemiological Viewpoint, Edinburgh University Press.


• Duffy, J.C. (1991) Trends in Alcohol Consumption Patterns 1978-89, Henley on Thames: NTC Publications.


• Duffy, J.C. (1989) Generalized Linear Models In Epidemiology, EUSTAT, Vitoria, Spain. 


• Buglass, D., Kreitman, N. and Duffy, J.C. (1980) A register of social and medical indices by local government area in Edinburgh and the Lothians - Parts I and II (sep.). Central Research Unit Papers, Scottish Office. ca 150 pp.

Resources

• J. Bird Academic integrity. Proper review makes funding irrelevant. BMJ. 1995 April 22; 310(6986): 1068–1069. NB:This article has been retracted (See article by N Craft)
• Alan Brennan, Robin Purshouse, John Holmes and Yang Meng A public response to the Adam Smith Institute’s critique of the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model, January 2013. Technical appendix.
• N. Craft Letter fraud. BMJ. 1995 August 26; 311(7004): 523–524.
• Martin Plant, Moira Plant and Bryan Vernon Ethics, funding and alcohol research Alcohol and Alcoholism (1996) 31 (1): 17-25.
• John Rae, Academic integrity. Most people are not disgusted by the Portman group. BMJ. 1995 April 22; 310(6986): 1069.
• R. Smith Questioning academic integrity. BMJ. 1994 December 17; 309(6969): 1597–1598.

Contact

Telephone: 07803582169

Email: john@jcduffy.eu

Web: jcduffy.eu

CV: CV