Before asking someone who says HPA are wrong and they are right, first find someone who said it, prat.

I said their data is one of a number of data sets used to form the picture. Their data is based on returns from commissioning returns. See www.hpa.org.uk for details.

Search HSJ if you must under public health. Or this governments rationale for the quango bonfire. Or see what The academy of Royal Colleges or NICE have to say about trusting arbitrary statistics. Howsabout The BMA and their take on clinical planning based on single source statistics. As much evidence as you wish. Even, if you must be lazy, the link I gave you was intranet, for which I apologise, I forget my Athens gets me in them. There will be the internet version by now if you care to look.

See? Why should I take you seriously when I keep saying a) the HPA data is fairly close to the picture directors of public health use, but not quite accurate enough for the people I work with. b) There is an issue with numbers of infections but the rest of the health worries of the country put these in perspective regarding action and the figures are used in isolation by groups, many religious ones in that, to push a homophobic agenda. c) You read something and throw it in the face of others, regardless of subject. If a government agency says so, it must be. Well it is, but allowing for errors. Errors that are catered for in the service commissioning data that pays for healthcare, which iI have to use each and every day.

I expect better than that from first year post grad management trainees, let alone the worlds leading expert on cutting and pasting and shouting with the text in his hand.

Zzzzz