Spot The Agenda!

There is a horrible story about a teenage girl who has had to have her stomach removed after drinking a cocktail containing liquid nitrogen (the nitrogen wasn't an ingredient in the cocktail, it got in there by mistake) at a bar.

Can you spot the the agenda of the spokesghoul/ shroud waver quoted by the Daily Mail?:

But last night Dr John Ashton, director of public health for Cumbria, said she was a victim of a dangerous gimmick used to sell more alcohol.
He said: 'This girl is the victim of an irresponsible alcohol industry that's now competing on gimmicks.
....

Dr Ashton said it was time the Government brought in better regulation of the drinks industry to stop such tragic incidents.
He said: 'It is shocking that a teenage girl goes out to celebrate her 18th birthday and ends up in intensive care with life-changing injuries.
'The alcohol industry uses these types of gimmicks to make alcoholic drinks more enticing - yet staff can use liquid nitrogen without any proper training.

....

'These things are allowed to continue in this country because of the Government's lack on control over the drinks industry.
'Essentially it amounts to a form of cowardice because there are drinks industry interests in every constituency and the Government is worried about repercussions.'

Expert Witnesses

In a column behind the Times paywall, football columnist Gabrielle Marcotti refers back to Zinedine Zidane's infamous head butt on Italian defender Marco Materazzi and more specifically the spurious accusations of racist abuse that were levelled against Materazzi.

Marcotti notes as an aside that the "lip reading experts" employed by the newspapers to reveal the fictitious abuse, who turned out to be either making it up or seeing what they wanted to see, are still frequently used as expert witnesses in criminal trials.

People have been convicted on the basis of the testimony given by lip reading experts.

Expert witnesses do appear to be a real problem in the criminal justice system in that they are giving evidence that non specialists, such as either the jury or the judges, are simply not competent to weigh.

The defence should cross examine the witnesses but even the greatest legal minds aren't going to be able to argue the minutiae of lipreading, paediatric medicine or gunshot particles with specialists in the field who may be wrong but at least understand the subject.

Expert Inflation

The best indicator that this is a non story the fact that the indignant expert they quote is "an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles". If they couldn't even find a full sociology professor to express disapproval doesn't this suggest that nobody really cares?