The prevalence of diabetes in Malta has been found to be 7.7 per cent in a population of over-15s by Antoine Schranz’s epidemiological study published in Diabetes research and clinical practice in 1989. That would be around 6.2 per cent standardised to the entire Maltese population.

The incidence and prevalence of diabetes in this country were measured during our electronic health indicator data project for the European Commission and, again, the prevalence of diabetes mellitus stood at 6.25 per cent, standardised to an EU standard population (EU15).

I have collected and studied a research database extracted from the electronic patient records of about 10,000 patients (yearly average) registered with Maltese family doctors. The most recent estimate for the population prevalence of diabetes mellitus (type I and type II together, over a period of observation of five years from 2001 to 2005) was 5.9 per cent (standardised to the Maltese population in 2002), with an annual incidence of 0.5 per cent (non-standardised).

These figures were published in the international medical journal Family practice in 2012.

The fact that the prevalence is 10 times the incidence indicates that the prevalence of diabetes is stable, as I have published in my article in Informatics in primary care in 2012.

With three published estimates of the prevalence of diabetes, based on epidemiological studies, which are consistent and show a stable trend over 15 years, I cannot understand how Albert Cilia-Vincenti can state that the figure of six per cent prevalence is “decades old” or suggest it is incorrect. Can he share one single reference to an internationally-published epidemiological study, rather than a questionnaire survey, to substantiate any other figure?

It is indeed unfortunate that it is so easy for incorrect information to become ‘fact’ through mere repetition, as I have shown in my correspondence about primary care and road safety issues in the recent past. If one’s arguments do not tally with published facts and do not respect the rule of law, then reasoned argument is indeed impossible.