I do not think it means what you think it means

As I go through stacks of lecture notes and work through different epidemiology formulas, I keep circling back to this particular side – and thus why good, precise scientific writing and phrasing matters.

In this case, if you weren't paying attention to what was actually being calculated, the easiest interpretation would be there is a 65% greater risk associated with male sex...the act, rather than the category of self-identification of male and female.

Sure, revising to "Risk of drug overdose mortality for males was 65% higher than for females" involves a few more words (and sometimes every character matters) but that kind of excess is probably better excess misinterpretation. But hey, maybe that's just me and my scientific writing zealot ways.

Today I learned...
Well, in theory, this was relearned, but my understanding of it is much better now after studying it a bit more. Relative risk, attributable risk, and population attributable risk – all of which underlie the debate (as highlighted by this Vox article) and ire around this summer's alcohol study (Professor Spiegelhalter's Medium blog post provides a good example of said fury). I plan to speak more to this in a future entry – full disclosure: I wrote or revised a lot of the first submission version of the paper with Max Griswold (lead author) and Emmanuela Gakidou (senior author) – but some main takeaways for now are:

1. The primary message was that, when you accounted for all risk-outcomes with strong causal evidence for alcohol use, the protective effects found for a few causes (i.e., cardiovascular diseases, diabetes for females) with low/moderate alcohol consumption were offset by increasing risk for cancers at similar levels of consumption.
2. Findings on the relative risk for overall health loss and alcohol consuption were meant to provide additional information to the broader debate around alcohol use and potential health benefits – that, despite the prevailing view that 1-2 daily drinks are beneficial to health outcomes, imbibing those bevvies actually don't promote healthier outcomes like you think they do. Bodies aren't silos where, after consumed alcohol is broken into its various bits (yes, that's the scientific terminology), they're only circulated through the cardiovascular system (moderate alcohol benefits hurrah!) and completely sequestered from potentially having negative effects on the liver, colon, etc. It's not how the current formulation of human bodies operate, and thus we shouldn't be viewing the associated risks for health outcomes in similar silos.
3. The paper was never meant to promote the total absention of alcohol consumption; rather, it sought to emphasize how population-level initiatives to reduce alcohol use, which may include efforts that promote abstention in some groups, could have a large impact on improving health outcomes and reducing disease burden. Whether those benefits outweigh the societal and individual costs of enjoying alcohol is up to decision-makers, clinicians, and individuals to weigh in on. I, for one, certainly enjoy my beer, and I don't plan to eliminate my consumption until or unless particular health states (e.g., pregnancy) or needs (e.g., unknown health challenges in the future) deem it as important. Here's the thing: I don't view drinking beer as beneficial to my physical health, and when I have a beer, I'm not drinking it because it's heart-healthy. I drink beer because it's tasty; I enjoy it with friends, family, and well, honestly by myself after a long day; and I view it as a comparatively "better" vice than guzzling soda (which I don't consume), smoking (tobacco-free is me), and other less-than-healthy dietary habits (e.g., I rarely, if ever, eat bacon and processed meats, which were classified as group 1 carcinogens in October 2015). 
4. In my opinion, the phrasing used in press releases – "No safe level of alcohol" – ultimately drove the widespread outry and misconceptions around the study. To the broader public (and I would argue most everyone), claiming there is no safe level of something suggests something much more sinister or scary than claiming there is no healthy level of something. For instance, when I discussed the paper and its press coverage with my mother, she indicated that she would have had very different reaction to the study if the lede had been "No healthy level of alcohol" rather than the phrasing "safe." Her view was that "no safe level" implied any exposure was toxic or dangerous, akin to nuclear radiation or mercury poisoning, whereas "no healthy level" would have de-emphasized the health-promoting benefits of alcohol use – what the main message was meant to be – without suggesting any amount was immediately ruinous for your health. Perhaps my rant above about the importance of good, precise scientific writing and phrasing had some earlier origins...

Today I'm grateful for...
The ending of daylight saving time, and that beautiful, beautiful extra hour of sleep last night.

Today's best part...
Was waking up feeling like I slept in until 8 am and realizing it was technically 7 am by today's clocks. Yes, today I'm doubling down on the wonderful thing called the end of daylight saving time.