A European health initiative

Your local medical centre is always a rich source of government propaganda, and I noticed some fine examples the other day, but this one stood out from the rest:

Did you know that the EU had assumed responsibility for our health?

I blogged about EuroNannying back in 2011. A quick visit to europa.eu shows that the Eurocrats are still expressing great concern for our youth:

They're looking after us grown-ups too, protecting us from harm-reduction products like e-cigarrettes and snus ('quit or die' seems to be their preferred approach, though in practice they're quite happy for you to be forever dependent on nicotine gums and patches, the officially sanctioned solution from Big Pharma):

[As ever, Christopher Snowdon's blog is the best to follow for such matters]

In typical style, EU ambitions in the field of public health are proudly displayed for all to see:

The Health and Consumers Directorate-General is pleased to present the Health-EU Portal (the official public health portal of the European Union) and the wide range of information and data on health-related issues and activities at both European and international level. The main objective of this thematic Portal is to provide European citizens with easy access to comprehensive information on Public Health initiatives and programmes at EU level. The portal is intended to help meet EU objectives in the Public Health field, it is an important instrument to positively influence behaviour and promote the steady improvement of public health in the 27 EU Member States.
...
The Portal is an initiative of the Community Public Health Programme 2003-2008 intended to permit greater involvement of individuals, institutions, associations, organisations and bodies in the health sector by facilitating consultation and participation. In this framework, attention is given to the right of the EU population to receive simple, clear and scientifically sound information about measures to protect health and prevent diseases. One of the main aims of the portal is to convey that citizens share responsibility for improving their health. Increased awareness of the different EU activities and programmes relating to Public Health will help the general public contribute to and support them.

The Policy is further explained on the page linked above:

The EU is required by its founding treaty to ensure that human health is protected as part of all its policies, and to work with the EU countries to improve public health, prevent human illness and eliminate sources of danger to physical and mental health.

The EU's strategy for protecting and improving human health is chiefly implemented by the health programme. It is one of several programmes to implement health policy at EU level.

The EU is a danger to my mental health and I hereby request that they disband forthwith. More likely, I'll find myself on somebody's list, to be locked away with all the other lunatics. What else but mental illness could explain such phenomena as 'climate change denial' ...

Snowdon: That non-existent slippery slope again

Another excellent post from Christopher Snowdon:

Simon Chapman, 2011:

"The tobacco industry and its stooges played the same slippery slope arguments over advertising bans, sports sponsorship bans and pack warnings . Ad bans started 35 years ago. No alcohol advertising ban and no momentum I’m aware of other than breaking the sport/alcohol nexus. So the slope ain’t very slippery folks …."

Deborah Arnott, 2012:

Thirdly, the “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited.

The Sunday Telegraph, today:

Doctors call for ban on TV adverts for alcohol

Thirty leading medical bodies and charities have called for a total ban on advertising for alcohol on television... If the demands of the alliance are met, they would have a major impact not just on TV advertising but also on sport sponsorship.

Fancy that!

As usual, the whole article is well worth reading.

First steps towards SmokeFree Movies?

One of the crazier neo-prohibitionist schemes highlighted at Velvet Glove, Iron Fist in recent months was the idea of SmokeFree Movies:

Welcome to the world of SmokeFree Movies, [Stanton] Glantz's quixotic campaign to banish tobacco from our screens (for the children, natch). Despite years of being ridiculed and ignored on this issue, Stan is continuing his crusade and has written yet another paper on the subject (he has written a lot).

Today, he claims that 100,000 Californian 12-17 year olds are smokers as a direct result of seeing smoking in the movies. This is a figure that he alone invented and which even hardcore anti-smoking head-bangers like Simon Chapman find laughable.

Laughable indeed.  But this evening I happened so see an alarming notice in the end credits of the Sherlock Holmes sequel:

No person or entity associated with this film received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of tobacco products.

For all I know, these notices have been obligatory for years (perhaps as part of a tobacco advertising ban), but whether they're required by current statutes or simply included to avoid future legal trouble, it's an outrageous imposition.

Whatever you may think of the practice of 'product placements', it's surely not the sort of thing that should be illegal.  When the government sees fit to outlaw paid depiction of tobacco products, what's to stop them from applying the same logic to alcohol and soft drinks?  And how long before they decide that any depiction, paid or unpaid, should be forbidden?

We are a long way down the slippery slope.

UPDATE:

Sure enough, Googling for the notice above turns up a hit at http://www.smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu.  It's the second point of their four-point plan:

2. Certify no pay-offs. The producers should post a certificate in the closing credits declaring that nobody on the production received anything of value (cash money, free cigarettes or other gifts, free publicity, interest-free loans or anything else) from anyone in exchange for using or displaying tobacco.
Where we are now: In 2008, Time Warner began including the following language in the end credits of selected films: “No person or entity associated with this film received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of tobacco products.”

So it seems that what we have at the moment is voluntary compliance with the demands of some unpleasant monomaniacs. A disturbing development, nonetheless.

Propaganda 2012

Most people assume that propaganda is purely a wartime device - something that was inflicted on generations past. But it continues to this day, and nowhere more obviously than in the field of 'public health'.

It works like this:

1. An anti-tobacco fanatic publishes an absurd report, with claims that aren't supported even by their cherry-picked and carefully-massaged data
   
2. The findings are promoted by the BBC News website under the headlines 'Smoke ban: Premature births down' and 'Fewer premature births after smoking ban in Scotland'
3. BBC Breakfast reports "from a maternity ward in Scotland, where the smoking ban has had an effect on the size and delivery dates of babies"
4. Ordinary decent people take the BBC report at face value
5. Any articles questioning the prohibitionist claims reach a much smaller audience. When forwarded to ordinary decent people, the debunking articles often confuse rather than convince. Conflicting claims! Who to trust? Best to err on the side of caution.
6. The public has been softened up for the next draconian measure:

According to the British Heart Foundation, there are more than nine million smokers in the UK, and smoking remains the UK's biggest cause of avoidable early death.

It says the focus should now shift to the effect of smoking in the home and confined spaces, such as cars, especially where children are present.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We are continuing to build upon the achievements made to protect future generations from the devastating effects of smoking such as bans on cigarette vending machines and the displays in shops.

"We are committed to ensuring a new comprehensive robust tobacco control strategy for Scotland is developed this year. This strategy will focus on prevention and cessation and include ambitious targets for reducing smoking across Scotland."

Do read the whole BBC News article, but especially read Christopher Snowdon's excellent blog post on the subject.

On the "drop in the number of babies born prematurely or with low birthweight", the BBC article notes, in passing, that

The investigators believe both are linked to the smoking ban, even though these rates started to go down some months before the ban was introduced and smoking incidence started to creep up again shortly after the ban.

and

while their work suggests a link, it is not proof that one thing necessarily causes another. As with all retrospective studies like this, it is impossible to rule out entirely all other factors that might have influenced the finding.

This is balance, BBC style. The intended message has already been conveyed forcefully in the headline and first eight paragraphs, and it is hammered home again in the concluding paragraphs (quoted above). Even their qualifications stress that "the investigators believe both are linked to the smoking ban" and that "their work suggests a link".

Here, from Christopher Snowdon's article, are the relevant graphs:

And here's the data from the report itself:

Are the BBC headlines justified?

Smoke ban: Premature births down

Fewer premature births after smoking ban in Scotland

Make up your own mind.

What's the cause of widespread pub closures?

BBC News reports:

The rising price of beer, fuelled by increases in taxation, has been blamed for widespread pub closures - the Campaign for Real Ale says 14 are shutting down each week. In response, Forsyth says, consumers have taken advantage of cheap supermarket offers and switched to drinking at home.

I suppose we should be grateful that they mentioned the impact of tax rises, but has it not occurred to the author that the smoking ban might have something to do with people switching to drinking at home? Or has he considered this, and decided not to mention it?

A Valentine's Day message from nanny

Another excellent post from Christopher Snowdon:

In these times of austerity, with Greece in flames and the UK in mind-boggling debt, it's reassuring to know that the Department of Health still has money for crucial, front-line services such as commissioning surveys about who people want to kiss.

To boost your chances of dating success this Valentine's Day quit the fags, suggests a poll that shows smoking is one of the biggest turn-offs.

Three-quarters of people aged 18 to 24 said they would not kiss someone who had just smoked.

And half the 1,700 people surveyed for the Department of Health (DoH) said they would think twice about starting a serious relationship with a smoker.

I'm married and I hate young people so I have no dog in this fight, but is this really the best the DoH can do? This is just a reworking of the old "lips that touch liquor will never kiss mine" meme from the 19th century.

I don't care. Smokers can pair off with smokers and nonsmokers can pair off with nonsmokers. Kiss who you want. It's none of the Department of Health's business.

Like Snowdon, I'm old and married. I don't have any interest in the kissing habits of 18-24 year-olds ... and neither should the DoH. I'm a non-smoker, but I strongly resent this tax-funded hectoring.

Snowdon puts it better:

Is there no day of the year on which these inane, pontificating pricks can leave us alone?

Smell smoke, get lung cancer!

The best addition to my blogroll this year was surely Christopher Snowdon's Velvet Glove, Iron Fist.

In his latest post he exposes the shameful tactics of Professor Peters, chairman of ASH Australia, and the complacency of the Australian media in the face of some truly absurd claims:

Professor Peters told Mr Lavac, 65, and his wife to reduce their exposure. After living in their flat for 18 months in 2005-06, they moved. In March, 2008, Mr Lavac felt unwell. A CT scan detected a shadow at the top of his right lung, and a biopsy confirmed cancer...

Mr Lavac, who had never smoked, lost a third of his right lung. His surgeon and Professor Peters told him that, on the balance of probabilities, the lesion had been caused by passive smoking.

Yes folks. We live in a world in which professors of medicine tell people that they have developed lung disorders because they lived in a flat for 18 months above people who smoked. This is the state of hypochondria and intellectual retardation we have reached in the last days of 2011.

One day, when sanity is restored, we will look back on such stories and laugh. For now, other emotions dominate.

The denormalisation of tobacco continues

BBC News reports:

The government is reminding supermarket retailers in England to remove tobacco displays within the next 100 days.

The Department of Health said the ban, which will come into force on 6 April, would protect young people who were often the target of tobacco promotion.

Smaller shops do not have to change their displays until 2015.

They've been talking about this sort of thing for a long time, but it had somehow escaped my notice that it was actually going ahead. It seems this was a New Labour nanny state initiative that the Coalition predictably failed to kill:

From 6 April 2012, customers in England will still be able to buy cigarettes in the normal way, but the ban - which was announced in 2008 - will mean cigarettes will have to be kept under the counter.

The chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, said: ''Ending tobacco displays in shops will protect young people from unsolicited promotions, helping them to resist the temptation to start smoking.

"It will also help and support adults who are trying to quit.''

I'd wager that very few 'young people' start smoking spontaneously in response to 'unsolicited promotions' in supermarkets or corner shops. Almost all of them will be offered a cigarette by a friend, and they will initially smoke whichever brands their friends smoke.

As for adults, it's not the government's business to tell them how to live.

In immediate practical terms, there aren't any benefits to this move, only inconvenience and expense for shopkeepers and customers. The real goal is to further denormalise smoking.

Plain packaging?

A recent BBC News article includes an example of Australia's new 'plain' packaging for cigarettes:

Can any Australian look at that package and still feel that they live in a free country?

How long before they try to pull the same trick with beer and wine bottles?