Chris Snowdon was writing about Orwellian EU plans for “lifestyle regulation” today – which sounds like yet another reason to get the hell out of the EU. He’d downloaded a paper about it, which said:
To this end it recommended the adoption of a ‘regulatory mix’ of cost-effective, population-wide interventions to reduce the impact of the four main NCD-risk factors, namely tobacco use, the harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity.
Since tobacco ‘interventions’ now include public smoking bans, and the exclusion and demonisation of smokers, I can only suppose that the same is going to happen with alcohol, food, and obesity. In fact, it’s already started.
So, a few years down the pike, I foresee public drinking bans, and the demonisation of drinkers. And public eating bans, and the demonisation of fat people. Those pubs that weren’t closed down by the smoking ban will go out of business. Most restaurants will also go out of business, except those selling approved ‘healthy’ lentil gruel in modest portions.
The response of many smokers to their treatment has been to stay home and stop spending. Once alcohol and food are subjected to the same regime, everyone will stay home and stop spending. The economy will tank, and shops will empty, and there will be an enormous black market in everything from tobacco to alcohol and bacon and sugar and salt.
And it seems to me that for ‘lifestyle regulation’ to work, if people aren’t willing to comply, they are going to have to be made to comply with the regulations. I imagine that one way of doing that is for everyone to have a mandatory annual test to see whether they’re complying or not, with penalties attached for non-compliance. e.g. if you’re overweight, you’ll have to surrender your driving licence or something.
And I somehow imagine that there will be near-universal non-compliance. Because I no longer comply with any health advice at all. All trust has gone. For anyone to get me to comply, they’ll need to batter down my front door with a sledge hammer, and force-feed me with statins or whatever their current wonder drug happens to be. And even then, I’d spit them back out a half hour later.
If they aren’t doing so already, people will start staying away from doctors and hospitals and medical authorities. They’ll treat themselves using black market drugs. And there will consequently be a collapse in public health levels. Epidemics (real ones, that is) will break out, and rage unchecked.
Never mind the the “Legality of the EU’s Lifestyle Regulatory Intervention” discussed on page 13, these people don’t seem to have realised that, if people don’t consent to their bullying measures, they’re not going to comply with their advice or regulations. They’re going to reject them like I reject them. Because I don’t consent. I was never asked. And once that happens, the entire public health system will become completely ineffective, not just at regulating lifestyles, but also at addressing all genuine health problems – like, for example, an outbreak of bubonic plague.
And the collapse of the public health system will probably be highly visible. Everyone will start looking sicker and sicker. There’ll be people hobbling around on broken legs. Or covered in sores. The death rate will skyrocket. It’ll become common to find corpses lying on the streets.
The triumph of the modern cult of top-down public health management will be followed in short order by the rapid and complete collapse of actual public health to levels not seen since the middle ages.
Frank Davis 
I smell Big Pharma here. Does the EU follow the path of the WHO?
“In the 1980’s, however, the organization expanded its attention to noncommunicable disease, although it was limited by a budget frozen at $450 million. Today, the international agency now takes in more than $500 million a year, more than it gets from all its member nations. This money comes primarily from drug companies whose fortunes are intimately connected to its donations to WHO.
Although spokesmen deny WHO is influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, the drug companies’ internal documents give another perspective. According to the Seattle Times Daphne Fresle, a former top official in the WHO office that monitors worldwide pharmaceutical use, resigned in protest in 2002, complaining of the agency’s relationships with drug makers. Unpublished documents of WHO reports first obtained by The Guardian newspaper in 2003 describe “undue influence” on guideline panels dealing with diets and food additives.”
http://www.easydiagnosis.com/secondopinions/newsletter18.html
I smell an attempt at world wide PROHIBITION………..OF EVERYTHING!
It will be there undoing…….
When I recently saw a GP he apologetically told me that he had to go through an exercise questionnaire before he could deal with the matter in hand. I suspect that the software wouldn’t allow him to move on until every question had been answered. So they’re already collecting data. What doesn’t seem to have occurred to them is that if people lie then their data are crap and people will lie if they think they’ll be denied medical treatment.
That GP sounded pretty hacked off already. Hopefully enough of them will speak out to explain illness to the idiots before only the rich aren’t living in a global dystopia.
Just tell them to PISS OFF
In reply to Jay. Three or four years ago, I was asked straight off if I smoked (because computer asked). I refused to answer and the GP moved on to my actual problem, which could have been life-threatening (but wasn’t) but was obviously secondary on the NHS list of priorities. Needless to say that in future, the computer could freeze on the ‘exercise’ page or ‘diet’ screen before allowing the GP to move on to try to discover what is causing the stabbing pain that brought you there.
“Sorry, Mr Cowan, I cannot address your pain until you tell me how often you exercise”.
“I can’t exercise at the moment. I think my leg is broken. Do you think you could find the time to help me, you sadist?”
“No, I cannot help you, Mr Cowan, as you do not exercise. Please leave the surgery now.”
But the idea that GPs will rise en masse is too optimistic IMO. When I asked for an extra week’s worth of a rationed (but cheap) medication, one of them gave me it, but was clearly terrified at doing so. Others would simply have refused.
I believe they are paid up to £100,000 a year (sometimes considerably more) to ‘encourage’ them to go along with all the things that would affect someone’s conscience who was on a more normal and justified sort of salary.
The only thing I can remember them standing up together to fight was when they were threatened with losing some of their generous pension packages.
I would also add that many of ‘our’ laws and regulations imposed on us by the EU actually appear to come from the UN initially. Health ‘care’ has become so vast and unsustainable, especially with our declining industrial output, that it must somehow be cut, so what better way than to deter people from seeking what passes for ‘help’ in the first place, as you know I have also been doing.
SWIM* looks for cures on the internet, signs up to newsletters and buys grey market medication instead of using the services that their taxes should be taking care of for ‘free’.
So, it could be part of the UN’s Agenda 21 plans. Kill people off with dodgy meds (even dodgier than Big Pharma?) and total neglect.
Leg-iron says he would rather die in a ditch than go into state ‘care’ and I think I would join him, Laurel and Hardy-style or end-to-end if a narrow ditch (although if the time comes, one might have a different viewpoint). Left to die in our own urine and faeces wouldn’t be unlike NHS care anyway.
*SWIM (for those not in the know) is an internet acronym for “Someone Who Isn’t Me) and is used so as to imply that you are not speaking of yourself.
Or we man up and enjoy a suitable reformation of the existing system and toss it aside while replacing it with one that suits the needs without being tyrannical in its pursuits.
We need a system that does not restrict individual autonomy or lifestyle choises.
A system that sets down our god given rights to be free in our own pursuits and a system laced with restrictions upon the government itself. A system where the people themselves cannot vote to undermine the individuals own freewill and choise.
John BaNshafts merry fuckin xmas message for smokers
Why It’s a Very Merry Christmas for Nonsmokers // More Protections, Less Burden From Smoking’s Costs
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Dec. 24, 2013): It’s an especially Merry Christmas for nonsmokers this year since they will enjoy more protections and bear less of the costly financial burdens of smoking than ever before
PRLog (Press Release) – Dec. 24, 2013 – WASHINGTON, D.C. — WASHINGTON, D.C. (Dec. 24, 2013): It’s an especially Merry Christmas for nonsmokers this year since they will enjoy more protections and bear less of the costly financial burdens of smoking than ever before, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, “The Man Behind the Ban on Cigarette Commercials” and “One of the Most Vocal and Effective Anti-Tobacco Attorneys.”
Here are just some of the reasons why.
Under Obamacare, smokers are being charged up to 50% more for their health insurance than
nonsmokers and, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, the British Medical Journal, and elsewhere, imposing a smoker surcharge can slash smoking rates among employees by 50%.
“This is the first time that smokers are being forced to accept some personal responsibility for their habit,” says Banzhaf, who lobbied for the smoker surcharge. Smoking costs the American economy some $300 billion a year, and each smoking worker can cost his employer over $12,000 more each year. So, as smoking is reduced, businesses have more money for nonsmoking employers, taxpayers pay lower taxes, and insurance rates for over 80% of all Americans are lower than they would otherwise be.
Well over 100 jurisdictions – including New Jersey, North Dakota, and Utah, and many major cities including Boston, Seattle, and Indianapolis – have now banned the use of e-cigarettes in any place where the smoking of conventional cigarettes is prohibited. Their vapor contains propylene glycol (a respiratory irritant known to cause respiratory tract infections), nicotine (a highly addictive and deadly drug which can trigger heart attacks), and several chemicals the FDA terms “harmful and potentially harmful.”
Since so many states followed the lead of the Big Apple when it first banned smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars, it’s likely that many additional states will again follow NYC and restrict the smoking of e-cigarettes after NYC adopted its comprehensive ban just last week to protect nonsmokers.
Banzhaf was one of the first to publicize the dangers e-cigarettes pose to bystanders – especially to children, the elderly, and those with a wide variety of medical conditions – and helped get the initial bans in New Jersey and elsewhere adopted. Since NYC also passed a law raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes from 18 to 21, it’s likely that other states will also follow this lead.
Many states – including Hawaii, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington – continue to raise their cigarette taxes, with many cities and other jurisdictions doing the same.
The highest tax as the year ends in $5.85/pack. As a result, the great majority of taxpayers are paying lower taxes, and smokers are being forced to bear more of the financial burden or quit.
In other areas, legislators and judges are increasingly willing to protect tenants bothered by drifting and/or recirculating tobacco smoke from other apartments and condos, more companies are declining to hire smokers, there are more laws banning smoking in cars when a child is present, and there is growing public support for hitting smokers with hiring bans, higher taxes/surcharges, and other measures.
JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
http://www.prlog.org/12260305-why-its-very-merry-christmas-for-nonsmokers-more-protections-less-burden-from-smokings-costs.html
If a man ever needed hung this is the one!
Harley, this being the season of goodwill, I will decline to give my thoughts on that one, and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, before I disappear into a flurry of tinsel for the next two days.
I can show xmas greetings to thine enemies as I did to Gene Borio on the telegraph story!
I actually did wish him and his family a Merry Xmas
Tosser
Now, THIS demonstrates EXACTLY HOW much the anti-smoking brigade is a bunch of liars:
Since so many states followed the lead of the Big Apple when it first banned smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars, it’s likely that many additional states will again follow NYC and restrict the smoking of e-cigarettes after NYC adopted its comprehensive ban just last week to protect nonsmokers.
Protecting non-smokers by banning e-cigs????
My goodwill goes as far as to sign the petition for this pitiful excuse of a human being spending the next 50 years breaking up stones in Antarctica. I believe the air is very clear there…..
Long time no comment, eh? I’ve been on one of my semi-annual excursions into the wonderful analog world, where my iron oxide cassette tapes of Hendrix’s Axis Bold as Love rule the day over the one and zero vacuities of Facebook/Twitter.
But all good things come to an end and I’ve got a comment or two on the Rush Limbaugh post of a couple of days back. I was listening live when he relayed Delingpole’s article on secondhand smoke and it was a thing of beauty. Just like that 20 million additional people (beyond Britain) got the message that passive smoke damage is one big urban myth. If a 6 turned out to be a 9…
He really got into it and spent a lot of air time on the topic. I especially liked his choice of the word instinctively to describe his initial skeptical reaction to the whole flawed concept of 50,000 annual deaths from instantly evaporating smoke rings.
Rush touts himself as the Big Voice on the Right, the sounding board of current American Republicanism. If that’s so, count me in. I’ve voted Republican (an occasionally Libertarian) since 1978. I’ll not be wasting my elective power on anyone from the big government, nanny state Left, that’s for sure.
He went on to remind his listeners that although the WHO attempted to pigeonhole their own extensive study which found no harm from SHS, he retrieved it and has had it available on his website since 1998. He’s the most powerful voice we have out there and we owe him a debt of gratitude for standing by us all this time. The same goes for Delingpole, as I assume he commands a large audience.
Oddly enough, Limbaugh tripped over the pronunciation of Delingpole’s name, which surprised me. I would have thought Rush would be well acquainted with his writing. I consider them kindred spirits.
Anyway, I’m baack and still in great fighting form.
Rush had hearing implants put in a few years back and he does occasionally pronounce things wrong because of this………….
“White collared liberal flashing down the street, Pointing their plastic finger at me. They’re hoping soon my kind will drop and die,…”
It’s funny how times have changed. Jimi Hendrix smoked like a chimney. I don’t think I ever saw a picture him without a cigarette in his mouth.
Jimmy died a psycho-delic death one of the greats!
Obesity levels off, but extreme cases tipping the scales
Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY 11:20 a.m. EST December 24, 2013
The percentage of people who are 100 pounds over a healthy weight is on the increase.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/24/obesity-weight-wrapup/3921563/
Gary, by my calculations using CDC 2007 mortality stats I get 3.23 per thousand for deaths by heart disease for never smokers. For current smokers I get 2.79 per thousand.
Here’s the raw data: Never smokers = 145,746,359
Total over 18 years of age deaths from all heart disease not attributable to smoking = 470,916 (2007)
Current smokers = 46,000,000. Death from all heart disease = 128,497 (out of their infamous 393,000 annual smoking related deaths).
I’m slowly catching up on everything.
Yeah, I heard Rush’s riff that day, too. Lotta kindred spirits around here. Merry Xmas to you all..
Most restaurants will also go out of business, except those selling approved ‘healthy’ lentil gruel in modest portions.
I’d like to order some lentil stew with a few slaps of fatty “geraeucherter Speck” (Thick cut fatty smoked streaky bacon) in it. You may omit the complementary celery sticks to suckle on.
The response of many smokers to their treatment has been to stay home and stop spending. Once alcohol and food are subjected to the same regime, everyone will stay home and stop spending.
Yep. We smokers HAVE STOPPED going out! When the alcohol and food ban will be in place there will be plenty of home brew along with good old fashioned free-floating-FAT dishes!!!
One does what one can in order to avoid being lumped in together with the freaky health scare side show.
and there will be an enormous black market in everything from tobacco to alcohol and bacon and sugar and salt.
Like Old Bundeskanzler Schmidt (I believe he just turned 95 with his wit intact) has his stash of “Reyno” (menthol cigarettes) I will most certainly fill my larder with sugar, salt and tobacco, and my fridge will have vacuum packed slaps of smoked streaky bacon!!
If they aren’t doing so already, people will start staying away from doctors and hospitals and medical authorities. They’ll treat themselves using black market drugs.
People with sense already are staying away from doctors and hospitals.
Imagine this in an A&E:
Patient: “Dr., I bought myself stunt-skis and went to a skiing resort. All was well; I did little jumps and landed most 180s just fine. But when I did my first grind, I came off and now my wrist is swollen and rather painful.”
Doc: “Do you smoke?”
Patient: “What did I just tell you?”
Doc: (whilst scribbling on his notes that the patient is a 20/day smoker) “I will refer you to our in-house smoking cessation clinic on…..”
Patient (interrupting doc): “Huh??? Fuck off”.
Patient left A&E and wrist swelling went down without medical intervention.
And there will consequently be a collapse in public health levels. Epidemics (real ones, that is) will break out, and rage unchecked.
HOW are we supposed to have confidence in our medical care????
And the collapse of the public health system will probably be highly visible. Everyone will start looking sicker and sicker. There’ll be people hobbling around on broken legs. Or covered in sores. The death rate will skyrocket. It’ll become common to find corpses lying on the streets.
The stench will be unbelievable; we will be advised to leave our houses only with lit cigarettes.