I was looking at the WHO logo last week,
and, remembering that this organisation now saw the principal threats to human health to come from eating, drinking, and smoking, I wondered if I might start on some much-needed work to redesign the logo to reflect this.
I couldn’t help but notice that the caduceus rod of Asclepius at the centre – the rod entwined by a serpent – had a strong resemblance to a cigarette or cigar with smoke curling from its tip.
And I also thought that the map of the earth under the caduceus resembled a dinner plate with steak and chips on it.
And I wondered if the garland of leaves around the ensemble might be the barley or hops that are used in brewing alcoholic beverages.
In a flash of inspiration, I could suddenly see how the logo could be adapted to reflect the WHO’s central new concerns, with a cigarette superimposed on a plate of steak and chips and peas and tomato ketchup, all floating in a large glass of wine, like so:
In a slight subsequent variation, I decided to add a fried egg, and replace the wine with beer or lager (How many people drink red wine with steak and eggs?):
These are of course only draft sketches, but I hope to be sending the final draft to the current WHO president, Dr Margaret Chan, for her approval and immediate adoption of what I’m sure she’ll recognise to be a new, colourful, up-to-date, relevant and meaningful logo to replace the tired old logo that’s been in use for the past 60 years.
I will be seeking only the most modest compensation for my design efforts.
Frank Davis 
Nice pictures, but maybe the peas are a bit too healthy! You could also replace the beer with Coca Cola…you could add a nice pile of salt…I think you’re gonna need a bigger logo!
Yes, yes, Coca Cola… For the children.
the peas are a bit too healthy!
The very same thought crossed my mind too. But I think that if peas are drowned in gravy (and smeared with ketchup), much of their healthful properties are lost.
replace the beer with Coca Cola
Great idea. It’s another lethal drink, after all. But there’s no alcohol in Coca Cola, as far as I know.
Of course if they are GM peas, then that’d be perfect!
Add a shot or two of vodka to the coke…and you have a favourite of mine!!
Best I could do for short notice I think it hits home.
You have a point. Perhaps Frank could rearrange his chips?
Perfect !
Send that logo to the WHO. Margaret Chan might have a fit and keel over. Of course, there are lots of people who could take her place.
LOVE it Frank! Just the way you have it! :>
Daniel, I think your variation just *might* be seen as possibly perhaps a slight tad of overkill.
:>
MJM
NAA! COULDNT BE!
Look who first invented the Passive smoking Fraud
Hitler’s Anti-Tobacco Campaign
One particularly vile individual, Karl Astel — upstanding president of Jena University, poisonous anti-Semite, euthanasia fanatic, SS officer, war criminal and tobacco-free Germany enthusiast — liked to walk up to smokers and tear cigarettes from their unsuspecting mouths. (He committed suicide when the war ended, more through disappointment than fear of hanging.) It comes as little surprise to discover that the phrase “passive smoking” (Passivrauchen) was coined not by contemporary American admen, but by Fritz Lickint, the author of the magisterial 1100-page Tabak und Organismus (“Tobacco and the Organism”), which was produced in collaboration with the German AntiTobacco League.
That’s fine company are so called public health depts. keep with ehh!
History can shed so much lite on todays own movement it just amazes the mind………..
Hitler Youth had anti-smoking patrols all over Germany, outside movie houses and in entertainment areas, sports fields etc., and smoking was strictly forbidden to these millions of German youth growing up under Hitler.”
Has the WHO missed anything Hitlers anti smoking laws didn’t cover………….If they did I haven’t spotted it yet.
Actually, they’re worse. Hitler NEVER dared to try to ban smoking in pubs!
You know Mike I cant find that he ever dared to,probably something from his past the beer hall push that landed him in prison where he wrote mein kampf.
Brilliant! I prefer the second variant–the fried egg and beer are must-haves. However, I say ditch the peas and ketchup and replace with something sweet, like a big slice of chocolate cake.
Finally, the WHO will have a logo that represents its true interests!
Sorry (and to MJM) to be so pedantic but that symbol on the WHO logo is not a “caduceus”, it is the “rod of Asclepius”. The two are often mixed up, particularly in the USA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius
The caduceus:“In Roman iconography, it was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars, and thieves[3]”. It also symbolises commerce. Rather appropriate for MJM’s book cover as a symbol of anti-smoking healthism I think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus
A little more:
“The two-snake caduceus design has ancient and consistent associations with trade, eloquence, trickery, and negotiation”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus_as_a_symbol_of_medicine
I think actually it is a true caduceus tatooed on the wrist on the cover. I believe the original idea for that came from Bob Brown here in the US who originally made a conversion from the WW2 poster for the Smokers Club! It worked out SO beautifully for the cover and then after fiddling with variations on the back cover for weeks that upright angled torch, symbolizing a rise from the fall depicted on the front cover, just suddenly appeared one night and worked!
A rather sharp contrast to the original plain black on white cover of “Brains” eh? :>
:)
Michael
So you won’t feel lonely in the pedant club…my father was a doctor and from my first glance at the WHO whatsis, I knew it wasn’t a caduceus, which is topped with large wings and involves two snakes either fighting or f’ing (with snakes, you can’t tell). . As an even further example of rampant pedantry–or occasionally time-wasting curiosity–I dug this up
http://www.premiumcaremd.com/dr-rodgers/battle-snakes-staff-aesculapius-vs-caduceus/
But without going into what the old Greeks meant, just looking at their logo, what I instantly saw was the snake who ended Eden and murdered Cleopatra . An apt symbol for the WHO, huh?
Thanks for that link Walt. A long but very worthwhile and fascinating read. The final comment regarding modern medicine is rather good too.
The Talking Snake.
I bow to your superior knowledge.
Frank, I agree you should bend it on to Dr. Chan. She needs to know that there is opposition to her Ministry of Plenty.
Speaking of “Plenty”, how about a depiction of the flip side of the new WHO logo, namely the menu all those benevolent and enlightened delegates at the Moscow “COP 6” were treated to: “Salmon carpaccio with cucumber tartar, Salmon as the main course, Vitello Tonnato beef with tuna fish sauce, Red caviar, Scallop with white wine sauce, a fish plate of smoked halibut, smoked sturgeon, eel mix; Smoked eel, and Salmon under white syrup with flying fish caviar”? All in a pool of Champagne, of course.
‘Broke’ WHO host £1.6million caviar-fuelled beano
Oct 26, 2014
“WITH two types of caviar, Champagne and an ocean of salmon, it’s a world away from Ebola ravaged West Africa”
“Delegates from 175 countries descended on the conference in Moscow as part of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The body, funded by the WHO, met to discuss tobacco control policies and the role of e-cigarettes.
Organisers of the Moscow conference spent more than £40,000 just to provide Wi-Fi access for attending journalists, wasted after a last-minute decision to ban all press from the event.
Of the five hotels assigned to delegates, two boast five-stars including the Government-owned Golden Ring Hotel, self-proclaimed as “one of the most luxurious” in Moscow, and the city’s Crowne Plaza which commands a majestic £1,169-a-day for a suite, though the WHO has secured a small corporate discount.
The Sunday Express can reveal the dinner gala, held last Monday, offered delegates Salmon carpaccio with cucumber tartar, Salmon as the main course, Vitello Tonnato beef with tuna fish sauce, Red caviar, Scallop with white wine sauce, a fish plate of smoked halibut, smoked sturgeon, eel mix; Smoked eel, and Salmon under white syrup with flying fish caviar.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/527493/Fury-after-WHO-1-6million-party-Ebola-crisis
Armed guards escorted all the audience and reporters away. While they figured out the final solution.
In all these reports they fail to mention what was for dessert, I truly wish to know as it’s a subject close to my heart.
desert was likely free cigars from cuba
The wine logo is more aesthetic – and that’s the real importance when dealing with the WHO.
I love these kind of posts, so funny!
Oh, PLEASE do send Margaret Chan (I refuse to call her doctor – ‘first do no harm’!!!!) all the logos, plus perhaps a selection of the comments below, so she can appreciate what her ‘audience’ really think of her!
Ditto!
For me, the continued use of the Rod of Asclepius in logos seems to represent the users’ adherence and worship of mumbo-jumboism.
Margaret Chan was interviewed when she first took up her post at the WHO. She said “I would like to be remembered as a very fair, open, transparent and accountable Director-General.” Ha!
Doctors say 40,000 deaths a year linked to air pollution
“Today a new landmark report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the Royal College of Child and Paediatric Health (RCPCH) starkly sets out the dangerous impact air pollution is currently having on our nation’s health – with around 40,000 deaths a year linked to air pollution.
‘Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution’ presents that the harm from air pollution is not just linked to short term episodes but is a long term problem with lifelong implications.
The report notes examples from right across an individual’s lifespan, from a baby’s first weeks in the womb through to the years of older age. Examples include the adverse effects of air pollution on the development of the fetus, including lung and kidney development, and miscarriage, increases in heart attacks and strokes for those in later life; and the associated links to asthma, diabetes, dementia, obesity and cancer for the wider population.”
http://www.rcpch.ac.uk/news/doctors-say-40000-deaths-year-linked-air-pollution
Just think, we could have been aware of that 60 years ago if it hadn’t been for Godber and the anti-tobacco campaign.
Perhaps it just took a ban to clear the air.
Fear of political embarrassment led to government cover up of link between air pollution and lung cancer
2002
“Delegates attending an international conference in London today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Great London Smog of 1952, which caused an estimated 12,000 deaths, will hear how governments from the late 50s onwards deliberately downplayed the huge threat to public health caused by air pollution, and sought to shift the blame firmly onto cigarette smoking instead”
https://web.archive.org/web/20110703141652/http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2002/smogpollution.html
Toxicologic and epidemiologic clues from the characterization of the 1952 London smog fine particulate matter in archival autopsy lung tissues.
2003
http: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1241576/pdf/ehp0111-001209.pdf
funny Dr enstrom states in his diesel exhaust study 1 micron particles expand to 2.5 microns and you simply cough them out. Must have been some viral/bacterial infection of the lungs going around during the London smog.
The Changing Management of Acute Bronchitis in Britain, 1940–1970: The Impact of Antibiotics
It has become commonplace in accounts of medicine in the second half of the twentieth-century to ascribe an “antibiotic revolution” to the years when penicillin became widely available from the early 1950s. However, to date there have been hardly any studies that demonstrate a major discontinuity in medical practices after mid-century, let alone that go on to specify their character.1 There would seem to be two key features of any “antibiotic revolution”: first and foremost that the treatment of diseases was transformed as doctors were able to cure illness caused by infections with specific drugs that eliminated causative bacteria; and second that the ambition of doctors to intervene with drugs in a number of diseases grew, as did the ability of the pharmaceutical industry to supply an increasing range of targeted and effective remedies.2 In this article we contribute towards an assessment of the first of these key features by discussing the changing management of acute bronchitis from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s. The disease was amongst the most prevalent and important of that period in Britain, being the single largest cause of consultations with general practitioners (GPs) through much of the 1950s. Bronchitis was also the subject of many high profile debates among doctors and health care agencies as concerns about its morbidity and mortality touched on such issues as smoke pollution, the costs of the National Health Service (NHS) and changes in the doctor–patient relationship. The evidence of contemporary studies shows that the treatment of acute bronchitis changed radically after the introduction of antibiotics, such that by the mid-1950s over 80 per cent of patients diagnosed with the condition were prescribed penicillin or another antibacterial drug—a shift that was not supported by any clinical trials or systematic evidence.3 How and why this change occurred are the questions we set out to answer.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2175052/
acute bronchitis and still predominant even in 2008 when the study was conducted. Seems something else is up in the UK even with smoking rates at an all time low.
It would appear it wasn’t smog or smoking or even viral or bacterial but rather maybe the weather in the UK.
We begin by discussing the prevalence and importance of acute bronchitis from the late 1940s to the early 1960s and highlight the fact that the British were a particularly “chesty” nation and that this chestiness was mainly attributed to climate and the urban industrial environment. In this context, it is important to recognize that acute bronchitis was seen as infective rather than infectious; that is, bacteria were understood to be opportunistic, secondary infective agents of bronchi that had been inflamed by other physical, chemical and biological agents.
The press also highlighted the dangers of bronchitis during the winter smogs.23 The Chief Medical Officer reported that the London fog of 5–8 December 1952 resulted in 3500 to 4000 excess deaths, mostly due to bronchitis, and in one week the bronchitis death rate increased ninefold.24
Delegates attending an international conference in London today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Great London Smog of 1952, which caused an estimated 12,000 deaths.
Well the question is was it actually 12,000 deaths or 4000 from bronchitis. With heavy sputnum in bronchitis any toxicology will find particulate matter stuck to the lung linings.
Seems to me Dolls junk was used to remove other causes for diseases from the actual causes.
Passive smoking kills 12,000pa in the UK – according to ‘experts’. Add that to the estimated 80,000pa deaths from general pollution and, of course, the 100,000pa claimed deaths caused by primary smoking which collectively makes up two thirds of all UK deaths. Factor in alcohol, junk food, indolence, etc, probably bringing it up to four fifths, the balance topped up by all those non smoking, tee total, lentil eating, bike riding holier than thou who live in the middle of nowhere and who mostly make it to going on a century.
PROG they cant prove lifestyle kills people unless its a bike rider being rundown and killed. Or somebody over ate in one setting and blew a gasket in their gut. Risk factor BS to make a claim of non real deaths is so infantile its beyond insanity. Real science would have kicked such trickery down the road a century ago,maybe
FWIW, here’s an (old-ish) example of a lifestyle-attributable fatality happening in the real world:
“A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn’t have been fatal, but the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the article, “He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating ‘this deadly gas.'” Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.”
Never mind if the guy had some sort of pre-existing respiratory condition, shifting the focus to this type of precedent would prove a great money-saver for Public Health, since no “further research” is needed to ascertain that the second-hand version of this bio-hazard is as lethal as the first.
Well, it looks like in addition to having to deny flat-dwellers the privilege of frying bacon due to the problem of Passive Porking for their next-door neighbors, they’ll also have to be denied beans and cabbage. After all, what right do you have to fill your neighbor’s home with your poisonous methane gas emissions?
– MJM
@MJM. Goes to show that the plebs’ diet, as exemplified in Frank’s updated WHO logo, is the problem, and that the enlightened elite’s fare at posh prohibitionist conferences is the way to go!
This is rather shocking.
Brexit ministers blocked from Government briefings
“In a letter, which has been distributed in Whitehall this morning, Sir Jeremy said: “It will not be appropriate or permissible for the Civil Service to support who oppose the Government’s official position by providing briefing or speech material on this matter.
“This includes access to official departmental papers,…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12169645/eu-referendum-brexit-businesses-ftse-100-letter-david-cameron-live.html
I thought this was supposed to be a free and fair referendum.
Frank.
In the light on Walt’s earlier article and with particular reference to MJM’s Tobacco Nacht book, can I suggest that your new WHO logo should have a Carduceus as the central symbol rather than the Rod of Asclepius? The change would probably be too subtle for Margaret Chan though.
So maybe use MJM’s graphic? Or replace the wreath with manacles?
Isn’t the true origin of the caduceus more appropriate to the WHO cause?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningishzida
Caviar and Champagne for everybody! Afterwards, single malt and a good cigar.
The WHO……. I heard in the news that the Scottish nurse TWICE being treated for Ebola “complications” has been flown to the clinic in London again.
No information from the WHO about these “complications” – perhaps the funds required are used for life style scaremongering?
Perhaps it is high time to get rid of this ultra-expensive club once and for all.