Do have a read of it but also have a look at the news story that inspired it. It's a classic of the genre...
Dr Judith Mackay, an advisor to the World Health Organisation who took on the tobacco lobby [ie. people who enjoy smoking - CJS] in Asia, said there were lessons to be learned from the fight against smoking in efforts to "de-normalise" excessive alcohol or calorie consumption.
'Lessons to be learned'? Check.
'Denormalisation'? Check.
Dr Mackay, who is due to speak tomorrow at a conference on 'Women and Alcohol' in Edinburgh, said the WHO's convention on tobacco control offered a potential template for similar international cooperation to reduce intakes of alcohol and unhealthy foods...
Anti-smoking 'template'? Check.
Food as well as alcohol? Check.
This could easily be a parody article from a group like FOREST five years ago.
Dr Mackay said: "About 100 out of nearly 200 signed up to the convention on tobacco have these graphic health warnings on the cigarette packs and many are getting plain packaging. Would the same happen to food labels and bottles of alcohol? It's an interesting question. The problem is that everybody has to have food. It's much more nuanced and complicated, and would be fought tooth and nail by the food industry."
Yeah, because it's only the food industry that would be opposed to covering food packaging with diseased organs, isn't it Judith? It's not as if millions of ordinary people would be adversely affected by your morbid crusade to make people think about death every day of their life?
"It's a matter of degree - if you have one hamburger a year, it's not really going to harm you. On the other hand, if your diet is constantly hamburgers it would."
If you have one cigarette a year, it's not really going to harm you either, but I'm probably breaking some law or other by even mentioning that. And, as always, Judith, the eternal question remains: what the hell has any of this got to do with you?
"I think for alcohol it would be easier because we know the harm - it's not entirely inappropriate to put warnings on label not to drink in pregnancy for example, or not to give children alcohol - so there are some messages that countries could start with that would probably be accepted across the board, before food, but it would be a challenge for both of them."
This woman is utterly lacking in ethics or principles. She is an opportunist prohibitionist. She has no problem with the 'potential template' of denormalising people who drink alcohol and eat hamburgers. On the contrary, it excites her. The only thing holding her back is the 'challenge' of doing it - the opposition from industry, the politics, the timing. She'd go for graphic warnings on alcohol 'before food', but it's quite clear that if she succeeded with alcohol, food would be next.
The only thing keeping these people's whirlwind of destruction in check is political opposition, lobbying and power - but they are increasingly winning those battles. They have no conscience. No sense of right or wrong. No conception of costs and benefits. No interest in freedom or personal responsibility. If they can ban it, they will. If they can put disgusting images on any product that carries the slightest risk, they will.
Still, it is good to have another official acknowledgement that the anti-smoking lobby have created the template for the regulation of other lifestyle choices. As I wrote on this blog six years ago...
...thirty years ago there were people who warned that the anti-smoking campaign would set a template for food faddists, teetotallers and other puritans and cranks. This was always strongly denied, but it is now glaringly obvious that they were right.
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