Nanny state propaganda in the Telegraph

An article went up on the Telegraph website yesterday that is so comically one-sided and ill informed that I wondered how it could possibly be published by a reputable newspaper. It only made sense when I got to the bottom and saw this...

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

Intrigued by this apparent advertisement, I clicked on the link to find out more about Global Health Security. At first glance it looks like they have paid to have a link at the bottom of a Telegraph article. In fact, they paid for the article.

Our Global Health Security coverage is partly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This support comes without strings and we retain full editorial control over all the content we publish... The site was launched in February 2018...

To see what Bill and Melinda are getting for their money, you have to read the dreadful article in question. It is written by someone called Aisha Majid who had never written for the Telegraph until a few weeks ago. Presumably she arrived with the Gates' money.

Her article is about 'non-communicable diseases' and she shows all the signs of having spent 30 days in a locked room with the least honest 'public health' campaigners on the planet. She begins...

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes now account for 90 per cent of deaths each year in the UK.

This is a jolly good thing. Dying from a non-communicable disease is virtually the only alternative to dying from a communicable disease. Aside from those caused by suicide, accidents and violence, all deaths are from disease. 'Death from old age' does not feature in the pie charts of 'public health'. Even if you die at the age of 110, it will probably be from a non-communicable disease, usually respiratory or cardiovascular.

These so-called 'lifestyle' conditions are a well known problem in the west. Much less understood is that they now account for the majority (53 per cent) of deaths and disabilities in the developing world – taking 31 million lives a year. 

Good. That is a sign of progress. As these countries get richer and vanquish infectious disease, this figure will go higher.  

NCDs are not driven by infections and viruses but by behaviours such as poor diet, smoking, moving too little, alcohol and drugs. 

What? All of them? What does Aisha Majid think people would die of if nobody smoked, drank or took drugs, and if everybody had a perfect diet and took plenty of exercise? The answer, of course, is a non-communicable disease.

Although often referred to as lifestyle issues – implying personal choice – the rapid spread of NCDs around the world suggests they are a more universal problem, correlating strongly with economic development and urbanisation.

Firstly, this is a non-sequitur. The claim that lifestyle-related diseases are the result of personal choices is not contradicted by them being more prevalent in developed countries. On the contrary, developed countries offer people more choice.

Secondly, non-communicable diseases are less common in developing countries because these countries are still plagued by tropical, contagious diseases and suffer unacceptably high rates of infant mortality.

Globally, 70 per cent of deaths – some 40 million – are now attributed to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with lower and middle income countries becoming increasingly impacted as there [sic] economies grow.

Again, this is a good thing. The rise of non-communicable disease is closely correlated with rising life expectancy. As countries develop, people live longer.

Non-communicable diseases are diseases of old age, first and foremost. Age is by far the biggest risk factor for cancer and heart disease, not to mention dementia.

In all regions of the world with the notable exception of Africa, more people are dying today from NCDs than from any other cause.

Gee, I wonder what the secret of Africa's success is? If only we could emulate the continent that has the lowest life expectancy on the planet, eh?

The World Health Organization predicts NCDs will be the biggest killers in Africa by 2030.

At the risk of repeating myself, that would be a good thing. Let's hope they tackle HIV, malaria and tuberculosis so it comes true. Perhaps if the WHO spent more time working on those diseases and a bit less time fighting 'Big Soda', it would have already happened by now.

More surprising perhaps, obesity is also rising in countries that only a few decades ago were experiencing food shortages. In Ghana, for example, obesity has soared by over 600 per cent since 1975 and now affects one in 11 adults.

In 1975, Ghana was a military dictatorship and suffered periodic famines. Today it is, by African standards, a relatively prosperous democracy and some people can afford to be fat. Good.

There is now a clear understanding of the relationship between NCDs and poverty in many places, said Ms Dain.

“NCDs are a cause and consequence of poverty,” she said. “It’s often the poorest that are most vulnerable to NCDs and in many countries you are seeing NCDs impacting on lower socio-economic proportions of populations.”

Quite the opposite. People in poor countries tend to be skinny and people in rich countries tend to be fat.

While the causes of chronic diseases in low and middle income countries are complex, experts and campaigners are increasingly pointing the finger at big business and the so-called "commercial determinants of health".  

Oh God, here we go...

“It’s very clear that big tobacco, big food and big alcohol are seeing many lower and middle income countries as their emerging target markets," said Ms Dain.

People in lower and middle income countries have as much right to smoke, drink and eat processed food as everybody else. If these countries were not 'target markets' before, it was only because their people didn't have any disposable income.

Abdul Razzak AlMadani, a consultant in medicine and endocrinology at Al Borj Medical Centre in Dubai and President of the Emirates Diabetes Society puts the rise [of diabetes] down to among other things changing lifestyles and eating habits in the past few decades.

“It’s fast food, but not only fast food,” said Dr AlMadani. “Most foods we eat here have a high calorie content and high carbohydrate content. That’s the food that’s affordable and tastes good.”

It's actually much less affordable than 'healthy' food but, yes, it does taste good. Thank you for finally acknowledging why people choose to eat it.

And then we get to the real reason why this article was written...

Alongside awareness, a number of countries have also started to fight back against the marketing and consumption of unhealthy foods with tax on harmful foods and drinks.

It's about taxing the poor.

Mexico, where more than 70 per cent of the population is overweight or obese, is already reaping benefits from such a levy. In 2014, the country introduced a tax of 1 peso (4 pence) per litre of sugary drink.

Indeed it did, as part of a desperate attempt to balance the budget that also included taxing pet food. It made no difference whatsoever to rates of obesity.

Although it is too early to say what impact this will have, early results are promising.

On the contrary. They are remarkable unpromising. Figures from Mexico's National Institute of Public Health show that it didn't even reduce soda consumption, let alone obesity. Between 2007-13, average per capita soda consumption was 160 litres. In 2014, when the tax came in, per capita consumption was 162 litres. In 2015, it was 161 litres.

A study of the tax by researchers in Mexico and the United States found that sugary drinks purchases fell by an average of 7.6 per cent in the two years after the tax was introduced.

They did not fall by 7.6 per cent. They were 7.6 per cent lower than a bullshit counterfactual that was conjured up by the soda tax campaigners who wrote the study, and that is a very different thing. There was no decline in consumption. 

The UK is also set to introduce a sugary drinks tax in April.

And that, too, will achieve the square root of jackshit, other than taking millions of pounds out of the pockets of consumers and giving it to ball-juggling bureaucrats and nanny state campaigners.

Ms Dain believes that the UK has many good lessons to share at this September’s UN high-level summit on NCDs that can be a model for other countries battling NCDs.

“There have been many commitments and targets but implementation in low and middle income countries, where there are many competing urgent priorities, has been slow,” said Ms Dain. “The UK has lots of good practices and examples such as plain packaging on cigarettes or tackling childhood obesity by taxing sugary drinks".

No list of stupid nanny state policies that have demonstrably failed would be complete without mentioning plain packaging, so I'm glad she managed to give that a shout out. God help the rest of the world if the UK is the trailblazer for these stupid ideas.

And that is the final sentence of an article that is little more than a hagiographic interview with Katie Dain of the NCD Alliance. Its intention seems to be to sett the agenda for 'this September’s UN high-level summit on NCDs' - a summit that Ms Dain just so happens to be chairing.

It is straight up propaganda, paid for by a billionaire. It is reminiscent of July last year when the Guardian suddenly started putting tobacco stories on its front page despite there being nothing newsworthy about them (no other papers ran them). It turned out that they were part of a series that had been commissioned by one of Mike Bloomberg's lobby groups, Vital Strategies, in support of a Bloomberg-funded WHO report released a few days later that, again, called for higher taxes.

Unlike Bloomberg, who is obsessed with tobacco and fizzy drinks, the Gates have given a lot of money to groups that provide medicine, healthcare and vaccines to people in developing countries. It's sad to see them get into bed with people who are more interested in raising the cost of living and restricting choice. Is there anything more nauseating than the sight of billionaires buying up newspaper space to lobby for higher taxes on poor people?

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The sugar tax evaluation farce

Last week I complained to the National Institute for Health Research about the decision to get the sugar tax evaluated by academics who have campaigned for the tax, staked their reputations on it working and, in at least once case, believe that God wanted it to be introduced.

By any reasonable definition, this is a conflict of interest. You can read my complaint here. Yesterday I received a stock reply from the NIHR which basically says that they intend to do nothing about it.

Dear Chris,

The Public Health Research (PHR) Programme funds independent research to generate evidence to inform the delivery of non-NHS interventions intended to improve the health of the public and reduce inequalities in health.

The PHR researcher-led work stream funds research questions proposed directly by researchers. All applications to the PHR Programme undergo a comprehensive assessment as described in the general assessment criteria. Applications are assessed by the Programme Advisory Board for their importance to the public health practitioner community, and by the Research Funding Board whose members are appointed for their academic and research expertise. External review also takes place by both professionals and members of the public. The board looks at whether the study is designed to achieve its objectives in an appropriate, feasible and ethical manner. They will also judge whether the proposal is methodologically and scientifically robust and if the team expected to carry out the research have the necessary skills, experience, project management and infrastructure for success.

Each NIHR funded project has an independent steering committee who are appointed in line with NIHR governance guidelines and is monitored through the duration of the project. On completion, all projects are published in the open access, peer reviewed NIHR Journals Library.

Best wishes

XXXXX

If you click on the links to their Programme Advisory Board, which assesses applications, you will find a link to their conflict of interest policy but this relates only to committee members, not to applicants. In any case, it only includes financial interests. Merely believing that 'God is calling me to work towards the introduction of soft-drink taxes in this country' does not disqualify somebody from evaluating soft drink taxes.

Interestingly, the minutes from their February 2017 meeting which resulted in sugar tax campaigners being given £1.5 million of our money to mark their own homework show that a proposal from MacGregor was rejected. It seems likely that this is Graham MacGregor, the chairman of Action on Sugar. A truly shameless application if so, but then MacGregor has previously evaluated the salt reduction scheme that he campaigned for as chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Health, so he must have thought he was in with a shout.

To its partial credit, the NIHR rejected MacGregor's proposal and instead gave it to Martin White and his team. You will notice that Martin White is mentioned as having a conflict of interest. And indeed he does. He happens to be the Director of the Programme Advisory Board.

What a small world.

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Another evidence review fails to link fast food outlets to childhood obesity

A few weeks ago, the IEA published my review of 74 studies looking at the association between the number and proximity of fast food outlets to obesity. In short, there isn't one. The majority of studies find no association whatsoever. Of the 39 studies that look at childhood obesity, only six suggest a positive association (and five suggest an inverse relationship).

So I was interested to see a systematic review of the evidence published today in the European Journal of Public Health. It, too, fails to find an association, although the authors do not exactly go out of their way to highlight that conclusion. On the contrary, they strongly imply that there is a relationship which dozens of studies have failed to demonstrate as a result of unspecified methodological issues.

Few studies found were able to adequately quantify a correlation between the food environment surrounding schools and obesity amongst pupils attending those schools. The lack of reliable evidence found in this review is more a factor of the ability of the studies found to identify the correlation than the actual lack of a correlation between the two variables.

They recommend that fast food outlets be restricted 'despite the lack of good evidence' and use a ridiculous tobacco analogy to push the precautionary principle:

Planning policy is difficult to change; years may pass between the first inclination to change a policy and the change. Several more years may then pass before the built environment is significantly impacted by the policy. This makes the study of this impact difficult to analyse and time consuming.

This is reminiscent of the study of exposure to cigarette smoke and its impact on health. Tobacco smoking was identified as harmful to health in the 1940s and 1950s. The prevention of exposure to tobacco smoke in the working environment was a hard won change to the built environment and was legally enshrined in the Health Act 2005. Similarly the correlation between fast food retail location, fast food consumption and obesity is still disputed. This lack of evidence may however indicate the inability of many papers to measure the impact of hot food takeaway exposure accurately.

This is a laughable argument for so many reasons. For a start, the smoking ban was not introduced on the back of the evidence that emerged in the 1950s (not the 1940s) showing that it harmed smokers, but on the back of studies published several decades later claiming that it harmed others.

Admittedly, that was only the official justification. Most people realise that its true purpose was to encourage smokers to quit, but even if you think that the smoking ban was a reasonable response to the evidence that smoking is bad for smokers, the fact remains that there is a hell of a lot of evidence that smoking causes cancer whereas there is very little evidence that living near a fast food outlet causes obesity.

It is not that the evidence linking fast food outlets to obesity is 'disputed'. The bulk of the evidence simply does not support the hypothesis that living, working or going to school in areas where fast food is available has any impact on your chances of being obese. Those who argue that restricting the number of fast food outlets will have no effect on obesity rates are not disputing the evidence. They are asserting it.

The implication of the passage quoted above is that 'public health' campaigners should be allowed to act on their gut instincts regardless of what the evidence says. As I said in the little film we made to accompany the IEA report, so much for evidence-based policy.

As for the evidence review itself, it does not do what it says on the tin. My review included 74 studies. This one only includes 14, but that is because it restricts itself to the UK. It includes only two studies that appeared in my review (Harrison et al. 2011, Griffiths et al. 2015) and ignores another one (Heroux et al. 2012). It also includes two evidence reviews conducted by British researchers which mainly look at studies from the USA (Fraser et al. 2010 and Harrison and Jones 2012).

So there are ten studies in the new review that didn't get mentioned in the IEA report. Have I been cherry-picking? I assure you that I have not. Although the new review is titled 'The impact of hot food takeaways near schools in the UK on childhood obesity: a systematic review of the evidence' most of the studies in it do not look at the relationship between fast food outlet density/proximity and obesity. Many of them include neither data on obesity nor data on 'hot food takeaways'.

The authors claim in the abstract that...

Most included studies compared anthropometric measures with geographical location of hot food takeaways to find correlations between environment and childhood obesity.

But this is simply untrue. Here are the studies that are in the new review which were not included in mine. It should be pretty obvious why I didn't include them.

Briggs and Lake (2011) involved giving 24 kids cameras to photograph where they ate their lunch. It doesn't measure the number or proximity of fast food outlets, nor does it measure body weight.

Caraher et al. (2014) looks at the concentration of fast food outlets around schools but doesn't attempt to find any correlation with obesity rates or body mass index.

De Vet et al. (2013) is a survey of kids in four countries which finds that children who have access to takeaway food tend to eat more of it. It does not look at the density or proximity of fast food outlets. Interestingly, the authors do not tell us whether those who ate more takeaways were fatter, despite having the BMI data for each child. I suspect that this is because there was no association, but there is no way of telling.

Devi et al. (2010) is based entirely on an interview with staff and pupils at one school. It doesn't even mention fast food, let alone measure the number of outlets or measure the children's BMI.

Edwards et al. (2010) doesn't look at fast food outlets at all. The closest it gets is finding that obesity is correlated with 'perceived poor access to supermarkets'.

Ellaway et al. (2012) studies the number of takeaways around 'disadvantaged schools in Glasgow'. It does not measure obesity or body mass and makes no attempt to correlate these variables with the number of fast food outlets.

Estrade et al. (2014) doesn't look at obesity or the number of fast food outlets. It is just a summary of some interviews conducted with food shop owners.

Fraser et al. (2011) found that adolescents who were more 'exposed' to takeaway food at home tended to eat at fast food restaurants more frequently. It did not look at the proximity or density of fast food outlets.

Macdiarmid et al. (2015) is a survey of school kids which doesn't attempt to correlate the proximity or density of fast food outlets with obesity. It does, however, ask kids how often they buy food out of school at lunchtime and finds no association between this and obesity. Incidentally, the authors note that only ten per cent of them ate food out of school at lunchtime and say that this finding 'questions the emphasis, effort and likely impact of changing the food environment around schools on improving the overall diet of young people and tackling obesity.'

None of these studies are relevant to question of whether living or schooling near fast food outlets increases childhood obesity risk. However, there is one relevant study in the review which escaped my attention when I conducted my literature search and I am more than happy to give it some attention now. It is Gallo et al. (2014) and it found...

No significant association was observed between food outlet frequency and IMD quintile (F=1.125, p=0.627); obesity prevalence rates nationally or locally (both F = 0.370, p = 0.565) or Supergroup class (F = 2.314, p = 4 0.191).

.. No significant association was observed between obesity prevalence and any specific food outlet typology.

No surprise there. That is what most of the studies show. But it is worth noting that both sentences quoted above are followed in the text by the words 'Despite non-significant results...' and some whataboutery from the authors who are clearly desperate to find an association. There is a lot of that kind of thing in this literature and that is why it is important to focus on what the evidence says rather than what 'public health' campaigners say about it.

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Faith-based policy

Nice to see The Sun pick up on the story first broken here a few weeks ago about the sugar tax evaluation...

MY SWEET LORD
Academic charged with assessing Sugar Tax ‘told by God to push for it’

A top academic hired by the Government to judge the success of the Sugar Tax claims GOD asked him to push for the soft drinks levy.

Furious campaigners hit out last night over a blog where Professor Rev. Mike Rayner said the Almighty was “calling me to work towards the introduction of soft drink taxes in this country”.

He has also previously published papers claiming a levy pushing up the price of popular fizz will cut obesity.

I have made a complaint to the National Institute for Health Research (via its website - scroll to the bottom), part of which is quoted in The Sun article. In full, I wrote:

‘Last year the NIHR commissioned Mike Rayner and others to conduct the 'Evaluation of the health impacts of the UK Treasury Soft Drinks Industry Levy'. Rayner is on the record saying: 'You may not believe that I have heard God aright but I think God is calling me to work towards the introduction of soft-drink taxes in this country'.

Given that he believes that the sugar levy has the support of the Almighty, and that he (Rayner) has previously published research which predicts that taxing soft drinks will reduce the obesity rate, it is surely inappropriate for him to be given the job of evaluating its effects.

Several of the other people on the evaluation team have also advocated for the levy's introduction and have published research which concludes that it will have positive effects. Even if we leave aside the Reverend Rayner's religious beliefs, it cannot be right for people who have advocated for the levy, and whose reputation rests, in part, on it having the predicted effect, to be given the job of marking their own homework. It is a glaring conflict of interest and should never have happened. Impartial academics should be given the commission instead.’

As I said in my original post, I don't see Rayner's religious beliefs as being any more of a conflict of interest than the equally strong, albeit secular, pro-sugar tax beliefs of his colleagues who have campaigned for it. They are all emotionally invested in it and are desperate for it to be seen to work. Those who have published studies claiming that it will work, including Rayner, are professionally invested in it. They should not be anywhere near the evaluation.

Nevertheless, Rayner's conflict of interest is unusual and, let's face it, funny. I am no theologian, but if God doesn't want people to consume fizzy drinks, surely they are easier ways for him to achieve this than by acting through Mike Rayner to get a modest excise tax than has achieved nothing whatsoever in other countries?

Approached yesterday Professor Rayner told The Sun the panel would evaluate the tax on its merits. He said: “We can always change our minds. The things I said 10 years or so ago are things I said 10 years ago.”

Does this also apply to things that God said six years ago, I wonder?

UPDATE

There is also a rather wonderful editorial in The Sun...

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola are continuing with their radical policy of running a business by not pissing your customers off. It could just work!

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What exactly is the tobacco playbook?

A recent Guardian article portrayed bacon as the new smoking...

The meat industry’s tactics in defending bacon have been “right out of the tobacco industry’s playbook”, according to Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University.

No slippery slope there, then! But what exactly is 'the tobacco industry's playbook'? It's a phrase we hear a lot these days when campaigners are trying the poison the well against their perceived enemies. I've done a bit of searching and the tobacco playbook seems to be used by nearly everybody and includes nearly everything. Here's my top twenty...

1. Sporting associations being involved with medical organisations.

NFL’s partnership with CDC on head injuries is straight out of big tobacco’s playbook

2. Soft drink companies 'donating to adversarial health groups':

Big Soda is using Big Tobacco's playbook

A recent review found that in the past five years, Pepsi and Coke sponsored nearly 100 health-related organizations including the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and even The Obesity Society.

3. Booze companies lobbying:

A new study has found that Australian alcohol companies have successfully copied tactics straight out of the tobacco playbook to block the introduction of mandated pregnancy warning labels.

4. Mobile phone companies questioning whether their products cause brain cancer:

They have their response straight out of the big tobacco playbook and they use it. “Although we are constantly exploring the subject, currently there is no direct evidence that links cell phone usage to brain cancer.”

5. Advertising to men:

“That appeal to macho culture is straight out of the tobacco industry playbook. They are using a lot of the same tactics ... it’s targeting your kids, it’s often sexist and designed with the intent of creating the problem gamblers of tomorrow,” he said.

6. Advertising to anyone:

Old tobacco playbook gets new use with e-cigarette advertising 

The electronic cigarette ads push the same themes as old cigarette ads: sophistication, freedom, equality and individualism, said Timothy de Waal Malefyt, a visiting associate professor at Fordham University’s business school and former advertising executive.

7. Advertising e-cigarettes:

“As Big Tobacco corners the e-cigarette market, it is using e-cigarettes as a global PR scheme to gloss over its tarnished image, positioning itself as a‘solution’ to the problem it drives. In reality, the e-cigarette industry is taking advantage of the regulatory vacuum to employ the Big Tobacco playbook to hook a new generation on its products,” said John Stewart of the U.S.-based group Corporate Accountability International.

8. Distributing e-cigarettes:

Thirteen Members of Congress today called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take immediate action to protect young people from predatory e-cigarette marketing and distribution tactics that are straight out of big tobacco's playbook.

9. Hiring public relations firms:

Today, Big Soda faces the same PR challenges as Big Tobacco, and its PR strategy is straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook. In fact, the soda industry taps many of the same PR firms that helped Big Tobacco deceive the public for so long.

10. Taking legal action (about wording in a referendum on soda taxes):

“This lawsuit is straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook that Big Soda is now using,” Martin Bourque, executive director of the nonprofit Ecology Center and a member of the Measure D campaign committee, said in an email.

11. Publishing peer-reviewed studies:

“This comes right out of the tobacco industry’s playbook: cast doubt on the science,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University who studies conflicts of interest in nutrition research. “This is a classic example of how industry funding biases opinion. It’s shameful.”

12. Partnering with a non-profit organisation:

By partnering with a group that could otherwise be one of its staunchest critics, Walmart is taking a page right out of the Big Tobacco playbook: Buying silence.

13. Funding scientific research:

Taking a page right out of Big Tobacco’s playbook, five major beverage manufacturers are ponying up $67.7 million to prove that a glass of wine, beer or cocktail every day will increase one’s chances of avoiding a heart attack and live longer.

14. Supposedly advertising to children:

“Predatory marketing to children was the hallmark of Big Tobacco nearly two decades ago,” Madhusoodanan wrote in an e-mail. “McDonald’s and the fast food industry have taken a page right out of Big Tobacco’s playbook and are driving an epidemic of diet-related diseases by getting kids addicted to their junk food at a young age and building brand loyalties that last a lifetime.”

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/latest-news/article14425073.html#storylink=cpy

15. Paying CEOs a lot of money:

Sabet said the marijuana industry is taking "pages right out of the big tobacco playbook."
"I think no doubt we are going down the path of creating Big Tobacco 2.0," Sabet said. "When you look at the techniques of the marijuana industry, they downplay risks, they produce marijuana candies and other fun items, they fund research and political advocacy and most of all they are corporate CEOs poised to make millions, the comparison couldn't be more perfect."

16. Advertising to people while they do everyday tasks:

The editorial also compared the people behind “pot-peddling” to those who sell cigarettes. “Marketing pot to consumers while they carry out everyday tasks is right out of the old Big Tobacco playbook,” the piece stated.

17. Talking about personal choice:

Out of the tobacco playbook

Tactics employed by the food and drink industry to influence the public health debate are “identical” to those used by the tobacco industry 30 years ago, experts have warned.

“It’s exactly identical to tobacco,” said Professor Timothy Noakes, an authority on nutrition who has witnessed colleagues accepting funding from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

“The only difference is, in the past the public was not as aware as they are today of the dangers and benefits of different products. Now the companies have to be cleverer and they have to target scientists who are particularly influential.”

Both tobacco and junk food companies emphasise the importance of personal choice.

 18. Pointing out that regressive taxes are regressive:
 

Is the anti-sugar tax lobby taking a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook?

This week, the Institute of Race Relations became the latest organisation to attempt to discredit research showing that taxing sugary drinks could save lives in South Africa. Hofman cautions that attacks on the public health rationale behind the tax may be similar to ploys that health activists, particularly anti-tobacco campaigners, have seen before.

The institute questioned the rationale behind the proposed tax, arguing that it would only be a burden on the poor and would not reduce obesity.

Hofman has hit back, saying that the tobacco lobby spent years trying to discredit scientific research that revealed the dangers of smoking.

“This is a strategy from the tobacco playbook, in which they [the industry] tried to discredit peer-reviewed scientific research."

 19. Having a trade organisation:

Salt Industry Takes Page from Big Tobacco's Playbook

Remember the Tobacco Institute? The "research" organization set up by Big Tobacco that served mainly to obfuscate and distort what they and other scientists knew about the incredibly harmful effects of smoking?

Meet its reincarnation: the Salt Institute.

20. Borrowing from the oil industry:

Evidence Suggests the Oil Industry Wrote Big Tobacco's Playbook, Then Used It to Lie About Climate Change 

It has long been assumed that, in its efforts to deceive investors and the public about the negative impact its business has on the environment, Big Oil borrowed Big Tobacco's so-called tactical "playbook." But these documents indicate that infamous playbook appears to have actually originated within the oil industry itself.

I hope that's cleared things up.

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The temperance lobby's problem with supply and demand

With minimum pricing starting in Scotland in a few weeks, state-funded temperance groups are looking for new dragons to slay. Advertising is the number one choice, but our old friend 'availability' is also a priority.

From the BBC...

Scotland's poorest people suffer most from having easy access to alcohol in their area, a new study has suggested.

Researchers at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities found those on the lowest incomes were more likely to drink too much if availability was high.

They have suggested the Scottish government should look at cutting the number of shops selling alcohol - particularly in areas of low income.

Sigh. We have been through it time and time again. As I said when a similar piece of junk was published in 2014...

Look, areas of high demand will have more supply. That is as true of alcohol as it is of any other product. If supply was sufficient to create demand then alcohol retailers would open more and more off licences everywhere until they were evenly distributed across the country on a per capita basis. They don't do that because they follow demand instead. Off licences are more densely concentrated in certain areas for the same reason that bookmakers, coffee shops and Polish food shops are more concentrated in certain areas, ie. because that's where the customers are.

Just as the alcohol retail industry cannot expect to increase aggregate demand by opening a new off licence, temperance activists should not expect to reduce aggregate demand by closing them down. Alas they do expect that because they're simple folk who believe, like every temperance crusader before them, that demand for alcohol is somehow created by the sneaky alcohol industry. Hence their quixotic battle against availability and advertising that flies in the face of everything we know about the workings of markets.

Alas, the BBC couldn't be bothered to ask somebody with half a brain to explain how supply and demand works. 

The team's findings suggested that interventions to reduce drinking which focus exclusively on consumer behaviour - such as media campaigns and warning labels on bottles and cans - were unlikely to make significant improvements to health. 

That's a bit awkward for their 'public health' colleagues given that the third part of their neo-temperance agenda is putting cancer warnings on alcohol, but never mind.

They argued that radical policy changes were needed to address health inequalities in alcohol-related harm. Changes, they said, should include reducing the availability of alcohol. 

Of course they did. What do you expect from these people? Either they are stopped or they continue their whirlwind of destruction until alcohol is illegal.

If they genuinely believe that people drink excessively because they have five off licences within walking distance rather than three then they are profoundly stupid. If they don't believe that, they are deceitful activists. Either way they should not given a platform to spout their obvious nonsense unchallenged.

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More jobs for the boys on the obesity gravy train

Further to my previous posts about the copious studies showing that living near fast food outlets does not make you fat, here's another example of a 'public health' activist-academic ignoring the evidence.

In January, The Times ran a story in which it was claimed that the number of fast food outlets around schools has risen by 67 per cent in the last eight years. Professor Russell Viner of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was quoted...

Russell Viner, of RCPCH, said that fast-food chains were “cashing in on school-age footfall” and “enticing young people and their pocket money . . . [with] devastating consequences for the overall health of our children.”

... Professor Viner said that fast-food chains “bombarded” children with adverts. “While it’s not surprising that fast food franchises tend to concentrate in poorer areas and those with bigger populations, which means nearer schools, this is even more reason for concern.”

This is not what the evidence says, and words like 'bombarded' and 'enticing' make Viner sound more like a campaigner than a scientist.

It turns out that he has some strongly held views on policy. In the same month, he was using emotional language about children reclaiming their childhood in his efforts to urge the government to ban 'junk food' advertising before 9pm... 

"We urge Government to show it is serious about protecting children’s health by banning junk food advertising before the 9pm watershed. Only then can children reclaim their childhood.”

More recently, in response to the ridiculous Cancer Research claim that overweight/obesity among millenials is rising (it's not), Russell Viner was the lead signatory of a letter to The Times...

The government is considering further measures to reduce childhood obesity. Health leaders are unanimous that protecting children from junk food adverts must be prioritised: last weekend, for example, more than a third of the adverts shown during a popular family-time programme were for high fat, sugar and salt foods. These adverts were seen by more than a million children.

Policymakers from all parties must listen to the sector and to the public. We need to get to grips with obesity now before it is too late.

Viner is entitled to his views and is free to campaign for whatever policies he likes. He's obviously already made his mind up, but hopefully the government will commission some impartial academics to evaluate the evidence and recommend policies.

Oh wait, they already have. A £5 million cheque was written last August for set up a new group...

The Department of Health has announced £5 million of funding for a new obesity policy research unit at University College London.

One year on from the launch of the childhood obesity plan, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Obesity Policy Research Unit has been set up to provide resource for long term research into childhood obesity.

It will give independent advice to policy makers and analysts, and develop understanding on the causes of childhood obesity, looking at social inequalities, the early years of childhood, and marketing to children and families.

Independent advice, splendid! And who, I wonder, has been put in charge of this lavishly funded outfit?

Professor Russell Viner, Policy Research Unit Director and Professor of Adolescent Health who will lead the Unit...

What with all the cash being given to sugar tax campaigners to evaluate the sugar tax, the obesity gravy train/echo chamber is shaping up very nicely for some people, isn't it?

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