The new UK government anti-smoking campaign is frankly disgusting: a man standing outside a house (top marks to him for not smoking in the house) lights up and straightaway a tumour starts to grow from his cigarette. The voiceover is about how smoking produces mutations in the human body.
I didn't see or hear anything after the first 30 seconds. I turned to another channel, and I suspect a lot of other folk would do the same. Apparently, smokers think government advertising exaggerates the effects of smoking so ads have to be 'hard-hitting.' I have a beef with the government's approach to public health myself. Probably more than one beef, in fact.
It's 30 years since I gave up smoking but I'm still classified as an 'ex-smoker'. I am going for lung function tests in the New Year and, when my GP isn't telling me my wheezing is because I used to smoke, she's telling me it's my 'lifestyle.' I don't think I'm rich enough to have a lifestyle, so could my health problems be because I'm nearly 65? Live in the damp west of Scotland? Was born poor and lived in damp housing from birth to age 27? Worked twice for longish periods in buildings where asbestos was being stripped out?
Women of child-bearing age in my family have been fed the line for years that they must not touch a single drop of alcohol during pregnancy or they'll produce a child with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome - that is, mentally and physically disabled. I've seen this called 'the golden lie' by a spokeman for the British Medical Assocation. In my book, it's a lie - golden or otherwise. I've seen children with FAS and I promise you it takes more than a couple of glasses of wine a few times a week to produce that effect.
We have a pretty well educated population in Scotland. Certainly a population that talks a lot about everything. For example, we have 3 smokers in my close family out of 16 of us. None of us gives them an easy ride. They can't smoke in anyone's house, or anywhere near the kids. The family expresses its disapproval of smoking regularly to them. They also obey the smoking ban, as everyone else does. I reckon the three are addicts and no amount of lecturing or hectoring is going to stop them. They'll stop when they want to.
What I'm looking for from public health is the following:
- no more lies or exaggerations about health issues
- no more 'nanny state' (no, I don't like the phrase either but it's the best there is) - we're educated enough to make up our own minds on health issues
- no more blaming the poor for matters that were beyond their control before most of them were born
- no more wasting the public health budget on TV ads that folk simply turn off.
No comments:
Post a Comment