It was inevitable. As certain as anything could be. As soon as the ink was dry on the Chief Medical Officer's shocking new guidelines on safe drinking there would some research outlining the terrible dark truth about all our boozy habits. A report based entirely on us exceeding those new guidelines - 14 units a week, less than a pint a day. A report based on guidelines that reject the evidence about alcohol and health, that could have been written by some po-faced nineteenth century temperance campaigner.
Us blokes are heading for oblivion and an early grave. We're in denial:
Experts are calling for health warnings on all alcoholic drinks after data showed millions of middle-aged men drink above government guidelines and do not believe it does them any harm.
You know something, we (and I'm definitely one of these denying middle-aged men) don't give a toss about your guidelines. We think they are stupid nannying nonsense. If we look a little further into the truth of those guidelines, what we find is that they are a complete load of unevidenced twaddle produced by the anti-booze lobby. But most blokes don't get this far, they look at what they drink and decide that, you know, it's fine and it isn't going to make any noticeable difference to their life.
If we were to start living the life the nannying fussbuckets, New Puritans, health fascists, prohibitionists and public health campaigners would have us live, we'd be giving up a whole load of entirely innocent pleasure. To absolutely no benefit whatsoever. None. Zilch. There is absolutely no scientific basis for the new guidelines so we can - and should - go on drinking the same way as we did before the nannies announced we were all headed for an early, alcoholic grave for enjoying a pint of two most days.
What makes me most cross is that the government repeats this lie - and it is a lie, a complete fiction, a load of utter bollocks, misleading, without any scientific basis, incorrect, misleading, fictional:
“Drinking any level of alcohol regularly carries a health risk for anyone, but if men and women limit their intake to no more than 14 units a week it keeps the risk of illness like cancer and liver disease low."
This is why we should sack the entirety of Public Health England, the Chief Medical Officer and most of the egregious profession of public health. The reason Jeremy Hunt should go as secretary of state isn't because of the doctors' strike but because he has allowed these lies, this crass fiction to be endorsed by government.
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5 comments:
Completely agree. I'm as fed up as you about the way the nanny state has been allowed to run riot.
Sir,
I pop this up every time another ‘we MUST stamp it out’ thing rears it’s ugly head:
Some people will choose to smoke. Some will die youngish, some will die very old. Some folk will choose to eat and drink a lot of what they like, some will die youngish, some will die very old. This could go on for ever with everything, right?
Then there are those who will live what the state decrees to be a safe, protected and healthy lifestyle. Surprisingly, some will die youngish and some will die very old.
However, it’s a 100% certainty we’re all going to die and as the last lap gets underway, some will be wondering what they missed and why, while others will be wishing they’d done just that little bit more.
So to all those, ‘it’s bad for you - I don’t like it so you can’t do it - it’s not healthy - we have to stop it now!’ fellows, let me assure you that while you’re possibly just passed ‘start’ on life’s highway and it looks like a long, almost never ending road ahead with time aplenty to foist your pettiness upon others, trust me, when you get to my end of the road, which, by the way, is cluttered to hell an’ back with tin cans, and look over your shoulder, back down the road of life, you’ll be amazed to see just how short a journey it actually was.
Then you’ll realise, too late, what a complete and total waste of your brief time it was being so miserable, trying to foist your misery on others and hating the enjoyment of those who had a little zest for life and were attempting, against all the odds, to enjoy their brief moment in the sun.
If they are coming for you now, it's always useful to see how it was done before.
Wayne B. Wheeler: The Man Who Turned Off the Taps
"Prohibition couldn't have happened without Wheeler, who foisted temperance on a thirsty nation 90 years ago"
On the last day before the taps ran dry, the streets of San Francisco were jammed. A frenzy of cars, trucks, wagons and every other imaginable form of conveyance crisscrossed the town and battled its steepest hills. Porches, staircase landings and sidewalks were piled high with boxes and crates delivered just before transporting their contents would become illegal. Across the country in New York City, Gold’s Liquor Store placed wicker baskets filled with its remaining inventory on the sidewalk; a sign read, “Every bottle, $1.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/wayne-b-wheeler-the-man-who-turned-off-the-taps-14783512/?no-ist
ALCOHOL
A DANGEROUS AND UNNECESSARY MEDICINE
HOW AND WHY
What Medical Writers Say
BY
MRS. MARTHA M. ALLEN
Superintendent of the Department of Medical Temperance
for the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
Published by the
DEPARTMENT OF MEDICAL TEMPERANCE OF THE
NATIONAL WOMAN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION
1900.
HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF ALCOHOL
“If the medical profession is responsible for the wide-spread belief that alcoholics are of service to mankind both as food and medicine, it should not be forgotten that it is to members of the same profession the world is indebted for the correction of these errors.
All down through the centuries there have been physicians who doubted and opposed its claims to merit. It remained for the medical science of the latter half of the nineteenth century to clearly demonstrate with nicely adjusted chemical apparatus and appliances the wisdom of these doubts.”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26774/26774.txt
Good Luck.
Rose
The new "guidelines" are perhaps the greatest abuse of public money that I have observed in the last decade. They do, of course, head a truly despicable field but for sheer stupidity, extreme prejudice, unscientific abuse of data and arrogant denial of uncomfortable realities, in my view they are clear winners. Faced with anything so riddled with dishonesty I am no longer prepared to be polite. If the DH stands by these guidelines and the government takes no action over the abuse they represent, then as far as I am concerned they can all collectively go f*** themselves. The bias and incompetence are so blatant that even Cameron ought to be able to spot them through his public health tinted goggles. I have no confidence in any organisation that accepts or allows such shameful abuses to be perpetrated using public money.
Whenever I read or hear a news report citing 'experts' (and scientists for that matter), my immediate reactions are -
Who are these experts?
Why aren't they named?
What is their expertise?
What's in it for them?
If a report is from a named individual then a reasoned judgement can be made about the credibility of the claims. If not then disbelief is the sensible approach.
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