The Policing Of Our ‘Sins’ & The BMA

Interesting report on the BBC News channel today.  The dictatorial and perem(tory) British Medical Association (BMA) is calling for a ban on all smoking in cars. The BMA has said that an outright ban, even if there were no passengers would be the best way of protecting children as well as non-smoking adults. Not sure about you, but I am sick and tired of being dictated to by the ‘SIN POLICE.’ Over the last decade there has been an ever-increasing and sinister attempt to control our habits and behaviours, and organisations like the BMA are at the forefront of such attempts to control personal lives. The report on the BBC website is accompanied by a video showing a doctor (from the British Lung Foundation) putting a baby doll (too dangerous to use a real child, and the representation of the child is also designed to be emotive)) into a child safety seat in the back of a car. The experiment then explains that even driving around for a few minutes whilst smoking increases the levels of PM 2.5, now if you not sure what PM 2.5 is let me explain:

The term fine particles, or particulate matter 2.5 (PM_2.5), refers to tiny particles or droplets in the air that are two and one half microns or less in width. Like inches, meters and miles, a micron is a unit of measurement for distance. There are about 25,000 microns in an inch. The widths of the larger particles in the PM_2.5 size range would be about thirty times smaller than that of a human hair. The smaller particles are so small that several thousand of them could fit on the period at the end of this sentence.

Particles in the PM_2.5 size range are able to travel deeply into the respiratory tract, reaching the lungs.

Exposure to fine particles can cause short-term health effects such as eye, nose, throat and lung irritation, coughing, sneezing, runny nose and shortness of breath. Exposure to fine particles can also affect lung function and worsen medical conditions such as asthma and heart disease.

Scientific studies have linked increases in daily PM_2.5 exposure with increased respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, emergency department visits and deaths.

Studies also suggest that long term exposure to fine particulate matter may be associated with increased rates of chronic bronchitis, reduced lung function and increased mortality from lung cancer and heart disease. People with breathing and heart problems, children and the elderly may be particularly sensitive to PM_2.5.

There are outdoor and indoor sources of fine particles. Outside, fine particles primarily come from car, truck, bus and off-road vehicle (e.g., construction equipment, locomotive) exhausts, other operations that involve the burning of fuels such as wood, heating oil or coal and natural sources such as forest and grass fires. Fine particles also form from the reaction of gases or droplets in the atmosphere from sources such as power plants.

PM_2.5 is also produced by common indoor activities:

Some indoor sources of fine particles are tobacco smoke, cooking (e.g., frying, sautéing, and broiling), burning candles or oil lamps, and operating fireplaces and fuel-burning space heaters (e.g., kerosene heaters). Information taken from http://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/indoors/air/pmq_a.htm

I suppose you have already spotted the flaw in their argument. Has the BMA called for a ban on buses, cars, trucks, diesel locomotive, cooking, stress relief candles! or the banning of power plants? The obvious answer is no they have not, and why do you think that is? Because smokers are easy targets of the ‘SIN POLICE,’ their agenda is set, and no amount of pleading will deter the zealots.

The influence of the medical profession and especially the BMA is disturbing. membership of the BMA is roughly 142,000 less than 0.22 percent of the population of the UK and yet has influence way beyond its size. I do understand some of the reasons for this, but much research is biased, take the report cited on the BBC, it comments that toxins in a car CAN BE up to 23 times higher than in a smoky bar. Can be, but is unlikely to be is what the report should state, let’s take the higher level and scare people seems to be the objective here. (misuse of statistics should be an anathema to the medical profession)

Like many people the skill and dedication of doctors saved my life, but that does not mean that I should accept their proclamations as irrefutable and sacrosanct. Emotive and shoddy press releases like this show that the medical profession are not adverse to a bit of misinformation themselves when it suits their own agenda.

 

As an addendum I would like to redirect readers to the Fullfact Website (added @ 23:33)

Virgin Media: Redundant by Text

It has been a relaxing two weeks, sunning myself on a Greek Island, but you eventually come back to reality and the real world. A small article in the Liverpool Daily Post caught my attention, you can read it here. How nice for Virgin Media that their sales are up 2% to £986 million for the first half of the year, the article goes on to stress that Virgin Media employs some 1000 people in Liverpool and Knowsley, the groups Chief Executive Neil Berkett said he was satisfied with the results, I’m sure he was. What Virgin Media wont tell you is that 50 of their tempoarary staff have just been made redundant, and how did the 50 employees know of their redundancy? BY TEXT MESSAGE   ’Your assignment with Virgin Media has come to an end, and we no longer have work for you. Neil Berkett said ‘ that we are acquiring and growing data savvy and data hungry customers’, yes you may well be Mr Berkett, but your insensitive and heartless method of informing 50 people they are out of work is shameful, but I shouldn’t be too surprised by the callousness of the action as it tells me all I need to know about the piss poor performance of the lamentable Vigin Media.

Merseyside Police: Who Watches The Watchers?

Amidst the furor over the News of the World (NoW) hacking scandal it has been easy to miss this piece by Big Brother Watch. Since 2007 Merseyside Police have had 208 officers disciplined for offences with regard to abusing access to confidential information, and breaching the Data Protection Act (DPA). It is also reported that 7 of these Police staff have had their employment terminated for breaches of the DPA. Police staff including PCSO across the country have been found abusing the system to run background checks on possible partners and friends and some have been charged with passing sensitive information on to criminals and drug gangs. Merseyside Police are considered to have the largest number of officers receiving criminal convictions for abuse of the DPA since 2007. (208) Nationwide over 900 staff have been disciplined for these abuses to the DPA, admittedly this is a small percentage of the overall numbers of police staff, but it is likely that the accessing of personal and sensitive information is more widespread than many would care to admit, like the NoW scandal I am sure the rot goes much deeper. The table of abuses can be found on the Big Brother Watch website here.

Where Is The Duty Of Care?

To say that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was unfit for purpose would be an understatement, characterised by short-termism, ineptitude, mismanagement and general piss poor performance, its deficiencies and inadequacy are obvious to all but the myopic. One only has to read the findings of the Public Accounts Committee to see the level of this mismanagement and incompetence. In any other organisation these failures would be serious enough, but within the MoD they have led to our Service personnel losing their lives and being maimed unnecessarily. The MoD has entirely failed to provide a Duty of Care to its Service personnel. A prime example of the callousness and insensitivity of the MoD can be found in the recent decision not to award the families of three soldiers killed in Iraq compensation, with the MoD arguing that their right to life under the ECHR Article 2 did not apply to the conflict in Iraq, and that it accepted no responsibility for the lack of equipment provision (see here) The final statement from the MoD is perhaps the most sickening of all “ An MoD spokesman said: “The courts have upheld our arguments on Article 2 of the ECHR. We will be seeking leave to appeal [against] the decision about liability claims for equipment provision.” For many families of those Service personnel injured and killed it will come as no surprise that the MoD has failed once again to provide a Duty of Care.

 

Frank Field Is Wrong

Having been away for a few days I missed the Liverpool Daily Post’s article on Frank Field and his attempt, along with Nadine Dorries to change the current abortion laws. Both have tabled ammendments to the Health and Social Care Bill, these ammendment would of course be subject to a vote in Parliament, according to the Daily Post, Field is trying to avoid Parliament on this issue and push through these controversial changes without any Parliamentary scrutiny or agreement. Has he [Field] been invited to talk to Health Department officials about changing the law through the use of regulation rather than through legislation? If so this is a dangerous precedent, and as Sunny Hundal points out on Liberal Conspiracy certainly undemocratic. Abortion is an emotive issue, but the provision and advice available for women considering abortion should be based on science and sound medical advice. Frank Field and Nadine Dorries want this advice to be taken out of the hands of abortion providers who they say have vested interests, and given to ‘independent’ organisations. And therein lies the problem, for I firmly believe that both Field and Dorries motives on the abortion debate stem from their religious beliefs and a desire to see the abortion limit in the UK reduced from 24 weeks to 20[based I might add on spurious claims] and no doubt both have the backing of the religious right and Pro Life groups. I have serious concerns about who these ‘non abortion providers’ are going to be, you can work out for yourself who both Field and Dorries wish them to be. Frank Field and Nadine Dorries are playing a dangerous game of trying to change existing legislation through the ‘back door’ and that is a phrase that I would never want to see applied to abortion in this country. Ever.

Independent? It’s Not

If anyone read Matt Chorley’s pitiful and lamentable piece on the Social Liberal Forum (SLF) Conference last weekend they would see how the reporting of politics has become asinine even from a supposedly reputable newspaper. His article in the Independent is characterised by a lack of objectivity, impartiality and detachment, it is prejudiced, stereotypical and narrow-minded. One can only hope that Matt Chorley can find a suitable vocation in these difficult and austere times, he has so obviously failed as a journalist.