David Hockney has been talking to the BBC about the UK’s smoking ban: he’s not a fan, and suggests that there ought to be “smoking rooms” available.  It’s not the first time that he’s gone public in his opposition to the ban - a few years ago he was interviewed on the Today programme and spent his time banging on about how the ban was “destroying bohemia” - because, clearly, sitting in a smoky pub is a necessary condition of artistic achievement.  Take away the smoke, and the talent vanishes.  Or something.  In actual fact, he just sounded like a very confused and crotchety old man.

I suppose that Hockney’s position is broadly libertarian - in the interview on the link I provided above, he makes accusations about governmental paternalism.  If it is the case that the smoking ban is paternalistic, then he may have a point: though I think that there are times when paternalism is warranted (and I’m certainly suspicious of the kneejerk “paternalism=wrong” response that you sometimes see in bioethics), I can also see the arguments against it.  However, I simply disagree that the ban is all that paternalistic: yes, it does make smoking that bit less attractive when it’s cold and rainy outside; but a concerted paternalism would have meant that smoking was also banned in open spaces and, where possible, in private.  (Escalating the tax on fags, by contrast, may be more straightforwardly paternalistic; the acceptability of doing so is for debate at another time, though.)

One of the better arguments for a ban - and one that Hockney doesn’t address - is motivated by a concern for the people who’d have to work at one of these smokers’ havens. more…

The New Scientist this week is running a series of short articles on how to make the world a better place. One of the suggestions is to legalise drugs – I’ve blogged about why this is a good idea before (and Ben Goldacre has a nice account of why we haven’t done it already). Another is to learn to love genetic engineering – and again, I’m all for that.

But one of the suggestions is that the police should have access to a universal DNA database - and this is not something for which I’m cheering. more…

Dependably right-wing blogger Paul “Guido Fawkes” Staines has been circulating the idea that Gordon Brown may be taking anti-depressants - specifically, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors - under the touching and understanding heading “Is Brown Bonkers?”  and making some sniggering schoolboy allusions to Malcolm Tucker-like tantrums.  This allegation - and quite why it’s an allegation is beyond me - leads Fawkes to muse that

[i]n the context of all this speculation and his manifest physical unease, surely somebody in the Lobby has to publicly ask the question at the PM’s next monthly briefing: ”Prime Minister, have you been taking medication that may affect your judgement?”

But it’s not just Staines that’s casting doubt on Brown’s mental health: he’s asked me to point out, and I’m happy to clarify, that he’s simply following up a story in the Independent that was saying the same thing, except more speculatively (and coquettishly)

Senior Whitehall bods are reported as noting that [Brown] was recently given a long list of things he absolutely must avoid, and that among these are Chianti and cheese. Both are well-known for causing a violent, even lethal reaction to a specific group of heavy duty antidepressants known as MAOIs (Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors).

See how it works: there’s a rumour that Brown has been given a list of foods to avoid, a suggestion that this might be because of some medication, and BINGO! he’s a nutcase.  Of course, because his article’s in the Indy, Matthew Norman is careful to add all kinds of “Of course, I’m not saying…” caveats -

[w]hether literally the case or not, however, this rumour carries the kind of psychological truth that tends to be more damaging than fact.

- but only after having demanded disclosure:

You’d have thought that whether our Prime Minister is severely clinically depressed falls loosely under the public interest header, but what can you do? Our political system regards secrecy less as desirable than its raison d’etre.

See?  From “There might be some foods the PM’s avoiding” to “There’s a conspiracy to cover up the fact that he’s bananas” in two easy steps, with a little side-helping of “I’m not saying that… except I am” as a garnish.  Of course, there’s a range of references to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, natch, because there was a law passed in 1473 saying that every media story about mental health had to have at least one such citation.  Possibly.

There’s a range of things to question about this story: more…

A convicted double murderer has won the right to have cosmetic surgery to remove a birthmark on the NHS.  Good.  Predictably, the foaming-at-the-mouth brigade is having a field day with this in the comments section of the Daily Fail’s coverage.  Equally predictably, they’re wrong.

The reason is straightforwardly to do with considerations of rights and justice.  I’m going to assume - fairly safely, I think - that the nub of the criticism is that being a convicted murderer means you lose the entitlement to certain social rights and benefits.  (Indeed, I’ve overheard many people at the bar saying things along the lines that, if you break the law, you lose all human rights - and it was only because I was busy serving other people that I could restrain myself from saying something withering in reply.)

The loss of rights claim is easily put to bed. more…

This is a very strange story that’s been picked up by the Daily Telegraph: a German Aids charity has been attacked for launching an advertising campaign - and a pretty sexually explicit one at that - in which people who spread HIV are presented as Hitler.  I’m not sure whether the target is people who have unprotected sex knowing that they’re HIV+, or just the sexually careless more generally.  Whatever: UK Aids charities aren’t happy:

“This advert has absolutely nothing to do with us or World AIDS Day campaigns in the UK, which we coordinate,” a spokeswoman for the National AIDS Trust said.

“Nor does it have anything to do with World AIDS Campaign who coordinate international campaigns and this year are focusing on human rights of people living with HIV.

“Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their own campaigns, however I think the advert is incredibly stigmatising to people living with HIV who already face much stigma and discrimination due to ignorance about the virus.

“On top of this it fails to provide any kind of actual prevention message (e.g. use a condom) and may deter people to come forward for testing.

“The advert is also inaccurate because in the UK thanks to treatment HIV is a manageable condition that does not necessary lead to AIDS.”

The Telegraph story has a link to the advert, which is also available via YouTube was available on YouTube before it was taken down for a terms of use violation (because it was vaguely pornographic, maybe?). Be warned, though: it’s not safe for work (at least, not if you share an office with people you don’t know well), and probably almost certainly not safe for kids either.  The actual campaign’s site is here; it’s less sexually explicit (apart from the advert, of course, which you can watch there if you really want), but you might want to turn down the speakers if you’re not into vaguely industrial music.

For what it’s worth, I kind of agree with the National AIDS Trust on this.  The implication the people with HIV are genocidal madmen manqué doesn’t seem to be quite right.  And, while I think that HIV/ Aids is one of the (many) areas in relation to which the media ought to stop being so prissy and prudish, I’m not sure that this is much of an improvement.  I don’t have any problem with people being shocked out of HIV complacency - the “Don’t Die of Ignorance” campaign was a hell of a jolt at the time, and right on the money; and little gratuitous nudity here and there adds to the gaity of nations (anyone who denies this being either a sexless robot or a liar).  But somehow the two don’t sit together all that well.  Maybe it’s just because I kind of suspect that the ad will mostly be watched by teenage boys who’ll simply not pay any attention to the at-any-rate facile slogan.  They’ll be looking elsewhere.

Ho hum.

At risk of flogging a dead horse, there’s still quite a lot being said about the NHS as a comparator for American healthcare.  With that in mind, there’s an interesting little piece on Liberal Conspiracy at the moment comparing the UK and US systems in terms of cost per head.

Do these numbers, and what’s done with them, look plausible?  They do to me, but then I’m statistically hopeless.  Thoughts?

Coming up soon: a post on a different theme.  A serious, philosophical one.  By the end of today, too, if I get my arse into gear.  No, really.

Further to David’s post about the absurd claims spouted about Stephen Hawking and the NHS by some opponents of healthcare reform in the US, it would appear that the man himself has decided to put his side of things.  “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS,” he told The Guardian. “I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”

Right.

I’m going to put my cards on the table here.  The NHS is f’king great.  It’s not often that that’s said, but its no less true for that.  It’s occasionally messy, and it probably needs radical reform - but it’s still great.  It means that Stephen Hawking - and anyone else - can have life-saving treatment for FREE when it’s needed, and non-life-saving treatment mostly for free as well.  If medical treatment is in order, one way or another, you’ll get it.  You don’t need to buy insurance, because you’ve already got it.  Really.  It’s that simple.  Moreover, the vast majority in the UK agrees that, for all its faults, something like the NHS is a good idea in prinicple at least.  We can say that beccause YouGov and the Fabian Society asked 3000 people about their attitudes to the NHS:

The NHS is sixty years old this year. Which of the following best describes your attitude to it?
(a) Whatever problems the NHS may have, its commitment to free treatment for everyone means it is still one of our great national symbols: 70%
(b) The NHS was a good idea for its time but we now need a different way of running modern healthcare provision: 25%
(c) The NHS was a bad idea from the start and it should be abolished and replaced with something different: 1%
(d) Don’t know: 3%

Labour voters were 80-15-1-4.
Conservative voters were 56-39-3-2.
LibDems were 79-13-3-5.

(Source)

Note that option (b) doesn’t amount to scrapping socialised medicine: it can also accommodate coming up with another way to provide it.  Even Melanie Phillips hasn’t suggested that the NHS is a bad thing.  Yet.  The reason why we don’t often make a point of saying that something like the NHS is such a good idea is that it’s blindingly obvious.  We might just as well construct arguments about the cuteness of kittens.

Yes, there’s rationing.  Rationing’s good: the link between “ration” and “reason” is more than etymological.  Rationing simply means that those people whom we think ought to get treated first get treated first, and that those treatments that we think don’t have the evidence don’t get used until they do have it.  Simples.  That’s not unjust - it’s justice in action.

But let’s be clear here.  There is a handful of rightwing Tories that seems to think that the NHS should be scrapped.  Prominent among them is Daniel Hannan MEP, who’s popped up on Fox “News” to tell Glen Beck just how awful things are over here.  Hannan isn’t my MEP (I’m stuck with Nick Griffin, ffs), but the point is that he’s the sort of person to make Ayn Rand look like John Maynard Keynes.  His best examples of the true horror of the NHS?  That you might have to wait a couple of months for your free treatment of a non-life-threatening condition (gasp!).  And that sometimes A&E departments are busy.

That last one is a killer.  If you can bear it, scroll forward to 1:50 on the Fox vid.  Essentially, the details are that a friend of his with a broken leg was told to wait his turn on a Friday night, and - ZOMG!!!1!eleventy! - was told that he couldn’t jump the queue and self-medicate in return for money.

Well, I’m staggered.  Imagine having to sit in the same room as… I can hardly bear to write it… poor people (and Hannan is pretty clear that it was filthy chavs who were getting in the way).  Ugh.

I should take heart.  If the best the anti-NHS crowd on either side of the Atlantic can do is to wheel out cranks like Hannan, then their best isn’t very good.

UPDATE: Even the Tory front bench and Fox stablemate Sky “News” are distancing themselves from Hannan…

UPDATE 2: Oh, God.  Now the health secretary’s waded in, calling attacks on the NHS unpatriotic.  Patriotism has nothing to do with it, you idiot.  If patriotism was the best argument in favour of the NHS, it’d be in real trouble.  If the best the pro-NHS crowd is cranks like Andy Burnham, then our best isn’t very good, either.

Thom Brooks on facebook has pointed out this hilarious rhetorical fact checking fail from Neo-conservatives debating the public provision of health care in the US:

more…

Astute readers are no doubt already following the story of Debbie Purdy who is seeking to have the law of assisted suicide in the UK clarified, given that historically those who have traveled overseas and provided assistance have not been prosecuted in the past, despite it appearing that they are breaking the law.

more…

Lord Falconer’s amendment to the Coroners Bill, which would have made specific legal provision for those helping others to travel to places like Dignitas, was rejected by the House of Lords last night.

Oh, well.  As Falconer admits, it’s not obvious that it’ll make all that much difference on the ground, because few, if any, have the stomach to prosecute in such cases, and it’s not a given that the public interest’d be served anyway.  So the limbo continues.