Don't Take Two of These, Don't Call Me in the Morning

Head of the British Medical Association, Dr. Hamish Meldrum, has caused quite a stir across the pond. Maybe more interesting, however, than the information about the obesity debate that rages on in the UK and the good ol' US of A, is the fact that Hamish Meldrum is a Scottish name. That's incredible!

Anyway, the point is that Dr. Meldrum has come out in opposition to all of the over-medicalization (I guess that's a word in England. Whatever, they invented the language, even if they don't pronounce their r's.) of obesity treatment, and that prevention is clearly the ideal method of lessening that societal problem and the costs associated with it. Duh. We don't need MD's to figure that one out, do we?

Read the article here on "This is London".

I often find the readers' comments sections of online articles to be the most educational part of the experience. That is one of the many reasons that online media are more effective than print. You can't read a newspaper and instantly read how other people around the world are reacting to it. What an age in which we live...

Here is one such comment that I found to be especially poignant, especially given the European perspective it allows us to understand, and the struggle among proponents of healthcare reform, i.e. everyone -

"This is the problem with socialized medicine. Free individuals should have every right to make these "lifestyle choices" assuming any associated risks - including dying early or higher medical expenses. But when government provides healthcare for all, it is going to seek to constrain the rights of individuals in the name of the greater good."

- Jude, london, uk

Down the Slippery Slope We Go

If you didn't see this coming, then you're not paying enough attention to the world around you.

Oxford researchers have recently proposed that a 17.5% tax be added to fatty foods, in an effort to reduce heart disease in the UK. Good thing they didn't propose that for the American colonies, or we'd have to kick their asses again, huh? Yeah, that's right England, don't even think about it.

The surprising fact that I learned was that such a tax already exist in Britain (I've now used UK, England, AND Britain! Am I talking about Wales or Scotland in any of this? Who knows?).

From Reuters online -

"The purchase tax is already levied on a small number of products such as potato crisps, ice cream, confectionery and chocolate biscuits, but most food is exempt."

I'm not sure if that was English, but I know what "ice cream" is, unless in England that actually means "milk shake". You get the point though.

"The move could save an estimated 3,200 lives in Britain each year, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health."

Even though the British Heart Foundation has rejected the proposal, the fact remains that this tax is already in place on other products! In the US and in Great Britain, taxes are used to dissuade all kinds of behavior (drinking, smoking, gas consumption). The thing is, where does it end?