What do these things have in common? For purposes of this post, I’m going to talk about them as some of the most powerful political lobbies in the world, often intertwined in their actions and goals.
Of course not far behind these comes the health and pharmaceutical industries, and a host of others. I think a lot of what I say here can be extrapolated to include almost all of them.
Misinformation
There’s been an almost unbearable barrage of misinformation in the European press lately. Something that used to stand out as being primarily in the US.
The BBC and Guardian news organizations in the UK have been trading barbs over the issue for a while now, but both are almost equally guilty as are most others.
Take for example this article in the BBC on the sensational headlines that emerged from a report in The Lancet suggesting 50% of men in the UK could be obese by 2030. I’d like to have suggested the BBC is on high moral ground by publishing an article like this, but you only have to read the pages and pages of similar sensationalized crap in their Health and Science sections to know this isn’t the case.
So here we have a well known health journal, maybe the most well known health journal in the world, publishing an article that came from where? Did they just pull it out of the air? And who paid for the research? And who funds the journal? Who controls the editorial content?
The gist of the BBC article is, The Lancet published their article, and the other news organizations in the UK just lapped it up without thinking. Britain is getting fat! On the other hand, if any thinking person had looked at the figures, the logical conclusion is obesity in the UK at the very least looks like it’s leveling off and might actually be on a downward trend.
The Lancet authors offer the disclaimer that ‘they are extrapolations of current data and the past might not be a good guide to the future’, which is of course very laudable.
Could it be, intending to go along with new food labeling laws in Europe, the real intention of announcing the UK is facing an obesity epidemic is to get people to read food labels and come to conclusions about which processed foods are healthy, and eat more of those? Is the intention to get people to buy and eat more food, in order to create this obesity epidemic that doesn’t exist yet, in order to start a spiral effect of people eating more, getting fatter, and then buying yet more processed foods in order to try to loose weight? Doesn’t this sound a bit like the US?
B12
I had recently what might be considered a typical discussion, on this post, with MikeH over vitamin B12 and vegetarians.
The gist of the argument is this. In spite of the fact there have been vegetarians and vegans for about as long as civilization itself, and before WWII there were arguably more vegetarians and vegans (or near vegetarians and vegans) in the world than meat eaters, and there have been no identifiable wide spread or systemic health problems or dietary deficiencies identified in these populations, we are supposed to be afraid of being vegetarian or vegan. Along comes vitamin B12.
First comes the assertion that vitamin B12 deficiency is very serious, and people who become deficient in B12 can get very sick and it can be difficult to treat. Lots of peer reviewed studies to prove this. I don’t think anyone will dispute this, at least I’m certainly not here. Feel free to go for it in the comments, if you’re so inclined.
Next comes the assertion there are no vegan sources of B12, and probably vegetarians should watch out for it too, with the exception of manufactured supplements. Again, if you feel like going for it in the comments feel free, but I would probably agree with this too.
Next comes the leap of faith!
Because vitamin B12 deficiency is serious, and there are no vegan sources of B12 and not many vegetarian sources, vegan and vegetarian diets are unhealthy and these people should take supplements ‘just in case’.
This is a total heap of garbage, and there is no truth to it or any reason to take it seriously in any way. There are absolutely no studies that provide credible evidence to support this, and lots of reasons to suggest there is no truth in this whatsoever.
There are connections between genetics and B12 deficiency, and some prescription drugs have it as a side effect. There is however no known relationship between dietary B12 and levels in the blood. Tests for B12 deficiency are not reliable, and treating B12 deficiency with supplements is often not effective. There is just no reason to think there is any connection between eating B12 and health.
I was surfing around the Internet on this subject a few weeks ago, and I had to laugh when I came across this website of someone who is obviously trying to make a living off of B12 deficiency. A ‘project of vegan outreach’. This website reminds me of the old websites that used to be around, offering coaching to gay people to help them become straight. Remember those? I guess this is the same logic needs to be applied here, that vegans need help to be healthy!
Anyway, if you slog your way through all the peer reviewed and cited crap on his website (where you aren’t allowed to leave comments or discuss anything with him), you come across this as proof that there’s a connection between vegans and B12 deficiency:
I meet vegans on a regular basis who report having been diagnosed with B12 deficiency or who developed symptoms.
How about those of you out on the Internet, do any of you ‘meet vegans on a regular basis with B12 deficiency’? Just how credible is a statement like this? Just how credible anyway is someone who puts together a hokey website like that one to promote a myth?
Could it be that the food industry is trying to make people afraid of being vegan, because they lose money when people don’t buy processed food of animal origin?
I think everyone needs to take some personal responsibility these days for thinking about what you read, and being able to identify obviously flawed information. I think in many ways that’s the job of us bloggers, to help out with this kind of thing, and maybe we haven’t done a good job lately.
Smoking and Drinking
Young people are drinking more these days! Drinking is very bad for young people! More young people are being admitted to hospitals with alcohol intoxication!
We’ve probably all heard this a lot, for years now. So where does this come from?
Might this come from the same place I talked about above, that says the UK is getting fat! Just what proof does anyone have that drinking among young people is any more or less serious than it’s ever been?
When I grew up in the US I heard this as public smoking bans began to be more common there, and there was a push to raise the drinking age to 21. I’m hearing it now in Europe as public smoking bans are coming into force here too.
Now I can hear you asking, what do public smoking bans have to do with the drinking age? Maybe more importantly, am I actually IN FAVOR OF YOUNG PEOPLE DRINKING?!
When Nixon first started the US war on drugs and people who opposed this were asked the same question. Are you in favor of people using drugs?
There’s simply no connection between being opposed to drinking ages and being in favor of young people drinking, any more than a connection between being opposed to the war on drugs and being in favor of people using drugs. This is nonsense.
In the same way the global war on drugs has been very destructive to society at large, drinking ages are very destructive to the health and well being of young people. In the same way the war on drugs tended to push people onto harder drugs, drinking ages tend to push young people onto things worse than alcohol.
How Drinking Ages Work
The issue is this. Like most people, young people have a need to socialize and consume drugs like alcohol recreationally. In the same way adults would probably not throw a party without serving alcohol, and many adults drink modest amounts of alcohol on a regular basis, many young people have the same needs. This is just a fact, and as a society we need to tolerate it as such.
No one likes seeing a drunk 12 year old! No one likes seeing a drunk 50 year old either! Drunks are not nice, no matter what the age, but we can’t let ourselves be ruled by the sight of one either.
However bad drinking might be for young people, whatever the sensationalized headlines might say, the one thing that’s worse is tobacco!
By establishing ages for alcohol and tobacco use, where the age for tobacco is the same or lower than alcohol, we’re sending the message that smoking is okay but drinking isn’t. The whole culture that goes along with showing an ID to drink simply says to young people that alcohol is special and cigarettes are not.
We’re also increasingly becoming aware just how addicting tobacco is for young people, something the tobacco companies have known for a long time. Just a few puffs when you’re young is enough to dramatically increase the likelihood of developing a smoking habit when you’re older. Being addicted to tobacco is permanent. It’s true some people manage to stop after a time, but the addiction and craving is a life long reality. If a young person takes a few puffs early on, and starts to become addicted, they’ll carry this with them too for the rest of their life.
Finding cigarettes is hardly a challenge for young people. If their parents smoke, they’ll be available in their home. Vending machines offer access. Friends. They are simply everywhere.
If a young person can’t drink or smoke marijuana, they’re much more likely to do ‘the next best thing’ and smoke tobacco.
Once you become addicted to tobacco, you are much more likely to drink more. This makes the alcohol industry happy, and much less inclined to object to loss of alcohol sales to underage youth.
If as a world we want to rid ourselves of the scourge of tobacco, we’re going to have to be a lot more tolerant of the alternatives. As public smoking bans reduce tobacco consumption, tobacco companies will be looking for more customers, and they’ll be doing this through increased drinking ages. We need to resist this.
The leading cause of death right now in the Netherlands is lung cancer. This just can’t be compared to whatever damage might occur to young people if they get drunk. Drunk people of any age recover after a morning hangover, but smoking is for life — and death.
