Public Health and The Tractor

Yes it has been ages since I last wrote anything and yes I know that blogging requires more work than I have been putting in and YES I am sorry!

Anyway, what particular thing is it that has made me log in and start typing? Well, it is kinda mundane actually and starts with a thought I had whilst driving...what better premise for a blog?

As some of you may know, I live in Cornwall. Deepest...darkest...North Cornwall. Sparsely populated and riddled with a myriad of tiny, narrow and unfriendly roads without white lines and with a good many completely blind corners that appear quite without warning. This is also holiday-maker heaven; every school break the population of North Cornwall explodes with terrified drivers whose cars swell to at least twice the size on the journey down here which means none of them fit on our roads. Or so they think. The result  of this is many 20 mile an hour journeys stuck behind some poor soul who thinks every tractor coming towards him is going to drive straight over his 4x4 which has never seen a muddy puddle, let alone left the tarmac. It also provokes a special kind of rage in locals who are forced to drive behind someone who positions themselves in the middle of the road, or worse, find themselves half way round one of our many blind corners facing some idiot who is driving in the middle of the lane with those 'this is the middle of the road' white lines under the very centre of his car!

I digress (that felt good though). One of the major problems we have down here on the roads are people who blindly follow their sat navs places that simply are not suitable for those who are incapable of putting their car into reverse and driving backwards a little bit. Not just  holiday makers either, a quick Google search will bring up stories of lorry drivers wedging themselves between buildings in a tiny village they have tried to squeeze their massive bulk through. I once watched a coach beach itself on a hairpin bend as it had followed the sat nav down a road that it could not possibly make to the end. How we laughed as it sat there, its wheels spinning futilely in the air and its belly resting on the road, rocking slightly as all the fuming passengers disembarked.  There was even a case of one lorry driver who, thanks to his unwavering faith in his digital direction dictator, found himself driving directly onto a beach!

ONTO A BEACH!

So, I was stuck behind a hapless fellow on the road to Bude (which is a 60mph road) who was pootling along at 40 mph whilst mesmerised by the little screen attached to his dashboard, and it struck me! Sat-navs! Actually that is not fair, it is not the sat-nav's fault - it is the drivers fault, they are entirely reliant on their sat-navs. SO reliant that they miss all the obvious signs around them that give them actual clues as to what is really going on. So distracted that they don't notice cyclists or bikers, where they are on the road, what the car in front is doing or even the fact that that sign says NO CARAVANS DOWN THIS ROAD!

What struck me is this; I was stuck behind Public Health!

Public Health and Tobacco Control are so completely and totally ignorant to what is going on around them because they cannot raise their eyes and just look! They are exactly like every single driver I have sat behind who is gripping the wheel, white knuckled, glancing nervously at the sat-nav whilst the beautiful Cornish countryside sweeps past unnoticed. They bicker with the person in the passenger seat who points out 'Uh...I think we just drove past the turning....oh, sorry, yes darling I know....we must have lost the GPS signal for a minute...' as somehow it is their fault for looking out of the window and seeing with their own eyes what is going on. They doubted the Sat-nav! How dare they!

Every single I time I see the same tired and boring arguments about nicotine being as 'addictive as heroin', that nicotine use is going to create cocaine addled monsters out of our children, that this is all 'straight out of the tobacco playbook', oh and 'flavours are only there to ensnare The Children' I am seeing people who cannot think for themselves. Indoctrinated and utterly lacking in the ability to function without someone else telling them what to think.

I do not have any sympathy for the drivers on these roads that make me late, double my journey times, cause tirades of expletives that make my children say 'Mum! You shouldn't swear' and worst of all, cause accidents every single year without fail. Blind people causing harm cos they are not looking where they are going!

That is every single Dr, Researcher, Scientist, Sociologist, whatever, who point blank refuses to see that the real world, real living people around them are doing something that their studies are not and cannot and will not show. In ignoring us, You Are Causing Harm.

And much like our white knuckled drivers, at some point that tractor IS going to drive right over your car...and we vapers will wave back at the crumpled remains of everything you thought you knew as we carry on our merry way. You know what else? There will be some of yours on board with us!

#notblowingsmoke

Clipped, but published.

The reason I am blogging this is not for the same reason as the BMJ letter entry. This time, my letter has been published in the Lancet, albeit abridged. That is why I wanted to put up the complete text that I sent. The shorter, published, version can be found here.

I should say that the editing was not done without my input and they were very patient and helpful.

----

What a peculiar situation I find myself in. At the end of 2012, not long after starting vaping after 23yrs of smoking, I realised that things were being grossly misunderstood about what ecigs could offer to smokers. Very naively I, and others, thought we could explain to politicians & Public Health where they were going wrong with what the TPD was trying to achieve. Within months, we learnt what 'AstroTurf' meant, as an Irish MEP informed the press that this is what we were. Why? Because we knew too much.

I was shocked! It seemed so obvious that we were normal people trying to dispel fears & misconceptions with experience & knowledge. Things have gotten significantly worse since then. We have struggled to get the ear of the very people who are advising Government, WHO & the public. We have been insulted or ignored, often both, and in a shockingly aggressive way. And why? I genuinely could not say. We are not an organised group, we are not funded, we act as individuals but have the same cause. The sense of frustration is palpable among us & I for one am horrified by the accusations of being shills & stooges. We are told our accounts are not real, our stories are fake. No matter how polite or constructive we are, some of the most influential & media savvy in PH will instantly bemoan the 'trolling' they are having to endure, which closes doors to people we have never even spoken to. 

When finally we had enough of the bullying & untruths from articles written behind paywalls, public comments about us & at us on social media, we complain to an authority about the extreme behaviour we experienced on Twitter. We are informed of the complaints procedure & told to wait 30 days for a resolution. Then we watch while elements of Public Health stepped up what feels like a campaign to humiliate us further in blaming us for the behaviour of their peers. More articles, more opinion pieces appear. Somehow, we deserved the insults, we bought it upon ourselves. We are unreasonable & silly for expecting to have a say in what's happening with our lives. Decisions are being made about us, but definitely without us.

To finally see the Faculty of Public Health support their president John Ashton, before conclusion of the investigation, without even being asked to further explain our experience is disgusting. It would appear most of you are not even aware of what happened. I ask you all to reflect deeply on who it is you represent, who you are charged with protecting.  Well it's me, and millions of others like me, yet you insulted & ignored me, then when I complained you blamed me.

UPDATE - Thanks to four particularly vocal Anti E-cig Activists responding to my letter, I have written a second letter, here. 

The War with the Fnools PT 2

Thank you for joining me for the 2nd part of this bi-blog special. Part one is underneath this post.

Funnily enough, I am writing this part not long after Robert West's data appeared and the media went into meltdown. Most notably The Guardian. If you haven't already, read it now. That is not a request!

Back to the PHE meeting.....

We already have an idea of what The Chief Medical Officer, Special Scientific Advisor to the Governement, Dame Sally Davies, thinks of vaping thanks to this article in the New Scientist. However, I was not prepared for what I had to endure for her presentation. 

She is still having some aversion issues with using the word Vaping. It upsets her that word. So does 'vaping lounges' apparently. Sorry about that Sally (I'm not, 'grow up' springs to mind!). Her entire sermon seemed based on her power and influence which she was at pains to remind us about...over and over...

As CMO she 'is protecting the population',

She has 'written to all ministers as Senior Medical Advisor' (She verbally underlined that),

She is 'worried, and I tell you this as the head of this profession'.

There were a few more of these, but frankly I got bored of writing down her attempts to continually remind everyone that she is their Boss, that there is None Higher and because she is worried, we should all be worried. Cos she told us to be.

God Complex anyone?

A few other telling nuggets were;

'Horrified' that ecig packets could be emptied out and tobacco cigarettes could be put in.

Normalisation and Glamourisation were proved conclusively by her daughter (of undisclosed age) 'dragging' her to an e-cig display to show her 'how beautiful they were'. STOP PRESS! In light of this new evidence, I feel the only appropriate thing to do would be to redesign all e-cigarettes to look like turds. 

I think it is only reasonable, after all, smokers to do not deserve beautiful things. Aesthetically pleasing and tactile devices they might WANT to use. No no no, you must feel the shame of being medicated.

mmmmmm tempting

Then we got the classic,

'Willfully aimed at children, who wants flavours?'

Well actually, now that you mention it...

This was the sweet table at my wedding. Do you know who had the biggest bags of sugary loveliness? The adults. They stripped that table. (Yes, that is Hubba Bubba)

Bought these on Saturday - cos I like Sherbert & Liquorice.

I figured I might as well ask Twitter too...

Yeah so quite clearly, no one likes flavours.... Oh and do checkout www.cybercandy.co.uk and have a little looksie at all the product reviews. If you have time, you can message all those adults and tell them that they do not like flavoursome things after all and that maybe they would like some of those Dog Breath crisps that are so popular.

There is one thing that was said during her diatribe though. One thing that should define this woman as the menace to public health that she is. In her position as absolute authority for Public Health in this country, what do you think her message is to smokers? All 9 million smokers. For whom she does not want to allow the option of harm reduction, but also admits that NRT fails.

Her message?

'Smokers should just grow a backbone'.

And there it is. Quit Or Die in the starkest way I can possibly imagine. If you are not disgusted, you damn well should be. THIS is the callousness we knew existed, but did we realise that it sat RIGHT AT THE TOP? Advising government? Influencing the opinions of Public Health? It is repugnant. This woman cannot protect public health when as far as she is concerned 20% of the population can just die due to her unfathomable ignorance.

I have nothing further to say on this woman. Nothing.

So instead, lets touch briefly on McKee. 

'Cherry crush candy leads to smoking'

'Insecticide' 

He does 'not even know why were are having this discussion'

'We WILL catch up' with the forward thinking of New York and Australia. This is the future (and it really is not bright).

He was perplexed as to why a symposium on e-cigs was not covering Plain Packaging.

And then. Oh yes and then...what could Martin Mckee possibly say? What could a Professor in Public Health have to say when it is clear he has nothing? When the subject of nicotine use in pregnant women was raised, after it was made clear that NRT is of no use and nicotine of no real concern (by actual experts), what is the most inappropriate and desperate comment that could be made?

'That's what was said about Thalidomide'

The response to this was immediate, and unsurprisingly it was not good! People were heard to say 'disgusting'. This was boo'd, and rightly bloody so. 

For the record, Martin Mckee, you should be ashamed.

As such, I would like to present to you, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, The Fnools. Definitely not a typo, but a race of aliens in a short story I read many years ago by the genius Philip K Dick. The Fnools are 2ft high aliens hell bent on destroying humanity and taking earth for themselves. But thanks to their piddling height, were easy to spot and so were usurped at every corner. Their mistake was a simple one, they looked exactly like us, but had got the height wrong. Ironically, in the story, their undoing comes at the hand of Tobacco, Alcohol and Sex. One of these vices is discovered by them and immediately, they grow 2ft, to a still paltry 4ft, but nevertheless rather unnerving. The second vice adds another 2ft and so now they stand at 6ft and are perfectly hidden among us mere humans. Alas, with victory within reach, they encounter their 3rd vice, and unable to resist, find themselves standing at 8ft tall. Clear for all to see. The proverbial thumb. There is no hiding and they are clearly visible for what they are. Inhuman. Now easily targeted and destroyed.

The Fnools thought they were winning. and they went too far and exposed themselves. 

This is what we just witnessed. It is what every member of public health and tobacco control with a conscience and a genuine desire to do good (whether we agree on the methods or not) has just seen. Trust me, it is not just our stomachs that were turned. I would not be surprised if this behaviour was what broke the camel's back for Robert West. 

So maybe, we should say Thank You To Mckee, Davies and their ilk. They just did us a great favour.