I recorded a podcast yesterday with the BMJ (the British Medical Journal), in which I was interviewed by its editor. We started on the subject of doctor pay and the justification for an increase, but went on to much broader issues, many of which I was warned would probably never make the cut, ending instead in the bin of unused recordings.
Even they’ve a limit of barking.
Second, therefore, I would want to focus on what I called the macro issues within health care, which explain why that explosion in health care demand has taken place. I would, in other words, seek, on the basis of existing knowledge (because it exists), explanations for:
The growth in chronic disease management, which is overwhelming the NHS, to determine for whose benefit and with what real outcomes this is occurring, when we all know much of it exists to facilitate profit-making by big pharmaceutical companies as a result of their revenue-gouging the public purse for their own benefit and not that of the patient.
The growth in demand for such chronic, ongoing care, which is known to be due to the excess consumption of ultra-processed foods, which is similarly known to be toxic and profoundly harmful.
The failure to control the excessive consumption of alcohol, which is a major carcinogen.
The use of mental health services to label many people in society as “divergent” when there is nothing unusual about their way of thinking, except for the fact that neoliberal capitalism does not like the challenge that they often pose to its methods of working, and ultimately to its right to extract profit from people’s labour.I could have added more issues to the list, but my point was very clear. It was that unless we tackle the causes of ill health, most of which have been manufactured by a toxic form of organisation of our society that has been designed to extract profit from people at the cost of their wellbeing, then nothing will solve the problems of the NHS as people become progressively sicker.
Yep, if only the neoliberals were crushed we’d all live forever in perfect health.
Rather than reality, which is that market liberalism has made us all rich enough not to die of infectious diseases and so all succumb to chronic ones instead.
Murphy declares the shite, the whole shite, and nothing but the shite.
He really is demented, you know.
Well, yes Tim. No doubt I’d have booted the bucket by now if I’d actually had to slice down that field of grain with a sickel instead of letting the harvester do the job.
Despite his conspiracy theory, nearly all the major drugs used for “chronic disease management”, such as statins, antihypertensives, antihyperglycaemics and antidepressants are off-patent and earn the “big pharmaceutical companies” nothing.
Must have been desperate. But not mad. They’ll keep the more money bit and ditch the tinfoil health rant.
Lysenko did nothing wrong!
Trofim Murphy doesn’t tell us Why On Earth BMJ would talk with him. But Trofim takes the opportunity to open up to broad categories and provide HIS expert medical advice. Fuck the germ theory of disease, it’s them damn ultra super hightest processed foods!
Interviewing the Spud shows what a rag it is. I suppose they’ll do anyone arguing for more cash, no matter how mad and thick the person is.
Yes, I didn’t give much credence to any claim published in the BMJ before this, but if they run anything from Murphy I think it can be moved from ‘not necessarily right’ to ‘almost certainly wrong’.
“What this show needs is somebody mad and thick. And I think I know just the chap”.
Two NHS issues that always seem to get missed out are Rapid Population Growth & Migration and the PFI chickens on Broon’s maxxed out credit card coming home to roost, or at least demanding their regular pound of flesh from the nhs budget.
And the biggest one of all: that the NHS is a job creation scheme for furriners, at the expense of locals in every way.
I think that the usual suspects have consciously chosen to use foreign workers in the NHS as a specific weapon to be used against anyone arguing to reduce mass immigration – ‘Our NHS depends on immigrants! You’re trying to destroy it!’ etc etc. Presumably they aren’t cheaper, as I’m sure you’re not allowed to pay a foreign nurse/doctor less than a UK citizen, so there’s no real financial incentive, so an ideological intent makes more sense.
100%. Why else? And to the extent that the 50 muslim doctors in Workington hospital now want their own mosque. In Workington. If that’s not entryism I don’t know what is.
I’d really like to see the impact of a ban on UPFs – would be fascinating to see the likes of Murphy scramble to address the massive issues with food distribution this would cause. No doubt it would all be due to ‘neoliberalism’. He really does need to be shuffled off to a padded cell somewhere.
Would also be interesting to see how he tackles the black market his policies would create. If people want a hot shawarma with MSG and kebab meat delivering to their back door, and there’s willing providers from dark kitchens, waddaya going to do – have some kind of UPF police force on the streets at night intercepting the electric cycles
That UPF police force would reduce Reeves-increased unemployment and help to justify Murphy’s desire for “moar tax”
Gamecock considers London to be on the verge of DEATH!
London is totally dependent on the importation of food from rural areas. Government actions on transportation are a DIRECT THREAT to that importation. Throwing UPF BS on top of that will only hasten the end.
Yes. It’s funny how the metropolitan anti-road and anti-farmer lobby appears not to consider where its food comes from.
“Oh, Waitrose. And M&S. And Daylesford. And Planet Organic. And the farmer’s market, of course”.
Right. How did it get there?
UPF isn’t even a scientifically defined thing. It’s best to put on a pair of Guardian reader magic spectacles and just look at foods as “ugh prole”. That’s UPFs for you.
Like Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is a UPF. But eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla and cream aren’t UPF. If you do the whole creme anglaise + cream thing at home, what you make isn’t a UPF. Even though what you’ve got is about the same as Ben and Jerry’s. Yes, they add some stabilisers and emulsifiers, but no-one is saying these are bad for you. Basically, the same fucking thing that goes in your mouth. One is UPF, one isn’t.
What’s the difference? Well, home cooking is a non-prole activity. You get people round and serve them vanilla ice cream made in your Cuisinart and you score bonus class points (home made is also nicer). And probably, if you were eating some rare gelato that was only sold in Islington, they’d find some way to say “ah, no, that’s not UPF”. At least until Sainsbury’s started selling it.
It’s as absurd as talking about Ultraprocessed Clothes. Like it’s bad to buy a sweater instead of wool and knitting it.
I really should get crackin’ on the “vinegar” coment I made a couple years back…
Got the Grokking done… Can … sort-of.. translate it into tree-banana language… but…not a Writer…and too many Squirrels…
20 drafts over two years, and it isn’t *good* enough for here….
UPF: Unspeakable Prole Food.
Yeah, UPF (un)enthusiasts like to claim that it’s UPF if it contains ingredients you wouldn’t find in your kitchen cupboard. But when I make food in my kitchen, it gets eaten within a few hours, it doesn’t need to sit on a shelf in a supermarket for a week. Take out those ‘unusual’ ingredients and UPF really would be bad for you!
Isn’t a lot of the sainted ‘Vegan’ food technically UPF?
Spud: …it exists to facilitate profit-making by big pharmaceutical companies as a result of their revenue-gouging the public purse for their own benefit and not that of the patient.
Adam Smith: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.