Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 7:08:24 PM
I have plans to write an essay about how the fighting against cigarettes (along with the fight against "bad" foods) has gone beyond a public health debate and taken on the nature of a fanatical crusade. However, I don't have time at the moment to go into it , so I will simply point out the hypocritical nature of the anti-smoking crusaders.
The arguments against smoking (excluding the second hand smoke silliness) are the same as those raised against transfats and other modern boogeymen. However, while it is OK to restrict people's behaviors to stop them from doing "bad" things like smoking or eating enjoyable food, the health nazis will not take any steps about a huge preventable cause of death and a massive drain on health care resources.
Think about it: If the health nazis want to prevent people form becoming ill and using scarce resources, what is a very simple step to take? Why tracking HIV carriers and quarantining them to prevent the transmission of this communicable disease. We did it in the past for tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, and we could easily do it for HIV.
If we did it may not prevent as many deaths as the anti-smoking measures, but, considering the costs associated with the treatment of AIDS, it would probably save more health care costs.
But it will never happen.
Why? Two reasons.
One, the health nazis are usually on the political left, and are thus beholden to the gay lobby, which has resisted even the most minimal common sense health measures when it comes to AIDS and HIV. This group has resisted even efforts to inform people about the true risk and incidence of AIDS. (That those who died before they were categorized were automatically declared "heterosexual, low-risk" at one time is a symptom of this dishonesty.) They claim it is to combat "homophobia", but it still keeps us from pursuing common sense health measures.
Two, the health nazis don't really care so much about health as they do about making others "live right". If we discovered tomorrow that dieting and exercise were unhealthy, I doubt they would stop pushing. There is something of the medieval self-flagellant in the CSPI. They renounce anything pleasurable simply because it is pleasurable, though they pretend it is all done in the name of health.
For example, even as science was showing that the risk of transfats was overblown and not worth combating, they continued to push a zero tolerance approach. Similarly, when the journals in Europe were promoting the benefits of moderate drinking, groups in the US resisted the publication of such findings for fear of "encouraging drinking". In other words, they were more invested in preventing drinking than in promoting health.
I have the suspicion that the main goal of CSPI is to prevent the possibility of anyone ever having any fun. It definitely seems a more consistent explanation for their deeds than any commitment to health.
Then again, they are mostly heterosexuals, so they seem to exclude homosexuality form their list of "fun" they want banned. At least, that is my theory. Otherwise I can't imagine why a group so terrified that someone, somewhere may be having fun has not clamped down on homosexual promiscuity.
Or maybe it is just the usual leftist sex obsession. Their love for regulating anything and everything, their habit of banning everything they can't control, for some reason stops cold at matters sexual. The left loves control, but they love sex more. So maybe it is just the left's sexual obsession which keeps CSPI from delving into any sexual regulations.
As I said, this is just a brief note prior to a more thorough essay. For those interested in the subject, a detailed listing of the false claims made by CSPI are available
here. More can also be found
here.
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CSPI is Center for Science in the Public Interest, for those who did not know.
And one disclosure: I do smoke, and have so far resisted punitive taxation, being driven outdoors, and generally being treated as morally below child molesters and continue to smoke.