Health
Wi-fi, mobiles still don’t eat brains
Sense About Science has published Making Sense of Radiation for the tinfoil hat brigade and newspaper journalists to ignore.
In summary it says:
- Speculative stories about health risks and RF radiation often go uncorrected, leaving a trail of confusion that prevents public discussion and policy from moving forward.
- To counter this they wanted to share some insights, like the fact that different types of radiation exist, that ‘cancer clusters’ are unusual and that by picturing what radiation is like you see that the ‘electrosmog’ metaphor is misleading.
- Current research does not show that EMFs from mobile phones, masts and Wi-Fi cause harmful effects.
- The scientists had a look at a range of products claiming to protect us from EMFs and concluded that they exploited people’s fears, were unnecessary and generally did not do what they promised.
[Via Technovia]
[Sorry about the infrequent posting/commenting - I'm ill. From ELECTROSMOG!]
State-sponsored punching
Hurrah for Ealing Primary Care Trust, which has decided to liven up people’s cigarette breaks by providing people you can punch. At least, I think that’s the idea.
‘Smoking police’ will target people at betting shops, bus stops and shopping centres to shock them into giving up cigarettes… A team of 11 young people have been employed to approach smokers, in a similar way to charity fund-raisers - nicknamed ‘chuggers’ - who ask passers-by for donations.
Not to be outdone, it seems that the Scottish NHS wants to give fat people the opportunity to punch complete strangers too. As the inimitable Mr E puts it, responding to the story that “Armed with measuring tapes to check waists and equipment to test blood pressure, the “Street Nurses” are policing busy shopping centres, supermarkets and community centres. Any man with a paunch, or woman with an “apple-shaped” body whose waist measurement is higher than recommended limits is given diet and lifestyle advice or referred to local slimming classes”:
if there are people out there who honestly and genuinely believe that it is the role of government to walk the streets policing this shit, then we have a real fucking problem here.
Cure colic with cranial osteopathy for babies
Colic, it’s safe to say, sucks. But I found a cure. Mrs Bigmouth and I painted our heads blue, ate nothing but paint and cardboard for three weeks, danced an irish jig under the silvery moon at precisely 3.02am every morning and shouted “cakes!” every time we saw a magpie. And you know what? The colic went away!
I know what you’re thinking, Mister Science Man. You’re thinking that there’s no way we could have cured colic with our Blue Head Paint and Cardboard Diet Moondance Cake Shout Therapy. But we did, so nerrrrr. Colic goes away by itself eventually? A few babies may have a mild lactose intolerance that’s easily sorted with over-the counter drops? Some of the symptoms are due to overtiredness and overstimulation? I HAVE MY FINGERS IN MY EARS AND I CANNOT HEAR YOU NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH.
Ahem.
Mrs Bigmouth occasionally visits new-mum messageboards where parents and crazed alterna-health mentalists talk about the various ups and downs of parenting, and at the moment some of them are discussing cranial osteopathy, the ancient(ish) art of parting parents from their money. It’s a load of old toss, but of course the voices of reason keep coming up against the same immovable force: “Yeah but it worked for me!”
I understand it, I really do. Colic’s awful, you don’t want your kid to suffer, and you’ll try anything - and because colic eventually goes away, if you’ve been taking your kid to a quack you’ll naturally think the quackery cured your child. But let’s be sensible here. Handing over your cash to someone who believes in secret magic brain pulses and skull-rubbing to fix physiological issues caused by a traumatic birth isn’t smart. You’d be better off hiring a patient babysitter and going to the cinema for a few hours.
The Supersmoker: Cigs 2.0?
A few weeks ago I promised to blog about the Supersmoker, an electronic cigarette. Sorry it took so long but hey! Better late than never!
First, though, let’s remind ourselves of the sheer awesomeness of the Supersmoker promo video, which I thought was a parody until I discovered there was a real product.
The Supersmoker is a tobacco-free electronic cigarette, and if you’ve ever used a nicotine inhaler you’ll know roughly what to expect: it delivers a nicotine hit without any of the really bad stuff you get in normal cigarettes. However, the Supersmoker - and other electronic cigarettes; there are a few different models now - adds a few interesting ideas to the equation. In addition to the nicotine, a blend of food flavourings gives you something approaching the taste of a real cigarette; when you inhale, the cartridge is heated, giving you the sensation of smoking; and when you exhale, there’s smoke. Or rather, water vapour.
So does it do what it promises to do? To an extent, yes. It tastes more or less like a real cigarette - a slightly sweeter Marlboro Light, I reckon - and it’s as close to the sensation of real smoking as you can get without really smoking.
Is it worth having? Hmmm. There are three reasons to consider it: as a cigarette replacement, as a stop-smoking aid, and as a way to beat the smoking ban. Supersmoker’s marketing has concentrated on the latter.
As a cigarette replacement it isn’t bad, and it makes a lot of sense. Cartridges work out at roughly one-third of the cost of real cigarettes, and of course you’re only getting nicotine, so it’s better for you than real smoking in the same way it’s better to be addicted to Nicorette gum than to cigarettes. Cartridges are available in multiple strengths from “I’m not really a smoker” to “I can’t believe I’m not dead yet”, but they’re still not quite the same as the real thing, and they do take a bit of getting used to.
As a stop-smoking aid I’m not so sure. The whole point of such aids is to break the habit, but with the Supersmoker you’re doing all the things you do with a normal cigarette: you’re getting the nicotine hit, you’re getting the sensation of smoking, you’re getting the feel of having a cigarette in your hands. Which makes me think, what bit of the habit are you actually breaking here?
As a way to beat the smoking ban, I think the Supersmoker has scored an own goal. By creating something that looks more or less like a cigarette and that emits something that looks a bit like cigarette smoke, I think Supersmoker has created something that will cause you constant aggravation and get you ejected from all kinds of places.
Yes, it’s legal to use it - there’s no tobacco and no combustion - but at best, I think you’ll end up in constant rows with people who think you’re smoking, or people who think that if they let you use your Supersmoker in their establishment it’ll encourage other people to spark up real cigarettes. And I really don’t fancy my chances of getting it through airport security, let alone using it in an airport - which is a shame, because that’s the one place where a Supersmoker really makes sense. In pubs, restaurants, train stations and so on you can nip outside for a smoke; when you’re airside in an airport, you can’t. Maybe I’m wrong, though, so if any Supersmoker users are reading this I’d love to hear your experiences.
My gut feeling? I think if e-cigarettes were a common sight then perhaps the aggravation factor would disappear. Until then, though, I think they’re best described as a way to save money for people who don’t mind looking a bit silly.
Ssssssssmokin!
I’ve got one of these for a work thing I’m doing soon. It’s the SuperSmoker!
If you haven’t already seen the video, it’s hilarious.
I’ll report back :)
Hey! Let’s talk about smoking! Again!
Hardly unpredictable I know, but the Scottish parliament plans to ban the display of cigarettes in shops in order to - yes! - protect the kiddies. The next step, apparently, is to legislate so cigarettes are sold in plain packaging. As ever, the online comments are lovely: this lot is from the Scotsman.
Dacinda72 hasn’t read the article, or possibly any newspaper since 2006, because she doesn’t realise the smoking ban is already in place or that cigarettes are taxed quite a lot.
Smoke all you want. Just don’t do it around me. And don’t expect me to pay your medical bills.
The Geniune Mario Antionette, a champion speller, adds:
All licensed & age related products should be banned from the main consumer checkout areas. There should be a seperate till for these. Scotmid stores are the worst. People with their essential food/grocery items can’t get out the store because the smokers, boozers & gamblers clog up the checkouts, where these items are kept.
Which is amusing, as I get annoyed when it takes ages to buy my cigs because fat bastards are buying chocolate.
Alternative High Octane Fuelhead invokes the Nazis, and therefore loses.
Subrosa smokes, but it’s society’s fault.
We should go far further than this. Only have tobacco licenced outlets as in Spain. I speak as a life long smoker now suffering from COPD and chronic bronchitis who’s health is permanently damaged by cigarettes.
God, I love online debate. It’s so illuminating.
Anyway, back to the actual news story. What’s annoying about it is that none of our elected representatives are being honest here. If they were to say “We don’t like smoking, and we want smoking to be as much of a pain in the arse as possible” then at least they’d deserve some respect. But suggesting that putting cigs under the counter - legal ones, that is, not the growing numbers of smuggled cigs that are already available from under counters - to protect kiddies shows a major misunderstanding of how and why teenagers smoke, not least because the move doesn’t do anything to curb the evil trade in OPs.
You won’t see OPs advertised anywhere. They don’t have distinctive packaging. But they’re the favourite brand of apprentice smokers. They’re Other People’s cigarettes. They’re the cigarettes offered by someone else, the cigarettes you sneak from jackets, purses or kitchen worktops, the cigarettes you buy for 10p (well, it was a long time ago) on the bus, the cigarettes you smoke at parties even though you’re not a smoker and won’t get addicted.
Unless you’re very mature-looking for your age, or live in a certain Ayrshire town in the 1980s where one local chippy famously sold single fags to anybody older than a foetus, OPs will be your brand until you’re properly hooked and ready to buy your own cigarettes. But even then you don’t march into a shop, peruse the display and decide on a particular brand because of its sexy packaging. Nope, you give too much money to someone’s big brother, they go to the shop and return with something made from factory floor sweepings, ear wax and paint.
In support of the plan, it’s been suggested that kids of smokers are more likely to smoke than children of non-smokers. Which is absolutely true, but it’s not because of the packaging (and I fail to see how plain packaging will make any difference anyway. Unless maybe the plan is also to make cigarettes look like something else, like big purple dildos, or inflatable elephants or something? Otherwise once the packet is opened, the kids might well spot that hey! Their parents are smoking cigarettes!) It’s because it’s one of the best ways to annoy your parents and demonstrate how cool and clever you are, and it’s particularly great if they’re smokers, because you can expose their hypocrisy and, like, how it’s so unfair. Nothing says “I’m smarter than my folks” than committing yourself to thousands upon thousands of pounds in unnecessary expenditure, ruining your fitness and embracing the distinct possibility of a very painful death.
The Scottish government’s plans won’t do anything to address that. Instead, they’re just the latest bit of evidence that there truly is an international campaign to piss me off. And come to think of it, given the laws on health warnings, cigarette counters at present are a wall of black and white type proclaiming the dire consequences of smoking. Surely putting ‘em under the counter removes that oh so important health message?
It’s very simple. If you smoke, you’re an idiot. If you don’t smoke and you start, you’re an idiot. If you’re linking to this blog - hello again! - to back up some pro-smoking agenda from a magical world where cigarettes are good for your health, you’re delusional. And if you think that making cigarettes more like drugs or pornography, adding a frisson of “The Man doesn’t want me to smoke” attitude to a packet of Bensons, is going to make smoking less attractive to teenagers then you’re so stupid you’re probably a member of the Scottish Parliament.
Me, I’d really appreciate a bit of honesty here. Cut the pointless, grandstanding bullshit - if politicians are serious about stopping us smoking, then just go ahead and ban tobacco entirely and sacrifice the five-quid-a-day tax from every one of us. Anything else is just scribbling in the margins.
Elsewhere, the FAA has banned pilots and air traffic controllers from taking the anti-smoking drug Chantix (Champix in the UK) on the grounds that they might flip out and kill lots of people in a kind of passive anti-smoking massacre. Somewhere, Bill Hicks is giggling.
A great book, but the people who need it won’t read it
I mentioned this briefly before, but I’d like to mention it again: Suckers, by Rose Shapiro, is a wonderful demolition job of the alternative medicine racket.
Like all polemics, it sometimes crushes things that perhaps don’t deserve to be crushed - so it’s very hard on acupuncture, despite some indications that it can be useful in some circumstances - but the overwhelming majority of Shapiro’s targets deserve, and get, both barrels.
Here’s a short extract:
One American alternative practitioner and supplement salesman, Gary Null, tells us that “a solution to cancer would mean the termination of research programmes, the obsolescence of skills, the end of dreams of personal glory . . . Triumph over cancer would dry up contributions to self-perpetuating charities . . . It would mortally threaten the clinical establishments by rendering obsolete the expensive treatments in which so much money is invested . . . The new therapy must be disbelieved, denied, discouraged and disallowed at all costs”.
An imaginary researcher says: “Every year we must show you results. After all, you won’t support us if you don’t think we’re getting something done. On the other hand, we can’t be too successful — and we certainly can’t afford to come up with a cure. After all, if we did that, how could we come back to you next year and get more of your money?”
When in 2003 the US Food and Drugs Administration stopped Alpha Omega Labs selling Cansema, a worthless cancer cure, one supporter suggested that this was “no doubt because their products worked. The FDA has a long history of doing this to developers of successful cancer remedies”.
Alternative cancer therapists say their plant-based “cures” are overlooked by pharmaceutical companies because naturally occurring substances — rhubarb, for example — can’t be patented, precluding profit for “Big Pharma”. But David Colquhoun, Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, told me: “The kudos that a pharmaceutical company would get for finding an effective cure would be so enormous that it’s hard to imagine that they would decline to produce it, even if it didn’t make a lot of money. In any case, even when a plant-based substance (like Taxol, from yew) provides the initial lead, it is common for synthetic derivatives to be made that have better properties than the original.”
The book’s particularly good at characterising the typical alt-med consumer - well-educated, reasonably well-off women - and detailing the ways in which the alt-med industry targets them so effectively. Some bits had me jumping around in fury, and others were just desperately sad. Well worth reading.
Baby food bollocks from the department of transport
The Department of Transport (Aviation Security Domestic Branch) has replied to my query about air travel and baby food. I asked why all baby food had to be opened at security when it was potentially dangerous (baby food should be disposed of within two hours tops). The reply says:
The liquids requirements were introduced on 6 November 2006 to comply with EU legislation and apply equally across all EU Member States as well as the USA, Canada and others. Ready-made baby formula is not exempt from airport security checks. Although liquid baby food or sterilised water, sufficient for the journey, may be permitted in quantities greater than 100ml, the accompanying adult will be required to verify each by tasting before they can be taken airside. A small amount may be decanted from bottles for testing purposes.
Unfortunately, that isn’t true. The US rules are here, and in pretty much every other EU country the rules are that baby food “may” be tested - not that it *must* be tested, let alone that all of it must be tested.
It’s time for a crackdown on binge drinking… doctors
I’m sure this will be all over blogland, but I’m posting it anyway because it made me laugh.
The BMA, which condemned 24-hour drinking last week and called for higher taxes on alcohol, faces accusations of hypocrisy after complaints of drunken antics at its central London headquarters.
It has emerged that while blaming everyone else for Britain’s binge-drinking culture and demanding a general sobering-up, the BMA wants to stay open for two hours longer, until 1am. Its application to extend its drinking licence has attracted allegations of antisocial behaviour by partygoers.
…residents of nearby homes have complained of the guests “frolicking” on scaffolding outside the building, “urinating” outside neighbouring properties on Tavistock Square and “causing disturbances” in the early hours.
The Martian Death Flu survival kit
Martian Death Flu - or, as it’s known to women, “the cold” - is a rubbish thing to have, especially when you work in a creative job: you’re ill enough that your brain turns to cheese, preventing you from doing any work, but you’re not ill enough to get any sympathy whatsoever. So here’s what you need to fix it.
Covonia
The second-greatest cough medicine in the world is so effective that if you take too much, you’ll end up coughing up your own legs. I say the second greatest because Co-Op chesty cough linctus is even more effective, but it tastes like death.
Cold and Flu tablets
Decongestant, paracetamol and caffeine in one alarmingly orange tablet. Isn’t living in the 21st Century brilliant?
Vicks Vapo-rub
It’s easier and cheaper than divorce, and if you’re easily amused you can pretend you’re in an early 90s rave band. If you don’t want to spend the night sleeping on the sofa, cover yourself from head to foot in this stuff before tootling off to bed.
Good brandy
With the emphasis on “good”, because cheap brandy will give you a nasty hangover without any of the benefits. Good brandy clears the pipes and gets you quite spectacularly pissed to boot.