A visit to the doctors today has triggered a set of protocols; minor routine examinations that are likely to find nothing, but as I am 49 and 50 is a trigger point for these protocols, the doctor is playing safe. That’s fine, I’ve no problem with this. Better to find nothing than die of undiscovered bowel cancer.
I do, however, have a problem with this:
Men over 50 should be prescribed cholesterol-busting drugs, the Government’s heart and stroke tsar has recommended.
Excuse me? I realise that I am approaching a potentially dangerous age, but really!
Professor Roger Boyle said a “blanket approach” could save lives, cash and NHS time. But, he said the public might not be ready for the move, which would see millions given a drug as a preventative measure.
Yes, I suppose it could save lives, and damn right people might not be ready for such a move. I bloody well object most vigorously to being medicated “just in case” I have a cholesterol problem.
The Government was also conscious of acting like a “nanny state”, he said.
No? Really? I can’t believe that for one moment.
That’s exactly what such a proposal amounts to. Treating us like children who are unable to see the doctor and get a blood test if we suspect that we might have a cholesterol problem; and, frankly, the effrontery to assume that we cannot manage our diets or exercise properly.
It’s interesting, is it not, that a study that suggests risk groups is seized upon by the control freaks and used as an excuse for blanket control. Let’s start with the initial premise:
In June, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) published draft guideline that said millions of people should be assessed to find out how many would benefit from statins.
That is fair enough. Testing is fine.
Information routinely collected by GPs should be used to identify those most at risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and prioritise them for further tests, it said.
Further testing of high risk people is also okay by me.
Adults who have a 20 per cent or greater risk of developing heart disease over the next decade should be offered statins, it said.
Offering statins to those at risk is also fine be me. But that is not what Roger Boyle wants to do.
Yesterday Professor Boyle said determination of risk could be linked to an age threshold, possibly 50 for men and 60 for women.
A blanket, scatter-gun approach more fitting to the hard of thinking than a rational, reasoned approach to the care of a particular group of patients. It’s as bad as Ruth Kelly wanting to stop people driving over a certain age.
Fortunately, there is some hope for Boyle as he concedes:
“I don’t think the general public is ready for the blanket approach where you get to 50 and take a pill.”
Now is the time to step back from the brink.
However, he argued, there would be a bigger impact in terms of people’s health if society went for the blanket approach.
Because we are all too stupid to look after ourselves and make our own decisions. I would not take such pills “just in case” as I prefer, wherever possible, not to use drugs.
“But I think we also are conscious of the accusation of being a nanny state and imposing things on people, so I think choice remains an important thing.”
Quite right, so now is the time to shut up and drop the idea. Educate people, test where appropriate and offer the remedy, then leave it up to us to decide.
Update: I see that the Mail carries the same story. The comments indicate that the UK population really is as stupid as I am beginning to conclude that it is…
Update 28/07/07: I see that the Groan has picked up the story this morning. An interesting comment from the British Heart Foundation:
The British Heart Foundation urged caution against mass medication using statins until there was longer-term data on the side-effects. Research published this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggested a very slight increase in cancers associated with higher doses of the drugs.
Well, blow me down…
One final point – statins are available over the counter. So, if you are a man over 50 and are worried about cholesterol and cardiovascular problems, you can toddle along to the pharmacist and buy some. Those of us who do not consider ourselves to be at risk can choose not to. End of problem. No need for the state to be involved at all. Or am I missing something here?
Yes that’s always the trouble with these people. They may be very clever at what they do, but put them into another sphere and more often than not they utterly useless. What on earth makes Boyle think that he should advocate mass medication? Is he seriously supporting compulsory intervention?
He’s way out of his depth on this and has clearly not thought out a logical position with regard to State interference with citizen’s lives. Because of that failure he must now be regarded as a danger to society.
If you can delay the complulsion for long enough, medical fashion will swing around and it will be declared that cholesterol is not the scourge that it had been thought to be.
Yes, medical fashion does seem to do that… The latest “in” thing is probiotics, apparently.
Meanwhile, I’ve no plans to take any drugs that are not absolutely necessary, “just in case”.
Depends on your definition of ‘necessary’ of course. I’ve often regarded the old Afghan Red as a ‘necessity’….
Indeed. In this context, though, I refer to drugs that cure a particular ailment – if I don’t have the ailment, then, well, it isn’t necessary…
Mrs Longrider likes to puff the odd roll of Old Holborn, not sure if it’s necessary, though 😉
Precisely. The move towards mass medication is very worrying. My family were in the forefront of opposition to artificial inducement of fluoride into public water supplies. And one should remember the incident not so long ago in the West Country where many people were damaged by overdoses of chemicals in public drinking water supplies. Trouble is you’re in the hands of the loopies, the weakest link.
I do hope that Mrs Longrider rolls her own.
She does. She buys the baccy in bulk when we are in France. She also refuses to give up because people tell her that she should and the smoking ban has simply made her all the more determined to carry on regardless. Or, roughly translated; “fuck ’em”.
Re your final point. What might be worth examining is the relationships between the advocates of compulsory treatment and the manufacturers and sellers of these drugs.