Why taxes are good for you #4: health and safety, guvnor

Ever since our earliest youth, Budget Day in the UK has always been accompanied by a chorus of cantankerous moaning “They’re putting a penny on me beer! He’s puttin’ tuppence onner packet o’ fags!” Spurred on as ever by a less than objective nor benevolent right-wing media, this was taken as firm evidence of a creeping Communist plot, designed to strike at the very foundations of British Manhood. But they paid; then many died of cancer or other hideous diseases. For the evidence they chose to ignore was overwhelming: such taxes were good for their health. A 50% rise on tobacco tax leads to substantial declines in smoking, with all the falls in things like lung disease, cardiovascular disease and the many other ills associated with the widespread consumption of the drug nicotine. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn the same is true of alcohol taxes. The literature is vast, but we hope that the studies which we have included will give you a starting point.[1] [2] And add : will future societies discover the same truth with regard to sweet foods and drinks?

What is true for the particular turns out to true for the general. You don’t have to read this blog for long before coming across the names of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett and their seminal work The Spirit Level.[3] Taxes, they admit create more equal societies. And more equal societies experience a truly amazing number of health benefits when compared to less equal ones. Obesity, childhood health, life expectancy, reductions in crime-all have been the subject of careful longitudinal and randomised studies which confirm the thesis of their book. Which advances in turn lead to more money available for better health care services, leading to less obesity, better child development……no, we’ll leave it there. You know what a virtuous cycle looks like. .Again, our references barely scrape the surface of what’s available[4] [5]. But we’ll trust you’ll do a little digging yourselves rather than take our word for all of this

Which leaves it hard to write a concluding paragraph when those conclusions are so obvious both to intelligent readers and patriots. For what can be more patriotic than to promote the health and well being of the society in which we are grounded? But. as we saw in the last blog, patriotism comes at a cash price, and you need an economy to pay for it, And in the next blog in this series we will learn that without a government and the taxes it collects, you will not have an economy at all. Don’t miss it.

[1] The Case for Health Taxes Masood Ahmed, Minouche Shafik World Health Organisation

[2] Estimating the effect of transitioning to a strength-based alcohol tax system on alcohol consumption and health outcomes: a modelling study of tax reform in England – The Lancet Public Health The Lancet

[3] Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett The Spirit Level Penguin 2009 updated 2024

[4]A UK wealth tax for better health | The BMJ

[5]Does income inequality cause health and social problems? Oseph Rowntree foundation

Two exciting new drugs for heart disease point a deeper lesson

News of two exciting new discoveries not only brings hope to cardiovascular sufferers around the the world. They also point the way to what has gone so terribly wrong and how despite everything, we could still get out of this mess.

First up is Baxdrostat, designed to reduce blood pressure. Sharon Wooler of the Daily Mail covers it here[1] As readers will instantly recall, it inhibits aldosterone synthase enzyme making it tough on hypertension and tough on the causes of hypertension. Yup, we guessed that was how it would work. Mmmm.

Next to the fore comes Clopidogrel, which is a doozy when it comes to preventing heart attacks and strokes: better than aspirin or so asseverates Andrew Gregory of the Guardian [2]Instantly we heard of the substance we asked” does it inhibit P2Y12 receptor on platelets?”-as any of you would have done, gentle readers, And the answer was: yes. It does!

The same Professor Bryan Williams and the same Conference of Cardiologists in Madrid cropped up in both stories, which we found confusing: but we have sorted it out for you gentle readers. All part of the service.

Oh yeah, what has gone wrong? Well, the fact is that both these drugs were developed using the scientific method. Which first needs long years of hard study to develop intellectual faculties like critical thinking, evidential assessment. probability theory and experimental design. Then many long hard hours in a laboratory learning to eliminate promising hypotheses and false lines of reasoning. This is a very different use of the word “research” to the activities of those who spend a few hours on the interweb, then jump to hasty conclusions which they spend the rest of their lives defending in an increasingly hostile aggressive and hysterical tone. it is this way of behaving which is slowly squeezing out scientific research. Cutting its funds and closing its laboratories. The longer it persists, the less new Baxdrostats and Clopidogrels there will be. And quite a lot more global warming.

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-15050895/Game-changing-miracle-drug-slash-high-blood-pressure.html

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/31/doctors-find-drug-that-is-better-than-aspirin-at-preventing-heart-attacks-clopidogrel

#baxdrosat #clopidogrel #cardio vascular disease #heart #circulation #hypertensiion

Bit of a round up: Yes Men, Fusion, Bowel Cancer, molecular shuttles and seething in the Sahel

Overwhelmed by a huge flood of suggestions , the only way we could cope was to pull them into this handy easy to access guide to some of the most significant happenings of the week. You don’ have to click on all of them

Will the Yes men Bring Down Donald Trump? As organisations get successful they attract more people who are adept at climbing the ladder rather than doing the job. The USA is somewhere near peak Trump at the moment. The Conversation warns how bad advice could end all in tears

https://theconversation.com/trump-surrounds-himself-with-sycophants-its-a-terrible-way-to-run-a-business-and-a-country-257391?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from

Fusion on Trent The person who sent us this idea has had to endure our enthusiasm for nuclear fusion for more than fifty three years, despite the fact that it hasn’t worked for fifty of them. Now all that may be about to change in Nottinghamshire in the UK as The I newspaper explains https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/limitless-clean-energy-nuclear-fusion-3711971

^{thanks to P Seymour} ^{via Apple News}

Weighing the risks of bowel cancer Inequality leads to poor diets. Poor diets lead to obesity. Obesity leads to bowel cancer. How ironic, therefore, to see a riff on this theme in the Mail, of all places. But there it is so, there you go, as they say(that’s enough cliches-ed)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14756279/Doctors-discover-vital-new-clue-search-cause-mystery-bowel-cancer-explosion-50s.html

Shuttle and open We’ve riffed a bit ourselves here about the blood brain barrier over the years. It’s a pretty tough problem for those who would like to treat various disorders of the central nervous system. Now new hope come sin the form of molecular shuttles as Nature Briefing explains

To reach the brain, drugs must pass through the highly-selective blood-brain barrier. Large molecules, such as antibodies, don’t cross easily, if at all. Now, small chemical tags that can ‘shuttle’ drugs across the barrier are offering a way forward. Several such shuttles, which take advantage of natural transport systems, are in the works. Some have already been trialled in rare diseases, with signs of success. The field is in its infancy, but these shuttles promise to revolutionize treatments for diseases from Alzheimer’s to cancer.Nature | 10 min read

When scientists have a bone to pick It is an invariable law in paleontology , especially of the human kind, that the rancour of the disputes between its protagonists is in inverse proportion to the numbers of remains they have to work with. There is no better example of fear and loathing than the disputes over the bones of Sahelanthropus, the famous Toumai, which was once hailed as the uber-ancestor of us all. Before you hand over the world to an Aristocracy of the Educated, as some advocate, read this.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/27/the-curse-of-toumai-ancient-skull-disputed-femur-feud-humanity-origins?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#cancer #bowel #nuclear fusion #dona;d trump #health #medecine #alzheimers #sahelanthopus

Professor Devi Sridhar: a masterclass in the antibiotics crisis

If antibiotics stop working it will be the end of modern medicine as we know it. That is the essence of this article by the redoubtable Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University. We’ve channelled her before on this blog (LSS 24 8 24; 26 1023). UK readers will recall her many appearances on TV during the COVID 19 pandemic. Her cool, calm reason was a welcome antidote to the wild hysteria, baseless conspiracy mongering and shameful ignorance of that epoch.

Her article is a reprise of the main points we and other campaigners have been making for years. Over-prescription; lack of research; widespread public ignorance. The tireless Professor Sally Davies is name-checked. Of course: for she has done so much to proclaim this pressing danger. But the real problem for Devi is widespread abuse of antibiotics in farming industries. To produce short term higher yields in livestock such as cattle and pigs. Leading us to eat more meat, which in turn gives us obesity, go on diets that fail, high cholesterol, heart attacks., go on more failed diets…….our fingers fail on the keyboard in sheer despair.

So let’s take one key learning point from Devi’s razor sharp mind, because maybe we haven’t emphasised it enough here down the years. The real problem is that new classes of antibiotics are needed :

Developing similar versions to existing antibiotics isn’t enough because they won’t be as effective against pathogens that have developed resistance: we need totally new classes of drugs. And a recent World Health Organization report noted that since 2017, while 13 new antibiotics have obtained authorisation, only two represent a new chemical class.

Here is the nub of the problem. It wont get any easier, because the best research teams are multinational, and international co-operation is breaking down rapidly. Things like phages and AI may help. Serendipitous searching in nature, in places like gardens or the jaws of Komodo dragons {LSS passim)may could also be marginally helpful. But in the last analysis, disputes about who imports which computer circuit from whom distract attention from the real question. A woman dying from childbirth needs an antibiotic, not a smartphone to photograph it.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/02/antibiotics-stop-working-prescription-gp-animal-farming

#antibiotic resistance #medicine #science #health #bacteriophage #komodo dragon

Are Ultra-Processed foods bad for your immune system? The Conversation thinks they might be

Go on any diet course these days (we’ve been on many) and the chances are that your course leader will inveigh against the dangers of processed foods[1] You know, those ones that saved us all so much time in the 1980s and 1990s, when it was essential to answer your e-mails and plan a talk over a delicious microwaved chicken korma. Well, processed foods comprise a lot more than just quick ready meals.And, l like a lot of labour-saving devices, they’re not all bad if used in moderation. Trouble comes when we all go too far. And our old friends The Conversation have an intriguing take on that. [2] Look at this extract frpm their article by Sam White and Phillipe Wilson

[there is] growing evidence that ultra-processed foods may affect how our immune system works. This may explain why some studies have linked ultra-processed foods with inflammatory bowel disease and potentially autoimmune diseases.

We on this blog have been tracking stories which link the digestive tract and immune system for some years. So it’s nice to see some real scientists really opening up this field. But there is a deeper lesson for us here, and it’s from economics, not science. Because economists of the classical school, or at least those who swallow their undergraduate textbooks, whole, always asseverate the a pure free market is the quickest way to achieve the optimum benefit. Well, processed foods are certainly free market. They have developed at breakneck speed, and certainly give the people what they want. The question is: how much do they need it? And at what cost does it come?

[1]https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/how-to-eat-a-balanced-diet/what-are-processed-foods/

[2]https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-heres-how-they-may-affect-the-way-the-immune-system-functions-231884?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest

diet #food #microbiome# gut #immune system