ThinkConstructive

The Lancet has an important article on comparing the current efforts to implement a climate policy, with tobacco control.

While tobacco smoking has been scientifically shown to cause illnesses, it took a substantial amount of time of fifty years to implement a tobacco control policy. Still, nowdays smoking kills over 5 million people each year, with an estimated overall death of more than 100 million people.

The tobacco industry, through an effective campaign, managed to avoid control by undermining the scientific results and injecting doubt in the science.

Though it was shown that smoking causes health problems in the 1950s, only in 2005 did the World Health Organisation (WHO) bring into force the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

We covered recently the book Doubt is their product on the efforts of the tobacco and other industries to delay regulations for products that are harmful to the health and the environment.

Read the full article Climate policy: lessons from tobacco control (requires free registration to TheLancet).

Reference: The Lancet, Volume 374, Issue 9706, Pages 1955 – 1956, 12 December 2009 – doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61959-0

A pox party is a party held by parents for the purpose of infecting their children with childhood diseases, most commonly chicken pox, thus acquiring some immunity to the disease. (source: Wikipedia)

It might make sense to some to inoculate in this natural way instead of providing vaccinations. Several childhood diseases are less severe when one is a child.

However, should swine flu parties be held?

Acting CDC Director Richard Besser M.D.

Apparently, this has been such a big issue in the US that acting CDC Director Richard Besser, M.D. had to intervene with a press conference.

“This is a new, emerging infection, and we’re learning more about it each day,” Besser said.

“But how an individual person will be impacted by the infection is not something that we know,” Besser said Thursday.

“It’s a big mistake putting individuals and children at risk, and the CDC does not recommend that people follow that course,” he said.

Is swine flu similar to childhood diseases that have few side-effects and it is generally known that a child will recover? Most probably not; as the acting CDC Director said, swine flu is not well understood yet.

Is there really a chance that one who gets swine flu now may become immune to a future deadly mutation of the virus? It appears there might be a case if the new deadly virus mutation does not also alter the way it is currently identified by our immune system.

Swine flu appears to be in a process where it mutates fast, and the more people that are infected, the more chances exist to mutate to a different, deadly variant. Being the organiser of the only swine flu party might be an acceptable risk that one would force on their children. However, if swine flu parties were to become widespread, it would provide more chances for the virus to infect and mutate, because the virus is in a fast mutation mode.

In addition, there are issues relating to the law when one infects on purpose others.