There's been a buzz in the media, and on the blogs, that the Food Standards Agency is to face the axe as part of Condem reforms on health and regulation. Douglas Carswell reckons the FSA:
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"...spends a small fortune producing patronising posters lecturing us about salt intake."
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What people fail to realise here, is that like the smoking ban, 'salt reduction' is pushed centrally by the World Health Organisation. Have a look at this glossy document from their 2006 salt reduction love-in in Paris (attended by the FSA). WHO recommended that:
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"Countries should commit to reducing the average salt consumption of the adult population to under 5g per day..."
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"Countries should develop a clear strategy to achieve this goal. This should include measurable objectives, targets, indicators (including for population subgroups), and a time frame for their accomplishment ..." and
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"National food authorities or other appropriate government-mandated public health agencies should be responsible for monitoring the actions of the food sector to ensure they comply with the existing national goals and recommendations for salt reduction"
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The UK have agreed to all these WHO strategies. If they do abolish the FSA, the civil servants that negotiate EU regulation on food (i.e. 99% of food regulation) will get shifted into DEFRA and the ones that spend your money telling you what to eat on behalf of your GP's trade association will probably be catapulted straight into the DoH, where they will enjoy a feeding on a juicy ringfenced budget.
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Oh, and guess WHO has just been in town to talk about salt reduction? Our decapitation method of changing governments stacks the deck firmly against our elected representatives in their war on Whitehall waste. This is more the case on health, because doctors vastly outnumber, hold more public goodwill than and are generally cleverer than MP's.
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Just so you all know not to be too disappointed when you're still getting nannied on what to eat, drink and smoke by international quangos in 5 years time :)
7 comments:
Let us praise the blessed Sandy (though personally I cannot get used to "Sandy" as a girl's name).
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/06/traffic-tickets-for-salt-does-healthy.html
SL, indeedy. It's just good enough to get out of EU, we need to tell the UN/WHO to get lost as well.
PS, it's now called "DH" and not "DoH". D'oh!
dearieme - heavy reading and well over my head. You ever read Frank Davis? He's really good on junk science and just independent thinking in general.
MW - and the GP's! Mine was having a go at me a few years ago and I gave him some back, reminded him it was German doctors carried out the holocaust, he wasn't happy !
A friend who works in the civil service tells me they are still advertising for staff!
"Reducing salt intake"... One would have thought that the WHO, a body ostensibly created to improved health, might just possibly have on its staff a doctor or two who'd heard about the very basic concept of "Salt Homeostasis"...
5g/day... Junk science at its very best.
JM, they are sneaky, they advertise their jobs on a secret website us plebs aren't allowed to look at.
Pogo, dearimes link above mentioned this. Like I say, I wouldn't know, but I don't half hold the queue up in the chip shot when I'm seasoning my chips :)
Although an atheist I remember much wisdom from 'the good book'. The biggest downfall was when men tried to do God's job. WTF gives anyone the power to attempt to control nature - don't eat this, don't drink that, don't inhale smoke - and when it comes to protecting the planet, it will wend it's own sweet way thank you very much.
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