Monday, August 4, 2008

An Epidemic of Meddling

My stage name is Eddie Danger and the intro I like best is, “Here’s Eddie Danger, Born Feet First.”

Steve Martin’s book was called, Born Standing Up, which I failed to do because the muscle tone in my legs was not developed enough. I was, however, probably born kicking. Nowadays I would have been born via C-section, however. Feet first births are too risky.

Indeed, it seems everything in society today is based on being risk averse. Seat belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws… and even helmets for riding bicycles. A helmet would not have saved me from injury when I fell off my tricycle with a dowel in my mouth. To quote Dylan, “Just ask me and I’ll show you the scars.”

Lawyers have taken advantage of our risk aversion and profited handsomely. Sears lost a lawsuit because its lawn mowers were too hard to start. That was a million dollar payout to the guy who had a heart attack, and his lawyer. Sears fixed the problem, to avoid further lawsuits because they knew hard starting lawn mowers could kill. Sure enough, a couple kids were injured after that because their lawn mowers were too easy to start. They two victims teamed up in a class action suit that cost Sears another cool two million in payouts, after expenses.

This tendency to make sure people are healthy and safe is moving to a new level of government regulation and policy making. This is the premise of Jacob Sullum’s cover story, "An Epidemic of Meddling," in a recent Reason magazine.

Writes Sullum, “What do these four ‘public health’ problems—smoking, playing violent video games, overeating and gambling—have in common? They’re all things some people enjoy and other people condemn, attributing to them various bad effects.”

It’s hard to say whether government incursion is driven by good intentions or simply a desire to consolidate power. We have no way of knowing motivations when people do things, so we must evaluate behavior.

"An Epidemic of Meddling" is about the totalitarian implications of public health. Sullum continues: “Public health used to mean keeping statistics, imposing quarantines, requiring vaccination of children, providing purified water, building sewer systems, inspecting restaurants, regulating emissions from factories, and reviewing medicines for safety. Nowadays it means, among other things, banning cigarette ads, raising alcohol taxes, restricting gun ownership, forcing people to buckle their seat belts, redesigning cities to discourage driving, and making illegal drug users choose between prison and “treatment.” In the past, public health officials could argue that they were protecting people from external threats: carriers of contagious diseases, fumes from the local glue factory, contaminated water, food poisoning, dangerous quack remedies. By contrast, the new enemies of public health come from within; the aim is to protect people from themselves—from their own carelessness, shortsightedness, weak will, or bad values—rather than from each other.”

One subhead in the article reads, "The Corruption of Medicine by Morality." He makes the point that the public health department really did have a reason for existence when it was first developed. The mission was to protect people from deadly epidemics like small pox, tuberculosis, cholera. But like most government agencies, success does not result in a dismantling of the agency. There needed to be new targets.

But now, lifestyle choices are the target. "The public health mission to minimize morbidity and mortality leaves no room for the possibility that someone might accept a shorter life span in exchange for more pleasure or less discomfort." People who do not universally share the healthy lifestyle creed are deemed "noncompliant."

Well, you get the picture. For a thought provoking read, check it out here.

Jacob Sullum is Senior Editor of Reason magazine and author of For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health.

5 comments:

LEWagner said...

>>>>>>>>>Lawyers have taken advantage of our risk aversion and profited handsomely. Sears lost a lawsuit because its lawn mowers were too hard to start. That was a million dollar payout to the guy who had a heart attack, and his lawyer. Sears fixed the problem, to avoid further lawsuits because they knew hard starting lawn mowers could kill. Sure enough, a couple kids were injured after that because their lawn mowers were too easy to start. They two victims teamed up in a class action suit that cost Sears another cool two million in payouts, after expenses."

I Googled "Sears lawnmower lawsuit". I couldn't find either of the above cases anywhere -- the nearest thing I found was a case in which a Sears lawnmower had overturned and injured the operator in 1980. The operator sued because the machine didn't have a "deadman" cutoff switch.
The judge ruled in Sears' favor.
http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/738/1222/135046/
I also found a case in which a lawnmower had fallen from an overhead rack and knocked down a customer in a Sears store. She sued for $30,000. The article doesn't tell if she won or lost.
http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/213817-suit-says-sears-failed-to-warn-shoppers-that-lawnmowers-could-fall
There was another case claiming that Sears inflated the horsepower ratings of its lawnmowers, but that one doesn't have anything to do with safety.
Could you post the link to your source to the Sears lawnmower cases you referred to?

As far as public health -- I think they should concentrate on getting rid of filthy corporate meat and vegetable packing practices, that allow millions of pounds of meat and produce contaminated with salmonella and e. coli to get into the food supply, and then have to be recalled after sickening hundreds of people.

Ed Newman said...

The Sears story was something I read in a magazine article maybe 15 or 20 years ago. I don't recall the magazine either, unfortunately... It is an anecdote I have repeated so many times over the years it feels like personal history. I only remember the numbers one million and two million, the heart attack and a couple kids injured.

As for filthy meat packaging... this might be a topic to look into in more depth sometime.

LEWagner said...

Maybe you read the lawnmower story in the National Review?
They seem to be well-practiced at printing things which can't seem to be verified anywhere in Google, for instance as the quote I mentioned before from Mr. Sowell: "With all the big-name entertainers who have put on shows in prisons....."
By the way, to be fair to the National Review and to Mr. Sowell, I Googled "US prison entertainment", looking for evidence of ANY entertainment in US prisons (since Johnny Cash at San Quentin in 1969). I didn't find anything there.
However, still not satisfied, I did another search for "prison concerts", and found that I was wrong!
Johnny Cash actually did do another prison concert, in 1976, just a short 32 years ago.
I couldn't find any evidence of any other big-name entertainers having done any prison concerts SINCE 1976, however, unless you count Songs of Praise from Dallas, Texas, as big-name entertainers:
http://songsofpraise.org/prison.htm
I don't see any evidence that Songs of Praise have gone to Iraq, either, though it wouldn't surprise me a bit to find out that they support the war. So many Christians do.
Try it yourself, if you don't believe me that Mr. Sowell just pulled that claim out of his hind end, submitted it to National Review, and National Review printed it as fact.
Verifiable fact: Big-name entertainer Johnny Cash actually DID do a show in Vietnam, as well as having performed at Folsom and San Quentin. And, he served in the US Air Force, as well, and received an honorable discharge. He was within just a few months of dying, though, in March 2003, when George Bush invaded Iraq to get rid of non-existent WMD there, and Johnny never did do a concert in Iraq. It's pretty tacky of Mr. Sowell to criticize him, though, in my opinion. http://www.acousticguitar.com/issues/ag102/featureB102.shtml
I've noticed that right wingers don't like lawyers (except when they use someone like John Yoo to justify things as torture), and they don't like Hollywood celebrities (except for Ronald Reagan, Fred Thompson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course). It seems that they're not above making up stories to "prove" their points against these professions when it suits their purposes.
That's why I verify by doing a Google search before I trust anything I read.
"Trust, But Verify" Ronnie Reagan (who my Grandma Hoad once referred to with a guttural German growl as "that old Shypoke"), was also known for relating unverifiable anecdotes as true stories, for people to believe and repeat without question.

>>>>>>>>>>As for filthy meat packaging... this might be a topic to look into in more depth sometime.

An article about the repeated and even frantic warnings one man gave to no avail -- before the ConAgra recall of 19,000,000 pounds of contamintated beef in 2002, after 80 percent of it was consumed, and after it had killed one woman in Ohio:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/hellraiser/2003/11/ma_573_01.html
In 2002, 19 million pounds was the biggest recall in history, but has since been dwarfed by the February 2008 143 million pound recall from Westland Hallmark in California.
But what the hey! We don't need no doggone regulation. It cuts into profits.

The Diva on a Diet said...

That does sound like a very thought provoking read. Thanks for the link, Ennyman. I think this:

"But like most government agencies, success does not result in a dismantling of the agency. There needed to be new targets."

is a very salient point and one that we, as a nation, would do well to consider. Sadly, I also think we won't be resolving any of this too so. There absolutely is an epidemic of meddling and I'm not sure where/when/how/if it will end.

Btw, I think you have a very stylish site too! I'll put you on the short list for the next award and in the meantime will enjoy reading your wonderful writing

Thanks for stopping by "my place" - drop in any time!

Cheers

Ed Newman said...

Thanks for the visit and comments.

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