Delighted to read that Public Health England is to be axed.
The Telegraph has the story here.
Coming on the back of the revelation, which I wrote about here, that the Government had rejected a £350k grant application by ASH, giving the anti-smoking lobbyists a relatively paltry £70k instead, it’s been a good week for critics of the UK’s over-reaching tobacco control industry.
I’m currently in Glasgow so I don’t have time to write at length about PHE, a body I recently called “this odious taxpayer-funded quango”.
Instead I refer you to this post, written on April 5, when I posed the question ‘Day of reckoning for Public Health England?’ and noted:
The reality is that Public Health England spends far too much time targeting smoking and other habits that have nothing to do with public health in the original sense of the term.
It included links to other posts I have written about PHE dating back to 2014:
Public Health England chief vows to get "ruthless" on smoking
Public Health England? They're having a laugh (at our expense)
Hospital smoking bans, Public Health England and Stoptober
Questions for Public Health England concerning Stoptober 2016
Public health: rotten to the core
The price of Public Health England's advice on vaping
Job for the boy at Public Health England
To that list I can add:
Good news! PHE abandons New Year anti-smoking campaign
The price of appeasing PHE’s anti-smoking propaganda
PHE chief declares war on smokers
Why PHE’s pro-vaping crusade is the enemy of choice
The last post is worth revisiting because vapers and vaping advocates have long made a virtue of PHE’s support for e-cigarettes.
However, when I wrote ‘Why PHE’s pro-vaping crusade is the enemy of choice’ in February 2018 I noted that:
As far as PHE is concerned smokers are patients and part of their treatment is to be offered e-cigarettes alongside other nicotine replacement therapies.
As for 'extending consumer choice', forget it. PHE wants to bludgeon smokers into submission, removing outdoor shelters and prohibiting smoking wherever they can.
In the meantime you may be allowed, at their discretion and under their rules, to vape indoors.
In those circumstances some smokers may indeed elect to switch but I imagine many more will feel resentful that tobacco control has, once again, dictated how you live your life.
I still think PHE’s ‘support’ for vaping was of dubious long-term value, not least because it was always clear that PHE never saw vaping as anything other than a temporary smoking cessation tool en route to becoming nicotine free.
If therefore there are any vapers tempted to mourn the demise of Public Health England, don’t waste your breath.
Having set itself up as nanny to the nation, it was only a matter of time before PHE targeted you too because in their eyes you are nothing more than a nicotine junkie.
In short, whether you’re a smoker or a vaper, there should only be one response to the axing of Public Health England and that’s ‘Goodbye and good riddance.’