Shout out for Martin Dockrell

Fancy that!

Martin Dockrell, tobacco control programme lead for the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (previously Public Health England), likes to emphasise the 'special constraints' he operates under when posting on social media.

A pinned tweet on Dockrell's Twitter account reads:

With that in mind why did the former director of policy at ASH consider it OK to retweet a tweet by James O'Brien, the left-leaning LBC broadcaster, that referred disparagingly to the Institute of Economic Affairs?

If that wasn't enough (O'Brien's tweet included a link to an August 2021 Guardian report headlined 'LBC’s James O’Brien wins Ofcom battle with Institute of Economic Affairs') Dockrell added his own series of hashtags: #Commercial #determinants of #health.

Unfamiliar with the term, I looked it up. According to the World Health Organisation these are the 'key facts':

• Commercial determinants of health are the private sector activities that affect people’s health positively or negatively.
• The private sector influences the social, physical and cultural environments through business actions and societal engagements; for example, supply chains, labour conditions, product design and packaging, research funding, lobbying, preference shaping and others.
• Commercial determinants of health impact a wide range of health outcomes including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular health, cancer, road traffic injuries, mental health and malaria.
• Commercial determinants of health affect everyone, but young people are especially at risk, and unhealthy commodities worsen pre-existing economic, social and racial inequities. Certain countries and regions, such as small island states and low- and middle-income countries, face greater pressure from multinational actors.
• There are effective public health actions to respond to these determinants, which are key to building back better after COVID-19.

There are plenty of articles on the subject if you look for them and one worth reading is 'The commercial determinants of health' which was published by The Lancet in 2016. One claim in particular stood out:

The rise of non-communicable diseases is a manifestation of a global economic system that currently prioritises wealth creation over health creation.

Draw your own conclusions but the message underlying the 'commercial determinants of health' sounds quite contentious to me and worthy of debate. (I’ll have to look into the subject a bit more.)

That aside, I'm curious to know how RT'ing a snarky comment about a 'free market' think tank (note O'Brien's sneery quotation marks) by a radio host well known for his left wing or 'liberal' views adheres to the Civil Service Code which urges civil servants to 'apply the same standards' online and offline, 'either at work or in a personal capacity'.

As requested then ('Lead me not into temptation and if you ever feel I've overstepped the mark, shout out!') I am doing exactly what the tobacco control programme lead for the OHID is asking of his Twitter followers.

If he would like to respond I'd be delighted to post his reply here. Over to you, @Switchfinder.

Update: From ‘Strategies to expand corporate autonomy by the tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverage industry: a scoping review of reviews’ (Globalization and Health, February 14, 2022):

Commercial determinants of health (CDoH) have been defined as “strategies and approaches used by the private sector to promote products and choices that are detrimental to health”.

PS. I've checked and the reference to 'Jews' in O'Brien's tweet (below) concerns an LBC interview in which the IEA's director-general Mark Littlewood highlighted the Board of Deputies as a good example of an organisation that shouldn’t have to disclose its donors.

The IEA of course is often asked to reveal its donors and declines to do so to protect their privacy and, arguably, their safety. I just thought I should make the context clear!