NANNY KNOWS BEST!                                       Richard J B Willis

The philosopher Herbert Spenser, writing in 1884, raged against what he called 'despotism' and 'slavery' induced by 'coercive' measures, which for him included alcohol licensing, factory safety legislation, free education, and public health measures among other things.

All of the above are taken for granted today and yet, were Spenser still around, he would have just cause to be angry.  The sterilisation of people deemed to be medically unfit to reproduce, a throwback to the twentieth-century, is not only set for a return, it is already here!

A US charity - Project Prevention or Crack - is paying addicts to be sterilised.  So far around 1,050 addicts (mostly women) have been sterilised over the last five years.  Barbara Harris, the woman who runs the charity, says, 'Our principal aim is to stop children winding up in foster care or with long-term health problems, whose care puts an enormous burden on the taxpayer …  If they spend the $200 on drugs, they spend it on drugs.  It's none of our business what they do with the money we give them'.

People, like Spenser, object strongly when governments insist on smoke-free eating and open spaces; alcohol-free zones; mass vaccination projects; and 'five fruit and vegetable' campaigns and similar such plans.  They often refer to these measures as 'health fascism', where the Nanny State is to be obeyed and the offending person penalised for divergent antisocial behaviour.

Nation States appear to be blind to history in general and hardly remembering their own clumsy approaches in implementing prevention programmes and tackling various health issues.  Take for example the feet-dragging AIDS treatment in South Africa, or the secretive dealings with SARS in China.

There is a dilemma voiced by Samuel Smiles (back in 1859): 'Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless'.

We can only hope that Nanny does not always know best - and show that we can manage without her sometimes - since actuary researcher, Francis Fernandes, said recently, 'Society might dictate that life has to finish at a certain age regardless of health'.

I trust that his statement is not connected to the 'Take a Loved One to a Doctor' day promoted by the American Public Health Association!  If it is, many of us might find our days numbered!