Illness, disease and death can be the result of bad luck, genetics or people’s lifestyle – whether someone smokes, drinks heavily or eats a lot of junk food, for example.
The role of lifestyle in explaining why the UK is an increasingly sick country, and the increasing pressure on the NHS, is often underestimated. Experts often cite the growing and especially ageing population, both of which are important factors.
But lifestyles do produce a significant amount of demonstrably avoidable ill health. Skin cancer, for example, is one of the few forms of the disease where the incidence – the percentage of people who get it – is increasing, and this is largely due to exposure to UV radiation during holidays in warm, sunny places. Cancer specialists estimate that around 40% of all cases of the disease are preventable.
In human terms, this means that around 184,000 people in Britain will be diagnosed with cancer this year as a direct result of their obesity, smoking, drinking or history of sunburn, at a cost of £78 billion, including £3.7 billion from the precious NHS budget. No wonder Keir Starmer wants to make it even harder to light up.
A recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that across the 53 states of Europe, a total of 2.7 million people die each year as a result of consumption of or exposure to four products: tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and fossil fuels. That’s 7,400 every day – or almost one in four of all deaths in Europe.
The UN health agency did not hold back when it launched his findings in June. The report’s title wasn’t snappy: “Commercial determinants of noncommunicable diseases in the WHO European Region.” But it did make clear, in simple terms, that some big companies and their products are causing misery and death on a colossal scale.
It sounded the alarm about “the wide range of tactics that (these) industries use to maximize profits and undermine public health. These practices fuel inequality and rates of cancer, heart disease, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes, and pose a major barrier to prevention policies.”
They could have added dementia and mental illness. The WHO warned that “a small number of transnational corporations … exercise considerable power over the political and legal contexts in which they operate, and obstruct public interest regulation that could affect their profit margins.”
The new joint report from the Obesity Health Alliance, Alcohol Health Alliance and Action on Smoking and Health is about the same thing: the polluters and poisoners of public health. But it uses simpler language. It identifies the “killer tactics” of these industries, including the baiting of MPs. These are tactics designed to slow, weaken or derail government efforts to improve the health of the nation; policies that, if successful, would hit the profits of these companies.
It cites, for example, the legal challenges launched by the Scotch Whisky Association against the Holyrood government’s decision to introduce minimum alcohol prices, which delayed its introduction – and potentially drinks companies’ profits – for six years. It also points to the renewed legal manoeuvres being used by tobacco companies to block the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes. Will the hospitality industry do the same if Starmer pursues a ban on outdoor smoking? Will parliamentary friends from the tobacco and alcohol trades prove useful allies?
Obesity is estimated to cost the UK £95 billion a year, alcohol harm £27 billion and smoking £46 billion in England alone. And, as the new report says: “The ill health caused and exacerbated by the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food and drink is responsible for the majority of premature deaths in the UK.”
The new government is committed to tough measures to improve public health and also to restoring standards of integrity in public life. Tackling vested interests whose products and behavior are disastrous to health, and ending their influence and interference in the political process, is a litmus test for both goals.