I Find Myself Repeating … (updated)

That the Left don’t want to know, they’d rather be Left than right

I wrote a couple of days ago about Paul Krugman not wanting to know the arguments against Obama’s changes to health-care arrangements in the US. This proposal is highly political, and of course those campaigning in favour tend to be left-wing, but also rather authoritarian, as the legislation is coercive rather than permissive. ‘Authoritarian left’ is a pretty good description of New Labour, and the antithesis of libertarian.

So the methods used to try to win support for the change interest me, regardless of whether the legislation itself is beneficial or harmful. This video, which I found on the US conservative website RS Redstate, is a meeting of the American Association of Retired People, the AARP.

The middle-aged, left-wing activists running this meeting did not want to know, and I think that is because they had no doubt that they were right.

• Notice that the woman who opened the meeting told the members what their views were, “…I think we can all agree…”. When they told her that she was wrong, she accused them of being rude. She did not want to know their views.
• When it is pointed out that she works for them, her dismissive body language says that she didn’t really want to know that.
• The man who takes over starts out solidly on broadcast mode, dishonestly giving one side of the story. He points out that the current system limits healthcare to support his advocacy of a change, implying by omission that government-run healthcare is not rationed (as we in Britain know to our cost it is).
• At the 2-minute point of the video the first woman says, quite unconvincingly, that she is sorry to her members. She then walks out, clearly in a huff. She certainly did not want to know what her members told her.
• As the meeting continues the next opinion heard is from a man saying he had never been canvassed on the issues. Someone made (left-wing) policy for the association but did not want to know members’ views.

You might say that Obama does want to know. It appears that he wants to be informed of any email or website arguing against the planned legislation. Of course if he planned to have these objections considered with a view potentially to amending the legislation then this would be a laudable if inefficient request.

Read Obama’s words, “…those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game … are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change …”.

“So we've got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight”

That does not sound to me like a man who wants to hear the arguments. He does not want to know. It appears he has already decided that he is right and any possible argument against is wrong. Actually I think it is more to do with power and control, and Obama is not interested in the arguments against the legislation because they all concern health, wealth and liberty, and I suspect that neither is his goal (at least relating to other people).

It appears that, as is so often the case with authoritarians, Obama has broken the law in even asking for this information. I do hope this is tested in court and he is humiliated. He has already received bad publicity from this incredibly stupid email, more can only be better.

Of course more evidence of the American Left’s unwillingness to even listen on the issue of healthcare is in the video in the update to my post on the police state.

Still the Left does not want to know, because it still does not doubt. This is why, dear reader, that on the subject of the Left and most especially Barack Obama, I have always had My Doubts.

Glen Reynolds, of Instapundit, is the ultimate source of all links, so many, many fine hats tipped to the great legal academic.

Update: the US Democrats are willing to stack an ‘open’ meeting with union members just to avoid having to listen to their opponents. They don’t want to know.

Update: it appears that Barack Obama is breaking another article of the same privacy law. David Hardy, the blogger who points this out, reckons this to be a far more serious breach. Oh, dear.

Update: so keen not to know they try to start fights … with the people Democrats are calling a mob.

Update: it helps of course if you only answer written questions after your talk, but only tell your supporters that they can submit written questions. Then get your supporters to beat up opponents.

Giving Up Can Be Murder

Suicide is not the intended effect of giving up smoking. Nor is committing the perfect murder.

My apologies for the long post. I felt that some background was needed, but there is a serious point at the end which I have not seen documented anywhere else.

Champix (or Chantix in the USA) is the trade name of varenicline. It is intended as an aid to stopping smoking, and is available on the NHS. Of course like any medical treatment it has side effects. Could those side effects lead to serious violence?

With the authoritarian stamp of the smoking ban and other government pressure there are a lot of people trying to give up smoking. There is also an increasing medicalisation of attempts to give up. Every other advert on our local radio station seems to be for the Stop Smoking Service. Fortunately Pirate FM rarely manages to finish an advert without interrupting it with the start (or even the middle) of another. Has anti-smoking political pressure allowed an unsafe drug on the market?

Varenicline is the first drug to be licensed to help stop smoking that doesn’t contain nicotine. The manufacturer, Pfizer, quotes that after twelve weeks of treatment with Champix or an inert placebo four times as many of those taking Champix are still not smoking. The figures at twelve weeks are 44% of those taking the real drug not smoking and 11% of those on the placebo. This is better than none-medical methods or nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT).

Here is where I follow Pfizer’s publicity off the path of good science, because they don’t quote figures that I can find, and I am quoting non-specifics without being able to provide a reference, as I heard this on Radio 4 some days ago. I looked in the NICE Report (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) and they have blanked out the figures.

Pfizer boasts about rates of success giving up at 12 weeks, and these are better than NRT. The problem is that giving up for 3 months does not provide great health benefits. The suggestion I heard on the radio, although the figures are redacted from the table 5, page 32 of the NICE report (lovely word, redacted; has a ring of dishonesty about it) was that at twelve months the success of Champix was almost identical to NRT, certainly within the statistical errors of the trials.

So we have a drug that is as effective as NRT. I have never smoked, but from friends I am aware that NRT can be unpleasant and quitting can be difficult, so an alternative is surely welcome, is it not? Well let us look again at the side effects.

Side effects listed as common include dizziness and hypertension, either of which can themselves be dangerous in some circumstances. However that is within the normal range of side effects of many medicines. Also listed as a common side effect is ‘emotional disorder’. The point made on Radio 4 and in the side effects link was that this can go as far as depressed moods and suicidal ‘ideation’, i.e. feeling down and having thoughts about suicide, a combination that seems to me rather dangerous.

So far this is an accepted, documented problem. Careful monitoring and warnings to patients to see a doctor or stop taking the medication at the first sign of depression or suicidal thoughts can deal with this. What about the undocumented effects? Could Champix lead to murder?

There is nothing I can find in the literature beyond warnings of ‘behavioural changes, depression, or suicidal ideation’. Even these do not get a mention in Pfizer’s adverts, although warnings against operating machinery do and all the information is on the website.

I think that “I wanted to kill ’im”, to quote a friend who was taking Champix, goes a bit beyond the usual understanding of ‘behavioural changes’. A mild and pleasant young lady, very fond of her lover, was driven to thoughts about killing him, and a desire to do so.

Of course this is more bad science, anecdotal evidence, but as I do not have the authority or capacity to do better science it will have to do. This friend had never had such thoughts before taking Champix, nor has she since giving up in fright. She was on no other medication likely to have this effect, and had no expectation of a reaction that might cause a placebo effect. Champix warnings do suggest psychological changes, and the friend said that she suffered others, being in a daze much of the time. In fact she attributes her giving up entirely to forgetting to smoke, such was the influence of the drug (of course that means the drug succeeded, as an addict would be unlikely to forget even then).

So what if my friend had killed her lover? Beyond the distress to her and others, she would have been given a life sentence, as this is not an acknowledged side effect. Her life would have been ruined. What if she had not been a pleasant person in love with her paramour, and clever enough to recognise the responsibility of the drug for her thoughts? What if such feelings are induced in a self-centred, unintelligent but otherwise harmless person? Thousands of them smoke. Will any be induced to murder?

As more is known about the drug, and this effect, if real, is documented the drug becomes a serious danger. What is to stop any smoker bored of someone close to them from starting a course of Champix, then in cold blood murdering that person? In court the murderer breaks down in remorse, blaming the medication. Manslaughter while the balance of mind disturbed milord, now given up the medication, no longer a threat. Free to go. So we are where I hinted that we would reach; the perfect murder.

Fortunately my other half cannot take Champix, due to her job, so I am safe!

Update: Mark (whose profile indicates he is interested in "smoking cessation") confirms in the comments that both Champix and NRT have overall success around 7%. Also in the comments generalsn has a link to a brief article on a financial website which does mention FDA concerns over violence in people taking the drug.