So. The seismic monitor suggests that ANPHA,
the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, established in 2011, is
likely to slip into Hades through a crack in the ground as the tectonic plates
of the Commission of Audit and the Hockey budget shift and grind. What a pity.
ANPHA began in 2011. Let’s be
clear why it was a good idea, so that when it’s gone (assuming it goes) we can
mourn its passing properly.
The major afflictions of our community are
conditions such as heart disease. stroke, cancer, depression, and problems of
bones and joints. None of these things
are as preventable as whooping cough or polio, but the decline in heart disease
in Australia in the past half century is deeply encouraging. Through a combination of better treatment,
less smoking and dietary change we’ve more than halved – considerably more in the
case of the under 65s – death rates. These
disorders have a major preventive element in them.
The risks for heart disease are fully
described. They relate closely to what
we eat, how much we drink, our physical activity and more. Yes, these behaviours are ultimately matters
of choice: we are, as GW Bush would say, are the deciders.
But we’re not really. The shopping environment influences what we choose
to buy. The advertising environment
powerfully influences our purchases of alcohol.
The economic environment determines where we can afford to live. Get real. These
are shapers, the causes behind the causes.
And we must attend to these things if prevention is to work.
Without legislation, kiss goodbye to
tobacco control. Other countries label
foods so that people – not just robots – can work out which are the
healthiest. New York has eliminated trans
fats – by legislation from all prepared food.
More broadly in the US, man-made trans fat consumption fell by 600
million tonnes between 2005 and 2012 as Dow and other vegetable oil producers
acceded to the expectations and legislative urging of American citizens and
govenrnments that they would produce stuff that was health promoting and not
damaging.
Set yourself a preventive agenda that seeks
to achieve these lifestyle opportunity-promoters and you need strength
including at a national level. Individuals
struggle to win these battles. Groups
such as the National Heart Foundation, cancer societies and others have been zealous. But the thought behind ANPHA was that it
could become a counterweight to the big-time, burly avarice that drives
health-destroying profiteering. No
wonder the alcohol industry will declare drinks all rounds in celebration when
the bulldozers demolish ANPHA! Bewdy
mate, drink up!
The politics
of prevention are what made ANPHA so important to our health future and so
hated by those who, like the tobacco barons of yore, want free rein to push
their wares no matter the health costs.
Get rid of food labelling, they beseech the government! It infringes our liberty as manufacturers to sell
whatever we want. Think of our civil
liberties! Make health a matter of
choice but diminish the capacity of the consumer to choose intelligently!
Please, Mr Government, DO it!
Yes, ANPHA could support more research in
prevention. From the perspective of big
business research is pretty innocent stuff and usually has little commercial impact. It’s safe.
But when research is translated into advocacy, that’s when trouble
starts. That’s when those driven fundamentally by profit start worrying, and
when the political tectonic plates start grinding in response. And advocacy is
what a national agency with muscle could do.
So. When ANPHA goes that is what goes with it - the ability for an agency, with clout,
to argue for changes that will help ensure a future in which it would be easier
to choose to be healthy. Shame.
