How did we end up being ruled by the ignorant?

It always comes as something of a shock to us to see public policy being decided upon the basis of information that simply isn't true. We expect a bit of political argy bargy, of course we do, for different people weight different outcomes, err, differently. Equity and efficiency, inequality and economic freedom, we might agree or disagree on those weights that different people place upon them but can still regard such opinions (for opinions they are and no more than that) as being valid. But that's very different from our being told pure porkies, having supposed facts deployed, facts which just are not a reflection of reality. As the Original Tax Dodger in Chief himself pointed out, comment is free but facts are sacred. And so it is that we come back to a favourite subject of ours, the relationship between the prevalence of obesity and the costs of it to the NHS.

Mr Stevens, who took up post last April, said: ‘Obesity is the new smoking, and it represents a slow-motion car crash in terms of avoidable illness and rising health care costs.

‘If as a nation we keep piling on the pounds around the waistline, we'll be piling on the pounds in terms of future taxes needed just to keep the NHS afloat.’

The problem with this is that it simply is not true. Obesity does not cost the NHS money: on balance it saves it. This is something we've been pointing out for a number of years now. The source is here and the finding is:

Obesity is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and is associated with high medical expenditures. It has been suggested that obesity prevention could result in cost savings. The objective of this study was to estimate the annual and lifetime medical costs attributable to obesity, to compare those to similar costs attributable to smoking, and to discuss the implications for prevention. …. Although effective obesity prevention leads to a decrease in costs of obesity-related diseases, this decrease is offset by cost increases due to diseases unrelated to obesity in life-years gained. Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures.

When someone's arteries explode at the age of 60 from that 15 cheeseburger a day habit then the NHS doesn't have to pay for another 25 years' worth of hip replacements. This saves the system money as a result of the shorter lifespan.

This is well known: and yet we have the CEO of the NHS telling us the opposite. And further, he's demanding public action that he should know will make his financial problems worse, not better.

All of which leaves us with that essential question: how did we end up being ruled by the ignorant?