Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
Really interesting post from Danny Finkelstein, over on the Times' Comment Central blog, which sums up the dilemmas we’ll be looking at our new project on ‘The Politics of Behaviour’.
Commenting on the news that the government is changing the guidance on drinking whilst pregnant – despite no new medical evidence – in order to send “a strong signal” to women currently exceeding the current recommended limit, he writes:
‘This is merely the latest instalment of an extremely dangerous development. The public health profession has long seen itself as having a political role in making us behave as it wishes, rather than simply providing us with information.’
‘I am a strong supporter of the MMR vaccination. How, now, do I respond to readers who say that the medical profession is quite willing to lie to them when it wants to get its way?’
…which is a fair point. Mixing up information and influence may well create confusion and damage confidence. But there’s another, equally important question. When, or on which grounds, are we comfortable with government trying to change our behaviour on these kind of issues at all?
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