2024-10-24 11:44

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To Those Living With Obesity And Unable To Work - Be Vaccinated Or Loose Your Benefits

The UK’s world-leading life sciences sector will receive a £279 million boost to tackle significant health challenges, with an intent expressed by Lilly, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, to invest in the UK as part of a collaborative partnership with UK government.

This comes following reports that Novo Nordisk had lobbied the then-Conservative government, suggesting they could profile people who claim state benefits and target them with weight-loss drugs in the form of vaccinations.

Now, following the same principle, this Labour Government announced at the International Investment Summit held on Monday 14th October, that a rival company, Lilly, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company and chief rival to Wegovy and Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk in the obesity drug market; was successful in bidding to deliver a trial of their drug involved in the scheme.

The trial of the drug will take place in Manchester, run again by Lilly and a private sector entity, Health Innovation Manchester, to look at whether using Lilly’s obesity and diabetes drugs impacts participants’ “health-related quality of life” and “changes in [their] employment status and sick days from work.”

Health Innovation Manchester was formed from an idea in the US, involving the principle of Academic Health Science Systems (AHSS) which is based on the idea that university-based centres should play major roles in health and social care innovation; and that medical innovation cannot be achieved without links to industry. This is the basis for the developement of the US system of integrated care systems which significantly influenced the devolution of health and social care in Manchester into an approach now developed across England by NHS England and supported by the Labour Government - the privatisation of healthcare in England.

On-line news outlet Politico reported that obesity specialist Dolly van Tulleken, a visiting researcher at the epidemiology unit at the University of Cambridge commented saying:

“There are some serious ethical, financial and efficacy considerations with such an approach...such as looking at people — or measuring people — based on their potential economic value, rather than primarily based on their needs and their health needs.”

This principle of course challenges completely the whole ethos upon which the NHS was built in 1948, and is in direct opposition to what the Labour Government in 2024 is doing - adopting the Tory principle of profiting from the ill-health of the public, by privatising healthcare in the UK.

Van Tulleken argued that people who are eligible should be able to receive the treatment, but warned that this must be coupled with measures to ease healthy food choices.

“You can treat people all you want, but if we’re putting them back into the conditions that made them sick in the first place, it’s incredibly important to stop that — and that very much lies with our food environment.”

Wes Streeting, Labour's Health & Social Care Secretary jumped for joy, following his acceptance of £193,000 funding from private sector healthcare and private equity interests in 2022/2023; stating that:

"For all the challenges facing the health of our nation, we have 2 huge advantages: some of the world’s leading scientific minds, and a National Health Service with enormous potential. If we can combine the 2, patients in this country can reap the rewards of the revolution in medical science unfolding before our eyes.

This announcement helps the UK take its place as a world leader in life sciences and brings life-changing treatments closer to being a reality for NHS patients. Partnerships like this are key to building a healthier society, healthier economy and making the NHS fit for the future."

Of course what he means by 'enormous potential' and 'fit for the future' is a profit orientated health service matching that of the US and run by US private healthcare models, companies and private equity. 

However, this plan does not match in anyway, the scale of treatment needed. While the study will enrol 5,000 people with obesity, more than two-thirds of the adult population is overweight or obese says the Nuffield Trust.

Pushing the plans for tackling obesity through a vaccination programme using expensive new drugs from the pharmaceutical industry that already hammers the NHS budget in making huge levels of profit, Starmer and Streeting are doing as the Tory Government did with the Covid-19 pandemic; ensuring huge profits for the industries involved, at the cost of the health of the people of this country.

With more and more evidence of the harm that can be caused by mass inoculation of new drugs without the long-term trials needed to ensure safety coming in repeatedly, the Government continues to under fund and privatise the healthcare services in the UK and further disabling the NHS to provide suitable healthcare and prevention to those suffering ill-health and inability to work caused by their obesity.

The message from the Labour Government to the sick work-force of the UK, is quite simply this:

image: Irish model of care and management of obesity - click to downloadThose unable to work because they are obese, are an economic priority and not a healthcare priority. They are to blame for the pressures on the NHS, not Government under funding for the last 14 years!

As a result, if you are obese and unable to work, you will need to be part of the nation-wide programme of being given new anti-obesity drugs via vaccination in order to 'help you' get back to work. Failure to do so will result in your loosing any social security benefits you currently receive.

Far fetched? Alarming and frightening distortion of Government policy? You may well ask.

But the inference from the Government's latest announcements about the 'under performing' British economy, is that we need to tackle the ill-health of workers, get them back to work as fast as possible and irrespective of the causes of their ill-health and inability to work.

In the case of obesity, the individual must pay the price of getting back to work by being injected with any new drugs the pharmaceutical industry can come up with!

However, the Irish Government has a far better plan in place for dealing with obesity, in the form of a model for management and care:

'This model of care for the management of overweight and obesity in children, young people and adults will ensure that an end-to-end approach is adopted, defining the way health services are developed across the lifespan. Through the implementation of this model of care, the Irish health service will ensure that the right care is delivered to individuals with overweight and obesity at the right time and in the right place

Obesity is associated with other chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, several types of cancer, pain and musculoskeletal disorders.

The prevention of obesity, it's treatment, and rehabilitation back to work requires both the state and employers to play their part in both terms of workplace and attendance adjustments, and appropriate levels of funding for healthcare.

No vaccination can ever successfully treat without further health complications from drug side-affects; the problems in terms of productivity. Rather than putting appropriate healthcare and prevention in place, this Labour Government thinks vaccinations will be the cheaper way of
addressing a world-wide problem.

Despite the number one single cause of workplace absenteeism being mental ill-health in the form of stress and anxiety and the greatest risk to the UK workforce, along with increasing levels of suicide amongst the working population; the Government ignores the fact that mental ill-health caused by work pressures, bullying managers, unrealistic performance demands, and compromised work-life balance; needs to be urgently addressed.

This requires appropriate levels of mental ill-health care from the NHS, workplace adjustments, suicide prevention support services from the NHS and empathic Employer policies; together with increased workplace health and safety legislation enforcement from the HSE.

It is this that has the greatest impact upon working people and not being obese. Reality is that many obese suffering people can remain employed with simple workplace adjustments implemented by employers, including ensuring the correct work-life balance for workers; whilst being treated appropriately by a national health service that is well-funded.

Instead, Government policy is to go for what it sees as quick fixes along with the quick identification of 'blame-targets' within sectors of the British workforce.

So-called life-sciences and the pharmaceutical industry are being heavily invested in, whilst the NHS remains broken up into 42 autonomous integrated care systems handing over NHS services to private equity and private healthcare sector in order to boost their profits rather than proper funding and re-building of the NHS and reversing the ever increasing diversion of the NHS budget to the private healthcare sector and overall under-funding of the NHS in real terms.

Rather than again blaming the workforce, pouring millions into life-sciences and the pharmaceutical industry and private healthcare industry, tackling the mental health crisis would provide a long-term solution to the ill-health of the UK workforce, whilst tackling the fast-food and food industry forcing them to provide healthy food not stuffed with chemicals and additives; in order to ensure prevention of obesity in the first place!

But no, once again we here the same Tory message and policies we have had through 14 years of decline, but this time from a Labour Government.

Source: Gov.UK press releass / everyDoctor / Nuffield Trust / HSE / National Library Of Medicine (US) / Politico / EASO / unionsafety

 


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