Smoke Alarms
As Britain gets used to the ban on smoking in public spaces, Virginia Berridge looks at the way attitudes to public health have changed in the last fifty years, particularly among the medical profession.
'Government to consider prosecuting parents who give alcohol to their children before the age of fifteen’; ‘Eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day – it’s good for you, says Chief Medical Officer’. In 2007 we have all become used to headlines such as these, and to the alliance between doctors and government that lies behind them. We accept that it’s the individual citizen’s duty to adopt a healthy lifestyle – one founded on professional advice from doctors and scientists – and the government’s duty to change our behaviour when it runs contrary to such advice. The ban on smoking in public places is only the latest example of such government intervention.
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