Another Reason for the Rebellion of the 'left behind' People

Is Trump's triumph due to rising US death rates? Looks likely.

A study by Nobel-prize winning economist Angus Deaton and Anne Case showed that death rates for white Americans aged 30-64 has have risen significantly since 1999. This is remarkable because death rates for US blacks and hispanics and for all citizens of other developed countries and for US whites before 1999 all fell. And, strikingly, the mortality increase is concentrated amongst the poorly educated.

The main increasing causes of death were suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning and chronic liver disease. “I don’t think there’s any single explanation,” says Angus Deaton who went on to blame booze, drug addiction and financial anxiety. He drew particular attention the the greater availability of heroin to US whites from the 1990s.

I think Deaton is missing the point here for suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning and chronic liver disease have something in common. They are diseases of despair. They reflect the situation of poor whites who have seen their incomes, social standing, political influence and health decline as the USA has become more unequal and more multicultural.

These are just the factors implicated in the rise of UKIP by the authors of Revolt on the Right. So what more natural than that they should find expression in support for the US's answer to Nigel Farrage - Donald Trump.

The US and UK situation are not the same. The NHS and better pension and welfare system provide protection against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But the parallels are real for all that.

Air pollution in Enfield

New measurements by Enfield Green Party show that air pollution is a threat to everyone in the borough - and particularly to children.

We measured the average levels of toxic pollutant Nitrogen Dioxide during January and found them to exceed the legal level at half the sites measured. In Bowes ward, for instance, four out of six measurements exceeded the level whilst the other two were only 5% below it.

“This has shocked even me” said Ronald Stewart, the Green Party candidate for the London Assembly (Enfield and Haringey), “though I expected the results to be bad.” Previous research has shown that air pollution kills over 9,000 Londoners each year (1, 2). The new data shows that some of these must be Enfield residents despite Enfield’s being a leafy outer London borough.

Children are particularly at risk from air pollution as their developing lungs are especially vulnerable. “We measured levels outside three Enfield schools” Ronald explained. “and found illegal levels outside Bowes and Tottenhall Schools. The Bowes level exceeded the legal limit by 66%! The level outside Eversley Primary was legal but still worryingly high.”

“I am really worried about these figures.” said Anna Wilkinson, a Bowes school mum. “I knew the air was bad along the North Circular but the problem is clearly much more widespread”.

Air pollution causes more premature deaths than alcoholism or obesity. Only smoking causes more early deaths than air pollution in Britain (3). It has been strongly linked to asthma, lung cancer and cardiovascular illness. It also causes substantial economic losses (4).

Most of London’s air pollution is due to emissions from road vehicles. It is a London-wide problem and requires decisive action from TfL which should extend the Ultra Low Emission Zone to the North Circular.

Green Party mayoral candidate Sian Berry is also determined to reduce air pollution. As mayor she would speed up the switch-over to cleaner buses and taxis, exclude of the most polluting vehicles from our roads, improve public transport and support local authorities in reducing speed limits to 20 mph.

“The 20 mph limit has just been introduced in Haringey’, says Ronald Stewart. “It’s time to extend it to Enfield.”

Green Party activists distributed information about air pollution and Green Party commitments for action at various locations around Enfield on Monday March 14^th.

Notes

1) Walton, et al, 2014:  Understanding the Health Impacts of Air Pollution in London. Report for Transport for London and the Greater London Authority.

2) From ref 1:

“The total mortality burden in 2010 from PM2.5 and NO2 [was] …  equivalent to 9,416 deaths at typical ages.”  Of this:

• 3,537 deaths were due to fine particles (PM2.5) and
• Up to 5,879 deaths were due to long-term exposure to NO2.

 Also “in 2010 PM2.5 and NO2 were associated with approximately 1990 and 420 respiratory hospital admissions respectively with an additional 740 cardiovascular hospital admissions associated with PM2.5.”

3) Clean Air in London, Guide to health impacts. By Simon Birkett, 2012. http://cleanair.london/health/guide-to-health-impacts-invisible-air-pollution-is-the-biggest-public-health-failing-or-cover-up-for-decades/

4) Also from ref 1: “The estimated economic costs of the above health impacts ranged from £1.4 billion … to £3.7 billion …. Inclusion of other less well established health outcomes would increase the economic costs.”  Thus the per person cost is somewhere between £160 and £430 per year.

Getting good at dying

This is a guest post by a local voter who has worked in a major London NHS hospital since 2011. He worked first as a Healthcare Assistant on the wards and is now an Emergency Department Assistant (EDA) in Accident & Emergency. 

He writes: 
As you're the Green Party candidate for Enfield North, I'm writing to you to ask you for your thoughts on recent attempts by organisations, such as Dignity in Dying, to legalise and enshrine an individual's right to choose to die under specific circumstances.

Obviously this is a sensitive and personal issue for all of us: we will all die at some point. I feel that as a nation we are prone to ignoring this very pertinent fact of life, to the detriment of our friends, family and loved ones. A more pragmatic reason for me to write to you about this is because I work in healthcare. I've seen people die, whether they were young or old, sick or (apparently) healthy. Death is indiscriminate and we do ourselves a disservice when we think of it as an enemy to be fended off at all costs.

I have looked after patients in the late stages of dementia, whose families have insisted that they be given feeding tubes when they are no longer capable of chewing and swallowing proper food. This is not a common occurrence, but it happens. These patients cannot communicate, move or control their bodily functions. Do they know what they're experiencing? Do they have a concept of time passing, as they lie there being drip-fed and hydrated by artificial means? I honestly couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that being fed through a PEG feed gives a patient constant loose stool, which inevitably leads to them having to be turned and cleaned up with regularity, as well as extreme discomfort.

The NHS will proclaim an adherence to 'dignity in care' until they're blue in the face. Take a moment to consider the above scenario, to imagine what healthcare workers have to do to keep that individual clean, pressure-sore free and, for lack of a better word, 'healthy'. Perhaps I misunderstand the concept of dignity, but I cannot find any of it there. I can apply the word 'abuse' more readily to that situation than 'dignity'. The suffering is needless, sad and preventable.

This is an extreme example, but I want you to understand how the current attitudes towards death in our country have encouraged things to happen that are at best questionable, and at worst reprehensible. We do not die well in the UK, because most of us choose to reject the idea that death is inevitable. Many of us will die in hospital, surrounded by strangers and alone. Maybe in pain, maybe not. Maybe in our sleep, maybe not. I won't list the ways in which I've seen lives end, but you should understand that they are numerous and for the most part very unpleasant indeed.

We do our best in the NHS to look after those whose death is imminent, to give them relief from any pain or discomfort. Everything short of giving patients a choice. Sometimes a patient gets lucky and is able to go home and die, supported by their friends and relatives, but these instances are few and far between.

I'm 29-years-old and I don't take my life for granted. I never have. Before I worked in the NHS I was attempting to join the forces, and I certainly didn't assume that - in the event that I was successful and made it to combat zones overseas - I would survive because of my youth and physical fitness. After three and a half years in the NHS, I have seen enough to confirm it doesn't matter how young or healthy we are. We will all die of something. It is only right that we be given the means to choose, if possible and desirable, how we experience those final heartbeats.

A few weeks ago the well-loved and respected Sir Terry Pratchett died in his home, surrounded by his family. He was a leading voice in the campaign to change the law on Assisted Dying and was often quoted saying, "It's time we learned to get as good at dying as we are at living."
 
For those who would rather die when it is "their time", I endorse their decision and our current framework can cater to that. For those of us who want to choose when we die the current system is woefully inadequate.