IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon has written for The Critic analysing the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) latest report claiming that tobacco, alcohol, processed food and fossil fuels “cause an estimated 2.7 million deaths annually” in Europe.

Christopher wrote:

“The new WHO report is a sort of greatest hits collection. Last year they published a whole series of articles in the Lancet in which they claimed that there is ‘growing evidence that neoliberalism has been damaging to health’ and called for ‘a normative shift away from harmful consumptogenic systems’. 

“Half-baked Marxist rhetoric has been rife in the social sciences for decades, but these people have a vaguely coherent point to make and are pursuing a serious, if terrifying, agenda. Since they do not believe in human agency, they assume that people only make ‘unhealthy choices’, such as eating processed ham, because the system that controls them has been rigged by big corporations.

“It is not surprising that socialists are attracted to the ‘public health’ agenda, nor that ‘public health’ zealots are attracted to socialism. Both ideologies allow power to be concentrated in a small number of hands. What is surprising is that politicians who claim to be liberal or conservative have been so willing to advance their cause.”

Read Christopher’s full piece here.