Sometime around last Christmas, the patient editor of the British Medical Journal, had a dream, indeed a vision, of how the health of the nation would improve over the decade ahead.
‘As people began to realise that preventing themselves from becoming unwell was infinitely preferable to having avoidable illnesses treated, they started to listen more carefully to the government's health promotion messages: eating more healthily, drinking more sensibly, taking more exercise, and avoiding unnecessary exposure to the sun. Generally, the media helped move the process along. In particular, they played a major part in making drug misuse completely unfashionable.’1
My first thought was that this was some sort of spoof. But no, it was published on the day after the Epiphany, not on 1 April. As this editorial begins with some references to Dougal and Zebedee of the Magic Roundabout …