The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7334 p128
29 January 2005

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Beware! Betting can have a huge impact on health more
How science in the US is being forced to bow its head to politics more
Essential interaction between water supply and flourishing civilisations more

Beware! Betting can have a huge impact on health

Moves to widen access to facilities for gambling have, as might be expected, aroused disquiet in some quarters. Gambling casinos like those characteristic of Las Vegas are promised in popular resorts such as Blackpool, while technological advances have offered additional gambling avenues via the internet, interactive television and mobile phoning.

An editorial by Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in the British Medical Journal for 6 November 2004 discusses the possible repercussions of this policy development on the health of those participating. He states that just under 1 per cent of the UK population wrestles with a severe gambling problem, with twice that rate among adolescents accustomed to slot-machine gambling.

Pathological gambling, he writes, involves an unrealistic optimism on the part of the player, bets being made in order to recoup losses experienced. Instead of making good the initial loss, gamblers sink deeper into debt and increase their preoccupation with the gamble. At both individual and societal levels the costs in terms of health and social welfare are large. Individuals may develop high irritability, extreme moodiness, rupture of personal relationships, neglect of family, absenteeism from work and financial bankruptcy. With these go depression, insomnia, migraine, intestinal disorders and other disorders associated with stress.

Pathological gambling may unleash violence towards intimate partners. Studies of violence against women in the US have shown a 10-fold increase in women whose partners were problem gamblers compared with non-problem gamblers’ partners. Child abuse, too, increased in parallel with casino gambling.

Like other forms of addiction, gambling carries withdrawal effects when discontinued. These have included insomnia, headache, loss of appetite, physical weakness, increased heart rate, muscle aches, breathing difficulties and chills.

Given these effects, those concerned with remedies should take the same attitude towards gambling as is taken towards alcohol and tobacco abuse. The proposed measures of deregulation will increase the incidence of problem gambling, with all its adverse consequences for health and welfare.

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How science in the US is being forced to bow its head to politics

A rather alarming situation is revealed in a report in Science for 26 November 2004. A recent panel of the US National Academies has found that the Bush administration in the US has adopted the practice of requiring some appointees to scientific advisory panels to reveal their political affiliations, voting records and attitudes towards issues that the panel is considering. This revelation has naturally aroused criticism from the communications media and several watchdog groups.

Recently an academic committee on science, engineering and public policy condemned the political vetting of appointments to scientific posts under presidential control and to federal advisory panels. The key recommendation was that individuals nominated to provide scientific or technical expertise should be selected on the basis of their scientific knowledge and credentials, and that it is inappropriate to ask them to provide information that is not relevant to such criteria, such as voting record, party affiliation or attitude towards particular policies. Such questions are no more to the point than asking a scientist to describe his height or hair colour. No specific allegations were investigated, nor were recommendations directed to the current political administration. However, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported concern expressed by 60,000 scientists.

In other situations it might be reasonable for appointees to be asked their political views if they represent companies, patients or other special interests or have to deal with such sensitive issues as testing drugs on children or disposing of low-level nuclear waste.

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Essential interaction between water supply and flourishing civilisations

It is too often forgotten by modern civilisations that water plays an essential part in maintaining a culture and a living community. It must not only be provided to maintain life but also discarded efficiently to safeguard health.

Accordingly, our organisation of a water supply for any area ought to be assured without consideration for the demands of private enterprise, and all endeavours made to deal with possible breakdowns of any system for water supply even before they arise. Such is the argument put forward for public authorities to accept full responsibility for maintaining the flow of this essential element of living, and not farming it out to private commercial enterprises whose first duty, according to the capitalist creed, is to make profit for their shareholders.

The loss of a water supply would have a catastrophic effect on a vigorous civilisation. According to the calculations of Yuri Gorokhovich of Columbia University, New York, this could explain the demise of the Minoan culture based on Crete in the Aegean Sea about 1500BC. This particular culture had long flourished and produced magnificent works of art, and its abrupt end has puzzled archaeologists.

Minoan culture was highly civilised, with palaces embodying fine architecture and elaborate drinking fountains, baths and even the earliest known flushing toilets. Reasons suggested for the collapse of the civilisation have been, at different times, disastrous earthquakes, changes in the climate and eruption of the Santorini volcano.

We have seen recently that earthquakes may have widespread repercussions, including destructive tsunamis. Gorokhovich has speculated that a spate of earthquakes about 1700BC may have destroyed sophisticated drainage systems in Crete. Today there are no supplies of water to the Minoan structures situated high on limestone ridges, but at one time there must have been a complex system of supply to maintain the advanced culture.

Recent experiences have shown that earthquakes have indeed a great potential to divert water supplies. Repeated disturbances could introduce massive losses in the capacity of a region to continue feeding and watering its population. It is not always possible to find alternative supplies, and migration must then be the remedy.

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