The British government is advocating the vaccination of children against particular behaviours using the forthcoming array of pharmacotherapy vaccines. These would innoculate children against a host of behaviours that the government defines as anti-social: drinking, smoking, drugs, blogging and so on.
The article explains that “Doctors would immunize children at risk of becoming smokers or drug users with an injection” and that the program would operate in a way similar to the “current nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme.” Further the authors reveal that “such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years.”
Developments like this are monitored by the Centre for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, whose response was clear:
Richard Glen Boire, a legal scholar at the CCLE, believes that vaccinating children with “anti-drug” drugs would be “alarming and unlawful, and would signal the first time that neuropharmaceuticals were overtly used to enforce government policy.”
Aside from the human rights concerns, the UK plan raises serious health questions regarding the long-term effects of these drugs on the complex neurochemistry of the brain.
The CCLE warns that advances in the neurosciences will challenge the ability of individuals to maintain their cognitive freedom. Governments will redefine mental health to use drugs and other neurotechnologies in order to police and channel people’s behaviours.
(My thanks to Alex Ramonsky of the Entelechy Institute for alerting me to this issue). Crossposted to White Rose.
Every time I think the British government has reached the nadir of cheap opportunism and greed for power, they find something even more horrifying to do. This is chilling. It makes enforced identity cards look like small beer indeed. Yet the fact that they have the temerity to float the idea tells us how confident Blair is that has an iron grip on Britain and doesn’t even have to pretend any more.
Apart from the physical intrusion, who is to be judge and jury of what is desirable behaviour? Tony Blair? Patricia Hodges? Tessa Jowell? Heather Blear? David Blunkett? Peter Mandelson? “Lord” Ali? Surely, David Carr, there is some law that you can’t be injected or operated upon without your consent?
Tony Blair is becoming madder by the week. He makes Norman Bates look like a regular guy. (Cue shrieking violins.)
Verity,
The law is not going to help here. If the powers do not already exist for the government to do this, then they will simply wave through the appropriate enabling Act.
There are only two things that could scupper this: popular resistance OR the difficulty and cost of implementation. The first is unlikely (“if it saves one child from a life of drug addiction, it’s worth it”) but the second is distinctly possible.
By the way this is unlikely to be Tony Blair’s idea. It is almost certainly the hideous brainchild of some civil servant in the Home Office. But you are right to some extent because the very fact that Blair does not immediately stamp on it (and he could) means that he is supremely confident that it will not dent his chances of re-election.
“Vaccination” against drug sensations is as evil as “circumcision” of girls, and for the exact same reasons.
Advocating the use of drug enforced thought control for an entire section of society tips the government beyond any pretence of commonality. It seeks to make them the puppet masters of anyone they decide, on a whim, to call “an addict”…
…*I say your child is different- I name it ‘addict’. By government decree I will now medicate the addict to ‘help’ it behave in what I say is the ‘proper’ way!*…
That is a frightening thought!
But it already exists- children are already being medicated unnecessarily solely in order to make them docile in schools.
It has been done by preying on peoples fears and greed. Fear that the children are uncontrollable and unteachable and greed by offering extra welfare benefit payments to those parents who get their children drugged. By preying on fears and offering bribes no compulsion nor coercion is necessary – just stupidity and greed.
What’s the bet that there will shortly be more benefit payments made available to the parents of those children named “addict”?
If a child receives an immunization for heroin and then becomes very seriously injured, what painkillers will work? “Sorry, you’ll just have to grin and bear it” won’t quite do the trick.
Another unforseen consequence: those seeking drug experiences will have to resort to unknown drugs that just arrived on the black market. We can all be assured that these new drugs will not be worse than marijuana, heroin, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, LSD, and others. Can’t we?
What will scupper this is the potential for compensation claims,this has all the makings of another Thalidomide scandal.
Are there not some in government whose offspring would have qualified for innoculation?
David Carr, Thank you. I take your points. And, of course, it’s not Tony Blair’s idea! He’s never had an actual idea; that’s why he had to beg ministers/civil servants/even Jack Straw, for ideas for ‘initiatives with which I can be personally associated’. Blair got into office without a single idea in his head except how he would look posing on the steps of Air Force One. Or getting on and off jets waving a copy of the Koran after 9/11. Or photo ops in the Rose Garden. Or riding a bike in some European city when he first got elected. What happened to that bike? What happened to that Koran? Just asking.
Jon – That was not the point.
Peter – there will be no more thalidomide scandals. Don’t you understand?
OK guys, so it’s August 1st, and you all had a great party last night. News is slow, likewise good blog items… but really as a joke this is not very funny, scary, but definetely not funny.
This just has to be a send-up, is it ‘Rag Week’ somewhere? just too much about the links etc. that seem phony… come on fellas – tell us it’s a lame attempt at a new genre of humour, or maybe sci-fi.
To put it another way, “You cannot be serious.’ (A nod to Johnny Mac)
Please say it’s a joke……..
Here’s an additional thought: what if these “vaccines” have unexpected consequences twenty years after administration? Suppose these preparations not only suppress addictive behaviors but also(eventually) cause unusually high rates of sexual dysfunction or sociopathic tendencies?
This is quite close to an avowed attempt at chemical thought control. Any government that would impose such an appalling program is a government that must be defeated. By armed force, if necessary.
Any government that would impose such an appalling program is a government that must be defeated. By armed force, if necessary.
Except that in Britain the general public don’t have guns to do this…
Why am I suddenly reminded of the importance of Pylene 50 in the Federation’s conquest of Helotrix?
Has anyone else noticed that Tony Blairbears an eerie resemblance to Tenniel’s illustration of the Mad Hatter?
And even if they had, they wouldn’t use them in this way. Mass insurrection against the state is not a noted habit of the British people. Or of many peoples, come to that.
If you’re going to stop a government by force, and you want the attempt to actually succeed & create the sort of society you want, then you don’t rely on the general public – that way all you’ll get is more of same whingeing, emote-first-and-think-maybe-sometime victim culture we already have, but less efficient.
No, what you really need is a small group of people in key positions determined enough to stop the current machine, reprogram it your way, and restart it. They don’t even need guns, but they do need to know where the levers are and when to pull them – i.e. when the present system is weak and crumbling, as it is now. This is how revolutions really happen.
EG
Is there no way to immunize children against looking to the Government to solve all their problems?
Euan Gray is quite right and as much as I am a supporter of RKBA, you do not need guns to deter the government from trying to implement this venal idea.
Britain is still a country which is governed by consent. If the public at large were to threaten civil disobedience, HMG would drop the idea like a hot brick. In fact it would be dropped if it even produced sufficient negative feedback in polling data.
Proposers of ideas like this only need (indeed, rely on) public support or, at least, acquiesence. Mostly they have it, which is why we get so many bad laws.
People who cannot be bothered to even raise their voice in protest can hardly be relied upon to start polishing their Uzis.
How about a revolt by the military? With the crap they are taking it can not be too long…
Does loyalty to Queen and Country require the same loyalty to any bunch of self-serving scumbags who manipulate their way into office.
Yay! yes, let’s have a military takeover. Sounds great. After all, military dictatorships are renowned for the great freedoms they offer.
Think i’ll stick with our shoddy democracy staffed by scheming incompetents, thanks!
Dunno, A_t:
The way things look at present, I think I’d prefer to live under a military dictatorship rather than under the current government, by a factor of five.
As long as it was the British military, of course. North Koreans and Burmese (Myanmarese?) need not apply.
Does a military takeover necessarily end up with a military dictatorship? and are they always a bad thing.
Did not Drake say that in time of England’s need, sound the drum, and he would come to the rescue. Surely a metaphorical reference to a call to arms in dour times, and this article would surely indicate that times, ‘are indeed very dour’.
Maybe they have political allies that they would hand the actual ‘reins of power’ over to. I have always felt that the British military had more allegiance to the general population than to the political elite, and they do have a precedent for staging a revolt. It’s been done before…
And maybe this would be more akin to having a ‘privatised’ defence force, such as was being discussed here a while ago, rather than an ‘Idi Amin’ style of dictatorship.
It might not be so far fetched as you suppose, after all the British military have always respected and followed a true Leader. Blair is neither a Leader, nor is he respected.
Perhaps someone who’s up on the biochemistry could explain to me: is there some reason why these drugs can only be given to children and not, say, sold to adults who wish to kick the habit?
Jon: These “vaccines” are molecule-specific, so any other painkiller would work, even other opiods.
The other reason this simply isn’t a problem is that the “vaccines” only last a few months. They don’t create long-lasting “immunity”.
Squander: No reason at all; they’d work for anyone. In fact, voluntary use of them by addicts would be perfectly acceptable to everyone here, I imagine.
(I personally dislike some of the hyperventilation on the subject, given that the scheme can’t work, precisely because the vaccinations don’t last and are molecule-specific.
On the other hand, it is a perfcetly valid and useful insight into the thought-processes of the apparatchiks who suggest such things, and a useful lesson on same.)
I sometimes have this idea that about every 300-400 years there is a major upheaval in the way England is governed, sometimes a bloody one. Norman Conquest, peasant’s revolt over the poll tax, Civil War, sort of thing. Seems like we’re about due another upheaval.
ISTR that in the 1960s there was some muttering about a potential military takeover in Britain to get rid of the Wilson government, this coming in the wake of stuff like the Cuban missile crisis, Rhodesia, devaluation, etc. Obviously nothing came of it, and I also seem to recall that there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm on the part of the military when the idea was floated (well, putting a little water underneath it, not quite floating it, if you know what I mean). Anyway, generals rarely make good politicians, for the simple reason that what works in the army doesn’t necessarily work with the mass of the people. Similarly, and tangentially, what works in the capital market for business doesn’t necessarily work with the mass of the people, either, but there it is.
I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely that this country would see a military revolt. Britain’s one experience of military government (Cromwell’s major-generals) wasn’t a happy one, and folk memories are long. If there is going to be radical change in this way, you don’t actually need the military to do anything. In fact, you want them to do precisely nothing – just stand by and wait.
One of the advantages of the English monarchical system, and our ultimate constitutional buck-stopper, is the position of the person of the Crown as commander in chief of the armed services, and her right in extremis to order the military to remove a government that simply will not otherwise listen. If the government embarked on a course of action that really pissed off the people, and if it would not back down, then I think this is the only way you would see the army step in.
Then again, I doubt if it would get that far. When the Queen speaks, politicians listen – however republican they may be. Wilson’s threat to hold an election in 1975 was stopped dead by the simple displeasure of the Queen, who apparently felt that three elections so close together would be inappropriate.
But you can’t win. If the Crown expressed displeasure more often, there would be moans about a political monarchy. If the Crown doesn’t express displeasure, there are moans about nobody doing anything to stop the power-crazed loons in government.
It’s an awkward situation, but I think something has to happen and soon. What it will be I don’t know, since the parliamentary opposition is ineffective and the people don’t seem to care as long as they get their dole.
EG
Frightening is this article showing the powers that local council officials in the UK are now exercising, including access to the Police National Computer – until recently unauthorised access to the PNC, even by offduty police officers, was an indictable offence under the Misuse of Computers Act in the UK. An Anti Social Behaviour Order is described on that site as …
George Orwell must be sitting on the farleft hand of God and laughing fit to burst.
Euan Gray – Fascinating post. We discussed once before – and at least one constitutional lawyer jumped in, if memory serves – what would happen if Tony Blair tried to force Britain into this joke EU “constitution”. The Queen would indeed have the ability to dismiss the government – but would she do so? Would she have the nerve, given that, if she was outmanoeuvred, Blair would grab the opportunity to destroy the monarchy? This, none of us knows.
In addition, Blair has been dismantling the monarchy on the quiet (and the next government to get in would be extremely wise to shore it up again) to the point that the police no longer take their oath to the Crown. It is to the state. How long before Bliar takes it upon himself to remove the Queen as head of state and make the army swear loyalty to the state. Who can doubt that that is the next item on the loathesome Blair’s little list? (Blair sees the monarchy as a rival, which is like a chihuahua seeing a lion as a rival, but no one ever accused Bliar of being a coherent, or even a sane, thinker.) Don’t forget, the Crown Prosecution Service has been quietly destroyed.
My guess, if he essays such a move, he may have to encounter the joint chiefs of staff and it may be quite an enlightening experience for him.
“How long before Bliar takes it upon himself to remove the Queen as head of state and make the army swear loyalty to the state. Who can doubt that that is the next item on the loathesome Blair’s little list?”
I can. Stick to Texas, dear.