Tuesday 29 June 2010

More ban hysteria.

Sunbeds are in the ban-sights again. I've never used one and never will. I like my pallid look. It suits me. Besides, all that UV might destroy my superpower - the dreaded Yellow Finger of Nicotine - by overwriting it with sunburn. The mere sight of the Yellow Finger can cause spontaneous bowel-emptying in antismokers. It's not all that yellow, but it's enough. I wonder if Electrofag can be designed to produce the Yellow Finger of Nicotine? I suppose there's no need. It'll be on the badges we'll have to sew on our clothes soon.

There are many reasons for me not to use sunbeds. I don't turn golden brown. I turn into Lobster Man then shed my skin. There's also the time aspect. I cannot lie still, doing nothing, for that long. Finally, the temptation to write 'Arse' on another sleeping sunbedder's head with black insulating tape would be too much to resist. So I stay away. I don't care if you want to bathe in UV light any more than I care if you want to bathe in nitric acid. I'm wrecking my body in my own way. You wreck yours any way you like. Know the risks, take the risks, have a good time because if you don't, you'll feel very silly one day when you die of nothing.

The Banmeisters want these sunbeds banned. Why? Well, they cause cancer. So does inhaling traffic fumes, going out in the sunshine, taking a shower and eating and drinking just about everything. Sometimes, cancer just happens for no visible reason at all. Sometimes you just can't win.

Okay, it is impossible to deny that bathing in concentrated UV light increases the risk. But did the sunbed kill this woman? Really?

A 31-year-old mother-of-eight died after sunbeds caused a cancerous mole the size of a prune to develop on her leg.

31, mother of eight, wow. She was even more active than smokers. I doubt she was one or it would have been blamed on smoking by now.

Teresa Zawadski had never sunbathed outdoors, instead opting to use the sunbed she kept at her Derbyshire home.

Okay. Can't blame this one on those sunbed parlours then. She had her own, at home, even though it apparently caused even more pregnancies than smoking.

Now her grieving mother has called for an outright ban on the sunbeds she believes were responsible for her daughter's death.

She had her own sunbed, at home, used it her own way, and because she died all of those who own sunbeds must give them up. Will that bring her back? Will it encourage anyone else to read the instructions for any appliance? No, it won't do a thing other than deprive those who like to look as if they spend half the year in Haiti from doing so.

So did the sunbed kill her?

But when a mole on her leg started to grow she was too scared to get it looked at by doctors.
She ignored it until her mother Helen forced her to seek medical help,

No. Cancer killed her. Skin cancer which quite probably was, indeed, initiated by her use of a UV bed. The bed didn't kill her. Ignoring an obvious risk factor associated with her activity over a long period is what killed her. Presumably she kept using the sunbed during the development of the tumour?

I smoke. If I started coughing hard or developed chest pains, I would get that checked because it's a risk associated with smoking. Chest pains could be just too much caffeine (wouldn't be the first time) and a persistent cough could be just too much time stuck indoors, but things like that, whether you're a smoker or not, could be an early sign of something nasty.

I smoke. I know the risks. If I developed signs associated with those risks, I'd get them checked.

Teresa showed me the mole one day and I couldn't believe how big it was. It was the size of a prune and raised from off her skin.

She wouldn't get it checked and she just let it grow.

The sunbed did not kill her. Ignoring a very blatant sign of a developing cancer is what killed her. Tobacco comes with warnings. I don't believe that sunbeds don't come with warnings too. Hell, a packet of peanuts comes with warnings these days. She knew what it was and ignored it.

If she had sunbathed outside instead if using a sunbed, she might still have developed this. Many do. Should we ban the sun?

Derby hospitals' Dr Tanya Bleiker called for a new law which would mean all sunbed users must first sign a consent form to show they have been given information warning of the dangers.

She said: 'Sunbed use increases the risk of skin cancer and I strongly advise people to avoid using them.'

If we are to avoid using something that kills one person, Dr. Bleiker, how would you suggest we regard the NHS?

Going outside increases the risk of skin cancer. Staying in increases the risk of vitamin D deficiency. Either way, you'd end up in the clutches of the NHS and then you're in big trouble.

Banning things that kill people once in a while is a risky route to take. Once in a while, someone dies of an allergic reaction to a protein in apples, you know.

There is always an NHS medic ready to support a ban on things that might be dangerous.

They have never noticed the irony.

11 comments:

banned said...

Reading the instructions is always a good plan.
Some decades ago I bought a new Honda CBX (6 cylinder, in-line, 1,000cc)
Instruction #1
"Sit astride the vehicle".

Nothing new though,620 BC: Draco, Athenian law-maker (hence 'draconian'), was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina. (Wiki) so that must put cloaks first on the bansturbaters list.

Frank Davis said...

It'll be on the badges we'll have to sew on our clothes soon.

Entirely coincidentally, I've just designed one.

Leg-iron said...

Banned - perhaps we should all give these nice people a good heavy cloak to show our appreciation. All at once.

Frank - nice badge. It just needs two yellow fingers extended.

Frank Davis said...

Yeah, that's what I thought too, after reading your post.

smokervoter said...

I say we just Ban the Sun. Somehow launch a big orbiting white and red backslashed International Warning sign over the damned thing. If we could get him to interrupt his philandering long enough, we could assign the task to Al Gore. It would solve Global Warming, too.

It would reek havoc with his massive solar energy investments, but he could always sell those stocks short right before the countdown hits One.

PT Barnum said...

There's a strangeness in that story: woman who routinely turns herself orange, presumably out of vanity and fashion, chooses to allow disfiguring tumour to grow ever bigger. Odd. Not even as if she were a stranger to medicine after 8 pregnancies and births.

Can we ban human inconsistency? It would save eleventy billion lives, you know.

Captain Haddock said...

I'm calling for the urgent introduction of a law which bans Fuckwits ..

People who say things like .. "He was killed by a car" .. No he wasn't, he was killed either by his own, the car driver's or someone else's negligence ..

Or .. "He was killed by a gun" .. No again, he was killed by the person who squeezed the trigger, or his own negligence ..

Fuckwits always look to blame inanimate objects for their injuries or demise .. never, ever their own or someone else's sodding stupidity ..

nick@xmuse.co.uk said...

This is the front page splash story for the Manchester Evening News.

OK, I'll tell you a story. About a year ago my wife had an iffy mole and went to the Dr who removed it and sent it for biopsy. The NHS pissed around for 6 weeks before returning the results - fine, nothing to worry about. Meanwhile we looked into treatment options and I went slightly fucking mad.

Now if it had been the suspected malignant melanoma then there would have been further surgery, maybe a skin graft but almost certainly that would have been it.

Oh, and BTW my wife has never used a sunbed or sunbathed - just been on beaches and stuff. She never saw the point. Fly to Spain and then just lie there reading a book. I can stay in bed and do that!

The moral of this is that sunbeds don't kill people - stupidity kills people and there is sod all anyone else can do about the stupidity of others. Look, this woman had 8 kids by the age of 31. Does that sound like the action of anyone on the ball?

smokervoter said...

After we've banned the sun, we'll start in on the reeking savages who misspell "wreak havoc"

Anonymous said...

So can we all sign a form and then open a smoking club?

Leg-iron said...

Anon - if only...

opinions powered by SendLove.to