Its difficult to assess what % of food (or food based energy) consumed is ultra processed, but here is a chart that aggregates a number of studies to suggest the range of % for a selection of countries.... & then when you know Big Food in the USA spends more on lobbying than the Tobacco industry (which is likely to be similar in UK)... it starts to make sense.
Link that to public health & we have some more context for the UK's health crisis.
@ChrisMayLA6 That chart fits my experiences when travelling. I think we tend to have more fresh produce and other ingredients even with casual dining here in Australia than in the US & UK.
@longreads I used to think, back in the days when folks were tying to get corporations to divest from South Africa, shareholder activism would be good. But it's really just become a bigger tool for the greediest to extract everything they can into their pockets.
People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city.
The city was once hailed for its response to #addiction. But as #fentanyl flooded streets & ofcls shifted priorities, deaths hit unprecedented heights.
This is the first part in a series exploring #Baltimore’s overdose crisis.
In the past 6 yrs, nearly 6k lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly DOUBLE that of any other large city, & higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic.
@Nonilex We are long past the stage where any level of intervention can solve these problems. Why do people drink/use drugs? Because their life is hot garbage and they (justifiably) can't cope.
Fix THAT, and drug use declines rapidly. But no, that would take money and 'giving' people things.
Is the answer to 'dental deserts' to force newly trained dentists to work for the NHS for the first years of their career (or to pay back the costs of their training)?
Well, unless Labour adopt such an approach we may never know, but the crisis in NHS dentistry might be alleviated by some form of national service requirement from dentists (alongside a better funding model!)?.
It may not be the best answer, but these are desperate times in dentistry.
@ChrisMayLA6 They need a practice still tied to NHS. It's whole practices leaving . And this company is much to blame as they are buying practices and taking them private https://www.todaysdental.co.uk/
Completely private dentistry is the ultimate goal of the tory filth.
The current contract for NHS dentists is a joke and it is not surprising that dentists are fleeing in their thousands.
The only way you can run a healthcare system that includes dentistry is on a "pay per item of treatment" basis. This is what all our European neighbours do and it works well and this is the way UK NHS dentistry was organised when the NHS was founded.
There was an organisation called the Dental Estimates Board (later name changed to the Dental Practice Board) in Eastbourne that processed the claims for payment by dentists in England and Wales. This employed over 2000 people at its height, making it Eastbourne's largest employer, however computerisation substantially reduced the numbers needed to process claims for payment.