When Dr Sally Mitton agreed to be interviewed by the BBC Newsbeat programme about the rise in inflammatory bowel diseases in recent
years, she was probably unaware of the political subtext behind the story. This would make her what political philosophers refer to a a “useful idiot”.
When asked about the cause of inflammatory bowel disease - Dr
Mitton quite rightly stated that, “we know that there are many genes that
predispose somebody to get Crohn’s disease”. She probably should have gone onto explain that currently despite a raft of medical research, scientists have
no idea what causes or triggers inflammatory bowel disease. She might also have
said that there is currently no known cure; that patients who have the
condition experience severe pain, internal bleeding, and severe diarrhoea and
dehydration; that there are drugs that can bring about remission, but only at
the cost of potentially life-threatening side-effects.
Unfortunately, Dr Mitton chose to espouse her own particular
pet theory as to what factors might make inflammatory bowel disease more
common: “but we also know that lifestyle factors like eat a lot of junk food or
taking many courses of antibiotics may make it more likely to happen”. One
suspects here the Dr Mitton has her own agenda. It is clear that many
clinicians now regard junk food as a major cause of metabolic syndrome, a
condition that is now so prevalent that it threatens to wreck the National
Health Service. It is also clear that many clinicians are greatly troubled by
the rising antibiotic resistant bacteria, which threatened to make many common
conditions incurable, and which in turn may also add a further burden to over
stretched National Health Service.
To raise these concerns on the back of a story
about a widely misunderstood illness is foolish to say the least. It is clear
that the establishment - the major political parties, the civil service, the
BBC, and other news media have an agenda to begin the privatisation and
dismantling of the National Health Service on the back of a campaign to
demonise people with severe illnesses and disabilities. We have already seen
the BBC acting as a cheerleader for the current government’s attempts to
demonise disabled recipients of welfare benefits. One of the key ways in which
this is done is to use stories that portray the disabled as being at least
partially responsible for their own plight. So, for example, where people with
disabilities can be shown to have smoked, drank excessive alcohol, or allowed their weight to spiral out of control, they are blamed for being unable to work
and to being a burden on wider society.
We don’t know whether Dr Mitton is another disability
denier (or simply another hard-pressed clinician doing the best they can in an over-stretched system). If she is, then she will no doubt be delighted by the manner in which
the BBC chose to cover the story.
Playing down the genetic causes of
inflammatory bowel disease, the BBC chose to highlight Dr Mitton’s junk food
hypothesis. It is worth quoting the well respected, evidence-based NHS Choices here:
"There is no evidence to suggest that a particular diet can cause Crohn's Disease, although changes to your diet can help control certain symptoms and may be recommended by your specialist or dietitian".
If Dr Mitton is not a disability denier that she may wish to
reflect on the damage that her utterances will have done. On forums, blog posts
and social media, people like myself who have to live with inflammatory bowel
disease have been outraged by the coverage. As with many conditions,
inflammatory bowel disease is seldom talked about (other than enclosed forums
of fellow sufferers) and is often confused by the general public with a much
less serious irritable bowel syndrome - a distressing but ultimately minor and
usually stress-related condition.
Already, people who suffer inflammatory bowel disease are
experiencing ignorant comments about the condition being caused by their
dietary habits. Worse still, we - people whose lives are threatened by the
condition, the drugs that we have to take to keep it in remission, and the
surgery that we often have to undergo to avoid premature death as a result of
the condition itself - are now being told that it is possible to treat the
condition solely by changing diet.
This is far and away the greater damage done by Dr Mitton’s
comments. As with all conditions, inflammatory bowel disease attracts the usual
army of cranks peddling a whole raft of alternative and complementary
therapies. High among these are the so-called “nutritionists” who prey on
people’s fears about the potentially serious consequences of formal medical
treatments. Who among us would not want to believe that simply swapping apples
for bananas would be enough for us not to have to take a drug like
azathioprine (a medicine whose side effects include several cancers, liver
disease, kidney failure and a whole raft of other unpleasant and disabling effects) for the rest of our lives.
Dr Mitton more than most will be aware that these treatments
are not dished out willy-nilly. In a seriously strained National Health Service
nobody is about to pay the treatments that people don’t need. When somebody with
inflammatory bowel disease is told that they need surgery and/or a course of
immune suppressant drugs, it is because there is a high risk that they
will die without the treatment.
I prefer to believe that Dr Mitton is a useful idiot - someone
who ignorantly blunders their way into providing expert cover for a viewpoint
that the establishment wishes the general public to believe. While I don’t
doubt that government ministers in general and Iain Duncan Smith in particular
would like to go around blaming sick and disabled people for their plight, it is clear that such cruelty would not be tolerated by the wider public. So it suits
them to have the media wheel out politically naive academics such as Dr Mitton
to say these things for them. The public is much more likely to believe a doctor than they ever would a politician.
If Dr Mitton really wants to do something about junk food,
we would all be better served if, instead of blaming dangerous illnesses on its
consumption, she just came out straight and called for better regulation of the
food industry, taxes on dangerous foods, and investment in public education
about the harm is done by many of the substances that are commonly found in
processed foods.
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Since writing this post, Dr Sally Mitton was contacted by the charity Crohn's and Colitis UK, and gave the following apology:
20th June 2014
First and foremost I would like to apologise for the distress that I have caused by what was shown on the BBC to all Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis patients. I was unable to respond more quickly to the reactions to this report due to very heavy clinical commitments. I feel that what I said and the subsequent coverage has been misinterpreted and Iwould like to clarify this now.
I said that Crohn’s disease occurs in those who are genetically susceptible and that the unexplained recent increase in numbers diagnosed amongst young people in the UK is likely to be related to life style. I did mention pre diagnosis diet and multiple courses of antibiotics as possible factors preceding the development of overt disease in some cases. I did not say that junk food or frequent courses of antibiotics CAUSE Crohn’s disease. I am very aware there are many patients with IBD who eat a very healthy and nutritious diet and have always done so before their diagnosis.
However, since the initial report on 18th of June there have been subsequent newspaper and television reports that focus on the assumption that Crohn’s Disease seems to be “caused” by junk food and multiple antibiotics. This is not my belief and is a distortion.
I did not mean to imply any element of self-infliction and I am appalled to think this could set back public perception of IBD or that sufferers might be blamed for their own pain and misfortune.
I would like to sincerely apologise again for the distress that my comments have caused.
Dr Sally Mitton
Consultant Paediatric Gastroenterologist
Consultant Paediatric Gastroenterologist
This confirms my view that Dr Mitton is a "useful idiot", and her treatment by the BBC should be born in mind by other clinicians and academics who are tempted to trot out personal opinion instead of sticking to the scientific evidence.
