The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.

When the same children ate organic fruits, vegetables and juices, signs of pesticides were not found.

We know that high levels of organophosphates are dangerous to humans (farmers commonly use them on livestock, and those that do suffer from higher than average rates of neurological illness). Lower levels aren’t linked to anything specific at the moment, but that’s possibly an artifact of current medical knowledge; observing the effects of small doses of anything is hard, both because the effects take time to accrue, and it’s difficult to separate out one factor among many others when you’re looking at someone’s entire life for an extended period.

Yes, I am falling apart.

That’s the injury. The insult is that the only aerobic exercise left to me is swimming, which I strongly dislike. But if there’s one thing I dislike more than swimming, it’s swimming front crawl; I am, as those of you who know me will be unsurprised to hear, a breast-stroking man. So can you guess which stroke is not actually helping my knee, and which one I should do instead? That’s right.

The argument in favour is simple; hundreds of people die every year who could be saved by donations from people who, quite obviously, don’t need them any more. The argument against is more abstract, but also more fundamental; my body belongs to me, not the government, and that’s true before I’m born and when I’m dead just as much as when I’m alive.

My natural reaction is to be against this idea. I’m a registered donor and my family knows it, so I have no problem with donation in general, but I really dislike the idea that the government can help itself to what it wants. In fact this struck me as an extreme, if not literal, form of communism; from each according to his ability, whether he wants to or not.

Another reason to be against it is that the fix is very simple. If you’re not a registered donor for at least a year before you’re diagnosed with a condition requiring a transplant, you don’t get one. Any time you register for something from the government, be it a birth certificate, passport or driving license, you have to make a choice about donation. No default is filled in, so you have to pick one for yourself.

Such a quick fix gives me time to tell you about the Donner Card, which reads “I would like someone to help themselves to my kebab after my death”

My guess is that they can see a system where the NHS transforms into a giant, centralized HMO, paying for and managing services provided by private companies. Initially these would be based overseas, but it’s not much of a step to see the companies setting up in the UK initially to serve foreign ‘customers’, but in due course changing opinions to the point where they could take UK patients.

Terrifying, isn’t it? To be honest the only real fear here seems to be the fear of change. There are clear frictional costs involved in getting treatment overseas, so establishing these businesses will be a marginal activity. And if the NHS is better than the alternatives (which, presumably, it must be in the Labour politician’s eyes) then the only way it can lose is through government intervention that overwhelms that advantage. And Labour would never do that, right?

1. One of the standard dilutions used is 100C, which translates to 1 in 100¹⁰⁰. To translate that into terms that we can understand (kinda), if you magically created a new atom that did not exist anywhere else in the entire universe, then counted up all the other atoms in the universe, your novel atom would still not be as diluted as a 100C solution.

2. It’s really hard to get totally pure water in any volume, and even harder to keep it uncontaminated as you swish it from beaker to beaker to create your desired dilution. That means that there are background levels of pretty much any chemical you might put in there that would swamp the supposedly ‘medicinal’ levels you’re trying to create. It would be like trying to apply Giselle Bündchen’s lipstick while 10 guys emptied cans of Dulux over her.*

(*In your dreams)

But that only goes so far. I’m a huge supporter of the NHS, but one of the things it doesn’t do well (or does exceptionally well, depending on how you look at it) is spinning out appointments. I’m going for an MRI, and the process is so speedy that they’ll let me know by mail when it will be (probably 6 weeks). In the meantime, here’s a picture of what my kneecap looks like:

The doc thinks that there’s inflammation behind the kneecap, and the dodgy shape probably isn’t helping. So at least six more weeks of swimming (I hate swimming, and I don’t use the word ‘hate’ lightly) before I can get back on my bike. And to make it harder, I’m getting a new bike tonight.

Why am I whining on about this? Well I just wanted to caution you about medical advice. Since starting my shoulder has hurt almost constantly, and am seriously considering a return to the doctor. On the upside I’ll be able to fulfill a lifelong ambition by holding my arm in the air and saying “Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this”.