New York to Begin Watching Fatsos, Too

In addition to searching your bags for guns and weapons when you board the subway, the day is coming soon when authorities are likely to snatch that Big Mac outta your hands, too!

Better health -- as decided by the government of New York.

Diabetes costs an estimated $5 billion a year to treat in New York and was the fourth leading cause of death in the city in 2003, killing 1,891.

At least half a million New Yorkers have diabetes, many of them at risk for blindness, kidney failure, amputations and heart problems because they are doing a poor job of controlling their illness. The question is, how much privacy are they willing to give up for a chance at better health?

A century after New York became the first American city to track people with infectious diseases as a way to halt epidemics, officials here propose a similar system to monitor people with diabetes, a non-contagious foe.

Conceived after a sharp rise in diabetes deaths over the past 20 years, the plan would require medical labs to report to the city the results of a certain type of test that indicates how well individual patients are controlling their diabetes.

By pinpointing problem patients, then intervening ever so slightly in their care...the city can improve thousands of lives.

Has there ever been a history of "slight intervention" in New York?

I wonder -- does that mean folks will lose their access to healthcare if they don't comply with the health directives of the state? If they don't submit to testing, will they be locked up? Maybe they'll get sent to mandatory fat farms, until they shape up, so they can ship out!

Is it, indeed, the decision of the state to decide how folks should lead their lives?

Just wondering....

The whole, sugar free mess is here.