AI bots flooded 2023 UK government consultation on disposable vapes ban

'AI bots flooded a government consultation with tens of thousands of fake responses in a failed attempt to stop the UK’s ban on disposable vapes.

Three-quarters of all the responses to the 2023 consultation on the tobacco and vapes bill were machine-generated, in what is thought to be the first coordinated attempt to use AI to derail health policymaking in the UK.

The attempt to manipulate the outcome of the consultation was disclosed on Tuesday in research published in the journal Tobacco Control by the health policy experts Dr Nason Maani, from the University of Edinburgh, and Prof Anna Gilmore, of the University of Bath.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) used bot-detection methods to identify that 90,835 of the 118,756 responses it received, 76%, were submitted by bots.

All but two of those 90,835 automated responses answered the same question in the “smoke free generation” consultation, in which they opposed Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government’s plan to ban disposable vapes. The submissions were “often duplicated many times and sent at high frequency from a small number of IP addresses”, the DHSC said.'

Read more ... The Guardian

My source: BBC Radio 4 Today

c/o Leacock 'HUMAN INTEREST PUT INTO MATHEMATICS'

So, for all those years of struggling to understand the question, let alone answer it, you are now telling me: it was all person-centred? Plus! Not only do 'A', 'B', and 'C' have names, there's 'D' too?

    'The student of arithmetic who has successfully striven with money sums and fractions, finds himself confronted by an unbroken expanse of questions known as problems. These are short stories of adventure and industry with the end omitted, and though betraying a strong family resemblance, are not without a certain element of romance. 
    The characters in the plot of a problem are three people called A, B, and C. The form of the question is generally of this sort : "A, B, and C do a certain piece of work. A can do as much work in an hour as in two, or C in four. Find how long they work at it." 
    Or this : "A, B, and C are employed to dig a ditch. A can dig as much in one hour as can dig in two, and can dig twice as fast as C. Find how long, etc., etc." 
    Or after this wise: "A lays a wager that he can walk faster than or C. A can walk half as fast again as B, and C is only an indifferent walker. Find how far, and so forth." . . .

    In the early chapters of the arithmetic, their identity is concealed under the names John, William, and Henry, and they wrangle over the division of marbles. In algebra they are often called X, Y, Z. But these are only their Christian names, and they are really the same people.
    Now, to one who has followed the history of these men through countless pages of problems, watched them in their leisure hours dallying with cord wood, and seen their panting sides heave in the full frenzy of filling a cistern with a leak in it, they become something more than mere symbols. They appear as creatures of flesh and blood, living men with their own passions, ambitions and aspirations like the rest of us.'

LEACOCK, S. (1929). HUMAN INTEREST PUT INTO MATHEMATICS. The Mathematics Teacher, 22(5), 302–304. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27951138

'Maggie’s: Architecture That Cares' exhibition

Learning of this exhibition in February, c/o the FT; I wished I'd been able to visit. Now it ends on the 1st November:

'Maggie’s: Architecture That Cares' exhibition at the V&A Dundee.

Hodges' model is a latent 'care architecture' brought to life when applied to person, or community-centred care. Architecture in care, is a theme that keep recurring which is encouraging in its own right.

Edwin Heathcote, The healing power of a hospitable hospital, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 21-22 February 2026, p.15.

Previously: 'Maggie's'

APHA Community-Based Primary Health Care Workshop, Saturday Oct 31 - Available for free online

Colleagues, join us and consider sharing this email widely. See flyer attached.

Our APHA pre-conference workshop on October 31 is now open to anyone, anywhere, at no cost. Please share this with colleagues and students who would benefit.

WHAT
Health Systems That Reach and Follow: 

Community-Based Primary Health Care in an Era of 
Mobility, Misinformation, and Digital Innovation

The annual pre-conference workshop of the Community-Based Primary Health Care Working Group, APHA International Health Section, which we have run for about twenty years.

People move. Misinformation travels faster than they do. The question we are taking up is how health systems follow.

WHEN
Saturday, October 31, 2026
11:00 AM to 5:00 PM US Central Time

HOW TO JOIN
Online, free, from anywhere:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/joyC0lTUQRuX1G3VCb6xcw

In person in San Antonio, Texas ($25 plus service fee, student discount available):
https://bit.ly/4y8xsaX

No APHA membership and no conference registration are required for either option.

Registration closes Friday, October 30 at 11:00 AM US Central Time.

So please forward this. If you have colleagues, partners, or students anywhere in the world who work on community health, send it to them.

Thank you!

Andrew and Henry 

Andrew Herrera, CHW, MPH, MBA

Executive Director

Impact Global Health Alliance
andrew AT impactglobalhealthalliance.org

Henry B. Perry, MD, PhD, MPH

Senior Associate, Health Systems Program

Department of International Health

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

hperry2 AT jhu.edu

[Simple] Space medicine ... c/o Chris Hadfield

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

HUMANISTIC ------------------------------------------------ MECHANISTIC

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

	I was seated in the audience front row, and recognised Heide's symptoms. The crew, behind her, couldn't see that she was about to faint, so I jumped onto the stage and luckily caught her in time. Ever since then, astronauts sit during the debriefs immediately post-spaceflight. Don't need anyone falling and getting hurt. — Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) October 23, 2026

 Previously: 'observation' : 'anticipation' : 'astronautics' : 'space'

ii Identity: Plain to see? A little thought experiment

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

HUMANISTIC ------------------------------------------------ MECHANISTIC

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

A little thought experiment - continued:

What's that!

 'A case of individual ineffability.'? 

Is this really ineffable? Are you saying - ironically - this is beyond language? 
That there's something sacred here?
Surely that's a stretch too far? 

I can see it is often complex, maybe difficult to explain too.

Well, the claim of ineffability is justified.
For some people, this touches upon the sacred and spiritual too.

How so? 

Well. Take the global population pyramid we inverted to span the sociological and political domains.
We're all in there. Even if you don't check that dynamic link, that pyramid is 'dynamic'. 
New births are being added, as the newly departed take their leave. 
So it's not just dynamic it's noisy too. 
Strictly speaking it's dancing: a constant shuffle.

Oh, dear! Save me, save us all!
What about the person we pulled out from the masses? 

Yes, one individual, but in truth as our focus, they occupy the interpersonal and sciences domains.
Have you ever used - painted with a palette knife? 

No, I can't say I have, probably not beyond my hands as a child.

Take that person as a single line - the palette knife's edge; then - move the knife, spread those colours across the two upper domains of Hodges' model. Let's say now that instead of a single person as a column, a data point, which we can hardly see; this 'spread' represents their lifespan. Not only that, but in there we also have their unique health career. Plus, arranged chronologically a record of life chances can also be charted.

And that's ineffable? 

True, there's no bright light. But, we can represent here the existential and religious debates and the point that some people get anxious, fearful of death and yet we were not anxious before we started life's inexorable shuffle? 

In these times of AI, it is important to acknowledge that what is ineffable in Hodges' model, is what we human beings can find, can experience in all the domains of  the model and the 'why' that surround it.

Ah, I see. Thanks.

 Previously: 'life chances' : 'health career'

Identity: Plain to see? A little thought experiment

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

HUMANISTIC ------------------------------------------------ MECHANISTIC

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

A little thought experiment:

Beneath the humanistic-mechanistic axis (within the sociological and political domains) superimpose an inverted global population pyramid - scaled to fit - of course. Make it dynamic if you wish.

Then imagine lifting just one individual out of the global population. As our subject, of whatever age, sex ... place them anywhere above the horizontal axis. Anywhere within the interpersonal or sciences domains. There they are: a single data unit. Selected at random, of course, their health status would vary accordingly.

Would we actually be able to see them here? One single vertical line, at this scale? 

A case of individual ineffability. Welcome to the ethical debate re. the individual and collective. And yet there they are? The focus of their own self-care and independence, famine, conflict ... or our care. Not just 'us', as a nurse, doctor, social worker, support worker ... but intermittently, the whole health and social care team.

From being lost in anonymity, literally a number in a chart, to having a name, several identities - with or without 'papers' - needs, background, character, personality, problems, relationships, strengths and humanity.

Hodges' model provides an incredible conceptual estate for us to utilise, if we choose to.

We can refer back instantly as context and population pyramids demand to parent, guardian, partner, family.

 Previously: 'population' : 'identity'

"This is public health we're talking about! So where's your evidence ...

or, at least your planned monitoring rationale, 
structure, processes and 
projected reporting schedule?"

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

trust [cynicism]

measures - metrics river health 'There is a chance that results will get better over time. Leon Barron, professor of environmental science at Imperial College London, said water quality metrics could lag behind and needed to be taken over multiple seasons and years to get an accurate reading.' 1,3,5,10 ... years? What is local? What is national?

public health  'Amy Fairman, head of campaigns at environmental charity River Action, called the independent pollution figures "deeply shocking" and demanded that Tideway publish its internal data in full. "The public deserves to know, given they are paying for this tunnel through their water bills, that it is actually delivering improvements," Fairman said.'

'Tideway argued that assessing water quality trends required multiyear data-sets and that a single year of observation "would not provide a sufficiently robust picture". "The Thames is a complex tidal river, and water quality is influenced by a range of factors beyond the combined sewer overflows that Tideway was designed to address," it added. "Individual E. coli readings can fluctuate depending on location, rainfall, tides and other inputs. These readings cannot, in isolation, provide a complete picture of the tunnel's impact."

Windermere will be a different story then?

My source: Plimmer G. (2026) London's £5bn 'super sewer' struggles to lift water quality. FTWeekend, 17-18 October. p.3. 

And: Vaughan A. Windermere super-sewer will add more than £30 to bills, The Times, 22 October 2026, p.14.

Previously: 'pollution' : 'rivers' : 'law' : 'accountability'