Healthcare as coercive social policy
In the preface to this remarkable book Dr. Fitzpatrick describes breaking into the house of an elderly couple during a bitterly cold February. The couple had succumbed to a combination of infection and hypothermia. While waiting for the ambulance, Fitzpatrick, a primary care physician working in a blue collar Borough of London, England, found an untouched leaflet describing the dangers of anonymous sex and the virtues of condoms. This leaflet had been distributed to 23 million homes in the UK, around half of which contained either an elderly couple or an old person living alone. At this moment Fitzpatrick reflected upon the absurdity of the "everyone is at risk" campaign and the motives of a government that did little to prevent the elderly from freezing to death and yet enthusiastically supported "healthy living".

The conclusion that Fitzpatrick reaches will surprise and enrage both those who agree and disagree with his view. The author is nothing if not blunt stating, "the governments health policy is really a programme of social control packaged as health promotion." In an era when social institutions are increasingly discredited (think Congress, the Senate or any other political institution), irrelevant (e.g., unions) or ignored (e.g., religious proscriptions against premarital sex) the government has seized upon personal health as a means of reconnecting with society and regulating and supervising people's lives.