Tomorrow, the EU's European Working Time Directive (EWTD) comes into force, reducing the maximum doctors are allowed to work from 56 to 48 hours a week.
RemedyUK, the doctors' pressure group, says that, from next week, many of its members will be
forced to take an extra day off a week as a result.
This is at a time when the NHS could come under intolerable pressure. According to the Health Protection Agency, swine flu diagnoses are already running at 100,000 new cases a week, and many experts are predicting things could get much worse come the autumn and winter.
Add the fact that many front-line doctors have a high risk of exposure to swine flu as a result of dealing with ill patients, and may themselves be forced to take sick leave, and you have what John Black, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, has described as a "potentially disastrous" situation.
"It's probably the worst time in living memory to do this," according to Richard Marks, head of policy at RemedyUK.
The sensible response would be to postpone the introduction of the EWTD until the danger from swine flu has passed.
Indeed, that is precisely what the Royal College of Surgeons and RemedyUK have recommended to the Government. But their pleas have
fallen on deaf ears.
Our elected politicians in Westminster are so in thrall to the EU that they would never countenance disobeying a direct order from their unelected masters in Brussels.
When the Eurocrats shout "jump", British ministers reply "how high?".
So tomorrow, the EWTD will come into force – regardless of the risk to public health.
But what is worse is that – as with all EU legislation – the UK will "goldplate" the rules to make them almost impossible to live with.
My friends in France fall about laughing when they learn of the hoops we jump through to obey "EU rules".
They, like all of our European partners, have a much more sensible approach to EU bureaucracy – if they don't like the rules, they simply ignore them. And their governments – equally sensibly – leave them alone to get on with their lives.
Healthy option YET another scientific survey concludes that organic food is no healthier than conventionally-produced food.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at the evidence on nutrition and health benefits over the last 50 years, and concluded that there are no meaningful differences between organic and ordinary crops, meat, dairy and eggs.
The tiny differences that were detected are highly unlikely to have any health benefit, said the study, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
I doubt these findings will dent the current craze for all things organic – which has nothing to do with science or factual evidence.
In truth, eating organic is nothing more than a fashionable lifestyle choice – like buying an iPod or splashing out on a new pair of trendy shoes.
It is a harmless enough modern fad, but the idea that it is somehow healthier or better for you is clearly bunkum.
And the notion that air freighting organic vegetables half-way around the world is "better for the environment" is simply laughable.
However, after conducting extensive research in supermarkets and street markets over recent years, I can report that there is one thing that will be much healthier if you shun organic and eat traditional food – your wallet.
