Another 15 Minutes...Health News from Fade
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A campaign fronted by doctors and celebrities to persuade European governments, including the UK, to vaccinate all young girls against cervical cancer is being entirely funded by the drug company that markets the vaccine. Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which markets Gardasil in Europe on behalf of the drug giant Merck, spent millions on what was billed as the "first global summit against cervical cancer", held in Paris on Thursday with doctors and patient organisations from across Europe.
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A postcode lottery still exists in NHS dental care, according to the consumer organisation Which?, with huge variations in the availability of dentists around the country. Fieldworkers posing as patients newly moved into an area contacted 466 dental practices across England - and only about a third (36%) said they were taking on new NHS patients. This is no significant improvement, says Which?, from 2005 when the figure was 31%.
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'Postcode lottery' for NHS dental treatment - The Telegraph 26th March 2007
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Thousands still struggle to find an NHS dentist - Daily Mail 25th March 2007
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NHS dental access 'not improving' - BBC Health News 26th March 2007
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Tribal Group, a public-sector consulting and outsourcing group, is expected to announce today the sale of its healthcare business, Mercury Health, to its rival Care UK for £77m. Mercury Health runs a number of treatment centres, mostly in Sussex, which perform routine operations such as hip replacements and varicose vein removal. It has won many NHS contracts as the health service outsources basic operations to the private sector.
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f I suggested that there was a link between, on the one hand, Gordon Brown's commitment last week to 'greater choice, greater competition, greater contestability and greater accountability' in public services, and on the other MAD, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction that underpinned nuclear strategy during the Cold War, you might conclude that the strain of writing about management for a living had finally taken its toll.
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With cosmetic surgery, we can change almost any aspect of our appearance - except our height. But with new research claiming tall people are wealthier, happier, even, some say, more intelligent, Americans are already demanding growth hormone injections for their children. But does size really matter? Simon Garfield on the culture and science of height - and how it affects our lives
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A nationwide survey of people aged 65 or over has found that although more than half described their health as 'good' or 'very good', more than a quarter were overweight and an even greater number were unfit. Two-thirds of the women said they found it difficult to walk up a flight of 12 stairs without resting. The Information Centre for Health and Social Care, which provides information to the NHS, said that many older people were living with at least one physical limitation. One of the most common was being 'unable to walk 200 yards or further unaided without stopping or discomfort', a problem experienced by 61 per cent of women and 56 per cent of men in the survey of more than 4,000 people.
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Heard the one about the senior safety adviser who was sent on a six-week course in humour to learn how to communicate with his colleagues? It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but last week a pilot scheme with exactly that aim was launched in Liverpool, partly funded by the NHS. The adviser in question was Laurie McMillan, who helps businesses to solve workplace bullying and abuse. It was, he said, very useful.
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Professional women who have children later in life are blamed for the rise in low birthweight babies at risk of developing health problems, according to a new report. Babies smaller than 5lb 7oz at birth are more likely to suffer from low IQ, behavioural problems and diseases such as diabetes.
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If you're stuck somewhere without any after-sun lotion, don't despair. There are lots of treatments that travellers swear by. Some recommend smearing honey on to the damaged skin, or covering it with slices of avocado or cucumber. Most important, as with any kind of burn, is to cool the skin down. Ignore people who suggest a hot bath and particularly those who advocate adding cider vinegar to it! Instead bathe in cool water.
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Police are investigating the death of a father of two who broadcast himself committing suicide over the internet. Viewers to an online chatroom watched as Kevin Whitrick, 42, hanged himself in front of his webcam. One internet user saw Mr Whitrick begin to "self-harm" and contacted local police in the West Midlands. They then contacted the West Mercia force. Officers broke into Mr Whitrick's flat in the Wellington area of Telford, Shropshire, and tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. He was declared dead just after 11.15pm on Wednesday.
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Father commits suicide on webcam - The Independent 24th March 2007
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Father commits suicide on webcam - The Independent 24th March 2007
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After months of critical media coverage and the so-called size zero debate, the British Fashion Council took its first big step yesterday into examining the problem of eating disorders in the fashion world. Responding to "concerns about the health of models at London Fashion Week", the council set up what it termed the model health inquiry, chaired by Lady Kingsmill, a Labour peer and former deputy chairwoman of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, with industry representatives plus medical and eating disorder experts.
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Fashion industry launches inquiry into health of models - The Independent 24th March 2007
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Boxercise is an exercise class based on the training concepts boxers use to keep fit. Classes can take a variety of formats but a typical one may involve shadow-boxing, skipping, hitting pads, kicking punchbags, press-ups, shuttle-runs and sit-ups. Most boxercise classes are aimed at men and women of all ages and fitness standards. As no class involves the physical hitting of an opponent, it is a fun, challenging and safe workout.
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Our decision to drop The Independent on Sunday's 1997 decriminalise cannabis campaign has been applauded and decried throughout the world. At the heart of the controversy is the link between skunk and schizophrenia
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Leading article: The cannabis debate - The Independent on Sunday 25th March 2007
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Scientists warn of cannabis ‘timebomb’ - The Times 24th March 2007
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Skunk killed my beloved son - The Telegraph 26th March 2007
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Scientists warn of cannabis ‘timebomb’ - The Times 24th March 2007
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Skunk killed my beloved son - The Telegraph 26th March 2007
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It is a sight that can make parents despair: their teenage offspring idling away the best years of their lives in front of the TV screen. But, according to new research, watching a lot of television and playing computer games does not automatically make your child a couch potato.
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Polly-Anne Patterson, 42, did not have a maternity nurse to help with her 4-year-old son, Tom, who was a perfect baby. But the second time round, she was sure that she would not be so lucky. Although the health visitors were excellent, she could not call them at 3am with a niggle about the baby’s breathing. “I was incredibly lucky with Tom because he slept through the night at seven weeks,” Ms Patterson, a former barrister, said. “But I knew there was no reason why the second should be as good, nor that I’d have the luxury of going to bed in the afternoon, without a little toddler running in,” she said.
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Busy mothers spending £200 a day on a personal nurse for their baby - The Times 26th March 2007
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Why sleepless fathers are calling for nurse - The Telegraph 26th March 2007
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Busy mothers spending £200 a day on a personal nurse for their baby - The Times 26th March 2007
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Why sleepless fathers are calling for nurse - The Telegraph 26th March 2007
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A pharmaceutical patch designed to boost women’s libido is to become available this week almost a decade after the launch of Viagra changed the sex lives of middle-aged men. Intrinsa is the first of about 20 female sex drugs under development to go on sale. One of the ways it works is by stimulating thoughts about sex, in contrast to the more mechanical effects triggered by Viagra.
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The female Viagra hits the NHS - Daily Mail 25th March 2007
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DOZENS of gay British men have paid about £33,000 to create a baby of their chosen sex on an IVF programme for two-father families. Nearly 20 male couples from this country have already taken part in the scheme, in which they pay for eggs from a university student which are then implanted in a different woman who bears the child.
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Patients’ lives may be at risk in some hospitals because the wait for endoscopy procedures is too long, the Healthcare Commission says. More than a million patients in England have an endoscopy each year to detect conditions such as bowel cancer. But waiting times for the procedure vary across the country, says a report by the commission.
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Key test waits 'remain too long' - BBC Health News 26th March 2007
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There was a fascinating observation in a recent report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that hepatitis B could be transmitted by infected sweat. It was noticed after the examination of the sweat of 70 male Olympic wrestlers when nine of them showed signs of earlier hepatitis B infections and eight had evidence that the virus had become established and were suffering chronic infection.
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Are you always thirsty? Have you the need to urinate all the time? Do you suffer from extreme fatigue, blurred vision or numb feet and hands? If so, you might be one of the estimated 750,000 people in Britain who have type 2 diabetes but don’t know it. In some cases the symptoms are so subtle that many disregard them, but left unchecked you risk organ and nerve damage, a stroke, kidney disease or blindness.
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A smear test came back with an abnormal result (severe dyskaryosis consistent with CIN 111). I’m having a colposcopy to see the extent of what’s wrong, but how likely is it that I have cancer? LB, via e-mail
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Patients are crying out for vital organs that hospitals can't deliver. Now the black market in body parts is booming - and pushing medical ethics to the limit.
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Ministers say women should be able to choose where they give birth but just 2% of babies are now delivered at home. Isabel Oakeshott reports on the ‘medicalisation’ of labour in Britain
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The number of superbug infections in hospitals would be cut dramatically if the right kind of antibiotics were prescribed, researchers have found. The results of a study published today in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy show that infection rates for Clostridium difficile (C. diff) were reduced when narrow-spectrum antibiotics were prescribed instead of broad-spectrum ones.
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I feel sorry for Gordon Brown. It is one thing to be accused of tax fiddling, dodgy borrowing and cowardice, but to be called cold, unfriendly and not nice is going too far. The poor man was reduced on radio last week to pleading that he did have a wife and children (as opposed to puff adders). But then, most of us would rather be called a villain than a schmuck.
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CANCER patients who have had tumours removed are dying because they are waiting so long for for follow-up radiotherapy that their tumours return, a government report has found. After surgery, patients should receive radiotherapy within 28 days, according to the Royal College of Radiologists. However, in some areas, patients are waiting three times as long. In Kent, for example, the waiting time for breast cancer patients who have had tumours removed by surgery is three months.
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Those of you grumbling about car park charges imposed by NHS hospitals, I feel your pain. Because only last week I returned to my car after a home visit to find a parking ticket under my wiper. When the alternative could be funding a replacement window — because my Doctor-on-Call sign has attracted an opportunistic junkie — the fine seems a small price to pay.
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More cases of breast cancer are being detected by the national screening programme than ever before, figures show. In 2005-06, more than 13,500 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in women aged 50 and over — up 13 per cent on the previous year.
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A spider saved a man’s life when it bit him on the neck. The bite drew attention to the spot where a dangerous cancerous growth had developed. David Durrant, 48, was lying on the ground repairing his car when he felt a sharp nip between his left shoulder and neck. The bite swelled but because it was not painful it remained unnoticed until his fiancée pointed it out. Staff at Maidstone Hospital in Kent prescribed antibiotics to reduce the lump. After two weeks the swelling had not receded and Mr Durrant returned to hospital. He was given an ultrasound scan and a biopsy which revealed that a growth was cancerous.
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Saved by a spider bite - Daily Mail 23rd March 2007
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It is time politicians recognised that many of the current problems in the NHS stem from the Government meddling in affairs it does not understand. It certainly has no knowledge of staffing issues, or we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now.
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Who declared over the weekend "We want to be the party of the public sector"? It wasn't Michael Meacher or John McDonnell, the Labour MPs trying to get nominations to run as Left candidates against Gordon Brown. Nor was it the new shop steward of Whitehall's militant mandarin sect, Lord Turnbull, in a fresh outburst against the democratically elected Chancellor.
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Max Pemberton explains why hospitals increasingly resemble shopping malls The shouting from outside was getting louder. I peered out of the window in the nurses' office. From my vantage point, I could see my consultant, Dr Webber, shouting and wagging his finger at a man wearing a uniform. "Have some sense, man," I hear him bellow.
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Patientline is hoping to conclude crunch talks with the Department of Health within two months over the price it charges for calls to its hospital bedside phones. The troubled company, which has been ordered to slash the 49p peak price of calling a patient, is expected to enter a fresh round of talks this week aimed at securing its future.
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Children who spend a lot of time in nursery are more likely to be aggressive and disobedient throughout primary school - no matter how excellent the nursery, according to study published today. Primary school teachers are more likely to say that such children - even at the age of 11 - are still "getting into fights" or "arguing a lot".
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Patients' lives will be put at risk by a major shake-up of accident and emergency departments, a secret report by senior doctors has warned. The professional bodies representing A & E doctors say the new system - which could see casualty departments operating without back-up services such as intensive care, paediatrics and surgery - is too dangerous.
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The hours and days after childbirth are among the most difficult in a woman's life, so why is the NHS so bad at providing support? David Harrison uncovers a tale of over-stretched staff and bureaucratic arrogance Karen Linnett was "exhausted and anxious" after giving birth to Billy, two years ago. "He was my first child. I was in pain, hormonal and nervous that I couldn't cope," she says. Six days later, when she left hospital to take Billy home to Hampstead, north London, she was soothed by an assurance that a community midwife would visit her next morning.
Almost a quarter of all workers are employed in the public sector - far more than admitted to by Gordon Brown. Almost seven million people say that they work for the state - 900,000 more than when Labour came to power a decade ago, according to a poll accompanying the respected Office for National Statistics' Labour Force Survey.
Mussels are becoming a new "wonder food", as sales surged by almost 30 per cent last year after Government scientists changed their previous view that the shellfish was unhealthy. Analysts believe the rise follows the endorsement by celebrity chefs such as Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay, mounting concerns over the sustainability of other seafood stocks and a decision by the Department of Health to reverse advice that mussels are bad for the heart.
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The discredited job selection system for junior doctors was finally aborted yesterday after weeks of protest, confusion and anguish. At least 11,000 young doctors will now be offered traditional interviews for hospital posts when their CVs will be taken into account and "probing" questions will be asked.
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Letters to The Daily Telegraph - The Telegraph 24th March 2007
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Naturally, everyone has focused on the Chancellor's conjuring trick in the Budget over income tax. So much so that you may have missed Gordon Brown's commitment to pump an additional £8 billion into the NHS next year. I groaned when I heard that. Not just because it was yet another recycled pledge - Mr Brown has made those a political art form - but because we all know that the money will disappear into one of the most bloated bureaucracies in the Western world, while patients will still contract MRSA, hospitals will close, and nurses will still be underpaid a decade after Labour promised there was only one week to save the NHS.
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When I was younger, I used occasionally to bump into the late Auberon Waugh at his Academy Club, which was handily near my office. It was always a joy, because his private manner was unfailingly jolly and genial; unlike his vicious print persona, which awed and confounded me - though I loved reading his stuff in Private Eye. He raged and flayed, vilifying and excoriating his targets (mostly politicians) to the top of his bent. While his attacks were scabrously personal, he wasn't partisan.
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When Victoria Simmonds gave birth at only 23 weeks, her son Kaven weighed just over 1lb and doctors put his chances of survival at nil. He was so fragile that his ribs broke with the effort of breathing, and both of his legs fractured as his nappy was changed.
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Anti-ageing chemicals could be added to food to offer at least an extra ten years of life, it has been claimed. A visiting professor at Oxford University suggests that eating food enhanced with isotopes could be the holy grail of defying the ageing process.
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Desert Rats commander Major General Patrick Cordingley has joined ex-SAS Colonel Tim Collins in backing The Mail on Sunday's campaign for improved welfare and healthcare for Britain's war heroes. The retired General, decorated after leading thousands of British troops during the 1991 Gulf War, launched a stinging attack on the Government and expressed fears that the strain of concurrent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will exacerbate problems.
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The hospital car park that charges patients more than football fans - Daily Mail 24th March 2007New Story
A leading NHS hospital has provoked anger by offering discounted parking to football supporters - while charging patients and their families full price. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital allows Chelsea fans attending home games at nearby Stamford Bridge to pay £10 for four hours.
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One in five packs of American long-grain rice contains potentially harmful levels of arsenic, according to a study. Experts at Aberdeen University claim that eating large quantities of the rice on a daily basis could increase the risk of certain cancers.
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A camera has been developed to help Alzheimer's sufferers improve their memory. The slim digital device is worn around the neck and takes a snap of any movement or when there are changes in temperature and light.
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Teenagers who drink heavily are risking permanent damage to their brain functions, scientists warned last night. Alcohol has been shown to cause significant ongoing memory loss in youngsters which could extend into adulthood.
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Last week, a coroner ruled that newborn Luke Day was the youngest victim of MRSA in Britain, when he died at Ipswich Hospital in February 2005. He was just 36 hours old. His death has had a devastating effect on his mother, Glynis Day, 19, who has campaigned ever since for improved hygiene standards in hospitals.
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Forget massages, hot baths and soothing music - the key to beating stress is as simple as a happy marriage. Research shows that being in a loving relationship makes it easier to cope with the stresses and strains of working life.
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Improving the ethos of a school could help cut teenage pregnancies and drug abuse, researchers have claimed. Current strategies for dealing with the problems, such as focusing on sexual risk and attitudes to drugs, have "only limited benefits", they said.
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Ministers to crack down on private health checks for the 'worried well' - Daily Mail 23rd March 2007
Ministers want a clampdown on private medical firms which offer unnecessary health screening to the "worried well". Patients are spending anything from £10 for a cholesterol test to thousands on a full body scan.
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A "disastrous failure" by the Health Department has seen the NHS going from boom to bust, with millions wasted on the "reckless and uncontrolled" recruitment of too many doctors and nurses. MPs attacked an "appalling" lack of planning by the Government which meant that trusts recruited far more staff than they could afford to pay.
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Alcohol is so dangerous to health that it should be considered a class A drugs, experts have warned. The amount of physical and social harm caused by drink means it should be ranked alongside class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine, it is claimed.
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For most people talking on a mobile phone, cooking dinner in the microwave or driving in a car is simply part of modern living in 21st century Britain. But completing any such tasks is impossible for Debbie Bird - because she is allergic to modern technology.
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Hospitals in parts of England and Wales are reducing or even axing services for pregnant women because of the NHS's financial problems, it has been warned. Antenatal classes and breastfeeding tuition are being affected, the National Childbirth Trust and Royal College of Midwives told the BBC.
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Elsie - mother of the modern loaf - BBC Health News 25th March 2007
Food standards advisers are set to decide this spring if folic acid should be added to bread. But it was in the 1940s that the idea of adding vitamins and minerals to foods first gained attention.
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A hi-tech gel could be used instead of major surgery to treat chronic lower back pain, according to a study. The gel contains tiny particles which swell and stiffen when injected into a damaged area.
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When Helen Swain started to suffer blackouts at the age of seven her doctors were mystified. Food allergies and epilepsy were suspected, but tests proved inconclusive.
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A former Manchester United footballer has been awarded £1.5m after suing a surgeon for ruining his career. Michael Appleton claimed for loss of earnings after unnecessary knee surgery ended his hopes of playing in the Premiership with West Bromwich Albion.
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Scientists say they have developed a 3D scanner that can accurately determine if a person is truly obese. Currently, doctors gauge fatness with a calculation of body mass index (BMI). But BMI is flawed - people with lots of muscle are considered overweight.
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'Urban sprawl' is often blamed for the epidemic of obesity in the US, with amenities spread miles apart, and everyone forced to drive to the shops or the burger joint. But new research by economists says sprawling neighbourhoods don't make people fat - they attract fat people. Campaigners, including the World Health Organisation, have called for town planners to redesign America's cities to encourage walking, and help to slow the spread of obesity. However, a research team led by Jean Eid, from the University of Toronto, says the environment is not to blame.
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Since before Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch in 1970, and even before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, campaigners have fought for sexual equality, convinced it is the key to a better society. Now researchers have discovered that gender equality may make people unwell. Researchers in Sweden, arguably one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, have found that equality could be associated with poorer health for both men and women.
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Is a chocolate treat likely to increase the chance of my colleague developing cancer of the breast, and another recurrence of my own prostatic cancer? Will the butter on the hot-cross buns at Easter be more hazardous than chocolate eggs, and just how much did that steak increase the likelihood of my developing colorectal cancer? Would I have done better to have chosen guinea fowl, because one study indicated that where red meat increased the incidence of some gut cancers, white meat reduced it?
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After pledging billions of rupees in relief packages to the struggling rural poor, the Indian Government now thinks that the answer to a spate of suicides by farmers may not lie in economics but in entertainment. Burdened by crop failures and unmanageable debts, thousands of desperate farmers are killing themselves every year despite the announcement of sizeable subsidies that were supposed to improve their lot.
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WOMEN who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after years on the pill may be more than doubling their risk of breast cancer, writes Roger Dobson. A study of more than 30,000 women who had gone through the menopause found that those who used HRT but had not been on the pill were 67% more likely to have developed breast tumours than women who had used neither. Those who used both were at 145% greater risk.
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As the debate rages on about whether organically grown food is better for us than the "conventional" produce we have become used to, a new study sides firmly with organic. Scientists found that some organic food is more healthy after tests on kiwi fruit grown by both methods.
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The anti-flu drug that has been stockpiled by the Department of Health for a future epidemic has been given a new pack warning after reports of teenagers falling to their deaths from tower blocks. It has been reported that two 14-year-olds in Japan died in separate incidents while taking the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
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Oranges and grapefruits can help keep your arteries healthy and protect against heart attacks, say researchers. The citrus fruits contain chemicals which reduced blood cholesterol levels by 20-25 per cent in studies on rats.
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Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.
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Victims of chronic back pain were offered fresh hope with news of successful 'spinal transplant' surgery. Spinal discs from accident victims were transplanted into patients with disc degeneration in the cervical spine, the area nearest the neck.
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World's first 'spinal transplant' carried out - Daily Mail 22nd March 2007
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The mechanism mosquitoes use to zero in on their targets has been discovered by scientists in New York. It is already known that the insects are very sensitive to carbon dioxide in exhaled breath.
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The spread of cancer and the effect of drugs to combat it could be closely monitored using tiny implants. US researchers are perfecting a way to use microscopic particles which stick to chemicals in cancer cells and show up during scans.
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Medicines regulators say the antiviral Tamiflu must carry extra warnings for patients following reports of possible side effects, including suicide. The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said patients and doctors should look out for rare but serious potential reactions like abnormal behaviour.
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