Rainfall autism theory suggested

BBC News 4 November 2008

Increased rainfall, or something linked to it, may be connected to the development of autism, scientists say.

The theory is based on child health and weather records from three US states, but has been greeted cautiously by a UK research charity.

The US study found autism rates were higher among children whose states experienced higher rainfall in their first three years.

The work appears in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
The rising rates of autism - up, by some measures, from one in 2,500 to one in 150, has been attributed mainly to improvements in the way doctors are able to recognise the disease.

However, scientists from Cornell University say this does not exclude a factor which may be independently increasing the number of children growing up with the condition.

They calculated average annual rainfall for California, Oregon and Washington State between 1987 and 1999, then looked at autism prevalence rates in the children growing up during this period.

They found that rates could be linked to that amount of precipitation in their state between these dates.

They added: "Autism prevalence was higher for birth cohorts that experienced relatively heavy precipitation when they were younger than three years."

The reason for the link, if it exists, might not be directly related to rainfall, although the scientists said it was possible that the process of rainfall might affect the chemicals to which children were exposed.

Indoor theory

They also suggested that being forced to stay indoors for longer periods could affect development, perhaps by increased exposure to television, or to household chemicals, or even through a lack of vitamin D, produced by being out in sun.

However, they made it clear that none of these was more than a theory, and called for further research to see if the link was a real one.

Mark Lever, chief executive of The National Autistic Society said the latest theory would join a succession of others advanced about the condition and its origins.

He said: "In recent years autism has been linked to factors as varied as older aged fathers, early television viewing, vaccines, food allergies, heavy metal poisoning, and wireless technology, to name just a few.

"Some of these theories are little more than conjecture or have been discredited, others seem more promising and are in need of further study. As yet, however, very few have been substantiated by scientific research."

He said: "We don't yet understand what causes autism, although scientists do believe that genetic factors might play a part.

"People with autism and their families are naturally concerned to get the right information and there is a lot of confusion and concern over the conflicting theories put forward."

100,000 British children hospitalised after being poisoned by drugs

Daily Mail 21st October 2008

More than 20,000 children under 11 were admitted to hospital because of drug poisoning over the last five years

Almost 100,000 children have been hospitalised due to drug poisoning in the last five years according to official figures today. One in five of the youngsters were ten-years-old or younger.

The drugs involved ranged from illicit narcotics and hallucinogens to legal antibiotics and other medicines.

Statistics gathered from every NHS hospital in England were released by the Department of Health in response to parliamentary questions from the Liberal Democrats, who said they painted a 'horrifying' picture.

Between 2002/3 and 2006/7 20,378 under-11s were admitted along with 39,536 11 to 15-year-olds, and 38,725 16 to 18-year-olds. Numbers of older teens being treated rose by 62 per cent over the period.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: 'These are horrifying statistics. The toll of damage from drugs is immense and the cost to the NHS is enormous.

'Ministers must ensure that local services like hospitals, schools, councils and the police work together to ensure the lives of children are not destroyed by drugs.

'The Government must act on the basis of what works when it comes to drugs policy. The last thing vulnerable children need is a Prime Minister who disregards scientific advice just to appear tough.'

There were a total of nearly half a million (493,750) admissions to hospital for drug poisoning in the last five years in England, including adult cases.

Faecal bacteria join the commute

BBC News 14 October 2008

More than one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands, an investigation suggests.

Scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine swabbed 409 people at bus and train stations in five major cities in England and Wales.

The further north they went, the more often they found commuters with faecal bacteria on their hands - men in Newcastle were the worst offenders.

Experts stressed the importance of hand hygiene for preventing illness.

The bacteria found suggested people were not washing their hands properly after using the toilet, said the researchers.

Toilet hands

In Newcastle and Liverpool, men were more likely than women to show contamination - 53% of men compared with 30% of women in Newcastle and 36% of men compared with 31% of women in Liverpool.
In the other three cities - London, Cardiff and Birmingham - the women's hands were dirtier.

People who had used the bus had higher rates of hand contamination than those who had used the train.

Manual workers had cleaner hands than other professionals, students, retired people or the unemployed.

Dr Val Curtis, director of the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "We were flabbergasted by the finding that so many people had faecal bugs on their hands.

"The figures were far higher than we had anticipated, and suggest that there is a real problem with people washing their hands in the UK.
"If any of these people had been suffering from a diarrhoeal disease, the potential for it to be passed around would be greatly increased by their failure to wash their hands after going to the toilet."

Professor Mike Catchpole, director of the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Infections, said: "These results are startling and should be enough to make anyone reach for the soap.

"It is well known that hand washing is one of the most important ways of controlling the spread of infections, especially those that cause diarrhoea and vomiting, colds and flu.

"People should always wash their hands after using the toilet, before eating or handling food, and after handling animals. And remember to cover all cuts and scratches with a waterproof dressing."

Winter vomiting

The HPA's monitoring of infections over recent weeks suggests that cases of norovirus - the winter vomiting bug - are rising and that the annual norovirus season is likely to have begun.

Norovirus is the most common cause of gastrointestinal disease in the UK with peak activity in terms of numbers of cases and outbreaks during the winter months, from October to March.

It has been estimated that between 600,000 and a million people in the UK are affected each year.

Professor Catchpole said: "Norovirus is highly infectious and easily spread in settings where people are in close contact with one another so good hygiene, including frequent handwashing, is really important."

The study was part of the world's first Global Handwashing Day, dedicated to raising awareness about the importance hand hygiene plays in public health.

NHS overcrowding is spreading superbugs, say surgeons

Guardian October 17 2008

Persistent overcrowding on NHS hospital wards is causing an uncontrollable spread of superbugs and other forms of infection, the Royal College of Surgeons warned last night.

Its leaders called on the government to publish the bed occupancy rate for every ward and hospital unit in England, allowing patients to choose to be treated where conditions are safe.

Surgeons should become whistleblowers to alert the public to the risk of infection whenever overcrowding occurred, the college said.

The college intervened after a report yesterday from the Healthcare Commission that 60% of hospitals in England are failing to deal with superbug infections effectively. The commission called for rigid adherence to the NHS hygiene code. But the college said good hygiene was not enough and infection would persist if the NHS did not tackle overcrowding and understaffing.

According to Department of Health guidelines, wards where patients stay overnight should not have an occupancy rate of more than 82% - allowing time for beds to be decontaminated between patients.

The college said the NHS measured the bed occupancy rate across entire trusts and tried to keep the average below 82%. Managers were not held to account for overcrowding in individual wards. The college said: "There are more factors at play than just handwashing in the transmission of these infections and the public needs better access to this information to make informed choices about where to go for an operation."

Overcrowding was often compounded by understaffing. "The staff-to-patient ratio must be high enough to ensure patients with infection can be appropriately cared for in isolation beds."

All NHS units should screen patients for hospital-acquired infections. Although antibiotic-resistant superbugs were particularly pernicious, it was unacceptable for any patient to be infected by the NHS.

Surgeons should follow all hygiene guidelines laid down by their trust, even if the scientific evidence for a particular guideline was slender. For example doctors should obey a government edict requiring NHS staff in contact with patients to be bare below the elbow.

John Black, the college's president, said: "We think every patient booked in for an operation should have the right to infection information for the individual ward they are going into."

He asked surgeons to report directly to the college if wards were overcrowded or understaffed. "If the government does not feel able to make this information public, we will."

Doubts over an aspirin for your heart as scientists fear daily dose could do more harm than good

Daily Mail 17th October 2008

Scientists say taking a daily aspirin to ward off heart attacks could do more harm than good

A daily aspirin taken to ward off heart attacks could do more harm than good, scientists warn today.

Routine use of the drug fails to prevent victims of type 2 diabetes suffering a first cardiac arrest, their research suggests.

They say there is no evidence to show it prevents a heart attack in the 'worried well' - healthy middle-aged people who take it as a precaution. I

n addition, it increases the risk of internal bleeding.

But they counselled against giving it up without a doctor's advice.

Aspirin is widely prescribed to diabetics, who are at much greater risk of heart disease.

This is based on its established role in reducing the risk of repeat heart attacks and stroke by up to a third.

However, a major study suggests that diabetics who have not had a previous heart attack gain no benefit from a daily dose.

Professor Jill Belch, of the Institute of Cardiovascular Research at Dundee University, said: 'If you're taking aspirin for secondary prevention because you've had a heart attack or stroke, or have a circulatory problem, then it works.

'But it doesn't work if you have none of these problems, and there is also no evidence for its use by healthy middle-aged people.'

She added, however: 'We do not want people taking aspirin prescribed by their doctor to stop taking it without seeking medical advice. They may have conditions for which it is suitable.'

Around 2.3million Britons have type 2 diabetes, which is closely linked with growing levels of obesity, and they are up to five times more at risk of heart disease than the general population.

A study led by Professor Belch, published today online in the British Medical Journal, involved 1,276 patients aged over 40 with diabetes and evidence of artery disease, who had not suffered a previous heart attack.

It found after eight years that there was no overall benefit from either aspirin or antioxidant treatment in preventing heart attacks or death. Patients in the aspirin groups had 116 heart attacks compared with 117 in those given placebos.

Professor Belch said there was widespread prescribing of aspirin in diabetes despite the lack of evidence to support its use. But studies show it can double the risk of stomach bleeding from an ulcer.

Aspirin is widely prescribed to diabetics, who are at much greater risk of heart disease

'Unfortunately aspirin has side effects and it's one of the biggest reasons for admission to hospital for drug-related adverse reactions, mainly gastrointestinal bleeding.

'Although the risk is relatively small, the numbers taking aspirin is large so it's a major problem.'

Professor Belch said there was international opposition to the study, mainly because U.S. guidelines recommend routine use of aspirin in patients with type 2 diabetes and millions are taking it.

'They were adamant that it was unethical to carry out this trial but I'm glad we persevered.'

She said clinical guidelines from various UK organisations recommending aspirin as primary prevention for diabetics should be changed.

There has also been growing pressure for 'blanket prescribing' of aspirin in middle age, with a report only last month from Nottingham and Sheffield researchers suggesting most healthy men over the age of 48 and women over 57 would benefit from the drug.

Research such as this has encouraged healthy middle-aged people to start taking aspirin bought over the counter without seeing a doctor - despite it not being recommended by any medical body.

Aspirin is also an ingredient of the ' Polypill', a single cheap multi-drug tablet being developed to slash the toll of heart attacks.

But this one-size-fits-all approach might now have to be rethought, said Professor Rory Collins, of Oxford University, a pioneer of large-scale studies into the causes and treatment of heart attacks.

His team is observing 10,000 diabetics who have been allocated daily aspirin or placebo, and has carried out a major analysis of existing studies.

The findings show any small benefit from using aspirin in those who have not had heart attacks is outweighed by the risk of stomach bleeding, he said.

'There has been a conflict between guidelines recommending the use of aspirin as primary prevention and the lack of evidence supporting this.

'But a lot of GPs are following these guidelines. When we were recruiting for our study, we found practices where all diabetic patients were being prescribed aspirin.

'The evidence is not there but the risk of bleeding is - and it goes up with age.'

The energy-saving light bulbs that could leave you red-faced... from UV radiation

Daily Mail 9th October 2008

They are being foisted on us as a way of saving energy. But it seems some eco-friendly light bulbs may not be as good for us as we thought.

According to Government scientists, many of the bulbs emit more than the guideline rate of harmful ultraviolet radiation.

The researchers say some energy-saving fluorescent bulbs, which will be compulsory in British homes by 2011, can cause reddening of the skin if used for long periods of time close to the body.

Harmful: UV radiation from unencapsulated energy-saving bulbs can damage the skin if used closer than 30cm to the body, experts warn

The Health Protection Agency said the UV threat could affect those who use reading lamps on their bedside tables.

Thousands of workers such as jewellery makers who work with their hands and use lamps at close quarters could also be affected. There is, however, no risk of skin cancer from the bulbs, the agency added.

Chief executive Justin McCracken said: 'At the exposure levels we are talking about, the worst effect that we believe there is as result of our investigation is that people could have some short-time reddening of their skin.

'We do not believe that these lights pose any significant risk in terms of skin cancer.

'This is precautionary advice and people should not be thinking of removing these energy-saving light bulbs from their homes.

'In situations where people are not likely to be very close to the bulbs for any length of time, all types of compact fluorescent light bulbs are safe to use.'

The Health Protection Agency issued the warning about fluorescent light bulbs where the shape of the coil is clearly visible

The type of bulbs affected are 'open' light bulbs, which are not surrounded by a glass case.

HPA tests showed that 20 per cent of these emitted higher than guideline levels of UV radiation.

'Encapsulated' fluorescent light bulbs, which are surrounded by a glass cover and look like traditional bulbs, do not emit high levels of UV.

The HPA said people should not use open bulbs closer than one foot to the body for more than one hour a day, or should switch to encapsulated bulbs.

The study, due to be published in an academic journal, found that people would have to spend four hours a day at almost eight inches from the bulb before they went over existing guidelines on exposure. 

Exposure at one inch gave a UV level equivalent to being outside in the UK on a sunny summer's day.

But at distances of more than 12 inches, the UV level was found to be safe.

More than 20million 'eco bulbs' are sold every year, about 13 per cent of the total, and they last around 10,000 hours  -  up to 12 times longer than traditional bulbs

They cost £3 to £4 each, compared to 50p for a normal bulb, but supporters say they save £100 on an electricity bill over their lifetime.

But they contain mercury, which can be dangerous if the bulb breaks, and critics say the way they flicker causes problems for migraine sufferers and other problems for those with epilepsy.

Tests for drugs in tap water

Daily Mail 29 September 2008

Drinking water supplies are to be tested for the presence of prescription drugs amid fears that rivers are being contaminated by the growing quantity of pharmaceuticals flushed unwittingly down the drain.

The Government has commissioned scientists to test river water at intake points where it is abstracted for human consumption, The Independent can reveal. They will also test drinking water after it has been through the water-treatment cycle.

Under a pilot project to begin next year, supplies will be examined for about five of the most common and potentially dangerous prescription drugs. The experts will meet over the next few weeks to decide which drugs to look for and where testing should be carried out. However, an insider said this was likely to be at selected sites on the river Thames because its water-catchment area covered the most densely populated part of the country.

Powerful anti-cancer drugs are of particular concern as they can be excreted unaltered from the body into the sewerage system. They are thought to be potentially dangerous because they are highly toxic to dividing cells, are easily dissolved in water and are difficult to destroy by conventional water-treatment techniques.

About 50 of these "cytotoxic" drugs are prescribed to patients in Britain and researchers are concerned they may have an additive effect – where small concentrations of two or more drugs become more poisonous when absorbed together at the same time in drinking water.

Scientists are also worried that even if cytotoxic drugs are getting into the water supply at doses too low to affect adults, they may still pose a significant risk to babies in the womb because they would be potentially susceptible to the effects of anti-cancer substances aimed at preventing cell division.

The pilot testing has been ordered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate, which is responsible for overseeing the monitoring of water supplies in Britain. The tests will be carried out by a consortium of laboratories led by Defra's Central Science Laboratory in York.

Under European rules, drinking water in the UK is monitored for nearly 50 different contaminants, but none of these include the active ingredients of prescription drugs, such as the powerful cytotoxic drugs used to treat the growing number of cancer patients.

However, a study this year of the theoretical risk posed by one common cytotoxic drug, called 5-fluorouracil (5FU), found there could be sufficient amounts of the chemical being flushed into rivers from chemotherapy patients to end up contaminating the water supply in low concentrations.

"It seems highly probable that in parts of the UK cytotoxic drugs will be present at concentrations of a few nanograms [billionths of a gram] per litre in river water," said Andrew Johnson, a water quality scientist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

"We have no evidence that these particular drugs are entering the drinking water supply, but we conclude that there is a least the theoretical risk of low-level contamination by cytotoxic drugs," Dr Johnson said.

"It is highly unlikely that concentrations below the nanograms per litre level would represent a risk to adults, however, the developing human embryo inside a pregnant woman could be particularly vulnerable to minute amounts of these agents as they would be able to pass through the gut and placenta," he added.

It is estimated that the quantity of chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer is rising by about 10 per cent a year. Many of these pharmaceuticals are becoming more potent as scientists work out how to ameliorate toxic side-effects and so raise permitted dosages.

Dr Johnson and colleagues believe that, with the expected increase in population density in parts of Britain, and the growing incidence of cancer, along with greater water abstraction from rivers and lower river flows owing to drier summers, there will be a bigger risk of cytotoxic drugs ending up in the drinking water supply. "No one is denying the enormous benefit society derives from cytotoxic drugs but that is not an argument for saying we should be ignorant of their effects – if any – on the environment," Dr Johnson said.

Alistair Boxall, an environmental chemist at the Central Science Laboratory who will oversee the tests, said it was unlikely that any prescription drugs that ended up in tap water would be present in high enough concentrations to adversely affect health.

"The vast majority of pharmaceuticals probably pose a very small risk to human health. I find it hard to believe they will have any effect – you would have to drink so much water to get anywhere near a viable dose," Dr Boxall said.

Peter Marsden, of the Drinking Water Inspectorate, said that the testing programme would begin next year at four sites along a major river which yet to be designated. It would continue for at least a year before the results were evaluated, he added.

Drugs on tap: Pharmaceuticals in the water supply

*Water purification is a complex process that involves filtration, ozonation, a second filtation through activated charcoal and, finally, a chorination or disinfection stage.

*Several studies have shown that conventional water purification cannot completely remove some prescription drugs from a contaminated water source.

*Water abstraction from rivers is increasing, due to the rise in demand and increasing population density, especially in the south-east of England.

*In 2004, a study of the 50 most common prescription drugs in Britain showed that the amount of each drug consumed annually varied from 12,000kg to 3,500,000kg.

*Cytotoxic (toxic to cells) drugs used in chemotherapy are potentially dangerous in water supplies because they dissolve easily in water, remain potent in low concentrations and may have an additive effect taken together.

*Chemotherapy prescriptions are increasing by 10 per cent a year. Patients having chemotherapy are often given the drugs in hospital but are then allowed home, where they excrete them into the domestic sewerage system.

*Britons consume 2,700kg of 5-fluorouracil – just one of 50 cytotoxic drugs. By comparison, they consume about 45kg of the active ingredient of the contraceptive pill, which is believed to be responsible for freshwater fish changing sex.

*British water companies have to test for 48 potential contaminants in drinking water. None of them is for a pharmaceutical drug that can be excreted from the body.

*Scientists in Germany have found pharmaceutical drugs in Berlin's water supply and have called for further research into what could be a Europe-wide problem.

Is our water being poisoned with a cocktail of drugs?

Daily Mail 30 September 2008

Traces of potentially dangerous medicines may be contaminating tap water and putting unborn babies at risk, scientists have warned.

There are growing concerns that powerful and toxic anti-cancer drugs are passing unharmed through sewage works and finding their way back into the water supply.

The Government is taking the threat so seriously it has asked scientists to start testing untreated river water at the point it is abstracted for human consumption.

Tap water contains minute traces of pharmeceutical drugs used to treat cancer that could be fatal to a foetus

Although the levels of individual prescription medicines are thought to be too low to pose a direct threat to health, some researchers are concerned that a mixture of drugs could be harmful to foetuses.

Experts will meet in the next few weeks to decide which five drugs to test for and where sampling will take place. The Thames Valley is the most likely location.

Doctors are most concerned about 'cytotoxic', or cell-killing, cancer drugs. They are taken by 250,000 Britons.

The drugs are easily dissolved in water and are flushed from the body and into sewers largely unaltered, remaining highly toxic. They are hard to destroy in water treatment plants.

The trials will also test for anti-inflammatory drugs, sedatives and at least one illegal drug such as cocaine or heroin.

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A spokesman for the Drinking Water Inspectorate, which will run the pilot trial, insisted that the tests were precautionary.

'Last year, we did a desk-top risk assessment to see if pharmaceuticals are in the water and what the danger might be,' the spokesman said.

'That found no significant risk to health because anything was so diluted it was innocuous. This is a way of double checking.'

Under the existing rules, tap water is monitored for nearly 50 contaminants by the inspectorate - including lead, arsenic, mercury and cyanide.

However, no tests are carried out for pharmaceutical drugs.

Earlier this year, a theoretical study by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford, Oxfordshire, concluded that there could be sufficient levels of one of the most common anti-cancer drugs - 5-fluorouracil, known as 5FU - to contaminate tap water.

Dr Andrew Johnson, a water quality scientist who led the study, found that the drug would be present in concentrations of up to 50 billionths of a gram in one litre of water.

Although that dose is low, river water could contain similar low doses of 30 or 40 other anti-cancer drugs.

'The mode of action of these drugs is to stop cells dividing,' he said.

'That may not be a problem for an adult, but in a foetus that's a different story.

'We conclude that there is at least the theoretical risk of low-level contamination by cytotoxic drugs.'

Scientists have been looking for medicines in the water supply since the 1970s.

The biggest concern was the female sex hormone oestrogen used in the Pill and in hormone replacement treatment. Oestrogens from sewage works have been shown to alter the sex of river fish.

Coming to Britain - the Australian flu virus that has already killed hundreds

Daily Mail 28th September 2008

A flu virus more deadly than any seen in two decades is threatening Britain.

The strain originates in Australia where it has claimed hundreds of lives, including those of children.

Called Brisbane H3N2, it is so virulent that health chiefs have had to change the make-up of flu vaccines to deal with it.

The flu virus - called Brisbane H3N2 -  is so virulent that health chiefs have had to change the make-up of flu vaccines to deal with it (file picture)

It affects three times the number of victims hit by other strains, with many deaths resulting from pneumonia.

Viruses from the southern hemisphere strike in their winter months - our summer - and tend to travel north for our winter.

And although that did not happen after Brisbane H3N2 ravaged Australia last year, experts fear Europe will not escape it this winter.

Hugh Pennington, professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said: 'If this flu has been busy in Australia, it is reasonable to suppose that we may get a similar situation in the UK. Viruses travel round the world very quickly now.

We have had some very quiet flu years recently and every year we have to assume that it will be busier than last year.

'Sooner or later we will have a big outbreak, and the more cases there are, the more deaths there will be.

'There is no doubt that elderly people are more at risk. It can tear through an old folk's home and cause a lot of harm.'

The last major outbreak in England and Wales came in 1989-90, when 23,046 people died, compared with a seasonal average of around 4,000. The elderly are those most at risk because they have weaker immune systems.

The Australian flu outbreak affected even fit young adults, and New South Wales saw more than 800 deaths from pneumonia in just five weeks in June and July 2007. Many children died.

Experts speculated that several winters of mild flu had left the population with little immunity. Last year the Australian inventor of the flu vaccine, Dr Graeme Laver, said the outbreak in his country meant Britain was also in danger. 'If the seasonal flu is as bad as it was in Australia, you are in for a pretty bad time,' he said.

'You could have a really severe epidemic. Thousands will be ill and many will die.'
The World Health Organisation and Sanofi Pasteur, a vaccine manufacturer, have combined the Brisbane strain with two others, one also named after the city, in their latest flu vaccine.

Professor Bruno Lina, head of the National Influenza Centre in Lyon, France, said: 'The upcoming season is notable in the sense that among the three new vaccine strains, there is one that has proved to be very virulent in Australia.

'This further reinforces the importance to comply with health authorities' recommendation for seasonal flu vaccination.'

Influenza comes on suddenly and is characterised by fever, tiredness, dry cough, sore throat, nasal congestion and an aching body. Many victims fail to seek remedies, spreading the disease further.

In Britain, flu vaccination is offered to everyone over 65, many carers of the elderly or disabled and those with a range of conditions including asthma, heart disease and diabetes.

Residents of care homes are also offered the vaccine because a virus would spread very quickly among them. Health workers are routinely vaccinated because of the dangers of them passing flu on to vulnerable patients.

The Department of Health is considering offering the jabs to pregnant women as well.
Dr Laver warns, however, that the vaccine cannot always be relied on. He wants the Government to make drugs such as Tamiflu, which is taken after flu symptoms strike, to be available over the counter.

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'Preventing and treating flu is a serious issue, and the NHS is well prepared. Seasonal flu vaccination is available free to everyone in the at risk groups.

'England's seasonal flu vaccination programme has one of the highest uptake rates in Europe. In 2006-07, 74 per cent of people in the over-65 group were vaccinated.'

Depression pill may damage men's chances of having children

Daily Mail 25 September 2008

Anti-depressants taken by millions of Britons may damage a man's sperm and limit his chances of fatherhood, doctors have warned.

Taking paroxetine tablets for just a few weeks can more than double the amount of damage to the DNA in sperm, a study found.

IVF doctors said the findings were 'alarming'.



But they warned those keen to start a family not to stop taking their anti-depressants without speaking to their doctor first because coming off the treatment could increase the risk of suicide.

The researchers, from the Cornell Medical Centre in New York, examined the sperm of 35 healthy men before and after a course of the popular anti-depressant paroxetine, which is also known as Seroxat.

Superficially, the men's sperm seemed healthy, with the quantity, shape and ability to move all showing as normal.

But closer inspection revealed that the proportion with DNA damage rose from 13.8 per cent to 30.3 per cent after just four weeks, New Scientist magazine reports.

Similar levels of damage are known to affect the formation of embryos and their ability to implant in the womb to create a pregnancy.

Seroxat slows sperm through the male reproductive system, which may give it more time to develop flaws.

Janet Morgan, from Seroxat manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, said: 'We are reviewing the findings.

'We take seriously our responsibility to ensure our medicines are used safely.'

Seroxat was hailed as a wonder drug when it was first sold in Britain in 1990.

But it was later linked to child suicides, mood swings, nightmares and personality changes.

It was banned for under-18s in 2003 but is still prescribed for adults.

Cleanliness linked to rise in diabetes, say scientists

Daily Mail 23rd September 2008

Being too clean could increase the risk of diabetes, scientists said yesterday.

They say a lack of exposure to bacteria and viruses during childhood may explain why the number of under-fives with type one diabetes has soared in recent years.

The number of cases is now five times the level it was in the mid-1980s.

The University of Bristol study, which is published online in the journal Nature, also found that so-called 'friendly' bacteria in the gut can prevent the onset of this form of diabetes.

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Scientists have warned that being too clean could increase the risk of diabetes, following tests on mice

The findings support a 'hygiene hypothesis' theory that a lack of exposure to bacteria and viruses may actually lead to an increased risk of diseases like allergies, asthma, and other disorders of the immune system.

Exposure to some forms of bacteria might help to prevent the onset of type 1 diabetes, which often develops in childhood, where the immune system launches an attack on cells that produce insulin.

The study used genetically modified mice that lacked the part of the immune system that responded to bacteria.

They found that 80 per cent of the mice raised in a completely germ-free environment, and therefore lacking 'friendly' gut bacteria, developed severe diabetes.

But when they gave mice a cocktail of the usual bacteria found in the gut the incidence of diabetes fell dramatically.

Professor Susan Wong, from Bristol University, who worked with scientists from Washington University, The Jackson Laboratory and UCLA, said: 'Understanding the relationship between our gut "flora" and our immune system is extremely important.

'The objective now is to identify which friendly bacteria are having this effect, and how they stop the development of type 1 diabetes.'

The study does not relate to type 2 diabetes, the much more common form of the disease which is linked to obesity and lifestyle, that affects almost two million people in Britain.

Dr Iain Frame, director of research at Diabetes UK, warned that although the research was interesting, the charity would urge against people feeding large amounts of pro-biotic foods to children.

'We have known for some time about the association between early infection and the development of type 1 diabetes,' he said.

'The results presented here also suggest that some infections may help to protect against the development of type 1 diabetes.

'As always with experiments involving animal models, the trick for the researchers will be to prove their hypothesis in humans.

'The difficulty will be dissecting what factors are the triggers and we are a long way from finding that out.

'We wouldn't advocate people giving large quantities of pro-biotic foods to children at risk of developing type 1 diabetes on the basis of these research results.'

Head of watchdog resigns as number of babies in hospital from tainted milk rises to 13,000

Guardian 23rd September 2008

Almost 13,000 Chinese babies are in hospital after consuming tainted baby milk, and a further 40,000-plus have been treated, in a scandal which yesterday led to the resignation of the head of the country's quality watchdog, according to state media.

The scandal, which began when dozens of babies suffered kidney stones and even kidney failure after drinking a popular brand that contained the chemical melamine, has since spread to more than 20 companies and affected products including fresh milk, yoghurt and ice-cream.

Countries across Asia are checking imported dairy products from China. Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong have already banned or recalled a variety of milk products. Taiwan banned all mainland dairy products on Sunday. In Hong Kong Nestlé, the world's largest food company, said it had recalled a UHT pure milk product after a local food watchdog discovered samples containing a tiny amount of the chemical melamine.

Worried Hong Kong parents also took their children for health checks, after the government announced that a three-year-old girl who had drunk a melamine-laced milk product had a kidney stone. She did not show serious symptoms and was discharged without medication or surgery.

The Japanese government has asked 90,000 companies to check whether imports have been contaminated with melamine, and the country's Marudai Food Co has withdrawn buns made with milk supplied by one of the Chinese companies involved, Yili Industrial Group.

In China anxious parents are queueing at hospitals to have their babies examined. The government has promised free treatment, but some families are concerned about costs and long-term complications.

Four infants are believed to have died from the toxic formula and 104 are in serious condition, the health ministry said. It added that 1,500 had already left hospital and nearly 40,000 with milder symptoms had received clinical treatment and advice before going home. The ministry had previously reported that 6,200 children were ill, with 1,300 in hospital. It did not explain the sharp rise in numbers.

The head of China's quality watchdog, Li Changjiang, stepped down with the approval of the cabinet, the state news agency Xinhua reported. His agency is responsible for ensuring that China's food supply chain is safe.

Premier Wen Jiabao threatened harsh punishment for culprits as he toured hospitals in Beijing. "Although the ordinary people are very understanding, as the government we feel very guilty," he said, according to Xinhua. "This event is a warning for all food safety."

The head of Sanlu, the company at the heart of the baby milk scandal, has already been arrested after being sacked. Several farmers have also been held.

City officials in Shijiazhuang, where Sanlu is based, were also sacked, with a senior provincial official saying they knew of the problem for over a month without taking action - only telling Beijing once the Olympics were over.

Melamine, often used to make plastics, artificially boosts apparent protein levels in tests. That creates an incentive for farmers producing substandard milk to add the substance.

China's food quality watchdog has said it found melamine in nearly 10% of milk and drinking yoghurt samples from three dairy companies, Mengniu, Yili and the Bright group.

To date, no illnesses have been reported from melamine in other dairy products. Tests on infant formula from other producers also found that while melamine was present in batches from a fifth of China's dairy producers, the levels were far lower than in the case of Sanlu.

But fear has spread rapidly among consumers, and the Chinese ministry of agriculture said despairing farmers were dumping milk and killing cattle after companies stopped buying their supplies. It promised subsidies to help struggling cattle farmers.

Starbucks in China has started serving soya milk rather than dairy with its coffee.

The government promised to tighten its safety regime after a number of product scandals which exposed corruption, bureaucratic inertia and cost-cutting producers.

But China's dairy producers face a crisis of confidence that will only be cured by strong action, said Lao Bing, manager of a Shanghai-based dairy investment company.

"Consumers will start rebuying in a month or two if they feel sure the government is undertaking a vigorous clean-up," he told Reuters. "Exports will take longer. This will have a major impact."

The harmful mistakes of sex education in school

The Times 21 September 2008

Those who can, do, according to the old saying, and those who can’t, teach. That has always seemed to me unfair. However, I have come to think that those who can’t teach, teach sex education.

Judged by its results – not a bad way of judging – sex education has been an utter failure. The increase in sex education here in recent years has coincided with an explosion of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease (STD) far worse than anywhere else in Europe. Since the government’s teenage pregnancy strategy was introduced in 1999, the number of girls having abortions has soared. You might well be tempted to argue that sex education causes sexual delinquency.

Only two months ago the Health Protection Agency reported that a culture of promiscuity among the young had driven the rate of STDs to a record. Almost 400,000 people – half of them under 25 – were newly diagnosed, 6% more than in 2006.

When something fails, the usual procedure is to drop it and try something else. With sex education, the worse it gets, the more people cry out for more of it and earlier. Ministers are considering whether to make schools offer more sex education, offer it earlier and deny parents the right to withdraw their children from it.

Last week the Family Planning Association – now calling itself the fpa, having joined other charities in a mad rush to reduce themselves to a couple of lower-case letters – published a comic-style sex education booklet for six-year-olds to be marketed in primary schools for use in sex and relationships lessons. It has printed 50,000 copies of Let’s Grow with Nisha and Joe, and tried it out in more than 50 primary schools; it hopes to encourage schools that have shied away from sex lessons to take them on with Nisha and Joe. Oh dear.

There’s nothing wrong with the pamphlet itself. Admittedly it’s more of a dreary workbook than a “fun” comic, but there’s nothing that would startle a child or should upset even the most conservative of “family campaigners”. The rudest thing is a drawing of two children, naked, with instructions to draw lines connecting interesting bits of their bodies with the appropriate words. This is all to promote discussion of sex and relationships when children are young enough not to feel self-conscious.

It seems to me highly unrealistic (given that 25% of children leave primary school struggling to read and write) to assume that many six-year-olds could begin to read the labels “testicles” or “vagina”. And it is infuriating, given that medical-style euphemism has triumphed over plain English, that the authors have chosen one that’s wrong. “Vagina” does not mean the external genital organs, commonly referred to as “front bottom”. It comes from the Latin for sheath or scabbard and means what that suggests. The correct word would be “vulva”, but the ill-educated educationists blithely impose inaccuracy on our tiny children. However, that is not what I most object to.

What I object to about the book is what I object to about sex education as a whole (quite apart from its failures). Sex education – particularly compulsory and standardised sex education – is based on mistaken assumptions. The first is the pervasive assumption of equality – that is, that all six-year-olds or all 11-year-olds or 15-year-olds can discuss the complexities of sex in the same form in the same way. That’s nonsense. Children vary in intelligence and progress. Some young children can easily decipher words such as “urethra”; others may never be able to read them.

More importantly, children and teenagers mature at different ages and come from different backgrounds with different family expectations. You cannot talk the same way to a shy 13-year-old who hasn’t had her first period to another who is well acquainted with the darker recesses of the school bike shed. Some boys are men at 11 and 12, physically; others are children until much later. Some children’s parents find it acceptable that their sons and daughters are having sex at 13, while others would be shocked: you cannot talk to all these children together. It would puzzle and offend them and might do them serious damage. And it undermines the authority of those parents who do not share the values of the teacher, or of the majority of the other pupils. It is wrong to assume that people want equality in such matters. They want differences.

Children and families and moral values are not equal, neither within schools nor outside them. They simply aren’t the same.A sensitive teacher will try to make allowances, but there is a shortage in this country of good and sensitive teachers – hence the crisis in education.

Another mistaken assumption is that sex education ought, necessarily, to be entrusted to teachers, given how wildly they vary in ability and in moral attitudes. The thought that the government is considering making sex and relationship education compulsory in schools is terrifying. I can hardly imagine anything worse than subjecting a sensitive child to guidance on such matters from an inexperienced and politically correct teacher, who is neither well informed nor self-critical.

The relationships between sex, love, babies, crime and disease are too explosive to be left primarily to such a person, or to any person apart from the parents. Of course where parents can’t, or won’t, guide their children on such matters, the duty falls on teachers. Some may do a good job, although the evidence isn’t encouraging. But none should take it on without parental consent.

It always amazes me when people complain that people don’t talk about sex and there’s not enough information about it. The truth is, you can hardly avoid it. Newspapers, magazines, chat shows, blogs, internet information sites, doctors’ surgeries and all the rest are groaning under the weight of information about sex, contraception and relationships. Some of it I think is good; some of it you might think is better. And that’s the point. Schools shouldn’t be required to impose sex education, still less a standard sex curriculum on us. We should be able to pick and choose for our children among the infinity of information out there.

Channel 4’s The Sex Education Show, for instance, strikes me as informative and helpful but depressingly vulgar. Others might find it tastefully frank. It’s up to us to choose. Teacher, leave that child alone.

Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold'

Independent 21 September 2008

Children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones, startling new research indicates.

The study, experts say, raises fears that today's young people may suffer an "epidemic" of the disease in later life. At least nine out of 10 British 16-year-olds have their own handset, as do more than 40 per cent of primary schoolchildren.

Yet investigating dangers to the young has been omitted from a massive £3.1m British investigation of the risks of cancer from using mobile phones, launched this year, even though the official Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme – which is conducting it – admits that the issue is of the "highest priority".

Despite recommendations of an official report that the use of mobiles by children should be "minimised", the Government has done almost nothing to discourage it.

Last week the European Parliament voted by 522 to 16 to urge ministers across Europe to bring in stricter limits for exposure to radiation from mobile and cordless phones, Wi-fi and other devices, partly because children are especially vulnerable to them. They are more at risk because their brains and nervous systems are still developing and because – since their heads are smaller and their skulls are thinner – the radiation penetrates deeper into their brains.

The Swedish research was reported this month at the first international conference on mobile phones and health.

It sprung from a further analysis of data from one of the biggest studies carried out into the risk that the radiation causes cancer, headed by Professor Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro, Sweden. Professor Hardell told the conference – held at the Royal Society by the Radiation Research Trust – that "people who started mobile phone use before the age of 20" had more than five-fold increase in glioma", a cancer of the glial cells that support the central nervous system. The extra risk to young people of contracting the disease from using the cordless phone found in many homes was almost as great, at more than four times higher.

Those who started using mobiles young, he added, were also five times more likely to get acoustic neuromas, benign but often disabling tumours of the auditory nerve, which usually cause deafness.

By contrast, people who were in their twenties before using handsets were only 50 per cent more likely to contract gliomas and just twice as likely to get acoustic neuromas.

Professor Hardell told the IoS: "This is a warning sign. It is very worrying. We should be taking precautions." He believes that children under 12 should not use mobiles except in emergencies and that teenagers should use hands-free devices or headsets and concentrate on texting. At 20 the danger diminishes because then the brain is fully developed. Indeed, he admits, the hazard to children and teenagers may be greater even than his results suggest, because the results of his study do not show the effects of their using the phones for many years. Most cancers take decades to develop, longer than mobile phones have been on the market.

The research has shown that adults who have used the handsets for more than 10 years are much more likely to get gliomas and acoustic neuromas, but he said that there was not enough data to show how such relatively long-term use would increase the risk for those who had started young.

He wants more research to be done, but the risks to children will not be studied in the MTHR study, which will follow 90,000 people in Britain. Professor David Coggon, the chairman of the programmes management committee, said they had not been included because other research was being done on young people by a study at Sweden's Kariolinska Institute.

He said: "It looks frightening to see a five-fold increase in cancer among people who started use in childhood," but he said he "would be extremely surprised" if the risk was shown to be so high once all the evidence was in.

But David Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health at the State University of NewYork – who also attended the conference – said: "Children are spending significant time on mobile phones. We may be facing a public health crisis in an epidemic of brain cancers as a result of mobile phone use."

In 2000 and 2005, two official inquiries under Sir William Stewart, a former government chief scientist, recommended the use of mobile phones by children should be "discouraged" and "minimised".

But almost nothing has been done, and their use by the young has more than doubled since the turn of the millennium.

Old people with dementia have a duty to die and should be pushed towards death, says Baroness Warnock

Daily Mail 20 September 2008

Elderly people with dementia are 'wasting' the lives of those who have to care for them, one of the country's most influential experts on medical ethics said yesterday.

Baroness Warnock said that for the old and sick who are contemplating dying, 'there is nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so'.

Her remarks in an interview with a church journal were the first public suggestion from any expert with close links to Whitehall that euthanasia should not only be legal but that elderly people should be pressed towards death.

Lady Warnock said: 'If you are demented, you are wasting people's lives, your family's lives, and you are wasting the resources of the National Health Service.'

Her remarks were condemned as 'shocking ignorance' and 'barbaric' by Alzheimer's charities.

Right to life groups furiously accused Lady Warnock and fellow supporters of euthanasia of telling the public they want a right to choose while privately supporting compulsory killing.

Lady Warnock, 84, was the head of the committee which during the 1980s opened the way for legal research on human embryos.

Influential in education as well as in medical ethics, she became an open supporter of euthanasia after her ill husband was helped to die by his doctor in 1995.

She told the Church of Scotland's magazine Life and Work: 'I've just written an article called A Duty to Die? for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there is nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself.'

She added: 'I am absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there is a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they are a burden to their family or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die.'

Lady Warnock first suggested that the elderly and sick should die rather than becoming a burden four years ago.

In 2006 she supported an attempt by fellow peers to push through a law allowing doctors to kill patients suffering unbearable pain.

Some 700,000 in Britain have dementia and this is expected to double over the next 30 years.

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: 'Lady Warnock demonstrates a shocking ignorance when espousing her highly insensitive views.

'People with dementia can live quite comfortably when cared for properly. The solution to our dementia crisis is not euthanasia; the answer is more research so we can find new treatments, preventions and a cure.'

Neil Hunt, of the Alzheimer's Society, said: 'With the right care, a person can have a good quality of life very late into dementia.

'To suggest that people with dementia should not be entitled to that quality of life or that they should feel that they have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric.'

Phyllis Bowman, of the Right to Life group, said: 'When has loving somebody been a waste?

'We always thought Lady Warnock was in favour of coercive or compulsory euthanasia.

'Her views are an illustration that while euthanasia is promoted as a right to choose, it pretty rapidly becomes no right to live.'

Euthanasia is a crime in England. But the 2005 Mental Capacity Act endorsed the right of people to have a 'living will' in which they can order doctors to kill them if they become too ill to speak for themselves.

Patients are killed by the withdrawal of water tubes, which are considered to be treatment.

Doctors who ignore such living wills - or ignore the instructions of someone appointed by a patient to make medical decisions for them - commit a crime and can face prison.

Gender-bending chemical used in plastic bottles 'doubles risk of heart disease'

Daily Mail 17th September 2008

Gender bending chemicals in food packaging, drink cans and baby bottles may double the risk of heart disease, researchers have found.

They have shown that people with higher than normal levels of bisphenol A (BPA) in their blood are more likely to suffer from heart problems.

The chemical also appears to raise the risk of diabetes, the study of nearly 1,500 people has shown.

Hidden danger? Bisphenol A, which has been linked to health problems, is used in plastic bottles

BPA is used to make linings of food and drink cans. It is also found in plastic bottles, CD cases, plastic knives and forks and dental sealants.

It is the first time it has been directly linked to health problems in humans and raises disturbing questions about one of the most common - and controversial - chemicals in everyday use.

Although some animal studies have suggested that it is safe, others have raised serious concerns.

BPA, which mimics the female sex hormone oestrogen, has been linked in animals to breast cancer, liver damage, obesity, diabetes, fertility problems in males and developmental disorders in the young. Professor David Melzer, of the Peninsula Medical School, Exeter, who led the research, said: 'Our study has revealed for the first time an association between raised BPA loads and two common diseases in adults.

At the moment we can't be absolutely sure that BPA is the direct cause of the extra cases of heart disease and diabetes - if it is, some causes of these serious conditions could prevented by reducing BPA exposure.'

The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at blood and urine samples of 1,455 adults aged between 18 and 74 years.

Enlarge

The levels of BPA in the study were well below official safety standards, but the 25 per cent of people with the highest levels of BPA were twice as likely to suffer heart disease or diabetes than the bottom 25 per cent.

Higher levels were also linked to abnormal concentrations of liver enzymes, a possible sign of liver damage. The links were strongest for young people.

The scientists do not know how BPA could increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

However, the chemical could lead to more fat being laid down in the arteries and interfere with the way insulin is processed.

Other researchers urged caution. Professor Richard Sharpe, of the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, University of Edinburgh, said: 'There may be a more commonsense explanation.

'That is, that if you drink lots of high-sugar canned drinks you will over time increase your risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes - I think we already suspect this - and incidentally you will be exposed to more bisphenol A from the can lining.

'The fact that the younger age groups in this study had the highest bisphenol A exposures would certainly fit with this.'

'Ambulance-chasing' lawyers make £3million every week out of NHS blunders

Daily Mail 12th September 2008

Lawyers are taking home half of all monies paid out in compensation by the NHS

Lawyers are pocketing £1 in every £2 paid out to victims of NHS blunders.

Legal firms are bringing in a total of more than £3million every week as the compensation culture booms.

Experts say increasing numbers of cases are being taken to court by 'no-win, no-fee' solicitors, who even tout for business in A&E waiting rooms.

If they win, these 'ambulance chasing' lawyers ask the court for more in costs than would be paid in legal aid cases. This is to cover their extra risk.

Last year, a total of £165million went on legal fees in medical negligence cases, for both defence and prosecution lawyers. This was 25 per cent up on 2006/07.

The compensation to injured patients rose by a lower amount, 18 per cent, to £382million, according to the annual report of the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA).

On top of the £547million paid out to victims and lawyers for medical negligence claims, a further £114million went on other claims not directly linked to doctors' mistakes, such as slipping on a hospital carpet.

Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, said: 'The amount of money taken up in legal costs rather than the compensation injured patients need and deserve is excessive.

'The state is shooting itself in the foot by the whittling down of legal aid which is now only available to the very poorest in society. People are forced to litigate using "no-win, no-fee" agreements which are much more costly for the NHS to settle.

'We need a bolstering of legal aid and a proper scheme to compensate patients injured by negligence without having to go to court.'

Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'It's a disgrace that so much of our money is going to ambulance-chasing lawyers. There is a big difference between providing legal advice and excessive billing that is frankly greedy.'

The NHSLA provides payouts to people injured by health service treatment. All hospital, ambulance and primary care trusts pay premiums to the organisation for the collective cover it provides.

In total, around 6,000 cases against the NHS go to court every year.

The NHSLA said the legal costs payable to victims' lawyers were typically around double the cost of the lawyers the health service instructs to defend the cases.

A spokesman said: 'We continue to seek to have claimants' costs capped where this is appropriate and the authority remains concerned about the high level of costs incurred in relation to clinical negligence cases on both sides.'

UK Lockdown point of view
Most lawyers and legal types like politicians are generally despicable people who should not be trusted, however the two questions that needs to be asked are 'how much negligence needs to take place within the NHS before it is no longer considered to be negligence ?'
'Is it paranoid to think that EU sponsored bureaucratic sabotage could possibly an alternative explanation for the abnormally high number of negligence cases ?'

Drug watchdog NICE 'spends more on 'spin' than tests on new treatments'

Daily Mail 10th September 2008

Claims: Shadow health minister Mark Simmonds said NICE spends more on 'spin' than on evaluating new drugs

The health rationing watchdog has come under attack for spending more money on spin than on evaluating drugs which could save patients' lives.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which has been widely criticised for banning drugs from NHS use as too expensive, squandered £4.5million on 'communications' last year.

This was £1.1million more than the £3.4million the controversial organisation spent on assessing new medicines.

The money forked out on press officers, marketing executives and consultants included £25,000 on top public relations firm Weber Shandwick to defend NICE's ban on Alzheimer's drugs.

It could have paid for 5,000 Alzheimer's sufferers to get £2.50-a-day drugs for a year. Alternatively it would have funded nearly 200 patients with advanced kidney cancer to have a drug for 12 months that would double their life expectancy.

Tens of thousands of people across the country are waiting for NICE to assess drugs that could extend their lives or alleviate conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and thinning bones.

MPs, patients groups and medical organisations branded the amount spent on communications as a 'scandalous waste of money'.

Myeloma sufferer Jacky Pickles, one of the 'Velcade Three' - three mothers who launched a campaign after being denied anti-cancer drugs - said: 'It is disgraceful that money which could provide drugs that make the difference between someone living and dying is being spent on communications.'

Mrs Pickles, 46, of Keighley, West Yorkshire, added: 'NICE should either use the money to improve their evaluation process, or give it back to the NHS to spend on people who are ill.'

Shadow Health Minister Mark Simmonds, who uncovered the budget breakdown tucked away in NICE's annual report, said: 'These figures typify New Labour's approach to Britain's health service.

Cancer sufferer Jacky Pickles says it is 'disgraceful' that so much money is spent on communications

'Thousands of patients across the country who are still waiting for NICE to evaluate new medicines will rightly be asking why Labour insists on spending more on spin than on speeding up people's access to lifesaving drugs.'

NICE has an annual budget of £34.4million, and spends £1 in every £8 on communications. In contrast, £1 in every £10 is spent on evaluating new drugs.

The rest is spent on such things as salaries - NICE's annual report for 2006/07 revealed that wages accounted for almost 37 per cent of the budget - accommodation (eight per cent) and external contracts. Almost 300 full-time staff are employed in London and Manchester.

The watchdog looks at whether drugs are cost-effective for the NHS, with the annual cost threshold set between £20,000-£30,000, above which they are considered too expensive.

The 'value-for-money' calculation, which does not take into account factors such as severity of a disease, means British patients are denied drugs that are freely available abroad.

NICE was condemned recently for handing a 'death sentence' to 1,700 patients with advanced kidney disease each year who will be deprived of four life-extending drugs.

One, Sutent, which costs around £24,000 a year, can double the life expectancy of patients to 28 months.

NICE has also been accused of 'dithering' over the evaluation process. It has taken several years for the watchdog to approve the use of some drugs. Chief executive Andrew Dillon was forced to make a grovelling apology last month for a two-year delay in approving a new treatment for blindness during which time many Britons lost their sight.

Michael Summers, vice-chairman of the Patients Association, said spending £4.5million on communications was 'immoral and indefensible'.

He said: 'If NICE has reached the situation where it is so unpopular that it has to spend money improving its image, maybe it should be less dilatory and improve its performance.'

Nick Rijke, of the National Osteoporosis Society, said: 'I would have thought that an organisation that spends so much on communicating would be rather better at listening to the views of clinical experts and patient societies.'

NICE said the majority of its communications budget was spent informing doctors about which drugs had been approved and new guidelines for treatments, although it admitted that it had a 'small' marketing budget.

Mr Dillon said: 'The actual cost of assessing new drugs for the NHS includes money spent on NICE's behalf by the Department of Health. When you add them together, the total cost of the NICE technology appraisal programme far outstrips the cost of NICE communications.'

UK Lockdown point of view
NICE are a fine example of what has been achieved by this criminal government, all they spend our money on is propaganda to convince us of what a great job they are doing which is to disguise the fact that they are actually doing nothing meanwhile the remainder of our money goes towards paying the excessive salaries to the executives of an organisation that does nothing of any value and serves no purpose other than to have the overpaid parasites dictate what medicines and treatments we are and are not allowed hence the plight of many British citizens suffering from issues ranging from crippling conditions like Alzheimer's to potentially fatal conditions such as cancer, what we are witnessing is the organised destruction of our health system all EU planned in order to remove the ability of our society to maintain its own health system forcing us to ultimately depend on a centralised EU health system.

Obesity 'equal to terror threat'

BBC News 14 August 2008 01:27 UK

The threat to Britain and the NHS from rising obesity is as grave as that posed by terrorism, a top expert says.

Durham University public health expert Professor David Hunter, who also acts as a government adviser, said ministers should be taking "bold action" now.
He said this could include compelling manufacturers to improve the salt, fat and sugar content of their products.
The Department of Health said it was making progress in disease prevention in a number of areas.
Professor Hunter said that governments since the 1970s, including the present Labour government, had "tinkered around the edges" of the rising problem of obesity.
He said it was possible that the disease it caused could overwhelm the NHS, with some predicting a doubling of the number of people with type II diabetes by 2025.
The solution, he said, was a more direct approach, with less public consultation.
"They have been talking about it for four decades, but that never seems to be enough," he said.
"The government was quick to move for things like ID cards or 42-day detention without trial - now it needs to show similar leadership in public health.
"The threat to our future health is just as significant as the current security threat."
While many disease prevention initiatives were having some impact, he said, this was on a "piddling" scale.
He said that current work between the Food Standards Agency and food manufacturers and suppliers could go further.
"Lots of the initiatives are under a voluntary agreement - but it has just come to the point where things like these are simply not working."
He said that bigger warning labels, changes in the taxation of "unhealthy" foods, and even the use of compulsory regulations to force manufacturers to cut levels of salt, sugar and fat in their foods could be employed.

'Terror by targets'
Professor Hunter, who has written a book called "The Health Debate" about the challenges facing the NHS as it hits its 60th anniversary, also criticised targets as a tool for NHS reform, describing it as a "terror-by-targets" culture which damaged staff morale.
The recent review by Lord Darzi placed emphasis on the prevention of disease as a priority for the NHS, as did the Public Health White Paper in 2004.
A spokesman for the Department of Health pointed to the decision to fluoridate drinking water to improve oral health, and the introduction of smoking bans, as signs that it was serious about this.
"Lord Darzi's recent review envisioned an NHS that is as good at preventing ill health as it is at treating the sick," he said.
"We are tackling obesity through awareness campaigns and action in schools. Our alcohol and sexual health campaigns encourage responsible drinking and safer sex."
A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said that the voluntary approach currently used with the food industry had been successful.
She said: "We set voluntary targets for salt and have seen considerable reductions in a range of food.
"Legislation is one option if industry doesn't respond to our voluntary approach, but so far it has proven unnecessary."

UK Lockdown point of view
This article exemplifies exactly how bad things have gotten in our country the health crisis has been purposely engineered due to a collaboration effort between the criminal UK government (misleaders) and the parasite multinational companies that sell junk (poison) food that they know is full of MSG (a known fattening poison with links to type 2 diabetes) in food mostly marketed toward children, now a so-called health expert and government advisor thinks that the solution is to label overweight citizens as being equivalent to terrorists and using similar control methods to regulate all of our lives don't forget that most advisory groups are linked to NGO's funded by rich foundations that own the very same junk food chains that are poisoning us and our children; that is no coincidence.

Charles in GM 'disaster' warning

BBC News Wednesday, 13 August 2008 12:27 UK

Companies developing genetically modified crops risk creating the biggest environmental disaster "of all time", Prince Charles has warned.
GM crops were damaging Earth's soil and were an experiment "gone seriously wrong", he told the Daily Telegraph.
A future reliance on corporations to mass-produce food would drive millions of farmers off their land, he said.
The government said it welcomed all voices in the "important" debate over the future potential role of GM crops.
However, Dr Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, said he was "disappointed" by the Prince's comments because "they do not seem to be based on any solid evidence".
"Our experience from over 10 years of GM cultivation shows that GM technology has been found to deliver real environmental and economic benefits," he said.
Mr Little added: "At a time when demand for food and fuel is rising and in the face of growing environmental challenges, we need to find ways to feed an ever-increasing global population."

BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the Prince's "robust" comments were "likely to rankle with the government", which has given the go-ahead to a number of GM crop trials in the UK since 2000.
"Even for a prince who's a long-established champion of organic farming and critic of GM crops, these are comments which verge on the extreme," our correspondent said.
Prince Charles told the newspaper that huge multi-national corporations involved in developing GM foods were conducting a "gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".

Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food would end in "absolute disaster", he warned.
"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future."
What should be being debated was "food security not food production", he said.
He said GM developers might think they would be successful by having "one form of clever genetic engineering after another", but he believed "that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time".
Prince Charles, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, said relying on big corporations for the mass production of food would not only threaten future food supplies but also force smaller producers out of business.
"If they think this is the way to go, we will end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness," he said.
The prince also told the Telegraph he hoped to see more family-run co-operative farms, with producers working with nature and not against it.
The Prince's comments come at a time of rising world food prices and food shortages.
The biotech industry says that GM technology can help combat world hunger and poverty by delivering higher yields from crops and also reduce the use of pesticides.

'Untenable'

In June, Environment Minister Phil Woolas said the government was ready to argue for a greater role for the technology.
But green groups and aid agencies have doubts about GM technology's effectiveness in tackling world hunger and have concerns about the long-term environmental impact.
Responding to the prince's comments, a spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Safety will always be our top priority on this issue."
Anti-monarchy Campaign group Republic said: "Prince Charles is quickly making his position as heir to the throne untenable with his meddling in politics."

UK Lockdown point of view

GM Crops are a very serious issue and represent a much greater danger to the planet than the so-called greenhouse effect all of the charges put forward by Prince Charles
and more importantly by many biologists who strongly oppose GMO products understand the full ramifications of this issue; the Globalists / NWO have already stated their intentions of using food as a weapon in the west as they have done in Africa and elsewhere over the recent decades be warned it may be a good idea to start storing food and growing our own supplies this system cannot be trusted.