The number of smokers turning to the NHS for help to kick the habit has trebled in the last decade, data shows.
But despite nearly 788,000 using the services in England this year, less than half succeed, figures from the NHS Information Centre reveal.
And many of those who do quit – 384,000 in 2010/11 – later relapse.
This means a fifth of adults in England are smokers, even though more are using quit smoking services at a cost of £84.3m in 2010/11.
This is nearly half a million pounds more than in the previous year and almost £60m more than t10 years ago.
Despite persistent public concern that H1N1 vaccines being tested might have unforeseen side effects, experts reiterated Thursday that so far, at least, the shots seem safe.
“There have been no red flags at all,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told HealthDay.
A trial designed to test the vaccine on healthy adults began on Aug. 7, while another trial involving children started Aug. 18.
“We wanted to wait about a week after the first trial to see if there were any glaring safety issues. There were not, so one-and-a-half weeks later, we started the trial in children,” Fauci said.
Community pharmacists could soon be playing a more direct role in diabetes management following a new study at Brisbane’s Wesley Research Institute funded by the MBF Foundation.
The aim of the study is to help people with Type 2 Diabetes gain better control over their blood glucose levels to reduce their need for visits to the doctor or hospital admissions.
Clostridium difficile before they are admitted to hospital may be one way to help control rising rates of infection, says a doctor in today’s BMJ.
Recent data published by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) show that each year in England around 7,000 inpatients have MRSA infections and more than 50,000 inpatients aged 65 years and over have C difficile infections. Cases of C difficile rose by 5.5% in 2006, whereas MRSA cases fell by 4.3% over a similar period. And numbers are likely to continue rising because the population is ageing and the elderly are the most at risk, warns Dr John Starr.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
“Northern hemisphere countries have so far ordered more than one billion doses of swine flu vaccine, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday, sparking warnings over shortages,” Agence France-Presse reports. While some countries, including Greece, The Netherlands, Canada and Israel, have ordered enough vaccine to inoculate their citizens, “[o]thers, such as Germany, the United States, Britain and France, have put in orders that would cover between 30 and 78 percent of people,” the news service writes.
“In the early days, there will be a very limited supply of vaccine. There won’t be sufficient supply to vaccinate whole populations, or even huge proportions of populations,” WHO spokeswoman Melinda Henry explained, which, in turn, will force governments to prioritize those first in line for the vaccine. As Henry noted, it remains unclear whether the H1N1 vaccine will be delivered in one or two doses to be effective (Hood, 8/18).
Heart patient with A/H1N1 flu dies in Greece
It is the first death case related to A/H1N1 flu in Greece.
Greek Health Ministry said in a statement that the male patient had serious heart problems and had been in the Onassio hospital since Aug. 7.
The ministry said the incident is not recorded as A/H1N1 death case based on the international scientific data, since the patient was only infected in his last two days, which was not the death cause.
Cardinal Bagnasco encourages conscientious objection to RU-486
Rome, Italy, Aug 4, 2009 / 10:46 am (CNA).- The president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, encouraged doctors who defend life and oppose abortion to exercise their right to conscientious objection in response to the decision by health care officials to allow the sale of the abortion drug RU-486.
In an interview with the Italian daily Avvenire, Cardinal Bagnasco warned the decision encourages Italians to view “abortion as a contraceptive, something that law 194 absolutely forbids,” and he expressed his “sadness, bitterness and care” over the position of health care officials, which he called a “crack in our society.”
Where there is no respect for human life, the cardinal went on, “from conception in its fragility and later during its course, society is less human. That the right of the strongest thus prevails is bitter.” Behind this society, he added, “is an individualistic culture, hidden under respect for the freedom of women,” who “in reality experience a tragedy, live in suffering and worry; when a truly human culture ought to take care of them.”
Access to safe medical and surgical abortion is a right that women have fought for and are still to fully achieve. They’ve kept fighting because the right to decide if and when to bear children is a cornerstone for women’s equality in society.
This struggle is being played out in Queensland today. A growing pro-choice movement supports repeal of the anti-abortion sections in the state’s criminal laws. Meanwhile, the state government hopes the issue will just go away.
The anti-abortion laws — sections 224, 225, and 226 of the Queensland Criminal Code — criminalise health services needed only by women.
Public opinion is clearly behind law reform. Seventy-nine percent of Queenslanders want abortion decriminalised, said an independent poll in May.
The question asked by many is: why isn’t this law reform a straightforward process in the 21st century?
Labor MPs support new calls to legalise abortion
AT LEAST three Labor MPs are supporting a new push to change the state’s 40-year-old abortion laws.
Angela D’Amore, Helen Westwood and Penny Sharpe have supported calls by a new lobby group to remove abortion from the criminal code.
The group, Pro Choice NSW, was set up after criminal charges were laid against a couple in Queensland who had used RU486, also known as the abortion pill.
