French authorities gas thousands of ducks after bird flu outbreaks

Workers wearing masks and protective clothes have gassed thousands of ducks in south-west France, in a massive cull that was ordered in an attempt to prevent a spread of the H5N8 bird flu virus.

At one farm in the village of Latrille, in the heartland of duck and geese rearing country, 8,000 ducks were taken by hand and put in coloured metal containers where carbon dioxide was piped in to kill them, normally within seconds.

Workers clad in head-to-toe protective suits, face-visors and gas masks, finished the slaughter in the space of a few hours.

France, which has the largest poultry flock in the European Union, has reported 95 outbreaks of the virus.

Most of the cull is taking place in and around the Gers area of south-west France, where geese and ducks are reared in vast numbers to make foie gras.

About 800,000 birds out of a population of about 18m in the whole of the south-west are due to be killed in the coming week.

Workers carry ducks before placing them in a bin filled with carbon dioxide at a poultry farm in Latrille, south-west France. Photograph: Bob Edme/AP

The operation is part of mass cull of poultry in France, which has reported 95 outbreaks of the H5N8 bird flu virus. Photograph: Bob Edme/AP

France, which has the largest poultry flock in the EU, has ordered the cull of ducks in its three most-affected regions. Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters

French authorities gas thousands of ducks after bird flu outbreaks

Hundreds of thousands unnecessarily labelled pre-diabetic, health authorities say

Pharmaceutical organizations are mentioned to be the only winners from classifying huge numbers of folks with pre-diabetes. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Millions of individuals are getting unnecessarily labelled pre-diabetic, growing their likelihood of getting prescribed drugs which will at greatest briefly delay the onset of the sickness, say specialists.

Writing in the British Health-related Journal, scientists argue that the diagnosis is of tiny benefit and carries huge health care and social fees. What is needed is a public wellness method to tackle the issues in the food, overall health and educational surroundings which have led to widespread weight problems and inactivity – the major leads to of the rapidly escalating variety of cases of variety 2 diabetes.

The only winners from classifying vast numbers of people with pre-diabetes are the pharmaceutical firms, say the authors from University College London and the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota, US. A latest study recommended that a third of the grownup population of the United kingdom has pre-diabetes and half the population of China – a vast marketplace for medicines.

Emeritus professor of medication at UCL, John Yudkin, said pre-diabetes “is an artificial class with almost zero clinical relevance .… There is no established advantage of offering diabetes therapy medication to folks in this class prior to they develop diabetes, particularly since numerous of them would not go on to create diabetes anyway.”

He says the numbers labelled as pre-diabetic have been considerably boosted by a new definition adopted by the Amertican Diabetes Association. Kind 2 diabetes can be confirmed by a blood check to measure average levels of haemoglobin A1c in the final three months. An A1c in excess of six.5% indicates kind two diabetes. The association now considers any person with an A1c of five.7% to 6.4% to have pre-diabetes.

The ADA guidelines had been those utilized by the current study published in BMJ Open, which was carried out by the University of Florida in collaboration with the University of Leicester in the Uk. There are 3.two million people in the Uk at present diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, but sixteen million would be labelled pre-diabetic and potentially be given drugs beneath the ADA suggestions.

At the second, neither the World Well being Organisation nor the National Institute for Well being and Care Excellence (Wonderful) endorse the ADA suggestions. Great says we must “move away from describing pre-diabetes as a separate issue”.

Yudkin mentioned: “I am concerned about the increasing influence of the phrase. It has been utilized in several scientific papers across the planet, and has been applied to a third of grownups in the Uk and half of these in China. We require to stop searching at this as a clinical difficulty with pharmaceutical solutions and emphasis on improving public wellness. The complete population would benefit from a much more healthier diet and a lot more physical activity, so it can make no sense to single out so a lot of individuals and tell them that they have a disease.”

A distinct and a lot more complex test for variety 2 diabetes, measuring impaired glucose tolerance, can identify a significantly smaller set of individuals at substantial danger for sort 2 diabetes, and there is evidence that interventions this kind of as drug remedy may possibly help delay the onset for people. But the A1c test picks up a considerably greater cohort of about twelve million folks in the United kingdom who are at considerably reduce chance.

They and the whole population need help to tackle the underlying life-style leads to of type 2 diabetes, says the paper. “We require a shift in standpoint,” the authors write. “It is critically crucial to slow the epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Rather than turning healthier individuals into sufferers with pre-diabetes, we ought to use available assets to adjust the food, education, overall health and financial policies that have driven this epidemic.”

Hundreds of thousands unnecessarily labelled pre-diabetic, health authorities say

Reduce use of antibiotics in livestock, veterinary authorities tell government

Professionals have named for farmers to minimize the amount of antibiotics they give their livestock. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/Reuters

Vets and MPs have urged the government and pharmaceutical businesses to produce new drugs for animals to avoid the expanding human resistance to antibiotics.

The get in touch with follows warnings from David Cameron, the UK’s chief health-related officer Dame Sally Evans and the World Health Organisation that medicine could soon be ”cast back into the dark ages” if action is not taken to tackle the rise of untreatable bacteria.

But farmers who routinely include antibiotics to animal feed and water to stay away from illness among livestock and boost development charges advised the Home of Commons science and technological innovation committee that if antibiotics for animals had been banned “it would make pig production in the Uk rather much impossible”.

Catherine McLaughlin, animal overall health policy adviser at the Nationwide Farmers’ Union, advised MPs that when the poultry sector stopped using some antibiotics final 12 months they had to raise their hygiene specifications to be “far better than hospitals” to reduce the enhanced mortality price in youthful chicks.

MPs said they were concerned that complete veterinary use of tetracycline antibiotics had enhanced almost tenfold and that of penicillin almost fivefold since 1969.

“Antibiotic use in pigs and poultry in the Nordic nations is three to five occasions reduced than it is in the United kingdom. These nations have considerably reduce amounts of resistance in food poisoning bacteria than that identified in many EU nations,” stated MPs in a report published on Monday.

The committee heard that it was unclear how far antimicrobial resistance originating in farm animals was contributing to antibiotic resistance in humans, but stated the government ought to consider a precautionary strategy. “There is circumstantial evidence that AMR can be transmitted from animal pathogens to human pathogens though the evidence base is incomplete. The government requirements to guarantee this is addressed.

‘We suggest that this is an additional target of research in the action strategy and that in the meantime, government takes action to make certain the use of antibiotics in farm animals is strictly required for therapeutic use,” the committee stated.

Meanwhile, wellness authorities said doctors, nurses and pharmacists should say no to sufferers who inquire for prescriptions for small illnesses as the current technique to antibiotics is no longer successful and can be unsafe.

They referred to as for a radical new strategy if antibiotics are to continue to be effective to combat more significant illnesses and illnesses in the long term.

In joint guidance on antimicrobial resistance, the Royal College of Basic Practitioners (RCGP), the Royal School of Physicians (RCP), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), the Royal University of Nursing (RCN) and the United kingdom Faculty of Public Overall health (FPH) also known as on patients to consider some duty for strengthening their defences towards condition by thinking about options to antibiotics or making it possible for small viral infections to clear up in their personal time.

Andrew Miller, chair of the science and technology committee, said: “The hyperlink in between human and animal pathogens antibiotic resistance has not been conclusively confirmed, but we think the government need to be taking precautionary action to ensure that antibiotics are only getting utilised on sick animals.”

But it emerged that the government does not know which antibiotics are getting used in which animals and in which the resistance difficulties in animals are.

“Some countries have been collecting this data for 15 years, but the United kingdom still has really standard data, and we require a lot a lot more exact information if we are really to realize the problem,” explained the committee.

MPs heard that some of the resistances witnessed in human medicines had come out of environmental bacteria, which had been then transferred into bacteria that are pathogenic to humans.

“Resistant bacteria from human sources have been detected in all stages of the sewage treatment method approach, which includes in treated water released to the setting and sludge applied to farmland,” the committee heard.

Peter Jones, former president of the British Veterinary Association, stated the pipeline for new antibiotics in the two human and animal wellness is at an all-time minimal.

“Antibiotics are crucial for each human and animal health but it is clear that we have to also uncover techniques to produce new antibiotics in veterinary medicine,” he mentioned.

The report from the royal schools and the FPH marked the very first time that wellness

Reduce use of antibiotics in livestock, veterinary authorities tell government

Leprosy is nevertheless current in Britain and usually misdiagnosed, say authorities

Nina Goad, a spokesperson from British Association of Dermatologists stated: “When people hear the term leprosy, they usually believe of leper colonies and references to the condition in the Bible or films like Monty Python’s Daily life of Brian.

“They are almost certainly not aware that it can still take place right here in the Uk. Diagnosis in western populations this kind of as the United kingdom is typically delayed due to the fact physicians are unaware of the disease’s presence in their country, or of its signs and symptoms.

“Dermatology is hugely underrepresented in GP training to begin with, so uncommon ailments like leprosy are seldom taught.

“Even so, early diagnosis and remedy are essential in limiting the nerve damage that triggers the numbness that can in flip lead to loss of limbs or digits.”

The condition, recognized as Hansen’s Illness, is a chronic infection by Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis.

Despite the fact that it is not contagious, it can trigger tissue to fall off, rot away, and grow to be deformed.

The way it is passed on is by close and regular speak to amongst a contagious sufferer and a particular person who is genetically vulnerable to creating the illness.

Scientists feel that similarly to a cold, it can be passed in droplets of saliva from the nose and mouth.

The illness which dates back to 600 BC can strike decades after initial infection and lead to lesions on the skin, loss of sensation in affected areas.

Historically lepers have typically been ostracised by their families and communities, major to the setting up of leper colonies for the duration of the middle ages to quarantine individuals.

Dr Ausama Atwan, from Cardiff University explained: “Our aim is not to alarm folks unduly as leprosy is nonetheless uncommon in the United kingdom, but it is undoubtedly one thing that medical doctors need to be mindful of if they experience individuals, particularly people initially from endemic countries, with persistent or unexplained lesions, alterations to skin pigmentation and sensation.

“Leprosy might masquerade as various other skin problems, given its variety of symptoms. Due to its rarity in Europe, it may possibly very easily be misdiagnosed and consequently pose long term overall health risks for individuals if missed.

“A thorough health-related background, like elements like travel to locations in which the condition is a lot more typical, and examination of the skin and peripheral nerves, with each other with a higher degree of suspicion in men and women at risk, are essential towards diagnosis and the eventual remedy of leprosy.

“The potential prolonged incubation period need to also be borne in mind.”

In June this yr, US researchers announced that they are developing a vaccine towards the condition that is due to be trialed following 12 months.

The study will be presented to the Association of Dermatologists’ Annual Conference in Glasgow tomorrow in front of one,300 doctors.

Leprosy is nevertheless current in Britain and usually misdiagnosed, say authorities

District nurses at threat of extinction, authorities warn

To plug the gap, an additional 10,000 district nurses are required across the nation, the RCN explained.

A spokeswoman said that this is the “only way” to meet the demands of an ageing population.

The study, which noticed 2,400 district and neighborhood nurses polled, located that most local community personnel are “pushed to breaking point”, the spokeswoman stated.

Peter Carter, chief executive and standard secretary of the RCN, said: “Individuals are residing longer, but not necessarily more healthy, lives. This trend will increase more than the coming decades and presents a very certain nursing challenge.

“The district nurse function is the foundation of a method which ought to be able to manage conditions and keep sick and frail people at house. Eliminate individuals foundations and the total edifice could come crashing down.

A Division of Wellness spokesman stated numerous hospitals have been employing more nurses following the Mid-Staffs public inquiry, and that the very same wants to come about in the community.

District nurses at threat of extinction, authorities warn

"We know the place Jack the Ripper lived" - authorities

Canadian criminologist Dr Kim Rossmo and Steve Le Comber of Queen Mary, University of London, used a mathematical model to find the spot.

Speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival Dr Rossmo explained: “All the victims lived quite shut to Flower and Dean Street.

“The last victim was noticed less than a block away choosing up a client, and that was almost certainly her last customer, probably the Ripper.

“So it is risk-free to say it was none of the Royal family as folks have speculated. It is unlikely they would have frequented an region like that, and we think the Ripper is an individual who lived on that street.”

Two victims Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride had been killed on the same evening, September thirty 1888.

Eddowes apron was found in nearby Goulston Street alongside a message, believed to be written by the Ripper which go through: “The Juews are not the males that will not be blamed for nothing at all.”

Dr Rossmo claims that if a line is drawn in between the area of the victim’s bodies and he apron it suggests the Ripper was heading towards Flower and Dean Street.

“It seems to be like he was on his way residence,” said Dr Le Comber.

The approach functions due to the fact most criminals operate in predictable spots, usually not also far from their property, family members or their workplace. But they also set up a ‘buffer zone’ about their homes in which they will not commit crimes. The model predicts in which they dwell

It previously been utilised to track down the serial rapist Clive Barwell and is becoming employed by anti-terrorist police.

Dr Le Comber also believes the formula can be used to locate the origin of disease outbreaks such as malaria, so that epidemics can be stopped ahead of they even began.

He believes that the origin of an infectious ailment could be located with the addresses of just five folks who have been infected.

It follows on from the function of John Snow, who in 1844 mapped all circumstances of cholera in central London and identified the source was a water pump in Broad Street, Soho. When he closed the pump, individuals stopped dying.

“Snow’s genius was to map it,” explained Dr Le Comber, “Nobody has taken that approach with conditions because then.

“In Malaria paper right after paper will inform you crucial it is to find exactly where the contaminated mosquitoes are breeding, but no one will tell you how to find those areas.

“And the problem with mosquitoes is they will breed anywhere. In puddles, in water in abandoned car tyres. So this is precisely the dilemma we are trying to fix.

“We can use this technique in quite a great deal of biological information and hopefully use it in the long term to benefit public overall health.”

Dr Le Comber utilized the model to demonstrate that he could have spotted the origin of a devastating malaria outbreak in Cairo.

"We know the place Jack the Ripper lived" - authorities

Well being authorities request passengers to get in touch with NHS in excess of Mers virus danger

Saudi Arabia has been the centre of an outbreak of Mers that began about two many years ago, infecting at least 400 individuals worldwide. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

Well being authorities in the Uk have mentioned that they have been contacting airline passengers who sat close to a guy who has been diagnosed as the first US case of a mysterious Middle East virus soon after travelling from Saudi Arabia, transiting in London on a British Airways flight.

Public Wellness England stated that the risk of the infection currently being passed to other passengers was very minimal but asked any passengers who had been on the very same flight last week from Riyadh to London to speak to the NHS if they have been going through respiratory signs and symptoms or have felt unwell given that their flight.

The guy fell ill right after arriving in the US a week ago from Saudi Arabia, in which he is a overall health care employee, and is at the moment in hospital in Indiana with Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers-CoV), the United States Centre for Ailment Management mentioned on Friday evening.

Saudi Arabia has been the centre of an outbreak of Mers that began about two many years in the past, infecting at least 400 people throughout the world and killing much more than one hundred. Mers belongs to the coronavirus family members that contains the widespread cold and Sars, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which induced some 800 deaths globally in 2003.

The guy was on British Airways flight 262 from Riyadh to London, and transferred on 24 April at Heathrow for an onward flight to the US, in which he landed in Chicago ahead of taking a bus to the neighbouring state of Indiana. He did not become ill right up until arriving in Indiana, according to US health authorities. Signs contain fever, coughing and breathing troubles, which can lead to pneumonia and kidney failure.

Public Overall health England said that, as a precautionary measure, it has contacted United kingdom passengers who have been sitting in the vicinity of the guy to provide health data. Any Uk based mostly passengers on flight 262 on 24 April who have since grow to be unwell or seasoned respiratory signs and symptoms, this kind of as shortness of breath, had been suggested to get in touch with NHS 111. The physique is also working to contact any Uk passengers on the 24 April onward flight from London to Chicago, American Airlines flight 99.

The time period between exposure and when signs might produce (the incubation period) for Mers-CoV is at the moment regarded to be up to 14 days, according to Public Wellness England, which extra that any illness that passengers may well experience more than 14 days after the flight (i.e. starting on or following Friday 9 May possibly), would not be deemed to be connected.

It additional that there is presently no proof of sustained particular person-to-particular person transmission of the virus and the risk of contracting infection in the United kingdom remains very lower.

Professor Nick Phin, head of Respiratory Illnesses for Public Health England, explained: “The threat is quite minimal and human to human transmission of Mers-CoV is really rare, but we would request any passengers from British Airways flight 262 on 24 April to speak to NHS 111 if they are experiencing respiratory symptoms or have felt unwell given that their flight.

The Mers virus has been located in camels, but officials will not know how it is spreading to people. Overall health officials in Saudi Arabia have just lately reported a surge in Mers illnesses cases have tended to boost in the spring. Specialists think the uptick may party be due to more and far better surveillance. Researchers at Columbia University have an added concept there might be a lot more virus circulating in the spring, when camels are born.

US overall health officials have been bracing for the arrival of 1 or a lot more cases, most likely among travellers. Isolated instances of Mers have been carried outside the Middle East. Previously, 163 suspected cases were tested in the US but none confirmed.

Well being authorities request passengers to get in touch with NHS in excess of Mers virus danger

Three drinks can scupper the diet plan leading to extra calories and excess weight achieve, authorities warn

It identified that soon after 9.three units of alcohol, participants tended to make unhealthy selections, consuming an added four,305 calories that evening in food and drink and an additional 2,000 calories the following morning.

Half of people who passed their tipping level cancelled exercise and sport the following day, preferring to sit in front of the Tv, remain in bed or play on social media and so exacerbating their prospective for weight obtain.

Half of these in the survey acknowledged this pattern was standard for an typical weekend.

The survey was commissioned by Slimming World, which has known as on government to highlight the website link among alcohol and obesity.

The tipping point was at close to 10.5 units for guys and eight units for females. It is advised that guys drink no much more than three to four units per day and ladies no a lot more than two to three with two alcohol cost-free days per week.

Chips were the favourite foods soon after passing the tipping level, followed by pizza, kebab and hamburger.

Dr Jacquie Lavin, Head of Nutrition and Study at Slimming World mentioned: “There is at the moment not enough advice for the public on how consuming much more than the suggested amount of alcohol can affect on fat.

“Alcohol stimulates appetite, can make us want to consume much more unhealthy foods and lowers our inhibitions, all of which can lead to us creating unhealthy choices – without even realising how several much more calories we’re consuming.

“With the regular tipping stage generally happening soon after only three to 4 drinks it is clearly very straightforward for people to drink adequate alcohol to knowledge these adjustments in their behaviour.

“Alcohol doesn’t only include calories that really do not fill us up as food does, it also can make us feel hungrier and weakens our resolve to make healthful options. Generating people a lot more conscious of this will give them the details they want to take individual duty for their weight.”

Bridget Benelam, Senior Nutrition Scientist at the British Nutrition Basis said: “Alcohol has a quick result on the brain and seems both to make food more enjoyable and to inhibit the sense of satiety when consuming, so can have a dual function in stimulating us to eat a lot more.

“In addition, for men and women who are consciously restricting their food consumption in buy to management their excess weight or stick to a wholesome diet plan, the results of alcohol make this more difficult to keep to.

“It’s actually crucial to be conscious of the results of alcohol on foods consumption because it’s so straightforward to consume a lot a lot more than you suggest to when you have been drinking.”

A Division of Wellness spokesman said: “We are critical about tackling obesity and alcohol misuse and are previously creating progress. We have offered all nearby authorities £5.four billion of protected funding so that they have the electrical power and freedom to tackle public overall health concerns in their nearby regions. Nonetheless, everybody has a function to play.

“The Change4Life campaign provides tips to families on how to improve their diet and life-style, such as tips on alcohol consumption. We are doing work in partnership across the meals and drinks sector to empower shoppers to make more healthy choices.”

Three drinks can scupper the diet plan leading to extra calories and excess weight achieve, authorities warn

Competitors authorities water down personal hospital break-up plans

Stephen Collier, chief executive of BMI Healthcare, who had previously criticised the competition authorities’ evaluation of the sector, welcomed the selection, saying the CMA’s predecssor, the CC, had “engaged openly with us and with our arguments and evidence, to reach a sensible, measured and honest conclusion”.

The US-based group is understood to be furious and has vowed to “vigorously challenge” the selection in the courts.

Mike Neeb, President and CEO of HCA Worldwide, sharply criticised analysis carried out by the CMA’s predecessor, the Competition Commission, saying it “handled the hugely complex healthcare method as a commodity market place, focusing nearly exclusively on cost and overlooking the importance of quality”.

“In failing to take into account our investment, the mix of patients we treat, and the complicated procedures we carry, the CMA has drawn inaccurate conclusions about HCA International’s pricing – some thing which we strongly refute and will of program be demanding,” he added.

Mr Need mentioned the competition authorities have been ordering the promote off of hospitals that it legally acquired, in the case of the London Bridge “with explicit approval by the OFT”.

Keith Biddlestone, HCA’s group business director, on Tuesday stated he was confident the group had “each likelihood of receiving a distinct outcome” from taking the choice to the Competitors Appeals Tribunal.

Competitors authorities concluded last August that charges for insured patients are too high because a lot of private hospitals face small competitors in neighborhood areas across the Uk, but personal healthcare bosses derided their evaluation as flawed.

Mr Collier in January argued that rising competitors would not lower prices due to the fact the fees currently reflect the charges of providing private healthcare.

At the time he accused competition authorities of “massively undervaluing” the investment necessary to offer “higher good quality personal healthcare”, saying the analysis suggested that “hospitals must be valued as if they stood in farmers’ fields”.

Competitors authorities water down personal hospital break-up plans

Authorities accused of cover-up in excess of death of patient killed by German GP

German physician Daniel Ubani. Photograph: Anthony Collins solicitors/PA

The household of David Gray, who was accidentally killed by a German medical doctor on his very first Uk shift as an out-of-hours GP, have accused British and German authorities and the EU’s judicial co-operation unit Eurojust of covering up particulars of the failed attempts to extradite the medical doctor 6 many years in the past.

Eurojust mentioned it would be against the public interest to publish them. One of Gray’s sons, Rory, who has failed in his most current attempt to create how Daniel Ubani was convicted in his own country rather than encounter criminal proceedings in the United kingdom, explained British prosecutors have been “complicit” with their German counterparts in keeping secret what had occurred.

Stephen Barclay, the MP for North East Cambridgeshire , the constituency in which David Gray lived, explained the family had been “badly let down” by choices to keep confidential the minutes of a meeting of Uk and Germanprosecutors held months soon after a furious row more than Germany’s handling of the case.

Rory Gray informed the Guardian: “The CPS is complicit with the Germans soon after their covert meeting held into the obstruction of the European arrest warrant and elimination of United kingdom justice. Germany wilfully acted to avoid the Uk applying Uk law in Britain.

“Germany licensed Ubani … who killed my father, then acted to cover up its grievous health care regulatory failures by avoiding the United kingdom from holding a public trial. The CPS reaction has been to try to prevent this from surfacing. The CPS is impotent if a foreign prosecutor chooses to make them so.”

Ubani was convicted of causing death by negligence in Germany in 2009, a lot more than a yr after he killed 70-12 months-outdated Gray in Manea, Cambridgeshire, by a massive overdose of the painkiller diamorphine. He in no way appeared in court, was offered a 9-month suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay €5,000 (£4,200) legal charges. Britain’s European arrest warrant aimed at taking Ubani to Britain on a achievable manslaughter charge was formally rejected only following the Guardian broke the story.

Cambridgeshire police and prosecutors had not expected German authorities to consider action themselves. The Cambridgeshire coroner later stated Gray had been unlawfully killed and Ubani was struck off the United kingdom healthcare register in June 2010. He is even now a medical doctor in Germany.

The fresh accusations came following Rory Gray, who performs as a scientist for the German climate support, lost his attempt to persuade the European ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, to make Eurojust release meeting information.

She said the German and United kingdom members on the physique had refused to divulge the “situation-connected” minutes, choices by which Eurojust was bound.

Eurojust, primarily based in The Hague, , also mentioned disclosure would “undermine the public curiosity as regards … national investigations and prosecutions in which Eurojust assists” and break secrecy guidelines.

There has never ever been any public government report on the failed extradition, in contrast to investigations into the failures by health-related authorities in the case and massive alterations in the way out-of-hrs GP services are run and monitored and EU medical professionals are checked before becoming allowed to operate in Britain.

Rory Gray’s attempts to see minutes, which had been supported by Uk well being ministers, were dashed by the ombudsman closing her inquiry into Eurojust’s refusal to release information of the meeting, which had depended on the United kingdom promising confidentiality.

Both the United kingdom and German members at Eurojust desired continuing secrecy, although a veto by the German member alone would have been enough to stop publication.

Barclay mentioned the Gray loved ones “have been badly allow down by the continued refusal of officials to disclose what went wrong in the handling of their situation.

“This cover up compounds the authentic failure whereby my constituent was killed via health care incompetence, has meant that the guilty get together continues to escape justice, and the family members continue to be in the dark as to what the CPS and police did incorrect. It is challenging to see how this kind of a blatant lack of transparency is in the public curiosity.”

The CPS says it has accomplished all it can to support the Gray loved ones. It informed Cambridge MEP Robert Sturdy earlier this month: “There was no comprehensive explanation presented by German contingent at the Eurojust meeting, so none could be provided to the household.”

The CPS informed the Guardian it had “endeavoured to keep Mr Gray informed of concerns as far as possible in relation to this case and we comprehend his frustration, but there is tiny much more we can do to assist him at this stage.”

German prosecutors started out their personal criminal investigation in June 2008, just weeks after British authorities had asked for assistance. German law obliged them to do so against citizens suspected of involuntary manslaughter, even when the offence was committed abroad, explained a spokesman for the North Rhine Westphalia ministry of justice. “This did not, as a matter of principle, rule out the probability of proceedings by a foreign (British] body.”

Nevertheless, as soon as Ubani had been sentenced, extradition was out of the query. As to maintaining the Eurojust minutes secret, the spokesman said: “An application for inspection of files was in no way produced to the justice ministry of North-Rhine Westphalia. The justice ministry of North-Rhine Westphalia in no way ruled on this kind of an application. Eurojust alone is accountable for ruling on applications for file inspection relating to Eurojust’s processes.”

Ubani is pursuing legal action in Germany against Rory Gray and his brother Stuart, a GP, alleging they disrupted his look at a conference on plastic surgical treatment in Lindau, in 2010.

Authorities accused of cover-up in excess of death of patient killed by German GP

Horsemeat scandal: probe failure by authorities dates back to 1998

A criminal investigation into hundreds of tonnes of unfit poultry meat by Rotherham council in 1998 also uncovered standard shipments of ‘ponymeat’ from China. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/Reuters

British authorities had been aware that tonnes of condemned horsemeat was getting imported for use by suspected fraudsters as prolonged ago as 1998 but failed to investigate the criminal networks concerned entirely for lack of sources, the Guardian has discovered.

Over 15 years ago, environmental wellness officers from Rotherham council investigating a conspiracy in which hundreds of tonnes of unfit poultry meat was recycled in to the human meals chain, found that regular shipments of about 20 tonnes every of frozen “ponymeat” from China had been arriving at Uk ports for months.

The horsemeat consignments had been condemned for the human food chain by the Chinese authorities but could have been used legally to make petfood, in accordance to a supply concerned with enforcement. However a paper trail showed the horsemeat going in to cold stores licenced for the human foods chain rather than for petfood and then disappearing in a separate suspected fraud, the source explained.

A spokesperson for Rotherham council confirmed that at the time it had investigated “important concerns relating to a broad variety of food stuffs, such as poultry, ‘ponymeat’, red meats, fish and frozen vegetables”. Convictions had been secured more than the poultry, but no 1 was charged in the other suspected circumstances.

The chain of brokers and cold retailers by means of which the horsemeat was passing overlapped with a criminal chain in which condemned poultry meat that was green with slime and covered with faeces was getting cleaned up with chemical substances, repacked and relabelled with faked official wellness marks and then moved in to the human food chain, the supply stated. The fraudulently mislabelled chicken and turkey was sold across the Uk to meals companies, schools and retailers which includes the low cost supermarkets Netto and Kwik Save.

FSA and police investigations into the 2013 horsemeat scandal have uncovered a comparable pattern, in which imported horsemeat passing by way of a technique of brokers and cold stores appears to have been repacked and relabelled with faked official overall health marks as beef, the Guardian has been informed, despite the fact that they have not proved in which specifically the fraud of mislabelling took location.

In the preceding Rotherham situation, 3 guys had been located guilty of promoting unfit poultry for human consumption at Hull crown court in December 2000.

According to an enforcement source, at the time officers warned the central authorities, including the Meals Requirements Company when it was newly formed in mid-2000, that the fraud was the tip of an iceberg of meat-connected crime they could see reaching in to a lot of other places across the nation. An additional case in Derbyshire in 2000 found unfit poultry becoming bleached and recycled to over one,000 foods manufacturers, wholesalers and merchants all round the Uk.

A series of meetings are explained to have been held at the FSA with local authority officers at which the ponymeat and poultry frauds were talked about. But the significance of the horsemeat was not understood.

Enforcement of meat regulation largely falls to neighborhood authorities and Rotherham council’s price range was getting severely strained by what had turn out to be a key criminal investigation costing it over £500,000.

A spokesperson for Rotherham council explained that in the 1998 investigation it was determined that the excess weight of evidence produced a prosecution far more probably to be profitable in the situation of the recycled poultry meat rather than the other suspected frauds like horsemeat. “The authority co-operated totally with the other companies involved in the prosecution,” she mentioned. The council no longer has total records for the period even so.

A spokesman for the FSA explained the company no longer had any information of meetings held by the appropriate enforcement officials for that time period either and so could not comment both to confirm or deny whether or not the horsemeat dilemma had been mentioned with it.

The information about the case from 1998 comes a year following the beginning of the horsemeat scandal when the Meals Safety Authority of Ireland first exposed the outcomes of a examine that identified undeclared horse in beefburgers from Tesco, Iceland, Aldi and Lidl. So far only one particular British horse abattoir has been charged with technical breaches of the food laws but there have been no prosecutions for fraud relating to the scandal in either the Uk or Ireland.

Measuring the scale of foods crime in the Uk has now been made a key priority for the group tasked by the Division for Atmosphere, Meals and Rural Affairs to overview the horsemeat scandal. Professor Chris Elliott from Queen’s University in Belfast’s Institute for Global Meals Safety, who is leading the overview, informed the Guardian that meals crime had grow to be “endemic” in the Uk. He believes that hazards are now so great that he has suggested that a new specialised police force be set up to tackle it.

His interim report last month described a case of big-scale meat fraud in 2005 which was another “missed chance”. Shipments of suspicious poultry meat from Asia led to raids on a cold retailer in Northern Ireland where a large provide of forged wellness marks purporting to come from a selection of meat plants across the EU have been located that have been the tools of a repacking and relabelling scam in which petfood was recycled as fit for human consumption. But at the time there was no capacity for the key criminal investigation justified by this kind of leads into food crime networks.

Elliott mentioned criminals concerned in meals crime had been nonetheless probably to go undetected, and even if detected unlikely to be efficiently prosecuted: “Horsegate was not a 1-off fraud is endemic in food and is probably to get worse since of the complexity of chains and the economic climate. The concentrate of regulators and industry has been security, and fraud has not been given the priority is need to have been.” He called for urgent modify to policy over meals crime, adding that “the complexity of the criminal network concerned in the horsemeat fraud will make it incredibly unlikely that these who perpetrated the crime will be effectively prosecuted”.

Horsemeat scandal: probe failure by authorities dates back to 1998

Sugar not as undesirable as tobacco say nutrition authorities

But Mr Lansley mentioned the comparison with tobacco was not proper and that customers would likely reject dramatic reductions in sugar.

Speaking in the course of his weekly query and answer session in the Commons, he mentioned: “You can’t simply slash the sugar in food otherwise individuals merely will not accept it.

“That is what they are hunting for. I will not believe it is assisted by what I believe are inaccurate analogies. I just will not think the analogy amongst sugar and tobacco is an acceptable 1.

“I consider we have to comprehend that sugar is an vital part of meals, it really is just that sugar in extra in an inappropriate and unhelpful diet.”

Nutrition authorities from about the nation also criticised the attempt to compare sugar with tobacco, saying blaming a single nutrient for obesity overlooked the other factors of the nation’s diet program that contribute extreme calories.

Professor Susan Jebb, a diet program and population overall health expert at the University of Oxford explained: “The scale of the obesity issue in this nation plainly demands higher action to improve the nation’s diet.

“But we need to have to move away from a reductionist approach which blames personal nutrients, such as sugar, and instead take a a lot more holistic method if we are going to reduce diet program-connected illness.”

Dr Victoria Burley, a senior lecturer in dietary epidemiology at Leeds University, described the comparison with alcohol and tobacco as “nuts”.

She stated: It is complete hyperbole, fairly crazy. The epidemiology for smoking causing cancer is powerful.

“You can seem at figures and see that a single quarter of cancer deaths are linked to smoking, that is one thing like 43,000 deaths a yr.

“There is definitely proof that weight problems is linked to cancer and coronary heart condition but there is minor proof that there is a causal website link in between sugar and weight problems.

“So you can’t say with any certainty that sugar is a trigger of death.

“Consumption of sugar has been reducing steadily considering that the 1960s. Sales of sweets, jams and preserves have all gone down.

She extra that sugar can be a valuable nutrient for people who are physically energetic or trying to acquire weight.

Professor Naveed Sattar, an professional in metabolic medication at Glasgow University, insisted that it is only when sugar is consumed excessively that it gets to be harmful.

He said: “The truth is that sugar on its very own is not necessarily negative if total calorie consumption matches calorie burn up and folks are standard excess weight and wholesome.

“However, when the diet program prospects to overconsumption of calories – here extra unwanted fat or sugar can the two be stored as extra fat in critical physique organs this kind of as the liver or muscle increasing overall health hazards such as diabetes, liver ailment and associated situations.”

Action on Sugar is aiming to assist the public to stay away from merchandise that contain hidden sugars and warns that children are a notably vulnerable group.

The group lists flavoured waters, sports drinks yogurts, ketchup, bread and prepared meals as becoming notably high in sugar. A can of Coca Cola, for instance, is made up of nine teaspoons of sugar whilst a % body fat yogur includes 5 teaspoons of sugar.

Professor Simon Capewell, an skilled in clinical epidemiology at the University of Liverpool who is top the campaign, explained: Professor Simon Copewell, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Liverpool who is major the campaign, said: “We believe the parallels among sugar and tobacco are very clear, but there is a time lag.

“Tobacco was flagged up as a public well being difficulty some decades ago and opinion gradually shifted and then debate and legislation followed.

“Sugar is like that but it is at a considerably earlier stage of the approach.

“We truly feel that young children are fully unprotected at the second and are anticipated to survive in a globe that is full of marketing and advertising on sugary food items and drinks.

“This is quite like tobacco 20 years in the past, and we consider the state is steering clear of its duty of care, especially for kids.”

Sugar not as undesirable as tobacco say nutrition authorities