Kea simply takes its share of nature’s bounty | Brief letters

From your report (22 September) on the endangered New Zealand parrot the kea: “its destructive habits such as … attacking stock and habitually stealing food”. A wild creature has no concept of harm or property, so both “attacking” and “habitually stealing” are demonising anthropomorphism. The kea, like any other predator species, is simply and instinctively taking its share of nature’s bounty, the only way it could have survived until now. By any rational criterion, a wild animal is beyond human conceits of blame and responsibility.
Alex Watson
North Nibley, Gloucestershire

• Samuel Gibbs fingers a poor battery as the iPhone 7’s big weakness (Technology review, 24 September). This after five hours’ music, three hours’ browsing, photos, emails, etc. Allowing for seven hours sleep where do, you know, people, fit in?
Bill Steedman
Edinburgh

• It’s autumn. Cue creeper-clad cottage at Llanrwst (Autumn’s glow, 19 September), red deer in Richmond Park (Stag in a green scene, 23 September) again. Wales has hundreds of picturesque cottages next to rivers and Britain six species of deer. Any chance of some variety in 2017?
Kate Gibbs
Llanfairfechan

• Homa Khaleeli’s article “Snap, crackle and filth” (Family, 24 September) reminded me of my father’s oft-repeated “Nothing wrong with good clean dirt.” This was in the 1950s, and 60 years later my brother and I are in excellent, unmedicated health.
Stephen Lee
Ryde, Isle of Wight

• Re the obituary of Sir Trevor Jones (24 September), please note that a Bootle accent is not a Liverpool accent.
Joyce Blackledge
Formby, Merseyside

• I was taught to drive by a Welsh woman fluent in both English and Welsh. I asked her what she thought of bilingual signage (Letters, 24 September). “Terrible,” she said. “I have to read everything twice.”
John Shimwell
London

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Kea simply takes its share of nature’s bounty | Brief letters

Is your shampoo safe? We simply don"t know | Dianne Feinstein

In the US, virtually none of the chemicals used in personal care products are independently evaluated for safety. Americans of all ages use these products every day – from lotion to shampoo, makeup to deodorant, hair dye to shaving cream – and many of the chemicals they contain are rapidly absorbed by the skin.

With increasing evidence that certain chemicals in personal care products are linked to a variety of health concerns, there is an urgent need to update the 80-year-old federal rules aimed at ensuring their safety.

Formaldehyde, which is used in Brazilian blowouts, has been associated with headaches and shortness of breath in the short term, and cancer in the long term.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are used as preservatives in creams, lotions and shampoos, have been linked to diabetes, obesity, reproductive disorders and even cancer.

And lead acetate, which is used in men’s hair dye, has also been linked to cancer.

The European Union and Canada have reviewed the ingredients in personal care products for decades. More than 1,500 chemicals are banned or restricted in Europe, while more than 800 are banned or restricted in Canada.

Due to outdated US laws, only 11 substances are banned or restricted. It’s long past time for the US to catch up.

The Personal Care Products Safety Act would finally address this glaring safety loophole.

The central component of the bill is an FDA review process for ingredients. The FDA would review at least five chemicals a year, chosen based on input from consumers, medical professionals, scientists and companies.

This process would address which chemicals can continue to be used in personal care products and, if so, what the concentration levels should be.

The FDA may determine that some chemicals, such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are not appropriate in any products, or are only appropriate in small amounts.

The key for many chemicals may be how much is used. We need to know at what concentration these chemicals are unsafe.

For example, after conducting a scientific review, the FDA may determine that a particular chemical is only safe at a concentration of 10 parts per million.

Going forward, all companies would need to reformulate their products so they contained no more than 10 parts per million of that ingredient.

Companies would still have the power to adopt a stricter standard. They could use less of a particular ingredient, or not use certain ingredients at all, but the ingredient review process would finally create a uniform safety standard.

The bill would also require companies to report adverse health effects. An ongoing investigation into the popular hair cleanser Wen highlights the need for this provision.

A class action lawsuit alleging significant hair loss has been filed on behalf of thousands of consumers, and the FDA has received 127 complaints about the product.

During the course of its investigation, the FDA discovered that a staggering 21,000 complaints had been registered with the company. Under our bill, the manufacturer would have been required to tell the FDA about all complaints related to negative health effects.

In addition, the bill would require companies to register with the FDA and provide a list of their ingredients, with a range of concentration for each one.

Warning labels would be required for products not appropriate for children, and complete label information, including ingredients and product warnings, would be posted online to ensure that consumers can make informed decisions.

Lastly, the FDA would be given the authority to recall products that cause serious harm.

Our bill has the broad bipartisan support needed to move forward. Consumer and health groups, including the Environmental Working Group, Endocrine Society and Good Housekeeping Institute, and a wide range of companies support the bill.

Industry support includes both the largest companies in the industry – Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Unilever – as well as small and mid-size companies such as California Baby, Dr Bronner’s and Madison Reed.

This marks the first time federal legislation on this issue has earned the support of both consumer and industry groups. These commonsense proposals are long overdue and the US Senate should act. Consumers deserve to know that the products they and their families use every day are safe.

Is your shampoo safe? We simply don"t know | Dianne Feinstein

Bariatric surgical procedure is no cure-all for obesity I know, simply because I have had it | Sharon Bates

‘What issues would bariatric surgical procedure expansion solve? Will it tackle the social and cultural issue of readily available, comparatively low cost food?’ Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

I am probably one of the few individuals in the United kingdom who is each a extended-phrase bariatric patient and a skilled specialising in the discipline of fat-loss surgical procedure. Fourteen many years in the past, when I was a dimension 32, function and everyday tasks – even getting in and out of the bath – proved challenging. I developed avoidance tactics to minimise bodily discomfort and the resultant sweating, soreness or breathlessness. Supermarket purchasing meant parking as near to an entrance as attainable, and often employing a trolley, basically so I could lean on it. I had sores from my flesh rubbing collectively in the summer time, and at the time I had excess weight-reduction surgical procedure, in 2000, buying outfits online was not an choice, so my selections had been severely constrained.

Last week, new NHS draft tips suggested gastric bands and other bariatric surgical treatment could be made offered to 800,000 further people to aid address the escalating problem of sort two diabetes. This is linked with becoming overweight, and the National Institute for Well being and Care Excellence (Great) has proposed lowering the threshold for bariatric surgical procedure. This would suggest that sort 2 diabetics with a BMI of 30, rather than 35, would potentially be eligible.

Possessing misplaced fat via bariatric surgical procedure, you may anticipate me to be in favour of this. But what difficulties would it fix? Will it deal with the social and cultural concern of readily accessible, fairly low cost foods? It is hardly likely to address the insistent marketing and advertising ploys of huge firms. Will it tackle why some of us are hugely geared to use foods and consuming as a reward, or the production and provision of overly huge portions? Will it quit meals or a huge latte getting consumed on the hoof? Stroll outdoors and note how clear and subliminal triggers connected to food and fluid surround us. We require to alter our culture as nicely.

These of us who have had surgical procedure realise that neither the surgical procedure nor weight reduction offers a easy solution. Surgery does not remedy diabetes, though it may possibly cause remission. Surgical procedure does not cure the practically assured osteoarthritis of people who are considerably obese.

When I stepped into the then practically unknown globe of excess weight reduction surgical treatment, I had the naive belief that fat loss surgery would be an easy, basic, swift and long term way to be thin. I would be asleep, and would wake up as a new man or woman who would rapidly shrink, both unable to eat or not wanting to eat.

It had taken me more than forty many years to turn out to be the shape and dimension I was, and there were numerous motives I had chosen to self-soothe or medicate employing foods. At the time I had no comprehending of the psychological, emotional, bodily and sensible approach that would comply with surgical treatment. I only wished to be thin – and two many years soon after my surgical treatment I had misplaced nine and a half stone.

Weight-reduction surgical treatment alterations your anatomy internally, but it can’t bypass previously learned behaviours. My weight was not the end result of becoming tied down and force-fed I chose to eat as a form of self-soothing, self-medicine and pleasure. I genuinely believed I did not consume massive quantities of foods and was resistant to accepting duty for how I cared for my physique or how I dealt with anxiety and wellbeing. I avoided workout, cooked and ate enormous enormous quantities and had little “me” time – when I was excess fat, I felt I wasn’t well worth my personal time.

To preserve or accomplish a healthy form and dimension, surgery has to be 1 of a selection of approaches, along with other people this kind of as yoga, pilates, counselling, private treatment, dietary assessment, treatment of allergy symptoms and healthcare problems. For me, the approach has mainly involved accepting responsibility for my overall health and wellbeing.

There are new factors to contend with when you alter size and shape. My skin became too massive for my frame and it was my accountability to decide on to whether do anything about it. The NHS may possibly be in a position to fund reconstructive plastic surgery following damage or congenital problems, but it is highly unlikely to fund redundant skin removal following bodyweight-reduction surgical procedure.

To make bariatric operations available to a lot more individuals, the NHS will have to alter. Even now, men and women who fall into the “agreed Wonderful criteria” are unable to accessibility the multi-disciplinary technique required for this surgical treatment to be profitable. There is not enough funding, also few appropriately qualified workers, psychology departments which are overstretched or simply unable to function one to a single for a lot more than a restricted number of sessions. Are we all ready to place our hands into our pockets and make substantially increased nationwide insurance payments?

More contentiously, any treatment method being integrated in a state-financed health method indicates difficult decisions. Do I stand prior to a thirty-yr-old soldier who has misplaced a limb and seeks funding for physio or a prosthesis? Does a tummy tuck come ahead of a skin graft for a kid who has suffered burns?

Thank goodness the proposal is at the moment a draft document, as it raises so several emotive factors. Do people have a “correct” to surgery? Has anybody costed prolonged-term aftercare for surgical individuals? The cost of related metabolic illness down the line? Re-operation, large-dependency bed use? The NHS must consider all these factors into account as well.

Medicare in the US is facing the same dilemma and forecasts that sort two diabetes and the resulting expenses will crush the technique, as predicted in the United kingdom. It has used fat-reduction surgical procedure far more broadly than Britain for many years. Has it really helped? It is well worth noting that I am still as most likely, if not far more very likely, to develop age-connected or weight problems-connected illness this kind of as variety 2 diabetes.

Would I do it again? It’s been a difficult journey but a revealing 1. Understanding how to be a man or woman in a “typical” body has been interesting. I have had counselling and therapeutic input. I have paid for every thing from commence to finish, and am so glad that I did it when I did.

As I walk the puppy four or 5 miles a day, it has taken me all these many years to get out of a fat-lady mind set. I can kayak, take pleasure in lifestyle and food much more than ever.

Paradoxically, obtaining not been diabetic when I had the surgery, I am probably pre-diabetic now. What would Good say about that predicament? I have no “appropriate” to be thin. I accept I may possibly regain some excess weight, and have, and only I can deal with that. There is no fairy godmother waving her magic scalpel for me – I have utilised that one up.

Bariatric surgical procedure is no cure-all for obesity I know, simply because I have had it | Sharon Bates

Legalise assisted suicide simply because "choice" the most critical principle in medicine - says BMJ

It difficulties MPs and peers to back the bill, describing them as “our timid lawmakers”.

Supporters of the bill welcomed the intervention, saying it was recognition that a “growing number” of medical doctors and other healthcare personnel support a adjust in the law.

But the BMA insisted that the journal did not represent its views or people of the wider healthcare occupation.

In just over two weeks Lord Falconer’s bill, which would allow medical professionals to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally sick patients with a “settled intention” to finish their lives, will have its initial complete parliamentary airing with a second reading debate in the Residence of Lords.

Members of each houses are to be given a free vote on the concern and ministers, including Norman Lamb, the care minister, have presently signalled they would assistance it.

Last week the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, publicly challenged Parliament to review the law on assisted suicide or encounter intervention by the courts.

The court turned down a challenge involving the loved ones of Tony Nicklinson, the “locked-in syndrome” sufferer who fought a lengthy campaign for assisted suicide, but signalled it could be prepared to declare the ban on assisting an individual to take their very own existence as “incompatible” with human rights if Parliament did not act.

“Let us hope that our timid lawmakers will rise to the [court’s] challenge,” the editorial remarks.

It goes on: Folks must be capable to workout decision in excess of their very own lives which must include how and when they die, when death is imminent.

“In current decades, respect for autonomy has emerged as the cardinal principle in health care ethics and underpins developments in informed consent, patient confidentiality, and advance directives.”

“Recognition of an individual’s appropriate to establish his or her best interests lies at the heart of this journal’s method to advance the patient revolution in wellness care.

“It would be perverse to suspend our advocacy at the second a person’s days have been numbered.”

Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director of the Care Not Killing Alliance, explained: “While autonomy is important it has to be balanced against other principles such as public security.

“None of us believes autonomy is absolute, if we did we would have to say that there was no location for law because every single law restricts personal autonomy.”

Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying explained: “We are delighted that the British Health care Journal has backed Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill.

“The recognition by the leading healthcare journal of the importance of safeguarded patient choice in finish of daily life care is to be welcomed, and comes at a time when a developing amount of foremost wellness care experts are supporting this kind of decision.”

Dr Mark Porter, chair of the BMA Council, stated: “There are strongly held views inside of the medical profession on the two sides of this complex and emotive issue.

“The BMA remains firmly opposed to legalising assisted dying.

“This problem has been often debated at the BMA’s policy forming yearly conference and latest calls for a adjust in the law have persistently been rejected.

“The BMJ is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BMA, and quite rightly has editorial independence.

“Its position on assisted dying is an editorial decision and does not reflect the views of the BMA or the health care occupation.

“Our concentrate have to be on creating sure every single patient can accessibility the really best of palliative care, which empowers individuals to make selections in excess of their care.”

Legalise assisted suicide simply because "choice" the most critical principle in medicine - says BMJ

Thousands of NHS individuals left waiting for medication simply because of troubles with private contractor

A joint inspection by the GPC and the Care High quality Commission in April found that a “proportion of individuals did not receive their medicines at the scheduled time.

“While a number of measures had been taken by the time of the inspection… Healthcare at Home needed to do a lot more to treatment the predicament,” the Council concluded. The watchdog ordered the firm to resolve the problems inside 3 months.

The company explained it was working hard to address the concerns and had increased its client support personnel by a lot more than 60%.

Liz Carroll, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, which represents patients with the blood-clotting disorder, described the failures as “unacceptable and unsafe.”

“We have met with Healthcare at Home and it truly is clear they are attempting to tackle the issues, but they look to be overwhelmed.

“It is extremely scary for patients when their medicines will not arrive simply because failure to consider their treatment could be lifestyle threatening. Then there are sensible troubles, like deliveries taking area at 2am, or treatment method currently being sent to the incorrect handle, or cotton wool being provided as an alternative of needles,” Ms Carroll stated.

Nick Rijke, Director of Policy and Analysis at the Multiple Sclerosis Society Society, mentioned: “It is a disgrace that crucial medicines have not been reaching men and women who require them, and that this dilemma has been allowed to go on for so long.’

The Royal Devon &amp Exeter Hospital at present has 129 a number of sclerosis individuals who obtain medication from Healthcare at House. Given that March five, in excess of a fifth of these sufferers have contacted an in-residence pharmacy staff due to the fact they have had problems with their deliveries.

University University Hospital in London, which at present has 1500 patients who receive medication from Healthcare at Home, says it has stopped giving the company new referrals. And nearby Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Basis explained Healthcare at Home has been topic to fines above the final couple of months due to failed deliveries.

In Gateshead the Queen Elizabeth Hospital has stopped using Healthcare at Property to supply drugs to its personal IVF individuals since of complaints.

According to minutes of a meeting held with the Division of Overall health on December eleven 2013, a “full and frank discussion took area which concerned an explanation as to the trigger of recent services concerns [by Healthcare at Home"s representatives] and how they are getting resolved by the organization.”

The troubles have been place down to two crucial troubles: the outsourcing of distribution arrangements to one more company in an try to lengthen its services to include weekend and evening deliveries, and the addition of nearly 3,000 additional individuals which it took in excess of following an additional provider withdrew from the market.

The organization issued a statement to patient groups blaming “a considerable and unexpected rise in demand’ for homecare solutions, which had caused ‘significant disruption and backlog of deliveries’ ‘over the past couple of months.”

The statement reassured sufferers that the company was operating to remedy operational troubles that had caused “important disruption” more than the “past couple of months”.

Three months later in March 2014 Healthcare at Home said that it was no longer accepting new ‘high risk’ sufferers such as people struggling from haemophilia or respiratory diseases like cystic fibrosis since it could not ensure acquiring their medicines to them on time or in complete.

The firm blamed IT concerns and a “method failure” relating to the firm’s outsourcing of its logistics and warehousing departments.

On April 10, NHS England warned NHS trusts stating that reports of medicines failing to be delivered on time had ‘increased significantly’.

It advised trusts to place substitute approaches of supply in area for patients whose deliveries had been delayed and to assess providers’ capability just before assigning them far more patients.

Ruth Poole, Healthcare at Home’s clinical director mentioned the firm’s deliveries had been affected because November 2013, but she stated the firm was operating tough to deal with troubles. She stated: “We have elevated our client services capability by 60%. We are not having to pay attention to price when fighting this. We will spend what we want to.”

She directed patients help web site which will give patients up to date info about the current support and measures getting taken to increase deliveries and contact queuing occasions.

Thousands of NHS individuals left waiting for medication simply because of troubles with private contractor

"I virtually died simply because I ignored the risk of malaria"

Due to fly back to Haiti the day after my symptoms appeared, I rashly assumed hospitals in that stricken country would be able to treat whatever it was I had. And twice, the plane I was due to take, suffered mechanical failure, which meant spending a night in Miami and the loss of precious time. I was finally admitted to a clinic in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, some 48 hours after my first symptoms – by which time the falciparum parasite was hard at work. Pneumonia and jaundice caused by liver failure had already set in. No wonder everything had a golden glow; catching sight of myself in a mirror at one point I saw my eyes were totally yellow.

The clinic did its best, but my case was too serious for its medical facilities to deal with. Thank heavens I had bought full medical and evacuation insurance: it probably saved my life, as it meant I could be flown out to the Dominican Republic, the closest country with a decent, functioning medical system.

Being flown out by air ambulance was a relief, but the intensive care unit I was taken to was full. The friend who had come with me was handed a list of other hospitals to try: off we went on a midnight tour of the darker side of Santo Domingo, the country’s capital, until we found one.

From this point on, my memory is a blur. By now, the parasite had attacked my lungs, liver, kidney and stomach, and there was fluid on my heart. As my organs failed, my body went into septic shock. My legs swelled to twice their normal size, while my skin, eyes and urine were yellowish orange. I had numerous medications to tackle the different problems, as well as undergo blood transfusions and dialysis.

The worst part was the feeling of drowning, since my lungs were full of fluid. The last thing I remember is having an oxygen mask on my face, trying desperately to breathe. To my right was the doctor, arms crossed staring intently at a monitor of my vital signs; behind him, my friend, silent and in tears.

I am not going to die, I thought. I am close, but it is not yet my time. Strangely, I did not feel frightened. And then I slipped off into a coma, induced so that I could be put on a ventilator that would breathe for me.

Apparently, people look pretty appalling on a ventilator. The tubes have to be strapped across the face to ensure they don’t move. The body rises and falls in an artificially eerie way. Add this to the swelling and infection – I wasn’t a pretty picture. One friend who visited was so shocked he couldn’t even approach my bedside.

Of the week I spent on the ventilator, I remember very little. The faces of family and friends who came to visit me occasionally floated across my vision and I recall voices telling me stay calm. I didn’t feel any pain because of the heavy sedation, but I felt in a very dark place. At 33, I was fighting for my life.

At some point, things turned around. My lungs were getting better, and my liver count improved. Around the same time, I had to come off the ventilator, to prevent permanent damage to my windpipe from the tubes. Doctors carried out a tracheostomy, in which a small opening is made in the neck, into the windpipe and a tube attached to a machine inserted to aid breathing. Slowly I emerged from the coma, back into the real world.

And yet intensive care is not the real world. It is an oppressive, strip-lit place of eternally beeping chaos. There are people dying and people crying. There is the 24/7 chatter of the nurses. There are no windows, no daylight, no starlight. Time stops: minutes blur into hours, into days, into weeks. Like 80 per cent of ICU patients, I was delirious, in an alternative reality full of fear and paranoia. It was like one of those nightmares that seems to go on forever.

It took the doctors a few attempts to remove the tracheostomy tube so that I could breathe on my own, but finally they managed it. The minute they wheeled me out of the ICU into a quiet room of my own, I emerged from my nightmare.

Very slowly, things started returning to normal. After a few weeks, I took my first few steps, my blurry vision started to clear and I began eating food again. It had never tasted better.

Depression set in, though, when I realised I wouldn’t be returning to my previous life in Haiti – in fact, I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything for a few months. My wonderful doctor – without whose determination I believe I would never have made it – noticed this dip in my morale and would push my wheelchair outside into the sunshine: after four weeks of windowless hell, it was blissful.

After six weeks, still fragile, I left hospital to stay in a nearby hotel. I improved steadily and, after numerous tests and surgery to close the tracheostomy, I was allowed to fly home to London. There, I had surgery twice to get rid of scar tissue in my trachea from the ventilation tubes. It took six months for me to feel anything like normal.

Being very ill has taught me a lot, not least about complacency when it comes to protecting my health. My message to would-be travellers is this: if antimalarials are recommended, be sure to take them and stock up well – they may save your life. Try to avoid getting bitten: use spray, nets and long sleeved clothing. Fever and other symptoms should be checked immediately, and in remote areas, a malarial testing and treatment kit is useful. And always make sure you have good medical insurance.

If my terrifying experience can help save just one young life, it will have been worth it.

Mandy George is fundraising for Malaria No More UK, a charity dedicated to saving lives from malaria. For details, go to justgiving.com/mandygeorge

What is malaria?

Malaria is an infection caused by the malaria parasite entering the bloodstream through the bite of an infected mosquito. There are five different strains, of which P. falciparum and P. vivax are the most dangerous.

Malaria is found in over 100 countries worldwide and causes at least 660,000 deaths annually. The disease is common in tropical and subtropical regions including much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Americas

Malaria usually begins with flu-like symptoms such as fever, sweats and chills, headaches, joint pain, vomiting and jaundice, and can lead to coma and death. Early, accurate diagnosis and treatment is critical.

Malaria can be prevented by taking antimalarial medication and avoiding mosquito bites with the use of insect repellents and mosquito nets.

In 2011, 1,677 travellers returning to the UK were diagnosed with malaria and eight died. Travellers should seek medical advice before travelling to a malarial area. If you develop malaria symptoms while travelling or after returning to the UK, seek medical treatment immediately.

"I virtually died simply because I ignored the risk of malaria"

Too numerous needless deaths simply because elderly cancer sufferers are "written off"

New study from the charity and the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) identified that tens of 1000′s of pensioners who have been diagnosed with cancer have survived for at least a decade.

More than 130,000 individuals in the Uk have survived for at least ten years right after getting diagnosed with cancer at the age of 65 or above, the charity stated.

This consists of a lot more than 8,000 individuals who have been diagnosed at the age of 80 and more than.

But the charity explained that the figures would be far higher, if numerous patients in the Uk had been not being denied remedy because they are deemed to be as well old.

Survival prices for practically all widespread cancers are worse in Britain that the European typical, global investigation has discovered.

In December, a examine of more than 29 countries in contrast five year survival for stomach, colon, rectal, lung, melanoma skin, breast, ovarian, prostate, and kidney cancers as well as the blood cancer non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

It found that only for skin cancer was survival in this country better than the EU regular.

For many cancers, survival was on a par with countries in Eastern Europe.

The charity said doctors required to make greater assessments of patients’ physical and wellbeing, with too numerous decisions on whether or not or not to commence treatment method taken on the basis of age alone.

Mr Devane mentioned: “With a suitable evaluation and suitable remedy, our analysis shows that a lot of older cancer sufferers can dwell for a prolonged time and can even be cured.

“Although it really is very good news that so many older men and women are benefitting from treatment method, numerous thousands a lot more could reside longer if our survival rates for above 65s matched people in comparable countries.

NCIN’s clinical lead Dr Mick Peake additional: “It is important that all individuals receive the ideal and most successful therapy based on the nature of their cancer and their fitness for remedy and that chronological age alone is not the choosing factor.

“We know that cancer survival rates in older individuals in a lot of other nations are greater in the United kingdom and guaranteeing optimal therapy at all ages is the way of tackling this concern.”

Dr Mark Porter, chair of council at the British Medical Association, stated: “It is important that all healthcare experts ensure that sufferers are taken care of on the basis of their clinical want.

“With an more and more ageing population, it need to be a key component of health care professionalism to assure that older patients are handled with the care and respect they deserve.”

Too numerous needless deaths simply because elderly cancer sufferers are "written off"