Anti-FGM campaign launched in UK to mark global day of opposition

A national campaign carrying the symbol of a red triangle will be rolled out across the UK to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council has partnered with the Freedom charity to encourage people to provide the police with information that can help detect and prevent FGM in the UK and abroad.

Commander Mak Chishty, the police national lead on “honour”-based violence, has written to every police force in the country reminding them that while progress has been made, there is yet to be a successful prosecution for FGM.

He wrote: “This is a particular area of political and public scrutiny and I would urge each force to maximise every opportunity to demonstrate that we as a service are doing everything that is possible to combat FGM.”

His letter also cited a prevalence study published in July 2015 by City University and Equality Now, the human rights group, which showed that no local authority in the UK was unaffected by FGM.

Chishty told the Guardian: “We are raising awareness that FGM is a crime and that anybody involved in the process – from turning a blind eye to the act of cutting – commits a criminal offence. This is form of child abuse and violence against women and girls.”

More than 13,000 posters promoting the Red Triangle initiative have been distributed to police forces to display inside police buildings and within appropriate community settings.

Police leads have been asked to evaluate the campaign’s impact by monitoring any increased reporting, receipt of intelligence or new engagement opportunities.

Aneeta Prem, a writer and the founder of Freedom, has written a novel warning about FGM, called Cut Flowers, that is being distributed to schoolchildren to raise awareness of the illegal practice.

She said: “Over 200 million women and girls have gone through the horrors of FGM and we know that girls are being cut here in the UK. Unofficial figures estimate that 137,000 girls and women in Britain are affected.

“Through education we can stop FGM in a generation. Through teaching we can explain the long-term health dangers and dispel the myths that have kept this barbaric practice alive. The help of boys as well as girls is needed to change opinions.”

She added: “We are asking that people wear the red triangle badge to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance to FGM.”

A 25-year-old from Somalia who suffered FGM and now lives in London said: “I was cut when I was five years old. I still feel pain and relive that moment every day. I completely support the Red Triangle campaign and hope it will encourage girls to ask for help.”

FGM protection orders intended to safeguard girls at risk came into effect in the UK in July 2015. The latest figures from the Ministry of Justice showed 97 applications and 79 orders had been made up to the end of September 2016.

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the government was taking “world-leading action” to tackle FGM by strengthening the law to improve protection for those at risk and by removing barriers to prosecution.

She said: “This government has introduced FGM protection orders, a new offence of failing to protect a girl from FGM, a mandatory reporting duty for frontline professionals, new guidance for the police, and lifelong anonymity for victims to encourage them to come forward.

“We are sending a clear message that FGM will not be tolerated, and as part of this I am determined to see the country’s first successful prosecution for FGM.”

The Red Triangle campaign, which will run until International Women’s Day on 8March, iwill officially launch at Haverstock school in Camden, north London, on Monday.

Anti-FGM campaign launched in UK to mark global day of opposition

Mark Austin admits he told anorexic daughter "starve yourself to death"

The broadcaster Mark Austin has revealed how he struggled to understand his daughter’s anorexia and “failed utterly to grasp that she was seriously mentally ill”.

In a candid account, he admits he thought her “crass, insensitive, selfish and pathetic” and became so frustrated he once told her: “If you really want to starve yourself to death, just get on with it.”

But now the TV presenter hopes to break the taboo around potentially deadly eating disorders and is calling for improved mental health provision to deal with the crisis of more than 850,000 young sufferers, predominantly girls, in the UK.

Austin’s daughter Maddy, now 22, became ill in 2012, losing four stone and changing from a healthy and promising athlete to an “emaciated, ghostlike figure”.

He recalled: “I didn’t understand it at first. Cancer I understand … but this was my daughter wilfully destroying herself by not eating.”

Writing in the Sunday Times magazine, he described how Maddy would lie about how much she had eaten and “explode with rage” when challenged.

“She showered me with contempt. As a father you have to make a decision and I made the wrong one. I decided to go on the attack.”

He said: “I even remember saying, ‘If you really want to starve yourself to death, just get on with it’. And at least once, exasperated and at a loss, I think I actually meant it.”

The newsreader acknowledged that as a father he felt “excluded and hated” and found it hard to talk about issues of body image and weight control.

“I floundered and, in the process, ended up poisoning her against me further,” he said.

Austin described how things hit rock bottom for Maddy after a failed spell at a private inpatient unit on a regime of forced feeding. She resisted the treatment and threatened to kill herself. Maddy’s mother became so worried that when her daughter returned home she took time off work and slept on her bedroom floor so as to monitor her around the clock.

Maddy was eventually “saved” by a local NHS day-patient unit.

She recalled: “Eventually it was a local NHS nurse who really understood me and saw the Maddy without the demons. I was lucky, but mental health treatment should not be a lottery.”

Now her father is urging people to take the illness more seriously and is calling for “walk-in centres on the high street of every town and city in this country, manned by trained counsellors”.

He added: “As a country our response is bordering on the pathetic. It is a mental illness, but, almost uniquely, it is one that kills.”

One in 100 women aged between 15 and 30 are affected by anorexia and it is reckoned that one in five chronic anorexics will die as a result of the condition or because they take their own life.

The Beat youthline can help young people experiencing an eating disorder: 0345 634 7650. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here

Mark Austin admits he told anorexic daughter "starve yourself to death"

On Time to Talk day, solidarity on mental health would be better than sympathy | Mark Brown

If you have been inundated today with people on Facebook, Twitter and daytime television imploring you to discuss mental health, that is because it is Time to Talk day. Mired in politeness and caution, people with mental health difficulties across the UK have gently requested kindness and understanding. Perhaps you’ve made the right noises and nodded sympathetically. You’ll probably feel you did the right thing, but unfortunately your compassion will not be enough to change anything.

In his novel Things Can Only Get Better, John O’Farrell recalls having the Jamaican poet Michael Smith as a guest at an early 80s university radical poetry evening. Afterwards Smith was turned away from a club for being black. Back at a student house Smith exclaimed: “I want justice!” to be answered by a young woman saying “I can’t give you justice but I can give you a hug.” This is where we’re at with mental health in the UK.

Anyone can endorse nice sentiments. Theresa May raised the issue of the importance of such conversations just last month. But the fact is that people with mental health difficulties often experience shorter, poorer, unhappier lives. In the UK, people diagnosed with schizophrenia run the risk of dying 20 years earlier than the average British person. Those who have psychological problems during childhood earn 25% less than those who didn’t by the age of 50.

Experiencing mental health issues often leads to exclusion. You either take yourself away from others or others take themselves away from you. Suddenly relationships you thought you were driving career into the central reservation at high speed in a tangle of steel and glass. Work, school or college might go wrong. But none of these things cause exclusion. How society treats and stigmatises a person when that happens is what causes exclusion.

If you care about people with mental health difficulties then you have to be prepared to make changes, not just to your attitude but in the way you want your country to work. As a starting point, it would be wise to stop telling people to seek help and support that you know isn’t there. Austerity has gutted our communities of organisations that can make life liveable with mental health issues. Admit that it is not mental ill health that plunges people into crisis, it is the lack of support, protection and assistance that does that.

Mental health treatment is underfunded, so society needs to start paying for it. If people have to leave work because they are in distress do not punish them by forcing them into poverty and then make them beg for the tiniest crumbs of financial support in the form of benefits.

The country we live in does not give second chances and is unlikely to do so without pressure. Opportunities for education, opportunities to find a comfortable place to live, opportunities to progress: all take investment and the political will to pay for them instead of something else. If you really care about people with mental health difficulties think about what you would be prepared to give up in return for their safety, their security and for them to thrive.

We talk about fighting cuts but the money to achieve equality for people with mental health difficulties has never been there. We need to be fighting for a future where supporting and protecting the lives of those experiencing mental distress is not an optional act of kindness but an obligation hard-wired into all of structures and thinking. The man on the street might say that sounds like special treatment, like whining instead of pulling your socks up. But the man on the street will keep saying that until we seize the political initiative. Or until his brain flips over one night and he can’t trust his own thoughts and feelings and suddenly he discovers the world doesn’t work for him any more.

Being in distress hurts. Finding you are treated unequally at such a time even more so. So it’s understandable that people will try to end the pain of exclusion by asking politely to be let back into “normal life” without any fuss. The imbalance of power remains when a dominant majority thinks it is doing a favour by bestowing benevolent and charitable understanding upon an insecure minority. But until that majority is prepared to alter structures, laws and practices that they benefit in favour of those they discriminate against, all we have is warm sentiments.

On this Time to Talk day, fight the rosy glow you’ll feel at having listened to someone’s hard life and remember it is possible to be a lovely person in a discriminatory system. Reflect on what you have heard then think about what must change. Because while your sympathy is welcome, your solidarity and political voice as part of the dominant majority will go further.

On Time to Talk day, solidarity on mental health would be better than sympathy | Mark Brown

Want to know how society"s doing? Forget GDP – try these alternatives | Mark Rice-Oxley

Here are the week’s leading indicators. The Dow Jones industrial average topped 20,000 points for the first time. British GDP grew 0.6% in the final quarter of 2016. The FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX 30 persisted close to record highs, while US GDP softened slightly.

Bored yet? I am. As a former financial journalist, I’m well acquainted with the merry-go-round of indicators that blip in and out of our lives like digital dopamine, telling us how well we’re doing. As a human being, I’m increasingly alarmed that these are just irrelevant numbers that have little or no bearing on how well we are really doing.

Stock market indices have long been decoupled from what is happening in the real world. All they reflect is the performance of big private pension pots belonging to the haves (in Britain only 58% of people have private pensions and the majority of those really very small), and how big the bonuses of a few thousand money men (yes, mostly men) will be this year.

Indeed, a company’s share price rising might be an indication of a round of redundancies or other cost-cutting which makes shareholders richer at the expense of staff. The number of people who should celebrate the Dow hitting 20k is truly tiny. Most of them wouldn’t be much fun to go out for a beer with.

As for GDP, has there ever been an acronym as spellbindingly dismal as this? GDP goes up if you sit in traffic for an hour with the engine ticking over. It doesn’t if you stay at home, caring for a sick child. GDP has soared in China over the past 20 years. Now its people wear masks in the street to filter the smog. GDP can’t measure the things that are really important to us – our health, relationships, environment – but can and does measure when industries strip-mine the Earth to make gimcrack that nobody wants but which people buy anyway, and then throw away.

This is not to deride the herculean efforts of journalists who follow this stuff, like our own Graeme Wearden, who tries to makes sense of the blizzard of financial data spewed out every day here.

Instead, I’d rather suggest a series of other metrics that give a clearer indication of where humanity is at. Perhaps these are the key performance indicators we should hardwire into our reporting calendar:

If we must focus on financial instruments, make it edible commodities. You can’t eat a Treasury bill, after all

One of the lessons of the 20th century was that inequality breeds revolt and revolutions never end well. One of the lessons of the 21st century is that people seem to be determined not to learn the lessons of the 20th century. The Gini coefficient is a crude measure of how unequal societies are becoming. Some economists have been toying with another measure, the Palma ratio, which is better at discerning how much richer the richest cohort are getting, compared with the poorest. Both tell us much about our direction of travel.

If we must focus on financial instruments, edible commodities are surely more interesting than stock and bond prices. You can’t eat a three-month Treasury bill, after all. In 2007/08, a wave of riots swept the developing world as the cost of basic foodstuffs soared. Governments fell. A dotted line joined that manifestation of unrest with the Arab spring four years later. Food matters. We routinely write that as many as a billion people on the planet are hungry, malnourished. That’s far more than the number with Dow Jones tracker funds.

The most scary dataset of all. It goes up every year. And so do global temperatures. If this carries on for another couple of decades, people won’t be inspecting their portfolios – they’ll be foraging in the woods. Has anyone read The Road?

Carbon dioxide graphicCarbon graphic

A veritable bellwether for so much – from the wretched state we’re in psychologically to the inadequacies of our healthcare systems. Prescriptions have doubled in England in the past decade. An interest to declare: I take them, and believe they work for me. But I also firmly believe they are prescribed far too readily, by overstretched GPs who have only six minutes to speak to patients and little recourse to anything other than pills. Personally, I’d be willing to shave a couple of points off GDP in return for a more comprehensive programme to address this 21st-century epidemic.

Not just in the UK, where it’s risen for six years in a row, but in California, Paris, Moscow. Surely, one of the first questions a newly arrived alien might ask upon landing in Britain would be “why do so many of you earthlings live outside?”, and not “how are my BT shares doing?”

Admittedly, this is not a thrilling one to monitor as it doesn’t move much. But it is moving – and in the wrong direction for lots of developed countries. The dependency ratio is the number of working-age people compared with the number of children and those over retirement age. According to the Resolution foundation, there are currently seven dependants for every 10 working-age Britons, but this will increase to eight in the 2020s and nine by 2050.

I’ve barely scratched the surface. Everywhere you look, there are better benchmarks than these tired old financial yardsticks. Let’s retire them, and find a new set of data to measure the performance of our leaders.

Want to know how society"s doing? Forget GDP – try these alternatives | Mark Rice-Oxley

Disabled people are to be ‘warehoused’. We should be livid | Mark Brown

The inescapable logic of austerity is looking likely, once again, to reduce people with disabilities to objects – and in doing so to reduce their independence, options and enjoyment of life. According to the Health Service Journal, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from campaign group Disability United found that 37 NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England were introducing rules about ongoing care that could force up to 13,000 people with health conditions into care homes. The CCGs will essentially begin saying to people with disabilities and long-term health needs: if you haven’t got the cash for homecare, then it’s off to a care home for you.

As a country we have been brutalised into accepting that each year the porridge pot gets smaller and our belts tighter

Imagine you have been living in your home for years. It might be where your kids were born. Being at home, having your stuff around you, having the greatest possible measure of independence, obviously means a lot to everyone, whether you’re well, ill or disabled. Then one day someone comes and tells you, “Nope, you’re too expensive here. We’re moving you to a care home unless you cough up the money to pay for what you need.”

This sounds innocuous to many people. Disabled people and care homes go together in the public mind as easily as “peak-time train service” and “cancellation”. The FOI requests found CCGs were setting limits on how much they were prepared to pay for supporting people in their homes compared to an “alternative option”, which is usually a care home. They were willing to pay between 10% and 40% above the care home option, which will often not be enough to keep someone in their own home.

Anita Bellows, a member of campaigning group Disabled People Against the Cuts is emphatic about what this means: “Institutionalisation is the logical conclusion of cutting the funds for maintaining people at home.”

As Fleur Perry of Disability United says: “Somebody who has never met the person in question can sign a bit of paper and change everything about a person’s way of life.”

One person told me that when discharged from hospital recently, they narrowly avoided being moved to a care home only because their sibling stepped in to organise an appropriate care package.

Disabled people have long fought against the phenomenon of “warehousing” – storing people with care needs under one roof as a way to reduce the costs of providing them with the support they require. The word warehousing captures the full horror people feel about being forced into institutional care, losing privacy and autonomy. Historically, out-of-town institutions like deaf and blind schools and mental asylums were huge storage vessels for disabled people who needed help and care. This segregation continued into the 1970s and 1980s in the UK, when the battle for independent living was finally won and disabled people gained rights to all of the things non-disabled people take for granted; essentially the right to live their lives however they see fit.

Disability campaigner and retired consultant and trainer in disability and abuse Merry Cross tells me this oncoming change is a recipe for abuse. She remembers hearing about incidents in care homes in the late 1970s and early 1980s of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, theft of money and belongings and staff deciding what clothes people would wear. Abuse is not only historic. It was only in 2011 that the treatment of disabled people at Winterbourne View care home shocked the country.

The tendency to see disabled people as objects rather than complete people leads to the view that they are less than human. That obviously affects the way disabled people are spoken about – the “stick ’em in a home” attitude – and treated. This is why disabled people have benefited greatly from the legal protections provided by legislation such as the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

But saving money apparently trumps all. The CCGs know they are considering something that is at the very least highly contentious. Two CCGs acknowledged in their documents that their policy might contravene an individual’s right to respect for his or her private and family life under the Human Rights Act but felt they could justify it on grounds of cost. One had its policy checked by lawyers to ensure it would not be subject to legal challenge. Our current prime minister would like to pull out of the ECHR and scrap the Human Rights Act.

The government’s never-ending and ideological quest for savings has given NHS CCGs an almost impossible task: to make efficiency savings at a time of increasing demand. It feels like we’ve been talking about “the cuts” forever. As a country we have been brutalised and traumatised into accepting that the only reality is one where each year the porridge pot gets smaller and our belts tighter. It seems that 2017 is the year when the spoon starts to scrape the bottom.

Warehousing returns whenever the idea of reducing the cost of supporting people with disabilities and ongoing health conditions arises. The economic argument for concentrating people into institutions – though of course they wouldn’t be called institutions this time around – is just that it would be cheaper. Nothing more than that. We should all be livid.

Disabled people are to be ‘warehoused’. We should be livid | Mark Brown

How to escape the overthinking trap: stop judging yourself | Mark Rice-Oxley

Before Christmas I took a young relative to a jazz concert. The thought of it ruined his whole day. He scuffed around the house like an alt-right voter at a refugee camp.

In the event, even he acknowledged that we had a fine time. But neither of us would ever get back the dreadful hours that preceded it. He’d fallen prey to a cardinal paradox – poisoning the present by agonising over a future hardship that never materialised.

We’ve all done that. The homo sapiens is so damn clever, and yet sometimes so stupid with it. We are the only species that can really think “offline” – wrapped up in things that haven’t yet happened or things that are long gone but can never be changed. This makes us excellent problem solvers, but appalling worriers at the same time.

Thinking is what gave humans ascendancy. But overthinking is threatening to bring us down. Critical thinking has undoubtedly advanced our cause and become one of the essential assets of being so brilliantly human, but introspective thinking – our near constant self-evaluation, who we are, where we fit, how we compare – is becoming one of the most destructive aspects of modern life. We must purge it.

We are in thrall to the rigid, judgmental thoughts we think about ourselves, prisoners of the sinewy web of cogitation that tells us we are strong, clever, important, unassertive, patriotic, hopeless, old, fat, hard done by, forgotten – when actually we may be many of these things rolled into one. This narrow view of ourselves shapes impossible expectations that can only lead to disappointment. It ripples outwards into our emotions and our behaviour. The results are to be seen daily on our front pages. A father thinks he is the ultimate authority in his family. When his daughter challenges him, he has her killed. A young man thinks he is strong, identifies through his supposed manliness; it directs his violent behaviour.

Our obsessive thinking about ourselves even informs the air of political revolt that made 2016 such a big turning point. In the richest, healthiest, most prosperous era we have ever known, people punish themselves by ruminating and finding that their lives don’t match up to those they think others are leading. It’s a short step from disappointment to blame, and a protest vote.

Too much of our behaviour is determined not by how things are, but how we think things are

But this overthinking tendency is not limited to politics. It embeds personal misery in an era in which we are tempted, even encouraged, to compare ourselves with other people: the teenager who feels low because of what her Instagram feed makes her think; the thwarted youngster, demoralised by the success of others; the employee who feels insecure because she thinks the boss blanked her on the stairwell; the hypochondriac who thinks he is dying of everything. Think bad, feel bad. Compare and despair. It’s no wonder there is a mental illness epidemic out there. Time to wake up, people. The voice in your head is not who you are. It’s just an excitable commentator. You are the game.

Too much of our behaviour is determined not by how things are, but how we think things are. But this thinking is not worth paying too much attention to, for two reasons. First, it is probably incorrect. Let’s face it: we are hardly objective in evaluating ourselves. We overexaggerate both our talents and failings. This is the original fake news.

And second, whether right or wrong, these self-evaluations simply are not helpful. They just make us feel worse.

We need a completely new relationship with our thoughts. Instead of viewing the world and our experience as we think they ought to be, we need to treat them as they actually are. We need to recognise when we are ruining a day, a week, a moment or a relationship with catastrophic thoughts and judgments, and understand that often it is the thought itself that makes us feel bad, not the experience itself.

But how to cultivate that sense of detachment from a poisonous, unhelpful or just plain wrong stream of thinking? Visual clues can help: a post-it on a computer screen (mine just says “thinking …”) or a screensaver on a phone. I wear a black wristband to remind me why I do this. A discreet tattoo might do the same, if that’s your thing.

Habit is even better: get used to observing, say, the first three thoughts you have upon waking every day – were they functional, workaday, banal; or were they judgmental, apprehensive, punishing? Some people like to use motifs – thoughts as a torrent of traffic, cars driving past, and you don’t have to get in the passenger seat. And that same recurring, corrosive notion can be an ugly polluting SUV that comes, stays and moves on again, without really affecting you. Or else thoughts are a busy stream, chattering away in front of you, often pulling you under. But each time you are submerged, eventually you notice and pull yourself out and sit undisturbed, again and again until it starts to become habit to notice the thought rather than believe it.

Happily, some schools are starting to teach this important element of psychological flexibility. It should be compulsory in secondary schools.The myriad apps that teach the practice of being present in the now are another entry point, helping us cultivate our observing selves, rather than our thinking selves.

Instead of obsessing, fuming, curdling about things we don’t have, we need to accept and celebrate what we do. Instead of worrying about things we can’t control – people’s opinion of us, for example – we need to direct our attentions to things we can influence, and leave the rest be. Instead of judging each other, and – worse – ourselves, let us simply take as we find. Instead of ruining our short time alive by setting expectations of how we think everything should be, from our jobs to our love lives, our children to our prospects, let us accept that some things will not always go as we wish.

You’re not who you think you are. You’re so much more than that.

How to escape the overthinking trap: stop judging yourself | Mark Rice-Oxley

Mark Serwotka has heart transplant at Papworth

Mark Serwotka, the leader of the largest civil service union, has had a successful heart transplant operation, with the medical team at Papworth hospital, Cambridgeshire, saying they were very happy about how the new heart was performing.

The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said the operation at the weekend had gone smoothly. Serwotka was recovering in hospital and would recuperate at home. “This is fantastic news for his family – his wife, Ruth, and children, Imogen and Rhys – and for the union, and we know everyone sends their best wishes,” a PCS statement said.

Serwotka contracted a virus in 2010, his heart failed, and over the past two years he had been kept alive by a heart pump. He was readmitted to hospital in August when the pump developed a clot and his doctors placed him on the urgent transplant list.

The union said: “[We] send our heartfelt thanks and admiration to all the team at Papworth who have provided world-class care and kept Mark’s spirits up during the last three months. Mark’s family [has] also asked us to thank all those people who have sent cards and messages over the past few months. They have really appreciated the support and it has given them a big boost during this time.”

Ruth Serwotka tweeted: “Mark recovering well from heart transplant op. Words inadequate, but so much gratitude to skilled, dedicated NHS staff of Papworth hospital. And nothing will ever adequately express my overwhelming thanks to the family of a stranger who in their loss have allowed us a future.”

Serwotka, 53, is one of the most popular and active trade union leaders. He contracted a virus six years ago and has described taking a walk in woods close to home, when his dog came back to him smelling of something foul. He recalled washing the dog down and the next day finding his face and legs grotesquely swollen.

A week later he was rushed to hospital with a heart rate of 220 beats a minute. After weeks of investigation it was established that he had contracted a virus that had caused his heart to massively inflate and swell.

When the swelling subsided it emerged that his heart had been irreparably damaged. He was fitted with an electronic device that pumped blood around his heart and which he carried in a small bag with a battery pack and plug socket. As he waited for a heart transplant, Serwotka continued to lead the union.

Mark Serwotka has heart transplant at Papworth

Men – don"t be squeamish, have the balls to have a vasectomy | Mark Rice-Oxley

Vasectomies can go wrong. But then so can crossing the road and eating cashew nuts. It’s a small thing, gents, let’s face it, a very small thing.
Mine took place in 2008. Yes, I had to wear two pairs of tight pants for a few days, and refused to stand in the wall at free-kicks for weeks. Yes, I took a couple of days off work and sat on the sofa watching movies and eating painkillers. But other than that, it was a rather unremarkable experience.

I’d like to be able to report that my surgeon had a twinkle of irony in his eye as he said: “You may feel a little prick.” But he didn’t. He was a humourless fellow. I didn’t mind. A sense of humour is not important in a man who is soldering your vas deferens shut with a red-hot implement (actually the smell of burning is the least pleasant part of it all).
And what are the alternatives? I was never comfortable with my partner taking the pill year after year. Condoms are a drag. Other options seemed rather medieval by comparison. I’m not really one for airing details of my sex life in public, but I think it’s fair to report that things have been quite satisfactory ever since. You just don’t notice the difference. You still ejaculate, it’s still messy. There are so very many worse things that can happen to a man.

There may be good reasons to not opt for the snip. They’re pretty hard to reverse, apparently, even more fiddly than pushing out an elastic drawstring that has been pulled round the back of a pair of tracksuit bottoms. So if there is any notion lurking in the back of your mind that your fathering days might not be over, then think twice. With three kids under five, I knew my procreational phase had to come to an end. I just wanted someone to make it stop.

Vasectomy is not totally infallible, but that’s no reason to procrastinate. It’s still better than any other birth control method – your chances of a surprise are less than 1%.

It’s not clear to me what aspect of having one’s testicles singed has become less appealing to men. Numbers have apparently fallen by two-thirds in a decade. Perhaps it’s a sociological thing. People are having children much later than they used to a couple of generations ago. Millennials who don’t have homes and jobs are eschewing children – and so are hardly likely to opt for the snip before they’ve even started. There are more cases of men having second families than there were 30 years ago, though I’m not sure about cause and effect here.

I’d like to think it’s not because we’ve suddenly become squeamish about this. Because, honestly, there’s nothing to be squeamish about. Trips to the dentist will cause you more discomfort than this. My tonsillectomy was far worse. Now that hurt.

Go on, men, grow a pair, and then have them surgically disconnected.

Men – don"t be squeamish, have the balls to have a vasectomy | Mark Rice-Oxley

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan pledge $3bn to end all disease - video

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan unveil plan to spend more than $ 3bn over 10 years to ‘cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children’s lifetime’. Investments will include a bioscience research centre, plans for a microchip to diagnose diseases, continuous bloodstream monitoring and a map of cell types in the body.

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan pledge $3bn to end all disease - video

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan aim to "cure, prevent and manage" all disease

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have laid out plans to invest $ 3bn over the next 10 years with the not insignificant goal of tackling all diseases.

“Can we cure, prevent or manage all disease by the end of this century?” asked Zuckerberg, speaking in front of a packed lecture theater at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) William J Rutter Center.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will focus on some of the world’s biggest killers, including heart disease, cancer, infectious diseases and neurological diseases.

One of its biggest investments is to be a $ 600m “Biohub” at UCSF, which will bring together scientists and engineers from Stanford, Berkeley and UCSF – which haven’t collaborated in this way before – to develop tools to treat diseases.

The second focus will be transformative technology, all of which will be made available to all scientists everywhere.

“Throughout the history of science most of the major scientific breakthroughs have been preceded by some new tool and technology that allows you to see in new ways,” explained Zuckerberg. “The telescope helped us understand astronomy and the universe, the microscope helped us understand cells and bacteria to help us develop treatments for infectious diseases, while DNA sequencing and editing helps us fight cancer and genetic disorders.”

Zuckerberg suggested that artificial intelligence could help with brain imaging to treat neurological diseases, machine learning could be used to analyse cancer genomes, while chips and blood monitors could identify diseases quickly. “These are the kinds of tools we want to focus on building at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,” he said.

Acclaimed American neurobiologist Cornelia Bargmann, who will lead the initiative, gave the example of a “cell atlas”, a comprehensive resource that maps the locations, types and molecular properties of all of the cells in the human body.

“We need this to develop new understanding and cures for diseases in all areas of medicine,” she said.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a limited liability company that the couple uses to make donations and investments to advance their philanthropic causes. It was launched at the birth of the couple’s first daughter Max in December 2015. The couple has committed 99% of their Facebook stock, valued at $ 45bn, to the initiative which makes charitable donations and for-profit investments.

The organization initially focused on the education space, funding Indian company BYJU’s, which helps students learn maths and science and Nigerian company Andela, which trains up African software developers. It has now turned its attention to science.

The organization will achieve its objective by focusing on building tools and technology, bringing scientists from across the world together and growing a movement to fund more science.

Wiping back tears in an emotional opening talk, Chan described her work as a paediatrician.

“I have worked with families at their most difficult moments in their lives, from making the devastation diagnosis of leukaemia to sharing with them that we were unable to resuscitate their child,” she said. “By investing in science today we hope to build a future in which all of our children can live long and rewarding lives.”

Zuckerberg and Chan acknowledged it’s an ambitious undertaking. “It’s a big goal,” said Zuckerberg. However, he said that he and Chan have spent two years talking to Nobel Prize-winning scientists and researchers and believe it’s not unrealistic.

“Can we all together work to cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children’s lifetime? We think it’s possible and so do scientists,” Chan added. “It’s not that we won’t ever get sick, but that our children and their children will get sick a lot less.”

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan aim to "cure, prevent and manage" all disease

Astronaut Mark Kelly On Gun Violence, Wife Gabby Giffords

Next Following week (Aug. twenty) it will be 28 years considering that postman Patrick Sherrill opened fire in an Edmond, Okay, submit workplace, killing 14 and wounding 6 prior to committing suicide. The event is observed as the origin of the pop-culture phrase “going postal.”

Have we created progress with gun violence in the U.S. given that that tragedy? You tell me. There have been massacres at Columbine (1999), Virginia Tech (2007), Newtown and Aurora (2012) – the list would seem limitless.

I had a possibility to chat with Mark Kelly, 50, an astronaut as renowned for his journeys to the International Room Station as for currently being married to former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was shot in the head at a 2011 Tucson political rally and has been recovering ever because.

JC: Gun violence in the U.S. – what are your views?

MK: The gun lobby more than the final 30 years has developed enormous influence in Washington. My wife and I soon after the Newtown shootings determined to form Americans for Responsible Remedies as an powerful counterbalance. We want an surroundings where elected officials can make decisions on policy and not be concerned so significantly about politics. Hopefully in excess of time we can get away from a place the place we have 15 to 20 occasions the death charge from guns than any industrialized country. The debate is not about the Constitution. Nobody needs to consider anybody’s second amendment rights away. I often wonder if by not acting to supply a resolution that perhaps we’re placing people’s rights in jeopardy. Considering that that horrific Newtown event happened, the nationwide response has been practically nothing. We’re going to change that.

Astronaut Mark Kelly with his daughter. (Photo: Jim Clash)

JC: So you do assistance the Second Amendment.

MK: Definitely. I’m a gun proprietor, my wife’s a gun owner. Gabby has a Glock 9 mm – I have Ruger 9 mm, a Ruger .22, a thirty.06 rifle and a .45.

JC: How is Gabby carrying out?

MK: Excellent. When it first occurred you would see progress hour-to-hour, then day-to-day, then week-to-week. It slows – now it is more month-to-month. Gabby performs hard and continues to improve. We had been chosen as Glamour Magazine’s first “Couple of the 12 months.” She gave a very good speech. Some individuals get up there with notes – she had some, but did not really look at them.

JC: In 2003 when Shuttle Columbia broke up above Texas, you visited the accident site.

MK: I was the very first particular person on the scene. I was in the workplace early and when my boss acquired in I said, ‘We have a good deal of contingency programs on what to do upon dropping a Shuttle, but nowhere did we anticipate dropping one within a two-hour drive of Houston.’ I informed him I feel we need to send a person there now, and he stated ‘Ok, you go.’ I asked the neighborhood constable to get a helicopter ready, and myself and one more man flew up. It didn’t get long just before we recovered the initial remains of crew members. I recovered 3 – two the day of the accident, and 1 the next day.

JC: In 2011 you had the challenging determination about whether or not to fly aboard the Shuttle for a fourth time.

MK: We had just had this horrific occasion occur to Gabby, and I’m going to fly in area? It was a hard choice. At the time I couldn’t even communicate effectively with Gabby. But she’s a huge supporter of the space plan and my little ones are massive supporters of my occupation. In the end it wasn’t only about me, but the other crew members. We all felt it was in the mission’s greatest curiosity for me to go back and do that flight.

Astronaut Mark Kelly On Gun Violence, Wife Gabby Giffords

Mark Britnell testimonials this week"s healthcare information

The World Cup in Brazil has led to unrest driven partly by concern over its ‘creaking healthcare system’, writes Mark Britnell. Photograph: AFP/Getty Photos

No review of this week’s wellness news could ignore the Globe Cup and the increasing unrest in Brazil, partly driven by widespread worries above its creaking healthcare technique. Closer to house, some of the pressures in Brazil sound acquainted with our own national press highlighting issues with waiting instances, falling GP recruitment and a important enhance in diabetes.

I’ve had the privilege of working in 60 nations above the previous five years and frequently truly feel there are much more similarities than variations when it comes to health. In Brazil just two weeks ago I noticed, firsthand, popular discontent over spending priorities with lightning bus strikes and public demonstrations.

Brazil has much to be proud of. It designed universal healthcare in 1988 through the establishment of Sistema Unico da Saude (SUS). More than the previous quarter of a century, SUS is credited with enhancing life expectancy, lowering inequalities, building healthcare companies and expanding revolutionary major and community care in its Loved ones Overall health Approach (ESF). Entry to healthcare for 200 million citizens quickly enhanced but the system is now a victim of its personal good results and is below fantastic strain.

Presently, only forty% of Brazilians are content with their healthcare and far more than 25% of citizens have private wellness insurance, which is the 2nd highest in the world. Even though Brazil spends 9.1% of its GDP on wellness (close to our 9.4%), only 47% comes from public expenditure (compared to an OECD typical of 73%). The public overall health system is also stretched with extended waiting times for treatment, as well number of doctors and above half the population classified as ‘obese’ with dramatic consequences for diabetes. While the Mais Medicos (much more medical professionals) campaign has resulted in 15,000 further staff (some from Cuba) there is significantly far more to be completed. New facilities, more personnel, greater management and new solutions will be required and the new government will want to make certain that public spending increases, regardless of sluggish economic growth of two.3% per annum. A robust public sector is needed to tame – and balance – the private sector.

At property, several of these stories were also played out. The Occasions reported that the government had identified added, and rcycled money for waiting instances, while the Guardian reported developing political concern about A&ampE waiting instances, waiting lists and missed cancer targets for timely diagnosis and remedy. The Times also reported that three million individuals are now on waiting lists, a six-12 months high. Many of my chief executive colleagues roll their eyes at “one particular-off” money injections and political announcements, due to the fact we all know that far more sustainable options need to be located.

On Wednesday, a Instances editorial, reporting a debate at the RCN to charge £10 for a GP appointment, called for further expenses to ease the burden on GPs and the NHS. The issue of co-payments, if not carefully believed by means of, will constantly hurt the poorest and sickest.

The Guardian and Observer ran stories on the emerging GP crisis as medical professional numbers fell in genuine terms.

All that explained, the NHS must be proud of its primary care program. The Guardian this week reported on a examine by the Commonwealth Fund, which compares the healthcare of 11 designed nations and finds the NHS to be the world’s very best healthcare program, scoring highest on quality, access, and efficiency, with the second-lowest price per capita (half the cost as the US, which completed last in the study).

But far more investment is needed if we are to tackle obesity and diabetes, and maintain patients out of hospital. Most worryingly, the BMJ reported that a lot more than 1-third of United kingdom adults had indicators of early stage diabetes.

We really do want to consider about prevention, self-management and how to motivate and encourage men and women to take far more care of themselves. I was busy chairing KPMG’s international wellness conference final week where 65 overall health leaders from 30 countries mentioned some of the pressing concerns of the day. A key theme of “patient activation” emerged, as proof suggests more engagement and empowerment can enhance outcomes, lead to higher fulfillment and reduce fees. Individuals ought to be partners in care.

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Mark Britnell testimonials this week"s healthcare information

Manmade or normal, they"re all chemical substances | Dr Mark Lorch

Chemical substances are negative, right? Otherwise why would so many purveyors of all issues wholesome proudly proclaim their goods to be “chemical-free of charge” and why would phrases such as “it’s chock complete of chemicals” be so generally used to imply anything is unnatural and as a result inherently hazardous?

On one particular level these phrases are meaningless – after all, chemical substances are all over the place, in almost everything. From the air that we breathe to the drugs we pop, it really is all chemical substances. Conversely, several would argue (the Marketing Specifications Agency included) that we all know perfectly properly what “chemical-cost-free” implies and individuals who rail against the absurdity of the phrase are just currently being pedantic. Even the Oxford Dictionary defines a chemical as “a distinct compound or substance, especially 1 which has been artificially prepared or purified.”

So “chemical-totally free” goods are adhering to a recognised usage.

But pedantry and definition aren’t actually the point. The level is that each and every time anti-chemical slogans are used folks are being misinformed. The implication is usually that the terms “chemical” and “poison” are interchangeable. This is a perception that permeates our subconscious to the extent that chemists themselves have been guilty of precisely the exact same lazy language.

As a consequence of this frequent usage of “chemical compounds” the total subject has been tainted with unpleasant connotations. And although physics and biology have their celebrity scientists extolling the wonders of bosons, bugs and big bangs, chemists are left floundering in their wake or are left entirely unrepresented in the mainstream media (where’s the Guardian’s chemistry site?).

This is all despite the modern globe obtaining been created on the innovations of chemists. For illustration, most of the world’s population is sustained by the innovations of 1 of them. Fritz Haber invented a means to turn the nitrogen in the air into valuable agricultural fertiliser (forty% of the nitrogen in you comes from Haber’s reaction). Meanwhile the chemists who artificially ready or purified antibiotics are responsible for a therapy that saves much more lives than any other healthcare intervention.

All these arguments are trotted out by chemistry bloggers on a typical basis, but these writers are only preaching to the converted. The very good information is that on Monday the campaign group Sense about Science joined the discussion with the publication of a guidebook entitled Generating Sense of Chemical Stories. Sense about Science is a respected charitable organisation that “equips men and women to make sense of scientific and health-related claims in public discussion”. In quick, it facilitates discussions in between concerned/interested groups and related authorities.

‘A typical misconception is that all manmade chemical substances are hazardous, and all organic chemical substances are very good for us. However, many all-natural chemicals are just as damaging to human health, if not more so.’ Photograph: Compound Curiosity/Sense About Science

The aim of its guide is to bridge the disconnect in between the life-style view (and well-liked definition) of chemical compounds and the realities of how chemistry is utilized to sustain the contemporary world. The guidebook does this by tackling common misconceptions about chemistry.

A crucial misconception is that normal chemicals are by some means safer than manmade ones. The wrongheadedness of this is nicely illustrated by a pair of infographics (above) developed by Sense About Science that really don’t shy away from admitting synthetic chemical substances are usually toxic, but also make it clear that regardless of whether a chemical is naturally happening or manmade tells us precisely nothing about its toxicity.

Not only that, but the place dangerous chemical substances do occur (be that in potatoes or lethal injections) the dose is the genuinely critical point to think about.

Generating Sense of Chemical Stories is being promoted to the public, journalists, life style press and policymakers. It, along with the infographics, are freely available to download from Sense about Science, or if you choose a hard copy (or a box complete of them) electronic mail enquiries@senseaboutscience.org or call 020 7490 9590 with your make contact with information.

Buy some and spread the word: chemicals are good for you!

Mark Lorch is a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Hull. He blogs at www.chemistry-weblog.com and tweets as @sci_ents

Manmade or normal, they"re all chemical substances | Dr Mark Lorch

Stephen Sutton donations pass £2m mark and carry on to rise

Stephen Sutton (front) performing a sky dive for charity in April 2013. Photograph: SWNS/Newsteam

The donations, numerous of them, came in little sums. But there have been so numerous with nearly 200,000 men and women inspired to give by Stephen Sutton’s story that by Friday evening the complete he had raised had passed £2.3m, and was increasing quick.

The Teenage Cancer Believe in stated the donations would revolutionise its potential to perform with similarly unwell younger men and women.

Stephen, 19, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, was diagnosed four many years ago with bowel cancer, which has now sufficiently spread to be inoperable. Right after virtually dying this week following a collapsed lung he stays in a Birmingham hospital.

In January last yr he had set himself the aim of raising £10,000.

On Friday Kate Collins, director of fundraising for the Teenage Cancer Believe in, a fairly tiny organisation which runs 27 professional medical units around Britain, as well as giving family members help and health schooling, mentioned his efforts had currently dwarfed any earlier donations, the biggest of which was a £1m bequest in a will.

“There’s not previously been anything at all of this dimension or scale,” she said. “If you appear at the Just Giving webpage individuals are donating what they can – £2.50 or £5 or £10 – and they’re apologising, saying, ‘I’m sorry it can’t be much more.’ It is profoundly touching and enormously humbling for us. When I commence pondering about nearly 200,000 individual donations it is a huge spread of the message. It really is the kind of reach that charities who are much larger than us would have to devote a great deal of money on promoting campaigns to achieve.”

Stephen’s story has been a chronicle of the remarkable focus and courage of one youthful personal, and a wider illustration of how social media can broadcast this kind of bravery to a massive audience.

His fundraising has been aided by the public support of celebrities ranging from Russell Brand to Chris Hoy.

Even now Stephen has maintained an irregular series of updates to his hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter followers, acknowledging his probably and imminent fate while stressing how articles he is to have made this kind of a difference.

On Tuesday, when his death appeared fast approaching, Stephen’s planned last missive showed a photograph of him in a hospital bed, grinning and raising a thumb, and the message: “I have done nicely to blag issues as properly as I have up until now, but sadly I consider this is just 1 hurdle too far.” Two days later he was back to make clear that the collapsed lung had not killed him following all.

This was all down to Stephen, stated Collins, with the Teenage Cancer Trust performing small past attempting to make certain a desperately sick teenager did not push himself as well difficult: “Stephen has gifted it all to us. It’s a whole lot a lot more genuine that it really is coming from Stephen. We’re not engineering this, we’re not behind this. You don’t fake a message on social media for long with no acquiring rumbled. But this is real.”

Stephen is now with his family members in hospital, and the charity is also relying on his social media feeds, silent for the past 24 hours, for information. Collins stated: “There is constantly the emotion that sits close to someone of Stephen’s age dealing with the end of his existence, which is exceptionally unhappy and takes place much more typically than men and women genuinely know. But it really is the way Stephen has communicated which is past evaluate.”

The cruel reality of charity fundraising can decree that tragic individual stories, fuelled by media reviews, can bring important sums. In 2012 donations to the Samaritans on behalf of 30-yr-old Claire Squires, who collapsed and died shortly following finishing the London marathon, shot up from £500 to almost £1m.

Stephen’s even now far more astonishing accomplishment – his original £10,000 target was later upped to £500,000 and then £1m – is a factor of the two the teenager’s preternaturally calm determination and focus, and the talent with which he has harnessed social media. As nicely as a Just Offering donations page he has a website and a Facebook web page, along with a Twitter feed, YouTube channel and Tumblr and Instagram pages.

Twitter has proved especially fertile, with the likes of Brand, Hoy, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Adlington and varied footballers tweeting photographs holding written indications offering details of how to donate, along with a raised thumb and the ubiquitous #ThumbsUpForStephen tag.

Beyond the medium is the articles. In his updates Stephen has avoided mawkishness, rather arguing that the length of a person’s lifestyle is less considerable than the distinction they make even though alive. He started the fundraising with a 46-level “bucket listing” of pre-death wishes, from skydiving to joining a flash mob, and has ticked off the bulk.

The funds he has raised, coupled with the attendant publicity, will consider the charity to “a complete other degree”, Collins explained, adding: “We know we cannot attain all the younger individuals who want our aid at the minute. We have not had a opportunity to operate by means of what distinction these funds will make – at the minute we’re still attempting to help Stephen – but I am definitely assured this will move the help we can give younger individuals with cancer and their families to a diverse place. It is a exceptional legacy.”

Stephen Sutton donations pass £2m mark and carry on to rise

GPs braced for shutdown right after "toxic mix" of reduction of funds and higher demand | Mark Gould

“Give it a 12 months and I feel we will have to shut,” says Naomi Beer, a annoyed and angry GP who performs in a surgical treatment which has been supplying care to a largely bad and deprived region because the begin of the NHS in 1948. In February, NHS England admitted that 98 surgeries could be below threat of closure as a consequence of what doctors’ leaders have described as a “toxic mix” of a flawed funding technique and seemingly uncheckable demand for health-related care.

It was imagined that most of the surgeries at risk are tiny practices in rural regions. But Beer works at the Jubilee Street practice, on the traffic-choked Business Street in the East Finish of London. This is one thing of a model practice in an spot where fewer than half of the patients communicate English as a first language and a lot of present with a lot more than 1 serious medical difficulty.

The 12 GPs (not all full timers), 3 practice nurses, two healthcare assistants and a physician’s assistant all know their sufferers and supply old-fashioned continuity of care, but embrace new methods of creating entry less difficult. It has launched new approaches of monitoring and caring for sufferers with prolonged-term conditions so that they minimise the chance of emergency hospitalisation – a crucial national priority as A&ampE attendance is hideously pricey.

The practice hits all the government’s good quality targets, has a 94% patient fulfillment fee, and has launched world wide web-based mostly consultations, appointments, repeat prescriptions, and even though-you-wait phlebotomy. And it is the only surgery in Tower Hamlets that has acquired the Royal School of Basic Practitioners (RCGP) Quality Practice Award – for excellence in instruction and for the quality of its care.

And these achievements are towards a backdrop of extreme stress of perform. Tower Hamlets is an region exactly where demand is especially acute – the population has mushroomed by over 25% in the last decade – the greatest boost in England, in accordance to official census figures, and the growth is primarily in the below-35 age group.

And that demand is set to get worse according to investigation released earlier this month by the RCGP, which revealed that funding for general practice in England is due to fall by 17% in real terms by 2017/18, whilst patient demand in terms of consultations are set to rise by 69m to 409m a year.

But, due to alterations in the labyrinthine system of funding standard practice, Jubilee Street faces the reduction of a lot of hundreds of thousands of lbs, which Beer and the equally angry practice manager, Virginia Patania, say will quickly make it financially unsustainable.

“We are now eating into practice savings to carry on supplying a good quality services. But we are planning for a ‘red button day’ when we will have to dissolve the practice,” says Patania, who offers a in depth breakdown of their fiscal crisis. “I have been raising our considerations with NHS England considering that Christmas and I get no satisfactory solution. I want to know sooner rather than later because I’d rather dissolve at six months than wait twelve and encounter even greater losses.”

Patania says the troubles commenced final yr when, ostensibly to decrease paperwork for GP surgeries, overall health minister Jeremy Hunt announced that a complete assortment of payment-connected overall performance indicators known as QOF (High quality and Outcomes Framework) points had been to be reduce. Even though some indicators have been removed, the value of the points, and consequently the hard income value of the remainder, was enhanced but the complete quantity of factors accessible was reduce from one,000 to 900 – so the Jubilee Street practice lost 100 factors really worth £30,000.

This yr, by way of attempting to equalise earnings, the government mentioned that it would move the worth of a number of revenue streams into the global sum – the common allocation for GP providers in England adjusted for listing dimension and age and sex with girls, young children and elderly men and women having a greater funds value. But Patania and Beer say the worldwide sum is flawed as the allocation will take no account of the level of deprivation, ethnicity and general unwellness of their sufferers, nor the “immense” perform involved in reaching best quality QOF factors.

A single of the greatest financial hits comes as a end result of a government determination to withdraw the Minimal Practice Income Promise (MPIG). Introduced in 2004 to safeguard surgeries from losses as a end result of contract changes, MPIG is well worth £219,508 a year to Jubilee Street. The reduction of this component alone was the element that NHS England explained could place 98 surgeries at threat.

Jubilee Street will also shed close to £14,000 of commence-up funding for delivering “enhanced solutions” – this kind of as caring for sufferers who are significantly unwell or at risk of emergency hospital admission, assessing sufferers at chance of dementia, introducing telemonitoring of sufferers at house and introducing internet bookings and repeat prescriptions. They say these solutions will be lower simply because they do not have any money they can reallocate to preserve them going.

Beer and Patania say the reduction of QOF, enhanced solutions and MPIG funding means the practice will be down £77,263 by the finish of 2014-15. It already misplaced £30,000 QOF cash flow last yr and will get rid of its £219,508 a 12 months MPIG allocation incrementally in excess of the following seven many years – the accumulated reduction due to MPIG alone amounting to above £903,000.

To make up those MPIG losses the practice would need to indicator up one,000 new individuals. Beer says this is not an selection. “If we do that the quality of care would suffer, you would get tick-box medicine, the target on high quality would be totally gone. To maintain good quality would mean far more medical doctors, nurses and ancillary staff which would basically perpetuate the present funding crisis.”

Partners have taken wage cuts to try out to hold the practice afloat and protect personnel wages. “I have taken a £250 wage minimize this month – with a mortgage loan in central London that is fairly challenging,” says Patania. Whilst GPs elsewhere may earn 6-figure sums, Beer says she expects to earn around £30,000 to £40,000 this yr. “We are not complaining – for most folks that is an superb wage – but I function some thing like 50 hours per week – and this was the wage we commenced on 20 years ago.”

Patania issues a last plea: “This is a good organization, we provide a quality services that is not based mostly on making money. We accomplish high QOF targets for managing persistent problems like diabetes and cardiovascular ailment and we have an really higher level of patient satisfaction, so we know and can measure that we are performing a very good occupation, but we are in this position.”

Dr Richard Vautrey, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, fears the Jubilee Street situation could be repeated in numerous hundred practices, not just the 98 recognized by NHS England as at severe chance. “This is the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “Practices are struggling with workload and funding and several GPs, though they really like standard practice, are seriously considering retiring early. The knock-on impact of shedding high-quality standard practice and cutting its funding will be far more strain on hospitals. We need to have concrete action from NHS England and that demands a lot more monetary resources.”

Considering that the Guardian alerted NHS England to Jubilee Street’s plight officials have agreed to a meeting. A spokeswoman for NHS England says: “We have identified those practices probably to be most impacted, and will be giving to meet with them to examine how we can help them by means of the alterations, which will take spot in excess of seven many years. We will be contacting the Jubilee Street practice shortly to arrange a meeting to examine their financial challenges.”

GPs braced for shutdown right after "toxic mix" of reduction of funds and higher demand | Mark Gould

Nigerian gold mining: farmers choose death by lead poisoning above poverty | Monica Mark

Flanked by fields of millet and groundnut, the northern Nigerian outpost of Bagega is so far out on the periphery of the global economic system that when the financial crisis struck in 2008 couple of residents had any idea it was happening. And no one particular in a village with no automobiles, electrical power or tarred roads imagined it would end up indirectly poisoning hundreds of their children.

“We knew there was gold around here, but most folks didn’t care. We have often been farmers right here,” mentioned Alhaji Jibril, the white-haired village chief, sitting in the gnarled roots of a tree in front of his residence, which he calls his workplace.

But when western fiscal markets went into meltdown, gold offered traders with a haven from the turmoil, sending its price tag rocketing. For the very first time, it grew to become lucrative to mine the ore on which the village sits. “We considered [the gold boom] was a very good factor at initial,” said Jibril. So did 1000′s of itinerant fortune seekers, who beat down the dust trail leading to the village, swelling its population.

Shortly afterwards, officials from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) received a cellphone call from neighborhood wellness employees. “They advised us their kids have been dying, and they didn’t know why,” said Michelle Chouinard, the health care charity’s nation director. It was, in truth, the beginning of what Human Rights Observe named the worst incident of lead poisoning in present day history. Gold is extracted from lead, which accumulates in the blood and can severely harm the nervous technique.

By the time the rush subsided, Bagega, and seven other villages dotting the Zamfara countryside, had been ravaged by the deadliest lead poisoning epidemic in modern background. At least 460 kids died and practically 2,000 have been poisoned. “Lead poisoning can make adults infertile, but its most severe affect is on kids. So we had been seeing children who have been blinded or paralysed. Some have neurological injury, and that is not normally reversible,” Chouinard said.

Right after three many years of official dithering, some of the $ five.4m (£3.25m) pledged in government funds released last year permitted global organisations to begin cleansing the worst of the contaminated regions. Nevertheless, with few options, 1000′s proceed to mine in perilous conditions.

For the 3 extended households that dwell in Soweba’s compound, mining presented a a lot-needed improve when their farms suffered from erratic rainfall, partly linked to climate modify. Three many years in the past, her 14-yr-previous son started bringing rocks property. Soweba and the other women would sift via them, searching for glints of gold dust. A gramme could bring in up to 7,500 naira (£27) in a state where 70% lived on less than $ 2 a day.

Then, one by a single, the young children in the compound have been struck by convulsions and sweats. “There was a herbal concoction which we utilized, but it didn’t function,” stated Soweba, a slight girl with almond-shaped eyes. Her two-yr-outdated toddler died initial. A number of weeks later, another daughter died. Even cattle – drinking from contaminated waterholes – started to die, more diminishing the family’s earnings.

“We thought it was a genie, an evil spirit,” she stated, cradling a surviving daughter throughout a weekly go to to a clinic run by MSF. Nevertheless, her husband continued to permit their son to go mining towards her wishes. “He says it is the only way to feed the surviving children. They just leave their [contaminated] garments outdoors the property when they come back.”

Overall health staff also worry about a potential crime boom. Lead poisoning is linked not only with finding out troubles, but also with violent crime.

Glints of mercury, which is used to separate gold from its ore, is also highly toxic. The employees use their bare hands as they deal with hazardous heavy metals

Environmental scientist Simba Tirima, whose organization shipped in about ten,000 cubic metres of soil in an work to clean hundreds of compounds in Bagega, identified astonishing charges of contamination: up to 35,000 components per million of lead, virtually a hundred times the sum regarded safe for residential soil. In the vast tracts of land the place processing took area, the costs soared to a hundred,000 components per million.

“It is my sincere hope that the communities will not be recontaminated. The crucial to avoiding this from taking place once again lies in very carefully created safer mining programmes that are pragmatic and relevant,” Tirima said.

As soon as a significant component of the economic system, mining was abandoned by the government once oil was identified in the 1960s, leaving the operate to tiny-time diggers outfitted with practically nothing but shovels and hand-powered stone crushers. The unregulated market continues unabated. Villagers who make ten times as much money mining as they do from farming have advised Tirima they would rather die of lead poisoning than poverty.

“They are not going to cease. I noticed a female who had misplaced eight youngsters, but she is nonetheless mining,” mentioned mines minister Musa Sada, who aims to enhance the sector’s contribution to the economic climate to 5% from its current 1% by following year. “The only way around it is to invest in obtaining greater approaches for mining, give modern day tools and get a more structured industry for these individuals to function in.”

For now, that has not took place. A brief trip away from Soweba’s home, a fine mist of dust rises from the ground, clinging to garments and machines and cloying the eyes, nose and mouth. Payment increases in accordance to how hazardous the operate is. At the leading of the chain are employees who operate hand-powered grinders. Sitting amid fumes for hours a day, they earn up to 2,000 naira (£7.twenty) per jute bag of powdered stone. Up coming come those who mix poisonous mercury, employed to separate the lead from its ore, with their bare hands.

“The early days had been great days,” explained Adamu Tsiko, chairman of the Bagega Gold Miners Association, surveying employees raising plumes of dust at a vast open-pit web site. “Everybody wished to join – some people walked from [neighbouring countries such as] Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, even Ivory Coast.”

Tsiko was element of a delegation that met government representatives in the Nigerian capital of Abuja final year to lobby for modern day products. He worries the government’s efforts to woo huge gamers – utilizing tax holidays and duty waivers – indicates artisanal miners are being forgotten.

“Appropriate now we even now need to have the correct tools, we require [pipe-borne] water to do items properly. Like now, there is nowhere to wash my hands just before I commence eating this sugar cane,” he said, breaking off a piece for a blank-eyed toddler wandering by means of the clouds of fumes.

Nigerian gold mining: farmers choose death by lead poisoning above poverty | Monica Mark

Specs appeal: German physics instructor brings cost-effective glasses to Rwanda | Mark Tran

OneDollarGlasses technicians can be trained in a fortnight, although it can take two sessions to perfect their expertise. Photograph: Martin Aufmuth

It took Martin Aufmuth three years to bring to fruition his concept to generate a device that can make low cost glasses.

Aufmuth, who won prime prize at the Siemens Stiftung award in October, explained his OneDollarGlasses venture was inspired by the book Out of Poverty by Paul Polak, which he read in 2009.

Aufmuth, who teaches maths and physics in Erlangen, Germany, is a huge fan of Polak’s idea of developing useful options that harness the power of markets to lessen poverty. “It showed me the relevance of innovations that sell for about $ one [60p],” he says.

Costing only $ one to make, the glasses will be offered for in between $ two to $ seven, so OneDollarGlasses opticians can earn their living from them. The spectacles are created by hand on a specially developed bending and milling machine, which requires no electrical energy. Virtually servicing-free of charge, it is made to function in the most remote villages. All the products fits into a wooden box with outer dimensions of 30cm x 30cm x 30cm.

The light-weight and flexible frames are produced from rustproof, hypoallergenic 1mm-spring-steel wire,and the polished, unbreakable lenses are made of polycarbonate with a hardened surface.

The OneDollarGlasses optician has a box with 25 lenses (manufactured in China) varying in strength from -six. to +6. diopters in methods of .5 diopters (a diopter is a unit of measurement of the optical energy of a lens).

Polycarbonate is a lot much more resistant than glass or resin, which are typically utilized in glasses. The lenses, which have notches, can be simply clicked into the frame by hand. Since the glasses – individually adjustable and virtually unbreakable – are lightweight, they do not demand standard nose bridges.

Technicians can be educated in just 14 days, despite the fact that it can consider two sessions to excellent their skills. Eye testing is carried out with a straightforward chart that can be connected to a wall or a tree. Three to four people can operate one manufacturing unit to make 5,000-ten,000 pairs of glasses a yr, Aufmuth says. Following a pilot undertaking in Uganda, Aufmuth and his teams have been instruction individuals in Rwanda since April.

The device, like the bending machine, optical equipment and material for the very first 500 pairs of glasses, costs €2,400 (£2010). Aufmuth realises the startup expenses are unaffordable in target nations, so they are covered fully by donations.

In accordance to the World Well being Organisation (WHO), about 150million people suffer from defective eyesight that could be rectified with a pair of glasses.

“Extreme poverty does not only imply hunger, but also illness, hopelessness, missed opportunities in existence,” Aufmuth says on his site. “Many of them can not go to college for that explanation, can not work and can – as a consequence – not provide for themselves and their families. This is what I want to alter.”

Specs appeal: German physics instructor brings cost-effective glasses to Rwanda | Mark Tran