Noise-cancelling headphones: the secret survival tool for modern life

There’s one thing other than my wallet and my travel card I wouldn’t be without in a big city, and it’s my headphones. But I don’t actually listen to music that much: I just activate the noise-cancelling feature, and leave it at that.

No sound plays into my ears – instead a quiet fills my head, as if the sounds of the world have been turned down. Until I got noise-cancelling headphones, I had no idea how loud the city always was, and just how hungry I’d been for silence.

On public transport, using the noise-cancelling feature will soften the roar of engine and traffic. In the open-plan office, it eliminates the constant chatter and limits interruptions. On an airplane, it’s a revelation. I’m not alone in using state-of-the-art headphones not for music, but to tune out the constant drone of urban living – it’s becoming a modern life survival tool.

‘It was like that moment in a film where the sound cuts out’

Matt Thomas, an animator and motion graphics designer in London, is a convert. He discovered he could use the silencing feature on its own one day by accident, when his music cut out on the tube: “I thought, wait a minute, there’s this really nice peace and quiet. It was like that moment in a film where the sound cuts out and everything goes into slow motion.”

Heavy traffic generates noise levels of up to 85 decibels (dB), which the Health and Safety Executive deems sufficient to cause permanent hearing damage if we’re exposed to it for several hours every day. Underground trains can pass the 100dB mark when roaring around a loud corner.

Thomas often puts his headphones on silent when on public transport (he no longer does this in the street after nearly getting run over), but prefers music for work. For Johanna Vogel, an economist in Vienna, Austria, it’s the opposite: she plays music on the bus but works in silence. Vogel bought her noise-cancelling headphones hoping they would help her concentrate in an open-plan office. “It’s so relaxing,” she says. “At first I was doubtful it would make a big difference, but now couldn’t live without them. In noisy environments I really need some way to create quiet for myself.”

Noise damages more just our ears. Research studies have found links between long-term noise exposure and increased risk of heart attack and stroke, as well as low mood and difficulties with sleeping and concentrating. Adverse effects on mental and physical health can start at just 65dB, a level that seems moderate: a refrigerator hums steadily at 40dB, and an open plan office buzzes at around 60dB.

Underground trains can pass the 100dB mark when in transit. Photograph: Dinendra Haria/REX/Shutterstock

Josi Livingston, a developer at a technology startup in London, often uses the silencing feature to block out office chatter while she’s coding, but likes how she can still hear if someone talks to her. “I’m trying to minimise distraction. I need to focus, and any kind of extra stimuli will detract from that,” she says. “I think of it as engineering my environment to be the most comfortable.”

Unwanted noise can cause irritation and anger if it feels like an invasion of privacy, says Stephen Stansfeld, a Professor of Psychiatry at Queen Mary University of London who focuses on noise and health. “Having a lot of background noise when you’re doing something is tiring. Without noticing, you’re putting in a lot more effort in order to block out the noise. So when you shut it out, there’s a sense of relief.”

Getting worked up about noise can raise stress levels and leads to ill health. “But there’s no doubt that even if you’re not focused on the noise, it can still have an effect. If you’re asleep you may not wake up, but your body is still responding if you hear a loud sound,” says Stansfeld. “The body responds to noise as a stressor.”

Bethany Temple, an attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina, sometimes uses her headphones to avoid having to hear the TV when she’s at home with her husband. Temple says the silencing feature helps her feel more centred in herself: “When you realise just how much ambient noise there is everywhere: the refrigerator is running, the dishwasher, the washing machine and air conditioner, cars are going by outside. When that goes away, and you have the ability to be silent with your thoughts – once you realise that exists in the world, you start craving more.”

From airline pilots to urban dwellers

Noise-cancelling headphones were originally created for airplane pilots to improve their comfort on long flights, and the first consumer versions were also intended for travellers.

The technology, known as active noise-cancellation (ANC), works by using microphones to pick up low-frequency noise and neutralise it before it reaches the ear. The headset generates a sound that’s phase-inverted by 180 degrees to the unwanted noise, resulting in the two sounds cancelling each other out.

ANC headphones turn down the volume of the world by about 30dB, says Brian Brorsbøl, Director of Product Management at Sennheiser Communications – the reduction ranges between 20dB and 45dB, as the technology is more efficient against low-frequency sounds. “Using noise-cancelling technology on its own is something we’ve heard some people are doing,” he says.

When my partner, who even uses the silencing function when walking down the street, first told me these headphones would change my life, I was skeptical. How could it possibly be so revolutionary? But I get it now.

These headphones let me create breathing room in a busy city. They let me hear myself think. Every time I put them on and switch on the quiet, the feeling is one of relief.

Noise-cancelling headphones: the secret survival tool for modern life

Modern realities make caring for our aging parents impossible | Letters

David Mowat, a health minister, last week told a select committee that we need “to start thinking as a society about how we deal with the care of our own parents” (Care of elderly parents should be your responsibility, says minister, 31 January). He contrasted the approach with that of looking after children – “it is just what you do” – and argued that looking after our parents “is a similar responsibility in terms of our lifecycle”. The inference appeared to be that he does not believe that family carers are doing enough, despite him acknowledging that there are six million people in the country with caring responsibilities.

Such apparently muddled thinking is unhelpful, particularly when he went on to suggest that “part of the solution is properly bringing those informal carers into some kind of system”. Care happens within the context of a relationship, and trying to legislate for what that should look like is unnecessary and inappropriate. Mowat needs to understand the complexity and diversity of informal care – not everyone needing care has children, and the nature of modern life means that, even if they do, they aren’t always living in close proximity. Most care for older people actually comes from a spouse or partner, typically coping with their own advancing age and increasing ill health. Instead of arguing that society needs reminding of its responsibilities, and bringing such care into a “system”, Mowat should recognise that carers provide far more support than do health and social care services, and far from requiring a nudge to step up to their responsibilities, carers need proper recognition and support.
Dr Melanie Henwood
Hartwell, Northamptonshire

• I invite David Mowat to bathe his mother when the time for care comes. Also to take her to the toilet and ensure her personal hygiene. Quite different from bathing a child and changing its nappy. On a minister’s salary, he may be able to pay for someone to do this, instead of denying his mother dignity and saving his own embarrassment. The reality is that it is mostly daughters who would do the caring, giving up their jobs, reducing their own pensions and facing such indignities. In this society, where family members are often long distances apart and women of all ages are expected to work, Mr Mowat’s suggestion lacks the kind of intelligent analysis one might expect from a health minister. It is not lack of love for our parents which has led to this situation, but an economy and a society which is very much changed since the 1950s, its extended families and lower life expectancy.
Moira Sykes
Manchester

• After decades of being the Cinderella service of the welfare state, this year we can finally see social care beginning to rise to the top of the political agenda. From the British Red Cross to former ministers, it is now accepted that the system is in crisis and something must be done. The danger is that we repeat what’s happened in the past and set up yet another commission to tell us what we already know. As organisations whose members both deliver and receive care, we know that the public is way ahead of the politicians on this issue because they have experienced how the social care system has let their loved ones down: the flying 15-minute visits, the lack of training, low pay and high turnover of staff, the dubious financial structures of many large care providers and the withdrawal of help to some of our most vulnerable citizens have all been well documented.

Of course, at the heart of the crisis is the need for additional funding – but we need to put public money to the best possible use. Privatisation of care has mean that much of it is lost in debt financing and profit margins. New solutions and additional funding must mean better models of care and employment. In the fifth richest country in the world, we have to look not only at how we can share the cost of social care across society as a whole, but also how those services can be integrated into a publicly run health service. A new health and social care service, funded through effective taxation, is one obvious answer.
Dot Gibson General secretary, National Pensioners Convention, Heather Wakefield Head of local government, Unison

• Could David Mowat explain how my wife and I, entering our 70s, could accommodate her mother, a 90-year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer with severe mobility problems, in our two-bedroom terraced house with space for one bathroom? My parents are recently deceased but it would have also been really useful to have had a government guide on how we might have accommodated my elderly mother – with dementia, incontinence and restricted mobility – in the same house or perhaps visited her daily from just under 300 miles away. Or cared for my father in his 90s who was attempting to care for his wife while dealing with his own failing kidneys, before his fatal fall.
Richard Hooper
Accrington

• Care needs to be seen as a continuum and for some it may be impossible to remain at home; either their needs are too great or they make a positive choice to reside in another community. It is therefore essential that social care is put on an even footing with health care and funded accordingly.
Professor Martin Green
Chief executive, Care England

• As an “ageing person” myself, the last thing I want in my declining years is to become an enforced, disruptive dependent, thrust into the busy lives of my offspring. The outstanding flaw in David Mowat’s analogy with caring for the kids we bring into the world, is that we voluntarily choose to bring them here, largely for our own gratification, and therefore we have an innate responsibility to them. Furthermore, civilisation does not survive without such care. Conversely, our children did not choose their own creation, or for us to be their parents, so therefore have no such automatic reciprocal obligation.
Alan Fowler
Newcastle upon Tyne

• As a Labour councillor and former hedge fund trader I have some thoughts on Surrey’s proposed 15% rise in council tax. One of the problems with councils pleading poverty (Opinion, 21 January), is that so many of them, including Labour ones, took part in a Tory austerity scheme to freeze council tax bills. In 2010, George Osborne “bribed” hundreds of councils with “council tax freeze grants” – forcing them to replace percentage tax rises in line with inflation, with a commitment to freeze the cash level of tax. Haringey received around £8.5m in these payments from 2011 to 2015. But due to the compounding effects of money, once these ended (as they did in 2015), the effect of replacing proper, percentage, tax rises with one-off cash payments, meant the council tax base had fallen far behind inflation – and we were millions of pounds cumulatively worse off.

To illustrate, if Haringey council tax bills had simply kept up with RPI, they would be 20% higher today, or 15% higher once we knock out participation in Osborne’s final game, played with local authority finances, the “social care precept” (basically a council tax rise by another name)

. Likewise, Surrey wouldn’t be needing their referendum. And, of course, in all Osborne’s games the sums never really added up; proven by the £650bn in extra debt he left as his legacy of six years as the austerity chancellor – about as much as Labour added during 13 years in power (double the time frame). There is a lesson for Labour councils and politicians: when a Tory chancellor comes bearing “gifts” they’d be wise to recall Alex Ferguson’s infamous quote and “check under the sauce”. But sadly the Tories remain adept at duping both their rivals and the electorate about their supposed economic competence.
Cllr Patrick Berryman
Labour, Haringey

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Modern realities make caring for our aging parents impossible | Letters

Germ warfare: the battle for the key to modern vaccines

On 9 October 1964, a baby girl was born at Philadelphia general hospital. She arrived early, when her mother was about 32 weeks pregnant. The baby weighed 3.2lb and was noted to be blue, floppy and not breathing. The only sign of life was her slow heartbeat. Nonetheless, she clung on, and her 17-year-old mother named her.

One month later, the baby was still in the hospital, and a doctor listening with a stethoscope heard a harsh heart murmur. A chest X-ray showed that she had a massively enlarged heart because a hole in the organ was preventing it from pumping blood efficiently. It also emerged that the baby had cataracts blinding both eyes. Later, other signs indicated that she was profoundly deaf.

The baby also suffered from recurring respiratory infections and had trouble gaining weight. A psychologist who assessed her in July 1965 judged the nine-month-old to be the size of a two- or three-month-old infant and at about that stage of development, too. She needed heart surgery if she was going to survive. Just before her first birthday, surgeons made an incision in her chest wall and repaired her heart. After the operation, she remained in hospital. The chronic respiratory infections continued. The baby was 16 months old and weighed just 11lb when she died of pneumonia on 18 February 1966.

The young mother had told the doctors that when she was one month pregnant, she had contracted German measles, also known as rubella.

The early 1960s marked a coming of age for the study of viruses such as the one that causes rubella – tiny infectious agents that invade cells and hijack their machinery in order to reproduce themselves. Biologists, with new tools in hand, were racing to capture viruses in throat swabs or urine or even snippets of organs from infected people and to grow them in lab dishes. Isolating a virus in the lab made it possible to make a vaccine against it. And making antiviral vaccines promised huge inroads against common childhood diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella, along with less common killers including hepatitis. The principle of vaccination is simple: if a person is injected with, or swallows, a tiny amount of a virus – either a killed virus or a weakened live virus – that person will develop antibodies against the virus. Then, if he or she is exposed in the future to the naturally occurring, disease-causing form of the virus, those antibodies will attack the invader and prevent it from causing disease.

But if the concept is simple, making effective vaccines is anything but. In the early 1960s, that reality was all too evident. In 1942, as many as 330,000 US servicemen were exposed to the hepatitis B virus in a yellow fever vaccine that was contaminated with blood plasma from infected donors (the plasma was used to stabilise the vaccine). Around 50,000 of the vaccinated servicemen contracted the liver disease and up to 150 died.

In 1955, a California-based company named Cutter Laboratories made a polio vaccine with the live, disease-causing virus in it. As a result, 192 people were paralysed – many of them children – and 10 died. Every senior US government employee involved in the Cutter incident lost his or her job, right up to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the secretary for health, education and welfare.

Then, in the summer of 1961, Americans learned that cells used to manufacture the widely used Salk polio vaccine, harvested from monkey kidneys, harboured a virus named SV40. Tens of millions of American children had already received contaminated injections, and while the jury was still out on the tainted vaccine’s long-term health consequences, the risks were of great concern to regulators in the US and further afield.

It was against this backdrop that, on a drizzly June morning in 1962, a 34-year-old scientist named Leonard Hayflick went to work in his lab at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology – an elegant 1890s brownstone tucked in the heart of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus.

A serious, slight man with close-cropped dark hair, Hayflick was a product of working-class Philadelphia and hungry to make his name. He was in love with biology and had come to believe that he was extremely smart – a fact that was far from appreciated. Hayflick’s boss, the polio-vaccine pioneer Hilary Koprowski, saw him as a mere technician, hired to serve up bottles of lab-grown cells to the institute’s scientists.

The ambitious Hayflick was undeterred. That day, he planned to launch a group of human cells that would revolutionise vaccine-making. He was convinced that, compared with monkey cells, which were often laden with viruses, human cells would serve as cleaner, safer vehicles for producing antiviral vaccines.

Several days earlier, a woman living near Stockholm had had an abortion. The eight-inch-long female foetus was wrapped in a sterile green cloth and delivered to a yellow brick outbuilding on the grounds of the National Biological Laboratory in north-west Stockholm. The lungs were removed, packed in ice and flown to the Wistar Institute.

The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. Photograph: The Wistar Institute

Hayflick had been waiting months for this opportunity. These lungs would be the source of the new cells he needed to make antiviral vaccines. Viruses can’t multiply outside living cells, and huge quantities of virus were needed to produce vaccines.

Now, at last, the lungs were here in his bustling second-floor lab, two purplish things floating in clear pink fluid in a glass bottle. They had been sent to Hayflick by a top virologist at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

Hayflick knew that he was uniquely positioned to produce a long-lasting supply of these cells. He had spent the previous three years perfecting the procedure that would do it.

Hayflick took the lungs into a tiny room just off his lab – what passed for a “sterile” area in 1962. He picked up a pair of tweezers, dipped them in alcohol and passed them through the flame of a Bunsen burner. He waited for them to cool and then, gently, one at a time, lifted the organs and placed them on a petri dish. Each was no larger than his thumb above the knuckle. He began carefully slicing them into innumerable pieces, each smaller than a pinhead.

Hayflick nudged the minute pieces of tissue into a wide-mouthed glass flask. The translucent pink fluid was full of digestive enzymes from slaughtered pigs. These biological jackhammers broke up the “mortar” between the lung cells, separating millions upon millions of them. Later, he transferred those cells into several flat-sided glass bottles and poured a nutritious solution over them. Hayflick then loaded the bottles on to a tray, and carried them into an incubation room where the temperature was a cosy 36C. He laid the bottles on their sides on a wooden shelf and closed the door carefully behind him. There the cells began to divide. He already had a name for them: WI-38.

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The WI-38 cells that Hayflick launched that day were used to make vaccines that have been given to more than 300 million people – half of them preschool children in the US. A copycat group of cells, developed using the method that Hayflick pioneered, has been used to make an additional 6bn doses of various vaccines.

Together these vaccines have protected people the world over from the gamut of viral illnesses: rubella, rabies, chickenpox, measles, polio, hepatitis A, shingles and adenovirus – a respiratory infection that flourishes in situations where people live in close quarters. (Every US military recruit – more than nine million of them since 1971 – is given an adenovirus vaccine made using WI-38 cells.) In the US, a vaccine made in WI-38 cells that is still given to young children has wiped out homegrown rubella. It was developed at the Wistar Institute by Hayflick’s colleague Stanley Plotkin, during a rubella epidemic that swept the country in 1964 and 1965.

The WI-38 cells Hayflick launched that day made vaccines that have been given to more than 300 million people

The WI-38 cells are still in use today partly because Hayflick made such a large initial stock of them: some 800 tiny, wine-bottle–shaped ampoules were frozen in the summer of 1962. When frozen, cells stop dividing, but then gamely begin replicating when they are thawed.Each glass vial that Hayflick froze contained between 1.5m and 2m cells. The cells in those vials had, on average, the capacity to divide about 40 more times. Early on, Hayflick determined that the newly derived cells in just one of his small glass lab bottles, if allowed to replicate until they died, would produce 20m tonnes of cells.In those 800 vials, he had created a supply of cells that for practical purposes was almost infinite.

In addition to their use in vaccine making, the WI-38 cells became the first normal cells available in virtually unlimited quantities to scientists probing the mysteries of cell biology. Because they were easily infected with human viruses, they became important to disease detectives tracking viruses in the 1960s, before more sophisticated technology came along.Biologists still reach for WI-38 cells when they need a normal cell to compare against a cancerous one, or to test the toxicity of new drugs. They are a workhorse of research into ageing, because they so reliably age and die in laboratory conditions. Original ampoules of WI-38 cells, and of polio vaccine made using them, are now part of the collection of the National Museum of American History.

But in the 1960s and 70s, a bitter feud broke out between Hayflick and the US government over who owned the cells.

Hayflick in the lab in the 1960s. Photograph: Supplied

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As the importance of the WI-38 cells grew,Hayflick was only too happy to promote them. “Human Cells Given Role in Vaccines,” the New York Times proclaimed after the scientist spoke at a vaccine conference in 1966. The article quoted Hayflick explaining that his cells were cheaper, cleaner and safer than the animal cells then used in vaccine manufacture.

As his profile rose, Hayflick ran out of patience with Koprowski. The disconnect between his contributions and his treatment by the Wistar Institute’s director had become too much to bear. Nine years after Koprowski hired him, Hayflick remained stuck as an associate member of the institute, in sharp contrast to many colleagues who had been made full members despite, to his mind, making contributions no greater than his own.

Hayflick began looking around. He applied for a position as a full professor of medical microbiology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. His application for the job was backed by a recommendation from a senior virologist who regarded his work as “reliable, trustworthy and original”. He was offered the post.

As Hayflick’s departure approached, there was probably only one thing that concerned Koprowski: the fate of the hundreds of ampoules of WI-38 cells that were still stored in liquid nitrogen in the Wistar Institute’s basement, under Hayflick’s watchful eye. Hayflick’s proprietary feelings about the cells were well known – he once described them as “like my children”.

Koprowski had designs on the cells from the beginning. Nancy Pleibel, a lab technician who worked for Hayflick, recalls that more than once Koprowski had turned up in the lab within a day or two of Hayflick leaving on a trip, smiling and asking her for an ampoule of WI-38 cells. Politely but firmly, she refused his requests, explaining that only her boss could hand out WI-38 ampoules. After a while, Koprowski stopped asking.

Minutes from meetings of the Wistar Institute’s board of managers in the early and mid-60s make clear that Koprowski tried repeatedly to cash in on Hayflick’s human diploid cells(defined as cells that carry the normal complement of 46 chromosomes). The institute sought payment not only from Norden, a Missouri company that was interested in using WI-38 to develop a rabies vaccine, but also from Pfizer for the use of Hayflick’s cells to make a measles vaccine, and from Wyeth, another Philadelphia-based drug manufacturer that by 1965 had used the WI-38 cells to make an adenovirus vaccine to protect US army recruits during basic training.

Koprowski’s attempts to turn a profit with the WI-38 cells were far from successful. By 1965, the board of managers had appointed “a special committee of lawyers and scientists to deal with problems” in selling the Hayflick cells to industry. The only backing that the institute landed, according to budget documents from 1965 to 1967, was $ 5,000 in each of those years from Norden.

Today it seems incredible that an institution like the Wistar, full of eminent scientists, was so at sea when it came to profiting from unique and desirable cells produced under its roof. But in that era living things, such as the WI-38 cells, could not be patented. It would take a landmark supreme court decision in 1980 to change that.

However, what could be patented was a method of using the cells to produce a novel vaccine. Koprowski had already applied, back in 1964, for such a patent for another, improved rabies vaccine that he was developing using the WI-38 cells. Soon the Wistar Institute would apply for a patent on a method of making a rubella vaccine with the WI-38s, devised by another of its scientists, Stanley Plotkin.

If and when the rabies and rubella vaccine patents were granted, Koprowski would need accessto at least some of the original ampoules of WI-38 frozen in the Wistar Institute basement.Vaccine companies would want original ampoules full of the youngest cells, which could be expanded into a nearly endless supply.

By the autumn of 1967, Hayflick vaguely suspected that Koprowski intended the WI-38 cells to serve something more thanthe good of mankind. Hayflick believed that his boss hoped to turn any vaccines made with the cells into sources of cash, boosting the Wistar Institute’s income and freeing him from fundraising duties that he detested and considered beneath him.

Transmission electron micrograph of Rubella virions. Photograph: Science Photo Library

Hayflick’s instincts were right. As 1967 drew to a close, a financial vice was tightening on Koprowski. While the Wistar Institute had remained solvent, it had never been flush with funds, especially after Koprowski blew through $ 271,506 to fund major renovations that were completed in 1959. By the mid-60s, his struggle to find cash not tied to specific grants was becoming desperate. Badly needed repairs to the roof and the air conditioning system were deferred.

In the autumn of 1967, when officials at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) learned that Hayflick would be moving to Stanford, they decided to take the production, storage, study and distribution to researchers of human diploid cells out of his hands. The NCI had been paying the Wistar Institute hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hayflick to produce and distribute the cells since 1962, shortly after his paper announcing his human diploid cell strains to the world had sent demand soaring. The agency’s contract with the Wistar Institute had specified that the government would take ownership of the cells when the contract was terminated. Now, NIH officials set 1 January 1968 as the end date. The timing seemed right, and not only because of Hayflick’s impending move. The sense at the NCI was that the demand for the WI-38 cells had been sated. Those scientists who wanted them, it seemed, had them by now, more than five years after Hayflick had first produced them. They were being used widely and had already been cited in scores of papers.

On 18 January 1968, several men travelled to the Wistar Institute to sort out the physical disposition of the WI-38 cells now that the contract had ended. Koprowski summoned Hayflick to meet with them. Also present were senior scientists from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). This independent, nonprofit organisation was the country’s highest-profile cell bank, and was often where biologists turned when they needed a particular type of cell for an experiment. According to records, the assembled men agreed that all but 20 of the roughly 375 remaining original ampoules of WI-38 cells would be transferred to the ATCC, which would maintain them, deeply frozen, on behalf of the NIH. Hayflick would be permitted to take 10 ampoules with him to Stanford, and the Wistar Institute would also be allowed to keep 10.

The group also decided that any use of the 355 original ampoules being transferred to the ATCC – they were precious because the WI-38 cell populations in them had divided only eight times, and so could be expanded into untold billions of cells for vaccine making – “should be totally arrested”. By this, they meant that there was to be no more thawing of the ampoules, no more planting of these young cells into lab bottles, and no more splitting of those bottles over and over to generate multitudes of cells at higher doubling levels for scientists to use. Scientists could use the older cells that were already in circulation. The remaining 355 original ampoules needed to be kept safely frozen at the ATCC until such time as companies began winning US licences to make WI-38–based vaccines.

Some time during his last months at the Wistar Institute, Hayflick was working in one of the tiny “sterile” rooms that adjoined his lab. Plotkin squeezed through the door and pulled up the only chair. The two chatted for a while, then Plotkin showed Hayflick a document. It was a letter, on Wistar-headed paper, from Koprowski, written to a senior official at Burroughs Wellcome, the British pharmaceutical company. Koprowski was offering to provide to the company ample supplies of WI-38 cells, along with the recipe for making a vaccine with the cells and the virus itself, all in exchange for royalties.

‘To have the vultures descend on what I had struggled to give value to – most people would understand why I was upset’

Hayflick’s suspicions had been confirmed. He was profoundly upset. He had spent the previous decade deriving the cells and opened up a new, important field in the study of cellular ageing. He had derived enough WI-38 cells to serve vaccine makers into the distant future and worked as hard as was humanly possible to win acceptance of the cells for vaccine making. In the process of all of this, he had been ridiculed and been forced to struggle for respect and validation.

This letter signalled that not only was he not valued but that he was also being sidelined in major decision-making – and likely profit-making – connected to the WI-38 cells. As Hayflick said, “to have the vultures descend on what I had struggled so hard to give value to and [for them to] try to take it for their benefit – I think that an average person would understand why I was, to put it mildly, concerned”.

On or around 1 March – when, under the January agreement, the ampoules were to have been moved from the Wistar Institute to the ATCC – a specially outfitted station wagon arrived from Maryland, carrying the NIH project officer, Charles Boone, and John Shannon, the ATCC’s curator of cell lines. Hayflick turned them away, saying he wasn’t ready to hand over the cells because he had not prepared an inventory of them.

Not long after this, Hayflick, unobserved, visited the Wistar Institute’s basement. There he packed every single one of the remaining original WI-38 ampoules – 375 frozen vials: the largest stock of young WI-38 cells on earth – into one or more portable liquid-nitrogen refrigerators and departed the premises. He left nothing behind – not even the 10 ampoules that Koprowski’s institute had been promised in the January agreement.

Hilary Koprowski at work in his lab. Photograph: Yale Joel/The Life Picture Collection/Getty Images

Hayflick stored the frozen cells temporarily with a friend, a vaccinologist at the nearby Wyeth Laboratories who, from time to time, topped up the liquid nitrogen that kept the cells frozen. Hayflick says that he took the ampoules with the intention of keeping them only until the ownership of the cells could be properly sorted out. He believed that there were several potential stakeholders who might reasonably claim ownership: himself and his early collaborator at the Wistar Institute, the chromosome expert Paul Moorhead; the “estate” of the WI-38 foetus, by which he meant the WI-38 foetus’s parents; the Wistar Institute; and, just possibly, the NIH. But he was not going to be so naive as to leave the cells in the NIH’s possession while these matters were decided. If he did that, he was sure that he would never see them again.

In mid-1968, Hayflick left for his new job in California. Moving a family of seven 2,900 miles was no small undertaking. The Hayflicks split the travel. Ruth flew out to the San Francisco Bay Area with their two youngest daughters. Hayflick drove the three older children cross-country in their dark green Buick sedan. They drove west through Pittsburgh, stopped to see drag races in Joplin, Missouri, and then headed on to Arizona, where they gazed at the world’s best-preserved meteor crater and marvelled at the Grand Canyon. All along the way, some extra cargo travelled with them. Carefully strapped on the backseat beside his children was a liquid-nitrogen refrigerator stuffed with ampoules of WI-38.

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Hayflick’s flight with the cells would make him the target of a career-derailing investigation by the National Institutes of Health. Hayflick counter-sued – eventually, in 1981, settling with the government. He was allowed to keep six original ampoules of the cells, along with $ 90,000 that he had earned by charging researchers and companies for them after he left the Wistar Institute. A letter from supporters published in the journal Science, described the “happy outcome of Dr Hayflick’s courageous, sometimes lonely, emotionally damaging and professionally destructive ordeal”.

But just as the tug-of-war over ownership of the WI-38 cells peaked, profound changes occurred in attitudes and laws governing who could make money from biological inventions. In the space of a few years, biologists went from being expected to work only for their salaries and the greater good to being encouraged by universities and the government to commercialise their innovations for the benefit of the institutions, the US economy – and themselves.

Although the WI-38 cellswere launched long before these changes took place– and 18 years before the supreme court decreed that a living entity, such as a WI-38 cell, could be patented – a lot of money has been made from them. The drug company Merck, in particular, has made billions of dollars by using the WI-38 cells to make the rubella vaccine given to more than seven million American children each year. The Wistar Institute too enjoyed a handsome royalty stream from vaccines made by its scientists using the cells – including a much-improved rabies vaccine that replaced sometimes dangerous injections. Cell banks today charge several hundred dollars for a tiny vial of the cells.

During the long battle for ownership of the WI-38 cells, Koprowski sent a Wistar scientist across the country to collect them from Hayflick’s Stanford lab. But Hayflick refused to part with them. A second emissary was more successful, returning with the 10 ampoules originally allocated to the institute. But later, while the NIH was still asserting its title to WI-38, Koprowski seems to have given up. Perhaps this was because Hayflick was now so far away. Maybe it was because, despite his propensity for it, Koprowski actually disliked direct conflict. Possibly, it was because several companies already appeared to have adequate supplies of the youngest WI-38 ampoules. On the other hand, though, it might have been because Koprowski had finally realised just how persistent, obdurate and dedicated Hayflick could be.

This is an adapted extract from The Vaccine Race by Meredith Wadman, published by Doubleday on 9 February in the UK and in the US by Viking.

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Germ warfare: the battle for the key to modern vaccines

Scurvy cases reported in Australia reveal modern diet failings

Scurvy, an 18th century disease caused by a lack of vitamin C, appears to have made a surprise comeback in Australia.

Historically associated with sailors on long voyages, scurvy has been detected in a number of diabetic patients at Westmead hospital in western Sydney.

Prof Jenny Gunton from the hospital’s centre for diabetes, obesity and endocrinology said several of her patients with long-running unhealed wounds had been cured by a simple course of vitamin C.

A lack of vitamin C in the body results in the defective formation of collagen and connective tissues, which can cause bruising, bleeding gums, blood spots in the skin, joint pain and impaired wound healing.
When the patients were asked about their diet, some were eating little or no fresh fruit and vegetables. The rest ate fair amounts of vegetables but were over-cooking them, which destroys the vitamin C.

Gunton fears the problem could be much more widespread.

“Human bodies cannot synthesise vitamin C, so we must eat foods containing it,” she said.

Most Australians don’t meet World Health Organisation standards for vegetable consumption.

Research by University of Sydney PhD candidate Reetica Rekhy, recently published in the journal Nutrition & Dietetics, found that while almost one in two Australians ate the recommended two serves of fruit daily, only 7% of adults consumed the recommended serves of vegetables.

Her research found most of the 1,000 respondents did not have a good understanding about specific nutritional benefits of most vegetables.

“If we are not eating what we are meant to eat, it will have a reflection on our health and there will be all these conditions [like scurvy] that will emerge or re-emerge,” Rekhy said.

Common foods that are high in vitamin C include oranges, strawberries, red and green peppers including capsicums, broccoli, kiwi fruit and grapefruit. Overcooking any food is likely to destroy the vitamin C.

The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating recommends people eat two to eight serves of vegetables and legumes each day, based on age, physical activity levels and body size.

One serve is described as about one cup of uncooked or half a cup of cooked or canned vegetables or beans.

Potatoes are not considered vegetables for the purposes of the requirements but tomatoes, although officially a fruit, are.

Scurvy cases reported in Australia reveal modern diet failings

Your Workout Isn’t Healthy: The Problems With Modern Movement

You’re dedicated. You’ve been working up a sweat five days a week. You’re determined to shift the weight and tone up. You’ve read the articles and booked the personal trainer. But there’s something you should know: fitness isn’t just about your physique. The truth is, there’s a very real possibility that your workout isn’t healthy. The problems with modern movement are just starting to come to the fore.

The fitness industry is worth an estimated 30 billion dollars. Increased availability of neon tennis-shoes, designer lycra, and high-tech fit bands that monitor your heart rate, sleeping patterns and caloric expenditure have made getting pumped both fashionable and lucrative. It’s booming business venture and a cultural obsession.

But it’s not necessarily the Saint of Good health we all thought it was.

Amongst the popular propensity to “work out”, “get fit”, and “shape up”, there is often a lack of consciousness – a disconnect between mind and body – that renders modern movement problematic. Stripped back to the primitive basics, strength isn’t just muscles, and fitness isn’t just physique.

In fact, hard core fitness fanatics may be first in line for injury, adrenal fatigue, and systemic dysregulation.

The relationship between humans and purpose-orientated movement is steeped in biology, history, culture, and vogue appeal. Though it is inextricably linked to health and wellbeing, a sense of separation has been created between our segregated exercise routines and movement as an ongoing practice.

In fact, some believe this detachment has seen the rise of Junk Food Movement; physicality that essential looks and feels like the real deal, but ultimately does not serve the body. This sets the scene to potentially generate patterns and habits that are counter-productive.

Instead of allowing movement to become a form a communication with ourselves, we cut the phone lines, and the brain-body disconnect can lead to serious health issues.

Lack of desired fitness results may encourage a determined, but mindless, tenacity. Though technically fit, this may cause the athlete to get hurt, sick, or deeply discouraged.

The concept of fitness is often misconstrued as – and used interchangeably with – muscular capability. However, true fitness is the marriage of physical, neural, spiritual, and immune strength that compose a singularly adept body.

In order to recognize how to implement a more holistic methodology into your routine, it is imperative that you remove yourself from the established aesthetic that dictates how pop-fitness is practiced. Our intrinsic instinct to move has been taught out of us in favor of the more stylized and clinical approach – based on specific results – that we are familiar with today. It often has very little to do with health.

There is much more to the recipe than bodacious bubble butts and prodigious pectorals.

Chasing this ideal image has become such an integral part of working out, that the pursuit and outcome itself may be at the expense of practical functionality. Basic actions like bending over and kneeling down can be compromised due to muscle mass developed in an impractical structure. The body is trained to accomplish a look, as opposed to a function. General competency decreases with muscular isolation, intense regimen specialization, and competition based fitness. The obvious strength manifests into sneaky, long term weaknesses.

It’s no coincidence that resolve quickly wanes after enthusiastic New Year’s resolutions fade into the (not so distant) past. Achieving glossy magazine fitness goals can be deceptively difficult. The cyclical ebb and flow that so often accompanies the determination to tackle the holiday hips and boost those buns is not simply the annoying subject your mother always brings up over a Sunday dinner.

Calories, treadmills and double helpings of double chocolate brownies aside, there is a distinct lack of several key components to the contemporary exercise model that are likely thwarting best efforts to prove your mother wrong:

• Balance


• Mindfulness


• Stimulus


• Fulfillment and Practicality


• Connective Tissue Support


• Nervous System Integration


• Movement Complexity


• Green space

It is not a simple case of doing things incorrectly or adhering to the wrong denomination of discipline; a gentle shift in perspective is all that is needed. Striving for a particular shape, as opposed to a state of being, is a road rife with stress, disappointment, and unrealistic expectation.

Modern body manipulation has become such a stilted, constructed, and restricted formula. Even the most devoted athletes and enthusiasts will struggle to reconcile their fitness protocol with a genuinely healthful, integral, and sustainable flow.

Instead of seeing living and working out as separate entities, integrating the two into a dynamic life structure is a far more natural and satisfying approach. Contrary to angling for the ultimate abs, consider instead that a capable, lean, healthy, fit body is the byproduct of a holistic venture. Shift the focus from developing absolute abs to mastering movement, and the results will be significant and sustainable.

Fulfillment and Practicality

Stagnation is the mother of dissatisfaction. In order for fitness to transfer over to a sense of sustained fulfillment, reconsider the quest for lethal lats as the acquisition of new skills. Bicep curls may bulk you up, but that basic movement isn’t likely to translate practically into the real world; 50 reps     won’t make picking up the phone any easier than it already is.

Instead, build proficiency, not just muscles. Think about engaging in movement that serves your whole body in multiple ways, over a long period of time – not just during the clinical trial in the gym laboratory.

It is helpful to establish clear goals in this instance. Focus on a specific, practical application or set of actions that you want to be able deftly accomplish. Instead of a built frame, focus on what you need to accomplish; safe manipulation of heavy objects, hiking long distances with a pack of provisions, easily picking up growing     children, or cycling to work instead of driving.

Connective Tissue Support

While sporting the brawn of a Viking god has its advantages, carrying around packs of meat does require some forethought. Without the support of a solid connective tissue network, not only are you more prone to injury, but balance, flexibility, agility, and adaptability are distinctly reduced. Pure strength does not equate to pure fitness, and bulk can become inhibitive to function.

It takes time to build this network, but it is imperative for full fitness realization. An avid routine can affect muscle change within a 90 day window. However, connective tissue functions at 1/10th the metabolic rate of muscle production, and takes between 200 and 210 days to catch up.

Give yourself a literal leg up in this department by implementing a comprehensive and dynamic stretching practice. A complex diet involving plenty of collagen, glucosamine, glutamine, sulfate, and bioflavenoids will fuel your cells and give you the necessary building blocks to ramp up connective tissue production.

Balance

Balance begets balance. By striving for muscular and movement balance, you will also create strength and agility equilibrium. You will be more adaptive, quicker to recover, and create a more capable network of cells.

Think of the human vehicle in three separate sections: top to bottom, left to right, front to back. Developing a sense of awareness about section dominance is the first step to biological equity. Devising a workload that tests all sides of your body in equal measure will provide broad spectrum stability and transferable skill.

The popular tendency to focus on spot reduction/toning is not conducive to comprehensive competency, but reverts back to that less practical aesthetic.

Stimulus

Boredom is the ring bearer of fitness failure. Lack of stimulus will almost certainly result in a shortage of enthusiasm and interest,     while increasing the likelihood of plateauing or abandoning ship altogether. If you begin to suffer from ennui, your workout will become a judgment against yourself, and you will begin to associate movement with punishment. This can launch a cycle of guilt and blame, that ultimately damages self confidence – a strictly     unhelpful and unnecessary addition to the mix.

Diversified and engaged hustle is key to avoiding the stimulus slump. Simply taking an old routine and busting a gut it in an entirely new environment will help to liven up the gaps that repetition creates.

Mindfulness

The spiritual aspect to physical training can be deeply profound. While negative mind-chatter will automatically focus on thoughts of pain and difficulty, choosing to move mindfully engages the     subconscious, emotional self to welcome transformation.

With a sense of kindness and acceptance, use purpose and goals to guide your journey – as opposed to mercilessly slogging to fit the popular mold. Mindless movement denies the natural essence of your physicality, and it also taking a risk; it is perfectly possible to strengthen your deficiencies and dysfunctions if undertaken with the wrong mindset. Consider that some movement may not be best suited to your body. Forcing the issue may just be enforcing incorrect form or action.

Resist the urge to resist. Connect to the beauty and freedom of flow, and find meaning. Listen to your body. If you are chronically fatigued, perpetually plateaued, or dissatisfied, the harder/stronger/faster approach isn’t necessarily your friend.

In fact, a little R&R may be the missing component to your ideal, healthy bod. Tend to the mind, then the body.

Nervous System Integration

Neuro-plasticity is a crucial, and often overlooked component of overall fitness. In the sterility of a gym environment, it is difficult to maintain a diverse routine that challenges both mind and body. However, even if it is capable of building and sustaining muscle mass, repetitive movement will not teach your nervous system to grow and develop with your body.

Instead, expand your physical vernacular.

By engaging in exercises that improve coordination, you encourage and reinforce secondary motor skills that support you during and after a sweet sweat session. By taking an ordinary activity and enhancing it by changing up any number of predictable aspects – shape, weight,     distance from your body, performing on an uneven surface, catching and throwing during an otherwise static exercise – will improve your ability to move effectively in a changing environment.

Movement Complexity

Improve cognitive function with dynamic fitness. Think of it as brain training; the more complex the movement, the more complex the brain activity. Complicated sequences increase synaptogenesis, which is the number of synapses taking place between neurons. This means, the more fireworks set off, the better.

Tree and rock climbing, coordination builders, and quick-fire accuracy based activities will all     provide strong connections to build brain-body vitality. Parkour is an excellent exercise alternative  to explore.

Green Space

The healing aspects of kicking butt in a green space are scientifically proven to boost well-being. Termed “Forest Bathing” by Japanese rangers in the eighties, performing any sort of movement  based activity in a green space will automatically stimulate all of the senses, providing a thoroughly immersive experience.

This heightened awareness also contributes to enhanced neurological connections, teaching and satisfying your brain at the same time. The dynamic, unexpected terrain will further facilitate coordination and reflexes, effectively involving several of the above points in one lithe leap.

Further to this, exposure to phytoncides – which are anti-microbial oils secreted by trees – are proven to boost immunity, fight cancer cells, and combat depression. The effects can last up the 7 days, which means the devotion of an hour or two once a week provides enough of this     powerful potion to keep you in rude health.

Whether it is the local park or full on forest, get verdant landscapes into your weekly schedule.

It’s time for a new paradigm: build a better human, not just bigger muscles.

Harking back to a more primitive way of engaging our biology offers wisdom and insight into how to bring more intelligent movement into your day to day. It isn’t necessary to don plain muslin and snack on twigs; these inclusive, personal, and versatile tips are for everyone.

Applied together, these factors have the potential to lasso your limitations and capitalize on your capabilities. Your fitness will be your health, not just your physique. And you can still wear your leopard print leggings if you want.

Implementing these strategies will take time and patience. Years of mental and cultural conditioning will rail against this line of thought; remember, human biology thrives on this stuff. Once the neuro-pathways have unfolded their wings, beautiful symbiosis will nurture effortless vitality.

And that’s the whole point.

Sources

http://www.ibisworld.com Gym, Health & Fitness Clubs in the US: Market Research Report, IBIS World

http://www.danielvitalis.com Are you Kinesthetically Literate?

http://www.danielvitalis.com A More Capable Human

https://barefootandsoul.com Ingredients for Healthy Connective Tissue
http://www.parkouruk.org Parkour

Your Workout Isn’t Healthy: The Problems With Modern Movement

UN agrees to fight "the biggest threat to modern medicine": antibiotic resistance

All 193 United Nations member states are set to sign a declaration agreeing to combat “the biggest threat to modern medicine” in Wednesday’s high-level meeting on antibiotic resistance.

The agreement was reached just before the general assembly convened to discuss the threat of antibiotic resistance, which is only the fourth health issue to trigger a general assembly meeting.

“It’s ironic that such a small thing is causing such an enormous public threat,” said Jeffrey LeJeune, a professor and head of the food animal research program at Ohio State University. “But it is a global health threat that needs a global response.”

The declaration routes the global response to superbugs along a similar path as the one used to combat climate change. In two years, groups including UN agencies will provide an update on the superbug fight to the UN secretary general.

It is estimated that more than 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant infections, though it could be much higher because there is no global system to monitor these deaths. And there has been trouble tracking those deaths in places where they are monitored, like in the US, where tens of thousands of deaths have not been attributed to superbugs, according to a Reuters investigation.

Scientists warned about the threat of antibiotic resistance decades ago, when pharmaceutical companies began the industrial production of medicine. The inventor of penicillin, Alexander Fleming, cautioned of the impending crisis while accepting his Nobel prize in 1945: “There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant”.

But in the last few years, studies have dramatically increased awareness about antibiotic resistance. There has also been considerable advocacy by health officials, like Sally Davies, chief medical officer of the UK.

“Drug-resistant infections are firmly on the global agenda but now the real work begins,” Davies said in a statement. “We need governments, the pharmaceutical industry, health professionals and the agricultural sector to follow through on their commitments to save modern medicine.”

Signatories to the UN declaration committed to encouraging innovation in antibiotic development, increasing public awareness of the threat and developing surveillance and regulatory systems on the use and sales of antimicrobial medicine for humans and animals.

Only three other health issues have been the subject of general assembly high-level meetings: HIV/Aids, non-communicable diseases and Ebola.

Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said he was encouraged that unlike with HIV/Aids and Ebola, the UN is addressing this health crisis before it has spun out of control.

“It’s very serious indeed – it’s killing people around the world at the rate of hundreds of thousands of year and we all expect it to get worse if something isn’t done now,” Woolhouse said. “But the UN is coming in at just the right time, in a sense.”

UN agrees to fight "the biggest threat to modern medicine": antibiotic resistance

Three ways to create major care model for modern Britain

Twenty-five per cent of A&ampE admissions could be handled elsewhere, analysis suggests. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Reviews of a postcode lottery for British patients have drawn attention to the stark variations in between general practices across the Uk. This invites some reflection as to what factors unify the NHS, and begs the question of whether or not a a single-size-fits-all model of major care can exist in modern day Britain.

When the population is as scattered and various as it is in the United kingdom, it is inevitable that principal care companies in different locations will need to be adapted to better suit nearby demands. What this disparity also highlights is the want to target a lot more closely on the basic problems at the heart of the overall health service.

In recent many years there has been an emerging trend of patients heading straight to A&ampE rather than pursuing household or major care choices, which might reflect shifting social attitudes as significantly as the limited availability of nearby GPs.

There are 3 strategies that could create a powerful model of major care, all of which would call for the implementation of considerable reform. These processes would function together to produce an integrated system, and tackle the problem of needlessly duplicated companies.

one Introduce a tariff

The first reform that would reduce expenses and create a much more successful model of care is the introduction of a tariff that does not spend for needless treatments. This would alleviate a excellent deal of strain on both main and secondary care, and transfer important companies to neighborhood health care centres.

2 Redeploy the NHS workforce

Allocating healthcare pros to distinct sectors or levels of care would utilise the various talent set existing in the NHS and enrich the good quality of patient remedy. By redeploying personnel to areas that desperately call for added assistance we would also be in a position to get rid of the want for hospital or stroll-in centre visits, which are far much more pricey to run than GP surgeries.

Recent initiatives to spread much more providers and NHS employees across secondary and primary care units demonstrate growing considerations about strain on A&ampE. There is clearly broad support for increasing the function of principal care. Despite the fact that the growth of health-related premises to pharmacies, dentists, and optometrists, as properly as modernised consulting rooms, has confirmed helpful in retaining patients and easing the strain on other primary care companies, it is the redeployment of secondary solutions to frontline care that will have the most substantial impact on the NHS.

three Dispose of NHS assets

The third and probably most controversial means of releasing funds and consolidating care is the disposal of NHS assets. The explanation for the controversy is the prevalent misconception that closing healthcare facilities equates to occupation losses. The reality is that the United kingdom well being support possesses a quantity of useful assets locked up in estates that are not fulfilling their function in an efficient way.

The problematic side impact of pinpointing surgeries in particular areas is that it can detract from the overall situation dealing with the NHS. Premises improvement in the NHS needs to return to the public dialogue, as there stays a freeze on funding for developing modern day, integrated facilities.

In order to meet the increasing demands of patients there has to be a viable substitute to A&ampE. The emergency consultation is the security net for the central program, but is now often working as the reluctant initial port of contact for patients who consider there is nowhere else to go.

With figures suggesting that 25% of A&ampE admissions could have been taken care of elsewhere, and three-quarters of GP practices are potentially unfit for goal, higher good quality major care premises have to be a priority.

The 3-strand strategy for rebuilding the NHS is not a easy one, nor is it a quick resolve. It demands some tough selections for healthcare legislators and companies as effectively as a seismic shift in public attitudes to looking for health-related attention. Nevertheless, it is possible and it is the essential route in direction of a sustainable, valuable long term for healthcare.

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Three ways to create major care model for modern Britain

Three methods to build major care model for modern day Britain

Twenty-five per cent of A&ampE admissions could be taken care of elsewhere, research suggests. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Reviews of a postcode lottery for British individuals have drawn focus to the stark variations amongst common practices across the Uk. This invites some reflection as to what aspects unify the NHS, and begs the question of whether or not a 1-dimension-fits-all model of major care can exist in modern Britain.

When the population is as scattered and varied as it is in the Uk, it is inevitable that principal care companies in diverse regions will need to have to be adapted to greater suit neighborhood specifications. What this disparity also highlights is the want to focus a lot more closely on the fundamental concerns at the heart of the wellness service.

In latest years there has been an emerging trend of sufferers heading straight to A&ampE rather than pursuing family or major care alternatives, which may well reflect modifying social attitudes as significantly as the restricted availability of local GPs.

There are 3 methods that could create a sturdy model of principal care, all of which would demand the implementation of considerable reform. These processes would operate with each other to generate an integrated program, and handle the issue of needlessly duplicated companies.

1 Introduce a tariff

The very first reform that would lower expenses and set up a much more effective model of care is the introduction of a tariff that does not pay out for needless remedies. This would alleviate a fantastic deal of strain on the two main and secondary care, and transfer crucial solutions to nearby health-related centres.

2 Redeploy the NHS workforce

Allocating health-related professionals to diverse sectors or amounts of care would utilise the varied skill set existing in the NHS and enrich the good quality of patient remedy. By redeploying personnel to regions that desperately demand extra assistance we would also be able to take away the want for hospital or walk-in centre visits, which are far far more expensive to run than GP surgeries.

Recent initiatives to spread a lot more solutions and NHS workers across secondary and main care units demonstrate increasing concerns about strain on A&ampE. There is obviously wide assistance for rising the position of major care. Even though the expansion of medical premises to pharmacies, dentists, and optometrists, as properly as modernised consulting rooms, has confirmed beneficial in retaining patients and easing the strain on other main care companies, it is the redeployment of secondary providers to frontline care that will have the most significant affect on the NHS.

three Dispose of NHS assets

The third and probably most controversial implies of releasing funds and consolidating care is the disposal of NHS assets. The cause for the controversy is the prevalent misconception that closing medical services equates to job losses. The actuality is that the United kingdom health services possesses a variety of valuable assets locked up in estates that are not fulfilling their goal in an productive way.

The problematic side impact of pinpointing surgeries in specified areas is that it can detract from the general situation facing the NHS. Premises improvement in the NHS demands to return to the public dialogue, as there stays a freeze on funding for constructing present day, integrated facilities.

In purchase to meet the growing demands of sufferers there has to be a viable option to A&ampE. The emergency consultation is the safety net for the central technique, but is now typically working as the reluctant initial port of call for individuals who think there is nowhere else to go.

With figures suggesting that 25% of A&ampE admissions could have been taken care of elsewhere, and 3-quarters of GP practices are possibly unfit for function, substantial quality primary care premises have to be a priority.

The three-strand technique for rebuilding the NHS is not a straightforward a single, nor is it a quick resolve. It requires some difficult choices for healthcare legislators and suppliers as effectively as a seismic shift in public attitudes to in search of health care focus. Even so, it is feasible and it is the necessary route in the direction of a sustainable, beneficial potential for healthcare.

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Three methods to build major care model for modern day Britain

If you grind your teeth at the stresses and strains of modern day existence, study on

Our teeth are developed up of layers: on the within is pulp – soft tissue that homes nerves and blood vessels. This is the element that hurts when teeth become decayed. Defending the pulp is dentine, calcified tissue that supports the outer layer of enamel.

When dentine becomes broken, it can lead to quicker tooth decay and even destroy the form of the mouth. Faces can turn out to be visibly shorter, by which time there is tiny that can be done to reverse the method. Other issues, in accordance to the Bruxism Association, assortment from headaches, aching jaw and facial muscle tissues (myalgia), earache, tightness/stiffness of the shoulders, sleep disruption and inflamed and receding gums.

In severe instances, temporomandibular joint disorder occurs (TMJ), leading to clicking or popping noises as you move your mouth, muscle spasms close to the jaw, and a feeling that the jaw is “stuck”. This can make eating challenging, resulting in soreness all around the ear, cheek or temple.

Dr Carter says anti-inflammatories can support with ache, although anti-nervousness medication such as diazepam are efficient muscle relaxants. Osteopaths, chiropractors and psychologists all use methods to minimize stress in the head and neck location, as effectively as addressing underlying psychological stress.

The Bruxism Association suggests hypnotherapy, and some scientific studies support its use. In 1991, a report in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy discovered it could reduce grinding noticeably, with outcomes lasting for up to 36 months.

According to Dr Prasanta Banerjee, dental expert at Riverbanks Clinic, Luton, injecting Botox (botulinum toxin) into the masseter muscle tissues of the jaw is also well worth attempting.

The grinding itself can be prevented by means of use of a plastic gadget (known as an occlusal splint), worn at evening to protect teeth. Dr Carter adds that if unconscious tooth-grinding occurs throughout the day, educating the patient to be mindful of it can break the cycle.

If you grind your teeth at the stresses and strains of modern day existence, study on