Britons could lose health cover in Europe after Brexit, report warns

Millions of Britons could have their access to free health insurance taken away after Brexit, a parliamentary report has said.

MPs on the health select committee urged the government to offer more guarantees for Britons visiting the continent after hearing evidence that without the right to receive treatment in countries that are part of the European Economic Area, people with cancer could find it too expensive to go to Europe.

In a strongly worded report on the effect of Brexit on health and social care, the committee said the challenges created by losing reciprocal health arrangements should not be underestimated.

British travellers can currently use the European health insurance card, which guarantees access to healthcare free or at a reduced cost in Europe. The EU member state providing treatment is able to claim back costs from the patient’s home country. Some estimates suggest that up to 27 million Britons have the cards.

The inquiry heard evidence that losing this agreement could create challenges for many travellers, including disabled people and those with mental or physical health conditions. Prof Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said a week’s full private health insurance for a holiday in France for someone with diabetes or mild depression would cost between £800 and £2,500.

The report also noted that hundreds of thousands of expats living abroad could lose reciprocal healthcare rights, leaving some facing hardship. McKee, a professor of European public health, said many Britons in Spain have properties that are now worth little. “Many will come back in a state of poverty because they bought properties in Andalusia and other places … They will be throwing themselves on the mercy of the state when they come back,” he said.

Christopher Chantery, a British resident in France, told the committee many pensioners moved to the country “in good faith on the implicit promise that these arrangements would continue. Suddenly, something happens that brings those arrangements to an end. It is absolutely terrible for many people”.

British nationals living abroad have to get an S1 form, which gives them health cover, paid for by the UK, within Europe.

The committee, which includes Labour and Conservative MPs, called on the government to preserve the existing system as opposed to seeking a new arrangement. What was currently in place offered taxpayers good value for money, it said.

In the same report, the committee warned that the Brexit vote could lead to a brain drain, with morale among EU nationals in the NHS low due to uncertainty about their future. It called for more reassurances and said the government should continue to be able to recruit the “brightest and best from all parts of the globe” after Britain leaves the EU.

The Department of Health could not comment due to general election purdah rules. But when asked about reciprocal healthcare at the start of the year, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said it was one of the rights of those who retired to Spain or France and he wanted to secure it early on in negotiations, but could not guarantee this.

Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Jean McHale, the director of the Centre for Health Law, Science and Policy at the University of Birmingham, said: “If questions of healthcare provision and patient mobility are not included in the negotiations, if there is not a transitional period and we move to hard Brexit, there will be major practical questions. What happens at midnight on Brexit D day to the person in hospital in another EU member state who has been in a car accident?”

Britons could lose health cover in Europe after Brexit, report warns

Backlash after report claims saturated fats do not increase heart risk

Saturated fat does not increase the risk of a heart attack by clogging up arteries, three cardiologists have said in a challenge to medical thinking, sparking a furious backlash.

In an editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine the cardiologists also write that relying on foodstuffs marketed as “low fat” or “proved to lower cholesterol” to avoid heart disease is “misguided”.

A key previous research study, they say, “showed no association between saturated fat consumption and all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease, CHD mortality, ischaemic stroke or type-2 diabetes in healthy adults”. Instead they say that a Mediterranean-style diet and 22 minutes of walking a day are the best ways to prevent heart problems.

The paper co-authored by Pascal Meier, a cardiologist at University College London and editor of the journal BMJ Open Heart; Rita Redberg, the editor of the American journal JAMA Internal Medicine; and Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist at the NHS’s Lister hospital in Stevenage, has triggered furious criticism from a range of experts in cardiology and evidence-based medicine. Some said the views were not based on reliable evidence and would mislead consumers and further confuse the public over which foods they should eat and which they should avoid.

They also dismiss the potential for a smaller intake of saturated fats to help prevent heart disease. “There is no benefit from reduced fat, including saturated fat, on myocardial infarction [heart attacks], cardiovascular or all-cause mortality,” they say.

Instead of adopting a low-fat diet, people seeking to cut their risk of heart problems should instead follow “an energy-unrestricted Mediterranean diet (41%) fat supplemented with at least four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil or a handful of nuts”.

But critics responded by accusing the co-authors of naiveté, ignoring evidence which contradicts their theories and simplifying a hugely complex issue.

Dr Amitava Banrejee, a senior clinical lecturer in clinical data science and honorary consultant cardiologist at UCL, said: “Unfortunately the authors have reported evidence simplistically and selectively. They failed to cite a rigorous Cochrane systematic review which concluded that cutting down dietary saturated fat was associated with a 17% reduction in cardiovascular events, including CHD, on the basis of 15 randomised trials.”

Dr Gavin Sandercock, director of research at Essex University, rejected the trio’s claims about the benefit of “replacing refined carbohydrates with healthy high fat foods” as not true and not based on any existing evidence. “We must continue to research the complex links between fat, cholesterol and heart disease but we must not replace one myth with another”, Sandercock said.

Christine Williams, professor of human nutrition at Reading University, said the cardiologists’ dietary advice was impractical, especially for poorer people. “The nature of their public health advice appears to be one of ‘let them eat nuts and olive oil’ with no consideration of how this might be successfully achieved in the UK general population and in people of different ages, socioeconomic backgrounds or dietary preferences,” she said.

However, some experts did back the authors. Dr Mary Hannon-Fletcher, head of the school of health sciences at Ulster University, hailed their views as “the best dietary and exercise advice I have read in recent years. Walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food. This is an excellent public health message.

“The modern idea of a healthy diet where we eat low-fat and low-calorie foods is simply not a healthy option. All of these foods have been so altered they are anything but healthy. So eating real foods in moderation and exercising daily is the answer to keeping fit and healthy; it’s just too simple a message for the public to take on board,” she said.

Gaynor Bussell, a dietitician and member of the British Dietetic Association, also offered the authors qualified support. “Many of us now feel that a predominantly Med-style diet can be healthy with slightly more fats and fewer carbs, provided the fats are ‘good’ – such as in olive oil, nuts or avocados,” she said.

However, saturated fats should comprise no more than 11% of anyone’s food intake, she said – far less than the 41% fat level backed by the co-authors.

While carbohydrates should still be part of every meal, people should routinely consume high fibre or wholegrain versions, Bussell said.

Williams also accused the BJSM of publishing opinions seeking to portray saturated fats as “innocent” in the causation of heart disease in order to generate headlines. “Some would argue the journals have a very credible business model based on attracting controversy in an area of great importance to public health where clarity, not confusion, is required,” she said.

Backlash after report claims saturated fats do not increase heart risk

Obesity epidemic in Latin America is "frightening", says UN report

More than two thirds of people living in Mexico, Chile and Ecuador are overweight or obese, costing their economies tens of billions of dollars every year, driving rates of disease and straining health services, according to a new UN report.

While the number of hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean has halved in the last 25 years, the region is now struggling to combat an obesity epidemic.

Changing diets, including more processed food that are high in salt, sugar and fat, along with more sedentary lifestyles have triggered a rising tide of obesity, experts say.

“The implications for the future of countries are frightening … undernutrition is declining, but overnutrition is expected to become the largest social and economic burden in the region,” the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement.

The report by the WFP and the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said over the next six decades people being overweight and obese would cost Mexico an estimated $ 13bn a year, Ecuador $ 3bn and Chile $ 1bn.

Undernutrition, when people do not get enough food, and obesity – itself a form of malnutrition – are two sides of the same coin, and together they inflict a so-called “double burden” of disease on people and economies, the report said.

Undernutrition impairs child growth and brain development, while obesity can led to type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

“We now witness a worrying trend among vulnerable communities with cases of undernourishment and overweight simultaneously within the same families,” said Miguel Barreto, WFP’s regional director said in a statement.

“Both undernourishment and overweight represent a serious burden for the health of those families, that eventually translates into losses in productivity, and in pressure on the health and education systems in the country where they live.”

According to the World Health Organisation, obesity is an epidemic worldwide, killing 2.8 million adults every year, and obesity-related conditions now cause more deaths than hunger.

In Latin America, obesity is increasingly affecting the region’s poor, particularly women.

In Mexico, a country that faces one of the world’s most acute obesity crisis, 74% of women are obese or overweight compared with 70% of men, the report said.

The report urged food companies to play a greater role in combating obesity.

“The food industry has the opportunity to ensure the production, availability and accessibility of healthier food products,” it said.

Governments should also do more to promote exercise and health eating and place greater controls on food labelling.

The report noted Chile’s efforts to combat obesity, including an 18% tax on sugary drinks introduced in 2014 – one of the world’s highest – along with laws that restrict the advertising of unhealthy foods targeting children.

In 2014, Mexico also introduced a 10% tax on fizzy drinks, and 2016 research by the British Medical Journal found that the sugar tax led to as much as a 12% reduction in sales during the first year it was implemented.

Obesity epidemic in Latin America is "frightening", says UN report

One in four young women in UK report mental health problems, study shows

A quarter of young women in the UK have suffered from anxiety and depression, according to a new survey released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The figures were collected as part of a wide-ranging survey gauging the wellbeing of people aged between 16 and 24. They show that, despite an increase in the number of those who said their quality of life had improved since 2009, one in four young women said they had faced symptoms linked to poor mental wellbeing in 2014-15.

The report said that young women were “significantly more likely” than their male counterparts to recognise and admit being anxious or depressed, with less than one in six young men reporting similar symptoms.

The ONS report used data taken from surveys that focused on a person’s overall happiness – shown by their attitudes to issues such as relationships, work, education and finances – to create a nationwide picture.

The results show that while more than a third of young people aged between 16 and 19 who were questioned said they had a “very high” level of life satisfaction, this dropped to just a quarter among people aged between 20 and 24.

The study also reveals that in the four years from 2009-10 to 2013-14, the number of young people saying their mental health had “deteriorated” rose from 18% to 21%.

Tom Madders, campaign director at the mental health charity YoungMinds, said: “There is still a huge amount of misunderstanding about mental health conditions, making people less likely to open up to others if they are struggling to cope. This is particularly difficult for young people who face pressure, including stress at school, college or university and body image issues.”

He said that an environment of 24-hour access to social media led to some young people feeling they needed to “keep up the pretence of having a perfect life”.

Other figures from the study show that the number of young people who believe they are financially comfortable has increased since 2009-10. Seven years ago, 15% said they were struggling to get by, while by 2014-15 the number reporting financial hardship was 7% – and a significantly higher percentage (45%) said they were satisfied with their household income, up from about 30% in 2009-10.

The report added that levels of “general health satisfaction” had risen, with 56% saying they were “mostly or completely happy” in 2014-15, compared with about 52% the year before.

However, the figures also show a rise in households deemed to be living in poverty, based on families who earn less than 60% of the average UK income. One in four said they lived in a household at such a level, compared with 20% in 2008.

YoungMinds recently called on teachers, parents and carers to sign an open letter to the prime minister, Theresa May, urging her to place an increased emphasis in schools and colleges on improving young people’s mental health, and to recognise the pressures caused by exam stress, cyberbullying and fears over employment when they leave education.

Madders said: “A good quality of life includes having positive mental health and wellbeing, so it’s crucial that the problems which young people report are taken seriously and supported to prevent them escalating and going into crises.”

One in four young women in UK report mental health problems, study shows

Plight of child workers facing cocktail of toxic chemicals exposed by report

Children as young as eight, working in the tanneries of Bangladesh producing leather that is in demand across Europe and the USA, are exposed to toxic chemical cocktails that are likely to shorten their lives, according to a new report.

Approximately 90% of those who live and work in the overcrowded urban slums of Hazaribagh and Kamrangirchar, where hazardous chemicals are discharged into the air, streets and river, die before they reach 50, according to the World Health Organisation.

Their plight spurred the volunteer doctors of Médicines Sans Frontières (MSF) to set up clinics in the area to diagnose and treat those who are the victims of their workplace. It is, says a paper published in BMJ Case Reports, “the first time they have intervened in an area for reasons other than natural disasters or war”.

MSF’s intervention was triggered by “the widespread industrial negligence and apathy of owners of tanneries and other hazardous material factories” towards the more than 600,000 largely migrant population who have no access to government-funded healthcare.

MSF set up and ran four main clinics for 5,000 workers in 2015, located in the centre of communities involved in four different manufacturing processes at factories for tanning, plastics recycling, garment-making and metals.

The hazards of the 250 or so tanneries in Hazaribagh – which are 30 to 35 years old and discharge 6,000 cubic metres of toxic effluent and 10 tonnes of solid waste every day – are best known. In 2012, Human Rights Watch produced a report called “Toxic Tanneries” which revealed the flouting of Bangladesh’s own laws as well as international law in the employment of children under 18 in work that is harmful or hazardous.

The factories douse animal skins in cauldrons of chemicals as part of the processing of “Bengali black” leather, which is exported to European leather goods manufacturers in Italy, Spain and elsewhere.

“Apart from heavy metals like chromium, cadmium, lead and mercury, a conglomerate of chemicals are discharged by the tanneries into the environment,” says the paper. “Workers aged eight and older are soaked to the skin, breathing the fumes for most of the day and eat and live in these surroundings throughout the year. Personal protective equipment [is] not provided.”

Child workers clad in no more than loin cloths and wellington boots are exposed to chemicals including formaldehyde, hydrogen sulphide and sulphuric acid, write Venkiteswaran Muralidhar, associate professor at the Sri Balaji Medical college in Chennai, and colleagues.

The other factories– for plastics recycling, garments and metals – are in Kamrangirchar, an urban slum which is not officially part of Dhaka city. “In these, there are complex risk hazards from cotton dust, heavy metals and chemicals like mercury, phthalates, acids and dioxins and ergonomic hazards,” says the paper.

Chronic skin and lung diseases are common, say the authors. Within six months of the setting up of the clinics, 3,200 of the 5,000 eligible workers had come forward for at least one consultation. Among them, 468 (14.6%) were diagnosed with suspected work-related diseases, and 30 (0.9%) had work-related injuries.

The figures do not reflect the overall harm to the population, however, said Muralidhar. Those who are severely injured by chemicals or accidents would not go to one of the clinics. “They will probably be taken by rickshaw to a hospital in Dhaka,” he told the Guardian. And the clinics were only open four days a week, during the daytime, and workers needed the owner’s permission to go for a consultation.

He feels strongly that a hospital should be set up in the slum to help its people. “They are the most horrible conditions you can imagine,” he told the Guardian. “I work in this area. I have never seen anything as bad as this.”

Plight of child workers facing cocktail of toxic chemicals exposed by report

Thousands of vulnerable people held unlawfully in care homes – report

Tens of thousands of vulnerable people with dementia and learning disabilities are being detained unlawfully in hospitals and care homes across Britain, the Law Commission has said.

Replacing the “administrative and bureaucratic nightmare” system of deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) would speed up checks and allow care workers to concentrate on those most at risk, the legal study recommends.

The report, laid before parliament on Monday, is an attempt to relieve pressure on the overburdened care system, which has been put under strain by the UK’s growing elderly population and a recent human rights court victory.

Individuals who lack sufficient mental capacity are subject to movement controls, usually for their own safety, which prevent them wandering off and getting into danger.

In 2014, a supreme court judgment dramatically expanded the definition of those who should be subject to DoLS checks beyond hospitals to care homes and other types of accommodation.

As a result, while there were 13,700 applications for deprivation of liberty in England in 2013-14 by 2015-16 that figure had risen to 195,840. The massive increase meant overburdened local authorities were unable to carry out checks within the period required or even at all.

The Law Commission, an independent body, was approached by the Department of Health to find a legal alternative. Its report cautions: “Local authorities are, in most cases, currently not issuing standard authorisations within anything like that timeframe, leaving people unlawfully deprived of their liberty and care homes exposed to civil liability.” A similar problem was found to exist in hospitals.

The DoLS system, if it worked, should enable patients and families to challenge any deprivation of freedom they believe is unjustified or excessively restrictive.

The commission proposes replacing DoLS with a liberty protection safeguards scheme. A draft bill implementing the legal changes is included in the report. It would allow previous assessments made in care plans to be relied on rather than requiring six sets of fresh assessments for each patient.

The report argues this would give “greater prominence” to individuals’ human rights at the initial stage at which care arrangements are being devised and reduce the number of costly applications to the court of Protection, which handles cases involving those deemed not to have mental capacity.

The liberty protection Safeguards scheme would cost about £236m a year, saving about £10m on current costs. The commission estimates, however, that if the DoLS system was working properly and every referral completed within time it would cost up to £2.2bn annually.

The commission found that in some cases vulnerable people were being deprived of liberty in their family home, although local authorities rarely have the capacity to carry out checks. In one case, door keys had been put into a safe and alarms rigged by the family to alert them if an elderly parent wandered out of the house.

Nicholas Paines QC, a law commissioner involved in drawing up the report, said: “It’s not right that people with dementia and learning disabilities are being denied their freedoms unlawfully. There are unnecessary costs and backlogs at every turn, and all too often family members are left without the support they need.

“The deprivation of liberty safeguards were designed at a time when considerably fewer people were considered deprived of their liberty. Now they are failing those they were set up to protect. The current system needs to be scrapped and replaced right away.

“We know there are enormous pressures on health and adult social care at the moment and our reforms will not only mean that everyone is given the protections they need, but could also deliver a saving to the taxpayer. That’s cash that can then be directly reinvested to support those most in need.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “This government is committed to protecting the rights of vulnerable people, that’s why we commissioned this review. We also gave local authorities £25m to help them manage pressures following the 2014 supreme court judgment.

“We thank the Law Commission for its detailed work and will be responding to these constructive recommendations in due course.”

Thousands of vulnerable people held unlawfully in care homes – report

Syrian children suffering staggering levels of trauma, report warns

Children in Syria are suffering from “toxic stress”, a severe form of psychological trauma that can cause life-long damage, according to a study that charts a rise in self-harm and suicide attempts among children as young as 12.

A report by Save the Children and its partner agencies in Syria paints a harrowing picture of the country’s children, 5.8 million of whom are in need of aid, after a war which reaches its sixth year next week.

Authors of the study, the largest of its kind to be undertaken during the conflict, warned the nation’s mental health crisis had reached a tipping point, where “staggering levels” of trauma and distress among children could cause permanent and irreversible damage.

More than 70% of children interviewed experienced common symptoms of “toxic stress” or post-traumatic stress disorder, such as bedwetting, the study found. Loss of speech, aggression and substance abuse are also commonplace. About 48% of adults reported seeing children who have lost the ability to speak or who have developed speech impediments since the war began, according to the report, entitled Invisible Wounds (pdf).

Mohammed, an aid worker with Shafak, a Save the Children partner in Idlib, said children were in a state of constant anxiety: “We notice that they are always stressed and react to any unfamiliar noise – [such as] if a chair moves or the door bangs – because of their fear of the sound of airplanes and rockets. Children are increasingly isolated and don’t like to participate in our activities, and in the young children we’re seeing a lot of cases of involuntary urination.”

Firas*, the father of Saeed*, three, said: “My son wakes up afraid in the middle of the night. He wakes up screaming. A child was slaughtered in front of him, so he started to dream that someone is coming to slaughter him.”

The majority of children interviewed showed signs of “severe emotional stress” and 78% of them felt grief and extreme sadness some of the time. The study focused on 458 children, adolescents and adults, and was undertaken between December 2016 and February 2017, in seven of Syria’s 14 governorates. It also revealed:

• 51% of adults interviewed said adolescents are turning to drugs to cope with stress
  


• 59% of adultssaid they knew children and adolescents who had been recruited into armed groups. Almost half knew of children working at checkpoints or barracks
  


• One in four children is now at risk of developing a mental health disorder
  

Of the adults questioned, 60% cited the loss of education as one of the biggest impacts on their children’s daily lives. Since war began there have been more than 4,000 attacks on schools in Syria, according to Unicef.

The interviews, by Save the Children staff, partners and trained psychosocial practitioners, took place mainly in opposition-held areas, including Aleppo, Damascus, Dara’a, Hasakah, Homs and Idlib. The organisation is unable to operate in places held by the government or Isis, but the charity said that issues experienced by children in these areas are likely to be similar. Two-thirds of children had lost a loved one, had their home shelled or bombed or suffered war-related injuries.

In Madaya, which has been under siege since mid-2015, medical staff reported at least six children, the youngest a 12-year-old girl, and seven adults had attempted suicide in just two months.

All children’s focus groups and 84% of adults cited an “overwhelming feeling of being unsafe” as the single biggest cause of children’s high levels of stress.

Hala, a teacher in Madaya, said: “Children wish they were dead, and that they would go to heaven to be warm and eat and play. They wish they would be injured by a sniper, because if they got injured they would go to the hospital and leave the siege and eat whatever they want.”

However, despite the high levels of need, in some regions of more than 1 million people, there is only one psychiatrist.

Alexandra Chen, a child protection and mental health specialist at Harvard University, said that toxic stress is the most dangerous form of stress response, when children experience strong or prolonged adversity without adequate adult support.

“This is likely to have a life-long and devastating impact on these children’s mental and physical health, disrupting the development of the brain and other organs and increasing the risk of heart disease, substance abuse, depression and other mental health disorders into adulthood,” said Chen.

She said that with an end to the violence and with the right support, children can recover.

“However, the child mental health crisis is reaching a tipping point in Syria just as family support structures and official services are collapsing.”

The report called for a ceasefire and for all parties to stop using explosive weapons in populated areas, schools and hospitals, as well as an end to siege tactics, and unrestricted humanitarian access to all areas. It also called on donors to commit to supporting children’s mental health in Syria.

Dr Marcia Brophy, a psychosocial adviser for the Middle East at Save the Children, said: “We risk condemning a generation of children to a lifetime of mental and physical health problems. We need to ensure that children who have already lost six years of their lives to war don’t have to lose their whole future as well.”

Some 13.5 million people inside Syria, including 5.8 million children, are in need of aid, Save the Children said. About 4.8 million people are trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

At least 250,000 people have died and 4.9 million, 2.3 million of them children, have fled the county, the majority to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.

*Names changed to protect identities

Syrian children suffering staggering levels of trauma, report warns

The Report from Iron Mountain Leads Back to the Mother of All Deep Underground Bases

Looking into the context of history can be instructive to realize the importance of locations and legends from the past. Only to learn what the future may hold. Sometimes these artifacts of history come in the form of myths routed in reality and steeped in mystery with no definitive point of origin. Often these stories live on long after they have been marginalized as is the case with the Report from Iron Mountain. An urban legend crops up in the public consciousness that persists only because of it’s relevance and accuracy. A publication as controversial as the Report from Iron Mountain, an admitted satire by it’s author Leonard Lewin, could evoke such mystery. A statement of the research put out by cold war think tanks? A prototype Agenda21 white paper?

Originally setting out to profile the document itself only to find the real story behind the legend. There has been so much written about this document it could easily fill ten books. This publication’s origin may be in doubt. It’s namesake certainly isn’t.

Iron Mountain. What is not in doubt is secretive nature of the original locations that bear it’s name. Few articles detail their significance and never painting a full picture. Today the company is the one of the largest physical item and data storage corporations in the world. Now with hundreds of locations. Underground and above ground. The largest and most well known being in Boyers, P.A. tunneled 220 feet underground. Where Sony and Orbis corporations store music records and film. Among many other data storage clients. Another well known underground bunker is in Greenfield, Rhode Island. It can withstand a direct hit by a 5-megaton nuclear bomb. These were acquired by Iron Mountain years after the Report from Iron Mountain surfaced.

Supplying the storage needs for 90% of the Fortune 1000 corporations in physical records and data storage. As well as records disposal in both paper and electronic data form. Performing a valuable and needed service for business and government. In no way is this article implying any nefarious purpose to any of these locations. Only to inform the reader of this fascinating history in relation to the Report from Iron Mountain and it’s context to today. It is no secret that Iron Mountain stores almost anything for the largest clients.

Including their top people in time of nuclear war or natural disaster. This is an attempt to geolocate the only two facilities in operation by Iron Mountain around the time the document was produced. In doing so this reveals a story that is perhaps more interesting and mysterious than the Report from Iron Mountain itself.

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The two original Iron Mountain facilities in operation around the time the Report from Iron Mountain was produced are obscured in legend and by time. This possible origin of the document is lost to history. Even if the document is real or not. More fascinating and verifiable than the Report from Iron Mountain is the geolocation of the place that spawned a legend. Iron Mountain.

In news articles about these facilities when asked locals would often say “Iron Mountain? Never heard of it.” A response a reporter from the Hartford Courant got from locals in 1999. Most are unaware they even exist. Both are on quiet country roads in upstate N.Y. and made to look like nothing out of the ordinary.

The first one is just outside of Germantown N.Y. on the east side of the Hudson River and the second one is at Rosendale N.Y.  30 miles south on the west side of the Hudson River. Hunkered under the Catskill Mountains of New York State half way between New York City and Albany. Next to the Hudson River they are accessible by car, boat or helicopter from New York City. Both deep underground bases are for the elite and their records as well as valuable property. Well away from any nuclear blast zone or resulting radiation. The I.M.A.R ( Iron Mountain at Rosendale) facility has a multi acre heliport on it’s roof that is disguised as a regular field. Where some of the eastern establishment would hide in the event of nuclear war or disaster of any kind.

ORIGINAL IRON MOUNTAIN  42° 9’50.70″N  73°49’48.12″W

424 County Road 10

Germantown N.Y. 12526

This was the original Iron Mountain. An old iron mine purchased in 1936 by Herman Knaust a German-American entrepreneur. Originally using the old mine to grow mushrooms and store records. Helping relocate Jewish immigrants who had lost their identities after WW2. Knaust officially founded Iron Mountain in 1951 as Iron Mountain Atomic Storage, Inc to store valuables and records for Manhattan Banks and elite clients. Knaust eventually sold the company and it became the huge corporation of today. This bunker contains fallout shelters, built by Iron Mountain for executives from Exxon, Shell, and other large corporations. Just one of the facilities having a sixty-five room hotel, each with a private bath, and a large dining room with chandelier and a commercial kitchen. Your average size Holliday Inn is around 70 rooms and that’s a pretty big building. Imagine several of them underground. That’s just the bunker section. A piece in the New Yorker magazine called The Many Lives of Iron Mountain in 2013 quotes Bill Mesick who manages the two underground facilities.

In the sixties and early seventies, Mesick said, people sometimes slept in the mine: it contained fallout shelters, built and maintained by Iron Mountain for executives from Exxon, Shell, and other big companies. One especially elaborate shelter, he said, had sixty-five hotel rooms, each with a private bath, and a large cafeteria with a commercial kitchen; in the mid-century-modern bedrooms, curtains obscured the concrete. According to Mesick, in the event of nuclear war, some executives, along with their families, would have been evacuated by helicopter from New York City. “They’d hired local folks to tend to them, to cook for them, to clean for them,” Mesick told me. “Their idea was to wait out the storm while the debris and radioactivity were going on overhead—then they were going to come out and sell oil to everyone who was left.” Every now and then, Mesick recalled, the executives would run a “live exercise”—essentially, they’d come and hang out for the weekend

The original 95 acre Iron Mountain is seven levels deep and has 220 sections between 200 and 40,000 square feet in size. Exxon Mobil leased a 3 level 200,000 square foot bunker for 16 years here. Having live exercises every couple of months for decades under this sleepy upstate village. All in relative secrecy. The last corporate client supposedly left in 1999 . Leaving behind what manager Bill Mesick would only say was a “large utility”. Why would the elite be consistently having these live exercises 10 years after the cold war supposedly ended? Do they know something we don’t? 

Sounds like a great place to come up with dystopian plans for the future of mankind on a weekend retreat. Mabey this was part of Leonard Lewin‘s satire to use such a place as the setting for his book. Possibly leading readers to this location and it’s part in history. If the Report from Iron Mountain was real it would be hard to imagine a better place to produce it.

It is stories such as these that have led to the legend of secret underground bases where the elite would hide in case of Armageddon. Spawning characters such as Dr. Stangelove believing in the survivability of nuclear war. Rand Corporation analyst Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute, down the Hudson River, was one of the people the character was based on.  The famous Rockefeller Estate Kykuit is just 50 miles away in Sleepy Hollow, NY down the Hudson River. A short helicopter ride. They were the major executives of Exxon. Would they have gone to Iron Mountain if things got bad enough? This should give some indication of the serious nature of the elite’s obsession with protecting themselves and their valuables. Planning for the worst case scenario is just another form of insurance to the rich. If the poorer classes prepare as best they can for such events they are labeled as crazy. The Hudson Valley is full with the estates of the rich and famous. Some of them would head to these facilities in times of crisis. Also note you will not find the Original Germantown facility listed on Google Earth or Google maps. Use a Bing search an it comes right up. Even the YellowPages has it but not Google.

The original facility is supposedly only used for storage now. Do you really think the bunker section is now closed at the original location? A defunct cold war relic as portrayed by the Iron Mountain corporation. A place where Thirstan Howle the 3rd would have rode out the apocalypse in the 60s or 70s but no more. Think again. Whether the original bunkers are closed or not.

Most of the action has moved 30 miles south across the Hudson River to the I.M.A.R  (Iron Mountain at Rosendale). A state of the art deep underground base the size of a small city. The I.M.A.R ( Iron Mountain at Rosendale) bunker facilities are still very operational.

IRON MOUNTAIN   IMAR  41°51’3.02″N  74° 5’17.76″W

694 Binnewater Road

Kingston N.Y. 12401

The I.M.A.R. Deep Underground Base has been operational since the early 60s. This as well could have been the fabled origin of Report from Iron Mountain.  Iron Mountain at Rosendale is a state of the art underground base measuring one mile from north and south entrance and over a half mile wide. How many levels deep the facility goes is not clear. Originally a natural limestone cement mine. It has been turned into something the size of a small city underground . Most locals are unaware of the importance of this location. On the more official side of things. White non descript vans with blacked out windows bearing the classic blue pyramid logo of Iron Mountain come and go. Carrying almost any imaginable physical record or item in need of storage or disposal. When asked most think it is an abandoned cement mine adjacent to a nature preserve.

The retaining walls of the old cement kiln serve as the basis for structures burrowed into the mountain. Slightly newer walls made of the same limestone are visible at the south entrance a mile away. South entrance is a multi door entry. The bunker is complete with roads an 18 wheeler can drive through and actual street signs so deliveries don’t get lost. A huge grass heliport sits atop the compound, nicely manicured to look like a regular field. With a road from the top of the bunker to the south entrance. Awaiting it’s human cargo by helicopter in case of disaster. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Power lines obviously feed into the complex and there is an access road from the helicopter pad to the south entrance. A high fence surrounds the place. Unmarked Security patrols the base in white non descript cars. Posted signs and cameras are at every turn. A dozen fresh water semi trucks periodically deliver at the south entrance. Google Earth aerial view does not show the trucks but street view does. Meaning the trucks come and go and are not just parked there for storage. All indications that more than data and old musty records are being stored down there.

An article in 2016 by Business Insider featured photos of the inside of the Iron Mountain at the Rosendale I.M.A.R. location from the 2013 New Yorker piece. Needless to say it is a large facility. The client list and associated infrastructure are closely guarded and security is tight. Exactly what they have down there is a secret. This was the only time the I.M.A.R. facility has ever been photographed from the inside. Judging by some of the pictures it confirms there are large accommodations for the elite in case of disaster. Underground hotels in this location as well. Once again several of your average sized Holliday Inns bunkered underground. Who knows how many or what resources are down there? Stored along side the more mundane objects that are the official story. One wonders if the first Iron Mountain bunkers were abandoned at all? No one knows what to believe because it is all secret.

Because there is no local advertising, not many Germantown residents know that the facility exists. Asked by a visitor where Iron Mountain was, a local gas station attendant said, “Iron Mountain? Never heard of it.”

“We like it that way — it’s part of the security,” Mesick said

Hiding in plain site as a dual use facility is the best way to hide large projects. As is the case with most Deep Underground Bases. Perhaps this why Leonard Lewin used one of these two locations as the backdrop for the Report from Iron Mountain. Leading the reader to this enigmatic place.

Visit RaptormanReports for news, science, and history

Sources:

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/iron_mountain_full.htm

http://www.ironmountain.com/About-Us/History.aspx

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-many-lives-of-iron-mountain

https://www.yellowpages.com/listings/512787432/directions

http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-iron-mountains-storage-facility-2016-1/#today-a-majority-of-the-items-stored-are-in-the-form-of-paper-documents-or-tapes-in-the-70s-and-80s-however-the-space-hosted-more-interesting-valuables-including-musical-instruments-antiques-and-celebrity-memorabilia-an-art-collector-even-stored-many-of-her-paintings-here-at-the-same-time-executives-from-some-major-companies–exxon-and-shell-for-example–built-sometimes-elaborate-fallout-shelters-in-the-mine-where-they-would-stay-in-the-event-a-nuclear-war-broke-out-1

http://articles.courant.com/1999-02-22/news/9902220101_1_vaults-secrets-of-iron-mountain-facility-s-managers

The Report from Iron Mountain Leads Back to the Mother of All Deep Underground Bases

National Intelligence Council Report Describes the Final Solution for “Fake News”

Trends or revolutions can be unexpected. Even with total information awareness. The best laid plans often go astray. Take “fake news” for example. A report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on January 9, 2017 highlights one of the greatest trends and unexpected consequences of the information age. Produced over the last four years by the National Intelligence Council the report titled Global Trends Assessment: Paradox of Progress chronicles current and emerging trends in the geopolitics, military affairs, and technology. The only paradox is that the globalist’s progress has taken an unexpected turn.

Coming in at 235 pages it is bristling with themes on a dystopic future from malevolent AI to out of control geoengineering and break away civilizations. Not kidding. Echoing other globalist white papers with three future dystopian scenarios or a combination of them.

All with the same solution for “fake news“. Just like the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2017 with it’s calls to “smooth the information flow” and this report that questions “democratic ideals like free speech and the market place of ideas“.  Direct quotes!  These documents released at the end of the Obama Administration represent the capstone in globalist thinking about the problem of “fake news“.

In the chapter Trends Transforming the Global Landscape there is a section titled Converging Trends Will Transform  Power and Politics. This word product puts in stark terms how the internet has empowered individuals and alternative media to influence opinion and spread information on a global scale as never before. It offers only one solution at the end of the chapter to the problem of “fake news” that has broken the monopolies. Can you guess what that is?

Technology and wealth are empowering individuals and small groups to act in ways that states historically monopolized—and fundamentally altering established patterns of governance and conflict

The ICT revolution placed in the hands of individuals and small groups the information and the ability to exert worldwide influence—making their actions, interests, and values more consequential than ever before.    GTA p26

When the internet was introduced to the public it had already been in use for years by the military as ARPANET. Developed by the forerunners to DARPA this technology was given to the public for many reasons. One of the major reasons was to “close the loop” and get real time data on what populations are saying, thinking and doing. This allows for increasingly accurate prediction of future trends and how to influence them by introducing strategic stimuli at certain points along the way. Before this governments and corporations did not have instant and reliable methods of gauging the public mood and how they were reacting to social engineering and advertising. Total information awareness is now making the globalists totally aware that people around the world are fed up with them. Now the script has been flipped and the people are making up their own minds.

The information environment is fragmenting publics and their countless perceived realities— undermining shared understandings of world events that once facilitated international cooperation. It is also prompting some to question democratic ideals like free speech and the “market place of ideas“.  GTA p26

Undermining the “shared understanding” provided by complete corporate control of  almost all media that made globalization possible. Leading “some” to question democratic ideals like free speech and the marketplace of ideas. Wow. It doesn’t take a technocrat to figure out who the “some” are. The sky is falling and the information environment is fragmented because the globalists cannot compete in the market place of ideas. So shut it down. Competition is a sin.

 When combined with a growing distrust of formal institutions and the proliferation, polarization, and commercialization of traditional and social media outlets, some academics and political observers describe our current era as one of “post-truth” or “post-factual” politics    GTA p26

Growing distrust of formal institutions is putting it mildly. Trust in government and mainstream media are at historic lows since data began to be compiled by surveys. Once again that mysterious “some” pops up again. A little more specific this time identified as academics and political observers. Blaming citizens of the world for speaking their mind and finding facts that answer legitimate questions. Free speech is at fault is this “post truth” era with it’s “post-factual” politics muddying the waters so globalist programs cannot continue unopposed. These same nebulous academics and political observers identified in the document that question free speech and democratic ideals know that they have a fight on their hands.

The power of individuals and groups to block outcomes will be much easier to wield than the constructive power of forging new policies and alignments or implementing solutions to shared challenges, especially when the credibility of authority and information is in question.    GTA p27

Questioning authority is the very bedrock of free speech and democracy. Freedom will get in the way of forging new globalist policies and international alignments. Implementing globalist solutions to manufactured challenges is difficult when being continually exposed by a fair and open press. This is considered “post-factual” politics.

So what does one do when confronted with this dangerous freedom where people decide what to think for themselves? What would be the solution for those who question democratic ideals like free speech and the market place of ideas?

For authoritarian-minded leaders and regimes, the impulse to coerce and manipulate information—as well as the technical means to do so—will increase.   GTA p27

Almost laughable if it were not so dark in it’s prescription for a final solution to “fake news” and echoed in countless other recent globalist white papers.

Visit RaptormanReports for news, science, and history.

Sources:

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/224-press-releases-2017/1467-national-intelligence-council-releases-global-trends-report

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/trends-transforming-the-global-landscape

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/letter-nic-chairman

Easier to read pdf at https://info.publicintelligence.net/ODNI-NIC-ParadoxProgress.pdf

 

National Intelligence Council Report Describes the Final Solution for “Fake News”

Poverty in the UK jeopardising children’s health, warns landmark report

Children’s health in the UK is in jeopardy, with higher child death rates, obesity and ill-health than in much of Europe, according to a landmark report.

“The bottom line is that the UK could do far more to improve child health and wellbeing. UK performance on several measures, though better than the United States, is worse than many European countries,” says Professor Neena Modi, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), in the report.

“Particularly troubling are the stark inequalities in child health that have widened in the last five years.”

The report, published on Thursday, shows that:

• The UK has the 15th highest mortality rate for babies under the age of one year out of 19 European countries and one of the highest rates for older children and young people. There are around 130 more deaths of one to nine-year-olds in the UK every year than there would be if it met the European average. The leading causes are cancer, injuries and poisonings, congenital conditions and neurological and developmental disorders.

• Smoking in pregnancy, which increases the risk of deaths in babies and disease in later life, is 11% in England and 15% in Northern Ireland, higher than in many European countries and strongly associated with deprivation. The rate is 5% in Lithuania and Sweden.

• Breastfeeding rates are low – only 34% of babies are breastfed at all by six months, compared with 71% in Norway.

• In England’s most deprived areas, 40% of children were overweight or obese in the last year, compared to 27% in the most affluent.

“We are terribly concerned,” Modi told the Guardian. “What is particularly shocking is that although we’ve known these things for a long time, we are still in a situation where there is such wide health disparity between the most advantaged and the least advantaged.

“The shocking thing is that we know what’s wrong, we know where we stand, we’ve known this for some time but we seem to be absolutely stuck.

“Children are a low priority. In this country children are still not seen. They are not visible. But as a scientist I would say the other reason we’re lagging behind is because the link between child health and adult health and everything that follows downstream from that in terms of the economic prosperity of nations is not adequately recognised.”

Infant mortality in Europe

Children living in the most deprived areas are much more likely to be in poor health, be overweight or obese, suffer from asthma, have poorly managed diabetes, experience mental health problems, and die early, the report shows.

“Poor health in infancy, childhood, and young adult life will ultimately mean poor adult health, and this in turn will mean a blighted life and poor economic productivity. The UK is one of the richest countries in the world; we can and must do better, for the sake for each individual, and that of the nation as a whole,” said Modi.

Sarah Toule, head of health information at World Cancer Research Fund, agrees:“We strongly support RCPCH’s call on the government to close the poverty gap and improve our children’s health and future.”

The report calls for child health to be pushed high up the government’s agenda, as a cross-departmental issue. Each government – Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England – should develop a child health and wellbeing strategy and consider children’s health in all policymaking.

The college also calls for a broadcasting ban on adverts for high fat, sugar and salt foods before 9pm, support for breastfeeding and minimum unit pricing of alcohol – which would help make strong drinks unaffordable for children and young people. In addition, the college want the public smoking ban extended to schools, playgrounds and hospitals.

The call for action was backed by the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of over 35 leading charities, Royal Medical Colleges and campaign groups, who said: “We must take bold action now by bringing in measures like the soft drinks industry levy, reducing the sugar, saturated fat, and salt from everyday foods and restricting junk food marketing to children to give us a fighting chance to help make our children healthier now, and in the future.”

The Child Poverty Action Group also applauded the report’s recommendations. “The Royal College’s report demonstrates all too clearly how poverty in the UK is jeopardising children’s health,” said Alison Garnham, chief executive.

“We are nowhere near where we should be on children’s wellbeing and health given our relative wealth. In the face of a projected 50% increase in child poverty by 2020, this report should sound alarms. It is saying that unless we act, the price will be high – for our children, our economy and our overstretched NHS which will take the knock-on effects.”

A cross-governmental approach, considering child health in every policy, was the right one, Garnham said. “But the overall question the report raises for our prime minister is will she continue with the deep social security and public service cuts she inherited – to the detriment of our children’s health – or will she act to ensure that families have enough to live on so that all children get a good start? If other comparable countries can produce results that put them in the top ranks for child health, why not us?”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are determined to tackle health inequalities and help children and families lead healthier lives. To help, over the next five years we will invest more than £16bn in local government public health services.”

Poverty in the UK jeopardising children’s health, warns landmark report

Anti-abortion report challenges law reform in Northern Ireland

A report by anti-abortion campaigners in Northern Ireland has claimed that 100,000 people were born in the region because the 1967 Abortion Act was never extended to the province.

The Both Lives Matter report published on Wednesday comes as the former justice minister in Northern Ireland confirmed this week that he will resubmit his private member’s bill in the next Stormont assembly calling on the new devolved parliament to legalise abortions in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities where the pregnancies are doomed.

Dawn McAvoy of Both Lives Matter said: “The debate around abortion is in danger of becoming polarised by those only concerned with the unborn child on the one hand and those solely concerned with the rights of the women on the other. The reality is that both lives matter.”

“There are people alive in Northern Ireland today who would not have been born if the 1967 Abortion Act had been introduced here. People we all know and love – spouses, children, friends and family.”

“We estimate that there are 100,000 people alive today, who would not be, had we introduced the 1967 Abortion Act.

The group’s report comes at a time when the battle lines are being redrawn over abortion in Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK where the procedure is banned in almost all circumstances except when there is a direct threat to the mother’s life.

Thousands of Northern Irish women are forced to travel across to England to terminate their pregnancies due to the near-total ban.

David Ford, the former leader of the cross-community Alliance Party, who was justice minister in the regional government before it collapsed on Monday, has vowed to continue to press for abortion reform.

He said that in the next parliament after the scheduled elections on 2 March, there would be another private members bill calling on assembly members to liberalise the near-total ban on abortion.

Ford said: “Should the people of South Antrim re-elect me to the position of their MLA, on my first day back I will go to the Speaker’s office and resubmit my bill, with a view to progressing it through the next assembly term.”

The Both Lives Matter campaign is being backed by the former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland Nuala O’Loan, who said extreme cases of crisis pregnancies were being used to push a pro-abortion agenda.

Lady O’Loan said: “There is an urgent requirement at a time when heart-rending cases are being extensively utilised by those seeking to diminish legal protection for the unborn, to be more focused on recognising and providing for the needs and care of both mother and child. ‘Both Lives Matter’ is an excellent response to that pressing need.”

The group has also won the support of economist Esmond Birnie, a former adviser to ex-first minister and Nobel peace prize winner David Trimble.

Both Lives Matters said it is a new collaborative movement of individuals and organisations seeking to reframe the abortion debate in Northern Ireland.

In 2015 a high court judge in Belfast ruled that Northern Ireland’s almost outright ban on abortion breaches the human rights of women and girls, including rape victims. The ruling is being challenged by the province’s attorney general John Larkin.

At least 1,000 women and girls from Northern Ireland travel to hospitals in Britain for terminations every year.For instance, official figures for 2013 suggest 800 Northern Irish pregnancies were terminated in Britain – although that number is regarded as an underestimate. Among the 800 was that of a 13-year-old who became pregnant through incest.

The only law applying to abortion in Northern Ireland is the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861, which contains a life sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out a termination even in cases of rape or incest.

Anti-abortion report challenges law reform in Northern Ireland

NHS buckling under mismatch of demand and funding, says report

The NHS in England is buckling under a mismatch between soaring demand for care and levels of funding, a thinktank has warned. The King’s Fund said the number of admissions to hospital were rising steeply and were outstripping increases in the health service budget.

Hospital admissions have increased 3.6% a year since 2003-4. A&E attendances, referrals to outpatient services and diagnostic tests have also increased, it added. But since 2010, this increased activity has coincided with a prolonged funding squeeze, a the King’s Fund report states.

Between 2010-11 and 2014-15, funding increases “slowed significantly”, averaging 1.2% each year, compared with average increases of 4.8% a year between 2003-04 and 2010-11, the authors said. As a result of this mismatch between funding and activity, plans for the health service in the coming years could be in jeopardy, the report warns.

The NHS Five Year Forward View sets out a plan for meeting the projected gap between funding and demand – but the authors said: “Failure to moderate the rise in demand for hospital care … highlights the challenges in delivering the Forward View.”

It also warned that the “squeeze on spending” is set to tighten further over the coming years, with 1.1% growth in 2017-18, no growth in real terms funding in 2018-19 and only 0.4% in 2019-20.

Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said: “The NHS is treating more patients than ever before, which is a tribute to the hard work and commitment of its staff.

“However, our analysis provides more evidence that the health system is buckling under the strain of trying to meet rising demand and maintain standards of care within constrained resources.

“With the gap between funding and hospital activity set to grow over the next few years, the NHS needs to do everything it can to moderate demand for hospital care.

“We know that some of this demand can be avoided if alternative services are available – the challenge is to provide the right care in the right place at the right time, and to ensure hospitals are only used when necessary and appropriate.

“This means increasing investment in community services to provide more care closer to people’s homes and focusing on prevention to reduce the need for treatment in the first place.”

NHS buckling under mismatch of demand and funding, says report

Brexit could make NHS shortage of nurses worse, says report

Brexit is set to cause a severe shortage of nurses in the NHS, which is already facing a chronic lack of them in many hospitals, research suggests.

Britain’s decision to leave the EU could deprive the health service of nurses from countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland, from which it has recruited heavily in recent years, analysis by the Institute for Employment Studies found.

A growing reluctance among EU nurses to come to work in the NHS could pose serious difficulties for hospitals, some of which get as many as 20% of their nurses from the European Economic Area.

The potential of EU nurses could also prove problematic because it would coincide with a spike in demand for care caused by a growing number of over-85-year-olds in the population, putting even greater strain on the NHS, according to the IES.

“The current and projected shortage of nurses has left the NHS nursing workforce in England particularly vulnerable to any disruption to its recruitment pipelines, both from the EEA and outside of it,” says the study, which was led by Dr Rachel Marangozov.

“Whatever form Brexit eventually takes, it could well lead to a reduced supply of labour from the EU. Given the current uncertainty around the status of EU workers, many EU nurses may voluntarily choose not to take up positions in the UK, while those already working here could make plans to return home if they feel unwelcome or no longer see a future in the UK.”

Non-UK EU nurses make up almost 5% of the total NHS nursing workforce in England. Hospitals in London, the Thames Valley and east of England will be hardest hit by EU nurses no longer coming to Britain because they rely so heavily on them, the IES says.

For example, 20.3% of nurses at the Royal Brompton and Harefield specialist heart and lung trust in London are from the EU, as are 18.4% of nurses at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn in Norfolk and 15.4% at Papworth, another heart and lung centre of excellence, in Cambridgeshire.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, and NHS leaders have voiced deep unease about Brexit potentially exacerbating the existing big gaps across the health and social care workforce and have praised EU nationals’ contribution to the NHS in an effort to persuade them to stay.

The Royal College of Nursing said the findings showed that problems in nurse recruitment could reach “catastrophic proportions”. It said the NHS was facing a perfect storm of an ageing population and growing need for healthcare coinciding with Brexit and fewer nurses being trained at British universities in the wake of the government deciding to axe bursaries for student nurses.

Applications to study nursing are down 20% for next year. “Coupled with the effects of Brexit, this may become a double whammy for the nursing profession which could make NHS services nigh-on impossible to sustain,” said Stephanie Aiken, the RCN’s deputy director of nursing.

“Patients can be put at risk when there are too few staff,” she added. She called the big drop in nursing degree applications “a very worrying situation that could cause the staffing crisis to deteriorate pat the point of no return”.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “As the health secretary has repeatedly made clear, overseas workers form a crucial part of our dedicated nursing workforce. They are a crucial part of delivering safe staffing in hospitals, and we want to see their outstanding work continue as we meet the needs of a changing population.”

She said there were plans to train more homegrown nurses, with 51,000 nurses currently in training, to help deliver the government’s promised “truly seven-day NHS” by 2020.

Brexit could make NHS shortage of nurses worse, says report

Child obesity rising again, NHS report reveals

A growing number of children are becoming obese as young as four or five years old, NHS figures have shown, sparking renewed concern about the obesity crisis.

Obesity is rising among children both in their first and last years at primary school, according to the latest annual measurements of child body mass index (BMI) in England.

Overall, 9.3% of four and five-year-olds in primary reception class in England in 2015-16 were classed as obese, up from 9.1% the previous year, according to the national child measurement programme (NCMP).

The number of obese ten and 11-year-olds in their last primary school year also rose from 19.1% to 19.8% last year – nearly one in five.

Richmond upon Thames in south-west London has the fewest fat children in England. In the borough, 11% of year six pupils are classed as obese. In contrast, in the east London borough of Barking and Dagenham 28.5% of children that age were found to be obese.

More boys are dangerously overweight than girls. Among reception pupils, 9.6% of boys were obese compared to 9.1% of girls. Similarly, 21.7% of boys in year six were obese compared to 17.9% of girls, according to the latest NCMP results published by NHS Digital.

The figures reveal that child obesity is rising again after falling slightly in 2014-15.

The statistics also underlined the stark class divide. NHS Digital’s report found thatobesity prevalence for children in reception living in the most deprived areas (12.5%) was more than double that of those living in the least deprived areas (5.5%). In year six, 26% of children living in the most deprived areas were obese compared to 11.7% in the least deprived areas.

Nationally, the number of reception children who are either overweight or obese has also risen, from 21.9% to 22.1%. The same picture emerges with year six pupils, the number of whom found to be overweight or obese rose from 33.2% to 34.2%.

The figures come after Theresa May’s government was criticised for watering down the childhood obesity strategy that her predecessor, David Cameron, intended to publish. Health organisations, charities and campaigners such as Jamie Oliver have accused May of putting the interests of big business above those of public health and letting down children and families by publishing a “weak” action plan in August.

Experts voiced deep unease at the figures and upward trend. “It is deeply worrying that more children are leaving primary school overweight or obese than ever before and levels are increasing”, said Professor Kevin Fenton, the national director for health and wellbeing at Public Health England, which advises the government.

The number of obese ten and 11-year-olds is the highest since children began being routinely weighed and measured in 2006-07. In that year 17.5% Year 6 pupils were found to be in that category. Last year it was 19.8%, even higher than the previous record of 19.2% in 2011-12.

Alison Cox, Cancer Research UK’s director of prevention, said: “Our nation has hit a devastating record high for childhood obesity. The trend over the last decade is showing no signs of slowing down, and this worrying news is something that could have been prevented with more government action.

“But the government still has a chance to save lives. It has already recognised the influence of junk food marketing on children by banning junk food advertising during children’s programmes. It’s time now to stop this influential marketing before 9pm.”

The Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of health charities and medical organisations, said the figures should act as a wake-up call to ministers. “Year upon year, we are faced with sobering figures that reveal an increasingly worrying trend – the number of obese and overweight children in the UK is not falling and is in fact rising,” a spokesperson said.

“Today’s figures provide yet another wake-up call for all those intent on stemming the obesity epidemic – the alarm bells are ringing and there’s simply no time to hit the snooze button. These poor health outcomes mean we are failing our children, and future generations, if this trend continues”, said an alliance spokesman.”

It wants the government to introduce its levy on highly-sugared soft drinks on time as planned in 2017 and “without dilution”, to restrict the marketing of junk food to children, both online and before the 9pm TV viewing watershed, and to push food manufacturers to introduce “ambitious” targets to reduce the amont of sugar i their products.

Child obesity rising again, NHS report reveals

Hard Brexit would mean patients waiting years for new drugs – report

A hard Brexit would lead to the loss of scientific funding for the UK drug industry and would mean patients waiting much longer for life-changing medicines, a thinktank has warned.

The report by the Public Policy Projects notes that patients, taxpayers and drugmakers benefit from a shared clinical trials and drug approvals process between the UK and the EU. This would be lost under a hard Brexit, which could mean years of delays before vital new drugs come on to the UK market – and £144bn of lost sales for the UK life sciences industry by 2020. A hard Brexit would mean the UK having no access to the single market.

Stephen Dorrell, a former Tory health secretary who heads the thinktank, said the government must be equally focused on Brexit’s implications for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as it was on banking and the car industry. Life sciences contribute £60bn a year to the UK economy and employ 220,000 people.

Dorrell, who also chairs the NHS Confederation, warned that a hard Brexit would “take ourselves out of the scientific mainstream and thereby undermine the vitality of the British life sciences”. The UK life sciences, which David Cameron described as a “jewel in the crown”, risked being demoted to a “second-tier player”, Dorrell added.

The report, backed by healthcare consulting firm QuintilesIMS, argues that access to the single market is vital for drugmakers, ensuring free movement of scientists and preventing a brain drain. It says students should be taken out of the migration count.

Theresa May’s government has promised to make good the loss of the €8.8bn (£7.9bn) in scientific funding the UK received from the EU last year. But Dorrell said it was just as important to ensure that UK science remained at the heart of the European scientific community.

Luke Tryl, author of the report, said: “If we were to put [UK research and development] at risk, that would be highly reckless.”

The pro-EU group Scientists for EU says it knows of 41 foreign researchers who have refused to take UK posts or are thinking of refusing because of the Brexit vote, and of 100 who have already left or are planning to leave Britain. There have also been incidents of British scientists being dropped from EU projects owing to funding concerns.

The report highlights the importance of regulatory alignment. Tryl said if UK drugmakers were forced to choose between launching medicines in the UK and the EU, they would choose the latter market with its 500 million consumers rather than the former with its 60 million. The report points to Switzerland, noting that the Swiss authorisation agency works closely with the European Medicines Agency under mutual recognition agreements.

Another blow would come from pharmaceutical companies relocating. Japan’s drugmakers – at least 18 have R&D operations in the UK – have already warned they would move to wherever the EMA, currently based in London, relocates.

But UK companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca are pushing ahead with investment plans despite the Brexit vote, and US biotech firm Alnylam said in September that it would base its European drug development team in Berkshire.

Hard Brexit would mean patients waiting years for new drugs – report

Abused children more likely to be seriously ill as adults, says report

Children who suffer abuse, violence or other trauma at home are more likely to become seriously ill as adults, a report has concluded.

The study says children who endure four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with a chronic disease in later life compared with those that have experienced none.

They are four times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, three times more likely to develop heart disease and three times more likely to develop respiratory disease, according to the report from Public Health Wales.

According to the report, over a 12-month period, those with four or more ACEs were three times more likely to have attended accident and emergency units, three times more likely to have stayed overnight in hospital, and twice as likely to have visited their GP, again compared with people who report no ACEs.

The report, the first nationwide study of its kind produced by a public health body in the UK, argues that the reasons are not simply cyclical – that a child who has a challenging home life, where, for example, adults smoke or drink heavily, is more likely to do the same and suffer bad health as a consequence.

It points out there is growing evidence that in addition early life trauma leads to changes in neurological, immunological and hormonal development that have detrimental effects on health across a lifetime.

Children who are constantly exposed to stress can become permanently prepared to respond to further trauma – which can increase strain on the body.

ACEs are defined as traumatic experiences that occur before the age of 18, ranging from verbal, mental and physical abuse to exposure to alcoholism, drug use, domestic violence or parents’ relationships breaking down.

The lead report author, Prof Mark Bellis, the director of policy, research and international development at Public Health Wales, said its previous research had shown how ACEs increase the uptake of health-harming behaviours such as smoking and drug use and reduce mental wellbeing in adults.

He said: “This report shows how experiencing abuse and other problems in childhood are linked with increased levels of chronic disease in adulthood and much greater use of health care. What happens to us as children can make our bodies develop differently, leaving them more vulnerable to conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease in later life.”

Bellis said that finding solutions needed a change in approach.

“This cannot be achieved by the NHS alone. That is why we are working with our key partners, including the government, police, local authorities, charitable and voluntary sector organisations, to develop a joined-up approach to prevent ACEs and support adults whose health is suffering because of childhood trauma.”

The relationship between ACEs and the development of health-harming behaviours and chronic disease in adulthood was first explored in the US in the late 90s. The Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University – now the Public Health Institute – ran the first British study in Lancashire in 2012.

More than 2,000 adults aged 18-69 took part in the Welsh study, providing anonymous information on their exposure to ACEs before the age of 18 and their health and lifestyles as adults. The results take into account sociodemographic factors and show it is not simply the children of “deprived” homes who suffer ACEs.

Simon Capewell, vice-president of the Faculty of Public Health, said the Welsh study was very important. “This is the sort of data that needs to be used to prevent health issues that become a burden on the NHS and on our society,” he said.

Wales’s future generations commissioner, Sophie Howe, said the study showed public services had to work together. “This new evidence from Public Health Wales emphasises the importance of focusing on early years and reducing the number of children living in families where there is domestic abuse, mental health problems, substance misuse or other forms of abuse or neglect.

“If we don’t tackle this we are storing up long term health and social problems for these children and our public services further down the line.”

Abused children more likely to be seriously ill as adults, says report

Almost half of young Australian adults binge-drink every month, report says

Almost half of young Australian adults engage in binge-drinking on at least a monthly basis, a new report shows – but across the board rates of alcohol consumption are falling.

Findings from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on trends in alcohol availability, use and treatment show that 18- to 24-year-olds are most likely to report risky drinking behaviour.

The report says 47% reported drinking more than four standard drinks on a single occasion on at least a monthly basis, 33% consumed 11 or more standard drinks on a single occasion at least yearly, and 18% at least monthly.

But older Australians were more likely to have more than an average of two standard drinks a day, with 23% of respondents aged from 40 to 49 reporting what was defined as a “lifetime” risk.

Similarly, nearly half (49%) of respondents receiving treatment were aged in their forties. Overall, treatment for alcohol had increased by 20% from a decade ago, with patients in 2014-15 most likely to be males aged over 40 and living in major cities.

Researchers said it was possible that problems related to drinking did not develop until later in life or that people simply did not seek treatment for them until then.

The report, released on Friday, assessed trends in alcohol availability, use and treatment.

Volume of alcohol consumed per capita

Tim Beard, a spokesman for the AIHW, said binge-drinking – particularly among younger Australians and those living in rural or very remote areas – was at odds with the downward trend of consumption rates overall.

“That contrast really jumped out at us.”

He said drinking alcohol in significant quantities became less socially acceptable as people aged, and those who reported receiving treatment was “an ageing cohort”, seeking help for “habits they formed sometimes 20, 30 years ago”.

“They might have been receiving treatment for years.”

In 2013, just over 15 million Australians, about 78% of the population, had consumed alcohol in the past year – but the apparent consumption of alcohol as determined through sales and taxation data has decreased nationally from 2003-04 to 2013-14.

The proportion of people abstaining – who had never consumed a full serving of alcohol – had risen from 17% in 2004 to 22% in 2013; the rate of ex-drinkers had also increased.

Alcohol consumption per person had also fallen to 9.7 litres in 2013-14 from 10.8l in 2008-9.

The increasing price of alcohol, restrictions on trading hours, and fewer outlets were understood to be effective in reducing harms.

“I think there’s a lot more public awareness of the impact of all sorts of behaviours on health,” said Beard, noting the National Drug Strategy aimed to reduce rates of smoking, drinking and drug abuse across the board through prevention.

“It’s not just younger people who aren’t taking it up – it’s a lot of people who are giving it up.”

But despite some emerging positive patterns, risky drinking and alcohol dependence continued to be significant issues in Australia, particularly among some groups.

Remote and very remote areas were more likely to engage in risky drinking than people living in major cities, said Beard.

Interactive

“They’re sort of bucking the trend, unfortunately, when you look at them as a group. It’s a small pocket but a notable one.”

The report found 15% of people who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual reported drinking at very high levels each month, compared to 7% of people who identified as heterosexual.

Indigenous Australians were more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to report risky drinking on single occasions, and more than three times as likely to drink at very high levels every week – though the gap was decreasing over time.

Alcohol was the leading cause of burden of disease for Australians under the age of 45 in 2011; alcohol-use disorders were responsible for 1.5% of the total burden of disease.

Research published by the University of Adelaide last week highlighted the difficulties experienced by Australians to cut back on their alcohol intake or quit altogether.

Ashlea Bartram, a PhD researcher at the university’s School of Public Health, found that people routinely made excuses to remove themselves from situations where others were drinking, or provided accepted excuses for abstaining such as being unwell or needing to drive.

She said it was “quite clear there is a stigma attached” to people attempting to change their drinking habits. “It’s as though some kind of social code has been violated.”

People tended to make excuses not to attend social gatherings, and instead found “new ways to spend time with their peers that weren’t focused on alcohol,” Bartram said.

Almost half of young Australian adults binge-drink every month, report says

Alcohol continues to be sold at "pocket money prices", report finds

Alcohol continues to be sold at “pocket money” prices across the UK, with white cider on offer for pennies, according to a report.

The study from the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA) concluded that little has changed in recent years when it comes to people being able to buy cheap booze from supermarkets and off-licences.

Meanwhile another study has found that British teenage girls are more likely to get drunk than their male counterparts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study found 31% of 15-year-old girls reported having been drunk at least twice compared with 26% of boys of the same age.

Researchers from the AHA analysed 480 products to find the cheapest drink on sale across the UK. The team found that high-strength white cider, which they say is mostly drunk by dependent and underage drinkers, is being sold for as little as 16p per unit of alcohol.

They said: “The conclusion is clear – alcohol continues to be sold at pocket money prices in supermarkets and off-licences across the UK.”

They found a wide range of cheap alcohol being sold by major supermarkets – including Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Their report said: “Both Asda and Tesco were found to be selling perry at 19p per unit, while Morrisons were selling cider at 20p per unit and Sainsbury’s stocked perry at 22p per unit.

“In our research, we also found an abundance of summer-focused promotions. The promotions included deals on multi-packs and free giveaways with alcohol purchases, enticing people to buy.”

The report said that for the cost of a standard off-peak cinema ticket (£8.24), people could buy 7.5 litres of the cheapest white cider – the equivalent of 53 shots of vodka.

“The minimum hourly wage for those aged under 18 is £3.87,” the study went on. “After just an hour’s work, you would still have 38p change after buying a three-litre bottle of Frosty Jack’s containing 22.5 units of alcohol.

“For the cost of a monthly Netflix subscription at £7.49, you would have change from buying two three-litre bottles of Frosty Jack’s.

“Today, £10 will not buy you a large Domino’s pizza, but you would have a penny left over from a 700ml bottle of 40% Putinoff vodka at £9.99.”

The report concluded: “Cheap booze can be found on every street corner. Fundamentally, very little has changed since the last report was carried out five years ago.

“While the lowest price we report is 16p per unit, we found a broad range of products on sale for 25p or less, which is half the 50p minimum unit price recommended by health bodies and alcohol charities.

“At the cheapest price per unit for white cider (16p), the low-risk drinking limit of 14 units per week for both men and women could be purchased for just £2.24.”

Chairman of the AHA and former president of the Royal College of Physicians, Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, said: “In spite of a government commitment to tackle cheap, high-strength alcohol, these products are still available at pocket money prices. Harmful drinkers and children are still choosing the cheapest products – predominantly white cider and cheap vodka.

“We need to make excessively cheap alcohol less affordable through the tax system, including an increase in cider duty. It’s not right that high strength white cider is taxed at a third of the rate for strong beer.

“In addition, we need minimum unit pricing. This would target the cheap, high strength products drunk by harmful drinkers whilst barely affecting moderate drinkers, and it would leave pub prices untouched.”

Each year, there are almost 23,000 deaths and more than 1 million hospital admissions related to alcohol in England.

More than two-thirds of alcohol sold in the UK is purchased in supermarkets and off-licences.

Another report has found that British teenage girls are more likely to get drunk than their male counterparts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study found 31% of 15-year-old girls reported having been drunk at least twice compared with 26% of boys of the same age.

Alcohol continues to be sold at "pocket money prices", report finds