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Woman, 68, who put cannabis in casseroles guilty of growing drug - The Guardian 8th March 2007
Woman, 68, who put cannabis in casseroles guilty of growing drug - The Guardian 8th March 2007
A pensioner who stirred cannabis into her casseroles to ease her depression and aching limbs was ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work after she was convicted of growing and possessing the drug yesterday. Outside court, Patricia Tabram, 68, said she would continue to defy the law despite the fact that her conviction could lead to her being evicted from her housing association bungalow. She added: "I have learned that the English court system is a shambles. I'm going to go home now and have a nice cannabis dinner - I need it to relieve my pain. I'm not a drug addict, and the only thing I'm addicted to is Maltesers."
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Pensioner guilty of cooking with cannabis faces eviction - The Independent 8th March 2007
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Cannabis grandmother guilty - The Times 8th March 2007
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Cannabis granny vows to keep using drugs - The Telegraph 8th March 2007
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Community service for unrepentant gran who grew cannabis - Daily Mail 7th March 2007
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A campaign launched today calls on the government to reform Britain's 40-year-old abortion law to let women have a termination without needing the consent of two doctors. Pro-choice campaigners Abortion Rights say current restrictions, which impose more obstacles to abortion than in most European countries, should be lifted to create abortion on request.
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Poll reopens abortion on demand battle - The Telegraph 8th March 2007
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Scientists have found more than 100 new genes that can cause cancer if they become mutated. The discovery was part of the largest survey of the human genome to date, which also suggests that the number of cancer genes is far larger than previously thought. All cancers are thought to be caused by DNA mutations in specific genes. "Thus far, there are approximately 350 genes in the human genome that have been shown to be cancer genes," said Mike Stratton, co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge. "This is from a full spec of around 25,000 genes in the human genome."
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Gene study offers hope of potent anti-cancer drugs - The Independent 8th March 2007
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Doctors believe they may have found an effective treatment for the most disabling forms of cluster headaches, which can cause excruciating bouts of pain. Efforts to help sufferers have not been very successful so far. Many people take daily medication to limit the frequency and severity of the headaches. Deep brain stimulation appeared effective, but there proved to be a risk of fatal brain haemorrhage. Doctors from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in London, with University of California colleagues, report today in an online article in the Lancet that they successfully trialled a technique involving stimulation of the occipital nerve using implanted electrodes.
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Councils across England and Wales have been left with a £100m bill because they are for caring for sick and destitute migrants left unsupported by the state. The home secretary, John Reid, is facing demands from more than 100 councils who blame "chaotic" government immigration procedures for leaving them to support migrants assessed as having "no recourse to public funds" (NRPF). These include thousands of failed asylum seekers, migrants sponsored to enter the UK, some overseas students and others in ill health, including many who have HIV.
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People who are fat are now society's pariahs. If you are overweight you may have been excluded, humiliated or bullied. What's new? The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, indicated that NHS operations might be withheld from obese people unless they lose weight. A "means test" for NHS services for obese people is to be set at a body mass index of 30, even if someone has lost weight. Will the carrot and stick approach reduce the nation's weight?
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The biggest reform of mental health legislation in 50 years will be thrown into disarray today by research showing a key aspect of the proposals is unlikely to work. Government measures to force patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals to continue taking their drugs, do not improve the safety of patients or the public, according to an international review of research.
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Mental health reform 'unproven' - BBC Health News 7th March 2007
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Mental health reform 'unproven' - BBC Health News 7th March 2007
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A Heathrow airport doctor's fitness to practise was impaired after he donned full protective clothing to attend to a man sneezing on a flight from Hong Kong, the General Medical Council (GMC) has ruled. Dr Egidius Panis, a senior clinical medical health officer at the airport's health control unit, donned goggles over his glasses, white overalls, latex gloves and blue plastic overshoes to board the flight on April 5, 2003.
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The National Health Service is groaning under the weight of inspection and regulation, with at least 56 bodies with a right to visit NHS hospitals and trusts, many without an invitation. There are so many bodies that the authors of a new report from the NHS Confederation say that they are not sure they have managed to count them all.
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A nurse fatally injected a war veteran with an unauthorised sedative after telling his daughter: “Bless him, he shouldn’t be going through all this again — he should be going to heaven.” Julia Levitt, 29, was found guilty of serious professional misconduct yesterday and struck off the nursing register at a disciplinary hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). She told police after the incident that she had given Kenneth Heaton the fatal 25mg dose of Nozinan “to help him to pass over”.
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A priest who became suicidal after a pharmacy gave her eight times her normal dose of steroids has been awarded £1.43 million in damages. The High Court had ruled that Lloyds Pharmacy negligently dispensed a prescription in 2001 to the Rev Cathy Horton. Mrs Horton, 44, formerly of Selsdon, near Croydon, South London, but who now lives in the US state of Ohio, was seeking £5 million in damages for the “enormous disruption to her life” and deterioration of her health.
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A real friend, one who will remain loyal and dependable through thick and thin, is much more likely to be a woman than a man, according to researchers in Manchester. Their study seems to establish what women have always known — that men are fickle things who are in it for what they can get. Analysis of the behaviour of 10,000 people identifies the friendships made by women as being far “deeper and more moral”.
University admissions officers may have been amused and impressed with the bright young spark who began his medical school application with an entertaining yet thoughtful anecdote about setting fire to his pyjamas when he was a boy. But that was before they read 233 other applications telling exactly the same story.
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Student web cheats caught out by 'pyjama inspiration' - Daily Mail 7th March 2007
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Doctors' leaders accused the Government of "arrogance" yesterday as a minister insisted the flawed selection system for junior doctors was "working well" in many parts of the country. Lord Hunt, the health minister, angered the medical profession by playing down the chaos that forced the Government to back down this week and order a review of the process.
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Government braced for mass revolt over 'shambolic' recruitment for junior doctors - Daily Mail 7th March 2007
We have had many disagreements with this Government, but if there were one piece of legislation that any newspaper could not but welcome it was the Freedom of Information Act. Promised by Labour in opposition, it took a long time to arrive. While the Act was passed in 2000, it did not take effect until January 2005, ostensibly to allow Whitehall to prepare for the dazzling light of public scrutiny being shone into the dark recesses of official secrecy. But it was worth the wait. It challenged the old presumption that the public should be told only what the Civil Service considered good for it.
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Parents have been banned from picking up their children from a school playground because they are deemed a health and safety hazard. The ban has prompted such anger among parents, who have been picking up their children for years without mishap in the playground, that police had to be called to the school on Monday.
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Cheryl Cox waited seven years to become a mother, and succeeded only thanks to the miracle of IVF. It never occurred to her that she would be anything other than an excellent parent. She reasoned - still does - that because she wanted her children so much, she would be the last person on earth to cause them harm.
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NHS spending on drugs to treat child hyperactivity has tripled in only five years. Almost 400,000 aged between five and 19 are believed to be on the drugs despite doctors' fears about side effects.
An elderly couple were forced to choose which of them would go blind because the Health Service rationing body has not approved a drug which could save their sight. Olive and Ron Roberts, who both have the degenerative eye disease wet age-related macular degeneration, could afford only for one of them to be treated privately.
More people are being diagnosed with diabetes, but the NHS has to do more to meet the challenge of treating them, the government has said. The assessment by the Department of Health reveals how the Health Service has fared with implementing 2003 guidelines on the disease.
One in 10 people are "secret smokers" who try to keep their habit hidden, a survey suggests. The poll of 4,000 adults, commissioned by Boots, found 52% of smokers had kept their habit secret from their parents, even into adulthood.
Drug laws in Britain are not working and a radical fresh approach is needed, a major report is due to say. The Royal Society of Arts has spent two years examining the impact of current policy as well as alternatives.
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A boy from Barnet in North London is undergoing breakthrough treatment in a US hospital for a rare form of cancer. It is the coldest March day for years in Manhattan, and the Brown family are battling the bitter wind to walk the four blocks from their temporary home, the Ronald McDonald House, for their daily visit to Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre on the banks of the East River.
The performance of the Welsh Ambulance Trust has been branded "appalling" and "unacceptable" in a report by an all-party committee of AMs. The Assembly Audit Committee said the trust has failed to deliver acceptable standards of emergency response times.
Chancellor Gordon Brown has allowed a dentist to drill through to deep nerve tissue beneath his teeth without using an anaesthetic. Mr Brown made the apparently painful decision because he did not want his mouth to freeze up just hours before he was due to deliver a speech.
That morning latte or espresso may not be the pick-me-up people think it is, a study has revealed. University of Bristol researchers say the caffeine eases withdrawal symptoms which build up overnight, but does not make people more alert than normal.
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Passive smoking research planned - BBC Health News 6th March 2007
A study of the effects of passive smoking has been announced, as Northern Ireland prepares to introduce a ban on smoking in public places. The Health Promotion Agency (HPA) wants to see how the ban affects the levels of passive smoking in 500 non-smokers who share a home with smokers.
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An international team of scientists have warned pregnant women of the dangers of eating some fish species because of mercury contamination. They argue that greater controls are needed on power plants and the international trade in mercury to curb environmental damage. Signatories to the Madison declaration, which was agreed at an international conference on mercury pollution last year, warn that levels of the element in the atmosphere are three times higher than before the industrial revolution. They say it is a global problem.
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Fish contaminated with mercury 'pose worldwide threat to health' - The Independent 8th March 2007
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At last, the news that we were all hoping for — eating chocolate makes for a healthier old age, a slimmer waist and a positive outlook. Research, which was not funded by the chocolate industry, suggests that elderly men who ate chocolate were fitter, more optimistic and had enjoyed psychological wellbeing.
The number of mutated genes that drive the development of cancer is greater than had been thought, research shows. However, as well as these "driver" mutations, each type of cancer cell carries many more "passenger" mutations which play no role in causing disease.
The use of drugs to treat hyperactivity in children has soared worldwide, say US researchers. Between 1993 and 2003, prescriptions of ADHD medications, such as Ritalin, almost tripled.
The controversial low-carbohydrate Atkins diet has scored well in a major US analysis. The Stanford University study, of more than 300 women, rated Atkins ahead of three other popular diets.
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Cheshire and Merseyside News
JUNIOR doctors in Merseyside and Cheshire fear they may be forced to quit the NHS permanently as they struggle to find positions, despite years of training. Many put the blame squarely on a new government programme called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) which aims to set out a new progression in doctors’ careers.
SEXUALLY transmitted disease cases have risen sharply in South Cheshire, prompting fears of an epidemic if the problem is not dealt with. Figures released by the Mid Cheshire Hospitals Trust show that newly diagnosed cases of chlamydia rose by 27% between 2005 and last year, and some cases of other sexually transmitted diseases rose by more than half.
A DEVOTED brother says he is ready and willing to take his battle with the health authorities to the High Court. Stephen Johnson, of Strawberry Lane, Acton Bridge, has been fighting the Central and Eastern Cheshire Primary Care Trust for nearly two years since his brother Rod, 53, suffered a major stroke.
LEIGHTON Hospital has been congratulated on the progress it has made in combating the 'superbug' MRSA over the last year. In an assessment undertaken by the Healthcare Commission, Leighton Hospital and the Victoria Infirmary in Northwich were both applauded for the work they had done over the last 12 months to deal with a number of criticisms raised by the commission.
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CAMPAIGNERS against a health waste recycling plant in Orford are mobilising their efforts for the fight ahead. Posters saying no' to the plans are currently being printed for display in cars and homes.
IN reply to Susan Green's letter regarding seeing a doctor (February 28), it seems to me that she is typical of the me me me' society that we now live in - my rights, my entitlements, my benefits etc. Due to diabetes I am required to see my GP at regular intervals but in the three years I have lived here I must have seen at least four doctors other than my regular' GP.
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Nurses head for Africa - Middlewich Guardian 7th March 2007
THREE student nurses will travel more than 5,000 miles to experience poverty and disease. Paula Bamping, Chris Westhead and Mandy Shaw will spend six weeks in Malawi later this year.
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Cumbria and Lancashire News
A 68-YEAR-OLD grandmother accused of growing cannabis plants in her walk-in wardrobe told a court yesterday that she used the drug to alleviate the side-effects of conventional medicines. Pat Tabram who lives at Humshaugh, near Hexham, told a jury at Carlisle Crown Court she had suffered 27 years of pain, sleeplessness and other problems caused by drugs prescribed to her by doctors after the sudden death of her teenage son.
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Cannabis granny guilty - Carlisle News & Star 7th March 2007
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Woman, 68, who put cannabis in casseroles guilty of growing drug - The Guardian 8th March 2007
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Pensioner guilty of cooking with cannabis faces eviction - The Independent 8th March 2007
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Cannabis grandmother guilty - The Times 8th March 2007
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Cannabis granny vows to keep using drugs - The Telegraph 8th March 2007
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Community service for unrepentant gran who grew cannabis - Daily Mail 7th March 2007
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IT is ridiculous to remove fans and light bulbs from Royal Blackburn Hospital when one obvious way to save money is to remove all the LCD televisions from outpatients' clinics and the A&E department. They are costly to buy and use a lot of electricity. They are left on constantly throughout the day. We never needed them in the past and if waiting times have been cut we certainly do not need them now.
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At a public consultation meeting in Chorley Town Hall, on Saturday, February 23, it was announced that the Clinical Assessment and Treatment Support (CATS), service would now be provided in house at Chorley Hospital and run by its staff. We welcome this decision by the Central Lancashire PCT (Primary Care Trust).
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Greater Manchester News
MORE than 2,000 Greater Manchester pensioners tested positive for a potentially-fatal superbug in the first nine months of last year, according to new figures. Some 422 were found to have clostridium difficile (c.diff) by Pennine Acute Trust , which runs hospitals in North Manchester, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham.
A HOSPITAL ward and a care home for the elderly have been closed to new admissions following an outbreak of a virus. The medical ward at the Royal Bolton Hospital was shut to new admissions on March 1 after 14 patients and a member of staff were struck down with the bug, which causes diarrhoea and vomiting.
BOLTON North-east MP David Crausby is calling for maggots to be used to treat wounds on the NHS. Mr Crausby has added his signature to an early day motion calling for patients with rotting flesh around wounds to be treated with sterile maggots.
HEALTH chiefs say they are continuing to press ahead on planning for the re-development of Altrincham General Hospital - but a patients' watchdog has raised renewed fears for its future. Trafford Primary Care Trust and Trafford Healthcare Trust are waiting for the outcome of a community hospital bid to the Department of Health for funding to revamp Altrincham General and also Stretford Memorial Hospital. The trusts said in a joint statement: "Not withstanding this, we will continue to provide services and to develop plans for future services on these sites for local people, with particular emphasis on the provision of more locally accessible diagnostics, outpatient services and minor injuries.
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A friend is loyal, kind, true . . . and probably a woman - The Times 8th March 2007
A real friend, one who will remain loyal and dependable through thick and thin, is much more likely to be a woman than a man, according to researchers in Manchester. Their study seems to establish what women have always known — that men are fickle things who are in it for what they can get. Analysis of the behaviour of 10,000 people identifies the friendships made by women as being far “deeper and more moral”.
Full links to the articles detailed can be found at www(dot) fade the blog 2 (dot)blogspot (dot)com, This has been a Podcast of Another 15 Minutes ... Health News from the Fade Library.
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