News round up: Alzheimer pills ‘can do harm’

Alzheimer pills ‘can do harm’

Anti-psychotic drugs prescribed to Alzheimer’s sufferers offer no longterm benefits and can even cause decline, new research suggests.

A study found that the drugs – called neuroleptics – could impact on verbal and thinking skills.

Read this story in The Daily Mirror today

Homophobia rife in British society, landmark equality survey finds

Britain’s 3.6 million lesbian, gay and bisexual people see themselves confronted by huge barriers of prejudice at every level of society, according to the first authoritative poll of their views.

The poll, commissioned by the equality charity Stonewall, which said some public bodies were too “smug” about their record on discrimination, indicates that the schoolyard is the most entrenched bastion of prejudice.

The YouGov poll of 1,658 gay adults found homophobic bullying in schools is more prevalent now than in previous decades.

Read more on this story in The Guardian today

Brown suffers big backbench revolt over council housing repairs

Gordon Brown suffered one of the biggest backbench revolts since becoming prime minister last night as 28 Labour rebels backed an amendment to a housing bill calling for more resources for council house building and repair. The rebellion failed to check the bill’s progress as opposition MPs voted with the government. But it signalled backbench unease that the government is failing to meet the demand for social and affordable housing.
Read more on this story in The Guardian today

PM says he will speed up public sector reforms

Gordon Brown will today tell 700 senior civil servants that the government is determined to push ahead even faster with public service reforms. He will make his call to speed up the reform agenda on the same day that the health secretary, Alan Johnson, discloses that patients needing routine operations can now choose from 180 private sector hospitals.

Read this story in The Guardian today

BBC psychiatrist is struck off

A psychiatrist who regularly appeared as an expert on the BBC has been struck off the medical register after he lied about his academic qualifications and performed unethical drugs tests on mentally ill patients.

Tonmoy Sharma, who was a senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, has been exposed as a fraud who repeatedly referred to himself as a “professor” when records show that he had never completed a PhD thesis
Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph today

Children in poor areas ‘at greater risk of road injury’

Children from poorer areas are far more likely to be hurt in traffic accidents, either as pedestrians or cyclists, according to a study based on NHS data.

Read more on this story in The Times today

Health checks at 40

Every person in the country will get regular free health checks once they reach the age of 40, Alan Johnson, the health secretary, will announce today.

The “health MoT” will include screening for a range of heart problems, diabetes, kidney disease and the risk of stroke.

These conditions cause 200,000 deaths a year and are responsible for a fifth of all hospital admissions. Some experts say that as many as 90 per cent of heart attacks and 80 per cent of strokes could be prevented if patients were on medication. Those considered at risk will also be given dietary and exercise advice.

Read this story in The Times today

UK peers reject benefits of migration

Ministers have overstated the economic benefits of migration and should limit the number of workers entering from outside the European Union, an influential parliamentary committee argues today.

Rejecting the economic case the government has repeatedly made for migration, the report by the House of Lords economic affairs committee concludes that high net immigration has had little effect on income per head in the resident population.