Who's to blame for Booze Britain?

After the price of alcohol has halved in the past 20 years, it comes as no surprise that there has been a subsequent rise in alcohol related additions and illnesses.

An Alcoholics Anonymous blog states that the alcohol abuse can start at an increasingly early age due to the cheapness of the product. It adds:

“Children and alcohol don’t mix. Why are these children misusing alcohol? The three P’s are Parents, Peers and Products”

This is an interesting point. Although many cannot control themselves, it is the younger of the nation who quite possibly do not know any better and require better education on the matter.

The blog places blame on the “Three P’s.”

“Many parents act with the best of intentions, supervising children's alcohol use to encourage moderation. The problem is the strategy is not working and children who start using alcohol at an early age are more likely to go on to become part of the adolescent party culture in which alcohol use occurs regularly.

High rates of underage drinking mean peer pressure on other young people to use alcohol. At the time that adolescents are drinking alcohol to attract their peers, their brains are more vulnerable to the negative impacts of alcohol.

Products are also an important component in underage alcohol use. The large number of underage drinkers means that there is now an assertive market that caters to this group. A variety of cheap, brightly coloured and sweet alcoholic drinks can be easily accessed by underage drinkers.”

The culture of intoxication which has emerged in Britain in recent years, has this past month been focused on the prices of alcohol in supermarkets and 24-hour licensing allowing for easy-access booze.

Don Shenker, Director of Policy and Services at Aclohol Concern said:
"Alcohol Concern does not disagree with the extension of licensing hours per se, but we do have outstanding reservations about the lack of community safeguards and serious misgivings about the extent to which public health is being ignored as a licensing concern."

The Guardian reported that “By the end of the year Gordon Brown wants to see alcoholic content and daily sensible drinking guidelines listed on most alcoholic drink labels.” But whether anyone will take notice of these is a different matter. Many addicts always find a way to attain what they crave the most. And when tax on cider is only 20p, why should the large chain stores sacrifice their profit? Should the responsibility not bear with the consumers?

The British Medical Association fully supports an increase in alcohol’s price stating that it “recommends introducing higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and an end to irresponsible promotions.”

The NHS has taken a similar approach and recommends that to reduce your unit intake, users should themselves calculate online exactly how much they are consuming.
The How Many Units? Alcohol Calculator is certainly a good idea in theory, but how many youths or pub-goers who have had one two many, would think to approach this as soon as stumbe in the house? Just as an estimation, i would say ...Very few.

The result from the calculator may in many cases not mean a great deal, although the site does include how much is too much, and also gives advice when the result is shown. The Alcoholics Anonymous Blog however has a valid point. Booze products certainly have an impact on our health when abused as the Government is finally taking note of, and for the youths of our nation, peer pressure will always surround the issue. So perhaps it is time that the parents were given a re-evalutation? More and more children are being permitted to drink under the surveillance of their elders. Of course it is the parents' decision how to raise their children, but perhaps, are they setting a bad example and turning us into a "party nation"?

Module work: A map of Preston News

Constructed on Google Maps, here is an example of how the news can be displayed in map format.
Stories were taken from the Lancashire Evening Post.





View Larger Map

J-Lo opens a window for her family, and shuts the door to others in need.

J-Lo has finally given birth to healthy twins this week at the North Shore University Hospital on Long Island.

The private room that she had requested has apparently “been sitting empty for 2 weeks in preparation for the singer’s birth.”

As advantageous as it can be to have a room prepared and ready for when the baby decides it’s ready to face the world, how much of the health service is jeopardised when a millionaire requires assistance?

Surely the room could have found better use for the fortnight than to be sitting empty. And the amount of paparazzi awaiting the superstar outside could only have created an obstruction near A&E.

If you have a certain amount of money in America, then it appears you can buy your way through anything and with almost 50 million Americans without health insurance, it sure appears that hospitals are there solely to cater for the wealthy.

Considering that 18,000 Americans die every year simply because they are uninsured, provides a shocking reality check when rooms are so freely handed out to celebrities with expendable cash.

The hospital itself will of course be grateful for the business, and with the rate that JLO is willing to pay, then it would be bad business for them to refuse such an offer. However, the fact that those with full-time jobs, who simply cannot afford the high-cost of health insurance, would simply be shunned aside to grin and bear it, makes J-Lo appear not-worthy of all the pampering and attention she will no doubt receive not only from fans, but from brown-nosed doctors.

We complain about the NHS an awful lot, and waiting times are abysmal, but perhaps we have it okay here in Britain after all. Or at least, better than we thought?

Module Work: Windows Movie Player

Using Windows Movie Maker and images from Flickr, here is a short film imagining the walk from Avenham Park in Preston to Foster Building at UCLan.
As you can see, it is the scenic route...

[Will be uploaded as soon as Blogger can actually handle video footage.]

£10...A not-so-cheap price on freedom

As if the past year had not already bore enough bad news for smokers, it seems as though the pressure will continue to stub it out…for good.

According to the BBC, the Government Health Advisory has proposed a £10 licence for the future, that will be required if you wish to continue smoking.

Smokers will be forced to fill in long complicated forms and also have their photograph taken in order to prove they have paid their measly tenner, before buying their daily fix of fags.

As if cigarettes were not already expensive enough, perhaps the licences will indeed deter many from smoking, and with an alleged 70% of smokers apparently wanting to quit anyway, it would appear many would be in favour of the proposal.

This is not the case.

The freedom to choose has cropped up all over the papers and blogs of both smokers and non-smokers stating that although smokers may cost a huge amount to the NHS, they pay for it in the extortionate amount of tax paid.

The Daily Express ran the story and entitled it “Have You Had Enough Of Labour Dictating You?” and from the response and outcry from the story, I believe the answer of that question to be yes.

Simon Clarke , a spokesperson of Forest, an organisation dedicated to smoker’s rights said: “We are becoming not just a nanny state but a bully state. If smokers are targeted in this way it’s a very short step to slapping a similar charge on anyone who wants to buy alcohol or any other product ministers don’t approve of.”

Catherine Forsythe, of Dogreader, agrees with Forest and said: “It is part of the ‘Surveillance Society’. Human behaviour is tracked and recorded on a data base. The government will know if you are a smoker. It would not be difficult to log when you bought tobacco and how much you bought. It would all be useful information to the government, to insurers, to employers and a myriad of other officials.”

The Health Advisory Body’s Chairman, Professor Julian De Grand, has said that “the process should be made as irritatingly complex as possible in order to deter smokers from applying for their fix.”

This statement alone surely shows the underlying hatred towards smokers that remains in society, despite the government already winning one battle with the Smoking Ban in July of last year. Although to those who do not choose to be a smoker, the smoke from those who do, can be damaging to your health, sometimes nauseating or just plan unwanted. But does this mean that smokers should be treated as second class citizens?

The Eurosoc website shuns the proposal, and illustrates the extremity of it, calling it absurd. “Tobacco control! What next? Permits for drinkers? Shaggers? Lovers of fatty food? Holidaymakers?” And although an extreme statement in itself, the point itself remains valid. If a licence is permitted on smokers, then where can the line be drawn on future proposals? How far are we, as a society, willing to be controlled?

A Facebook group has emerged named “Can we find 1 MILLION people that DON'T want smoking back in pubs?” and perhaps there are a million Facebook users willing to join the group. However, the point to the group is unclear. Cigarettes are already banned in pubs and there is no current plans to reverse that. The group even suggests that the matter be taken even further, and smoking should be banned outside of buildings.

That doesn’t really leave many places does it?

If the proposal for a licecnce is agreed upon and put into force, it may mean a decrease in smokers which would certainly have a fantastic result as far as National Health is concerned, but it will most likely not be of their own will, which would be a sad day indeed for freedom of choice.

Your snoring partner is more than a pain in the ass

Having a partner who snores is said to have far worse health implications than previously expected, it was claimed today.

For the snorer themselves, it can be an early sign of allergies, or weak throat muscles for example. Accorging to Bupa, the main cause is the narrowing of the air passageways, which then vibrate and create the snoring noise.

To hear snoring emerging from the one we choose to share a bed with can be noisy, irritable, and a major cause of a lack of sleep. But doctors now claim that this lack of sleep and this additional noise can actually increase blood pressure, a known risk factor for stroke, heart disease, kidney disease and dementia.

It appears that most things will these days result in high blood pressure. Typical…

After the issue was exposed, research was released in regards to the noise pollution put upon houses nearby airports. The research found that “the noises penetrating the bedroom had the same effect as those emanating from the neighbouring pillow. Blood pressure went up in direct relation to noise loudness.”

This appeared slightly far-fetched. Although research has been carried out and now evidence is available to support the fact that noise disrupts sleep, how much can we possibly control what our ears go through in the evenings?

Although most people had already worked out that "unwanted noise = bad night’s sleep", many websites and blogs have quickly jumped on the bandwagon to promote products to improve one’s nightly rest.

ThatsNews blog suggests the product Snoreeze, “provides immediate and long-lasting relief” whereas a more sceptical blogger acknowledges that “Snoreze not only stops you snoring, it also knocks you out completely.” Whether he thought this was a positive/negative effect, was unfortunately left to our imagination.

The day after the research was published, the World Medical Guide released a Snoring Scale Score, [Shown below] in order to guide sufferers of snorers (or more likely, it will be the snorer’s partners who suffer) on what help they should be getting depending on how severe the problem is.

Partners gave the patients a score of 0 for never, 1 for one night per week, 2
for two to three nights per week, and 3 for four or more nights per week, based
on whether snoring affects the partners' relationship; whether snoring causes
the non-snoring partner to be tired or irritable; whether the partners have to
sleep in separate rooms because the snoring is so disruptive; whether the
snoring is loud; and whether, when the partners sleep away from home, the
snoring affects people nearby, in hotels, campgrounds, and the like.

Of course, if the problem is affecting your life, it should be investigated and hopefully, solved. However, it appears as if many are scraping the bottom of the barrel to constantly provide new figures and promote new health products, which may in the long run, not be as effective as claimed. A Stop Snoring Blog exlpored this, stating "Stop snoring treatments are widespread. Some are cheap and others expensive. It’s big business. However, the vast majority of sufferers can stop snoring with simple changes."

Valid point. Perhaps purchasing ear-plugs is too much of a simple answer for the 21st century?

Warning: May cause drowsiness or sudden death syndrome

Heath Ledger's toxicology has now been released two weeks after his tragic death.
Spokeswoman Ellen Borakove stated in a news release:

Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine.

Ledger’s father, Kim, also produced a statement on the matter:

While no medications were taken in excess, we learned today the combination of
doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy. Heath's accidental death
serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication,
even at low dosage.

Kim Ledger, here makes an extremely valid point when he corrently identifies that there are “hidden dangers” regarding prescription drugs. In a related article, Sleeping Pills: Risks and Realities, it is claimed as "fairly standard" to prescribe sleeping pills to anybody with sleeping disorders. Fairly straightforward it would seem, but if given out so freely, should other drugs be as well?

With the unfortunate reaction to the concoction of drugs which cut short Ledger's life and arising career, it would not be a suprise if prescriptions were re-evaluated. However, this has not yet been the case. The "Sudden death symdrome" that is associated with "overdose" or "mixture" of these drugs has, as of yet, had no extensive research and taking that into consideration, should Heath have really been prescribed more than one drug at a time?
The only thing we can be sure about, is that unfortunately for Heath, doctors were not aware of what was to come, and perhaps Heath was simply not educated enough on taking medication.

15 Times The Charm

A couple who have spent ten years attempting to conceive have finally given birth to a healthy daughter, Olivia.

After spending a whopping £64,000 on 15 attempts at IVF treatment over the ten painful years, a number of ethical questions have yet again been raised regarding interferance with fertility.

Any "normal" woman, although devastated, would most likely give up on the IVF treatment after a few failed attempts, and generally, if successful, a baby is created on the 5th or 6th attempt. Because the new parents, Delina and Simon Tree, had only a 15% chance of conceiving before her final attempt at IVF, should doctors really have proceeded with this knowledge in mind?

Generally, public opinion conveyed congratulations to the Tree family for the courage and dedication that was shown. And if somebody is willing to pay the not-so-cheap fee of £4000 for every single attempt, then surely they are entitled to give it a go. However, many doctors advise otherwise for a reason.

Many desperate wannabe-mothers will of course go to extensive lengths for the child they long for. But by allowing Mrs. Tree to stack up a bill of £64,000, doctors may have been giving her false hope. Of course, on this occasion, the patient was fortunate enough to eventually conceive. But what if she didn't? How far would doctors have let her go? 16 attempts? 20?

The fact that she even re-mortaged her home in order to pay for the treatment shows the extreme anxoiusness she possessed in order to become a mother, and although doctors are unlikely to turn down business, should they not have taken her previous attempts into account?

I thought three was a crowd?

Researchers from Newcastle University have created embryos from three parents, it was revealed this weekend.

The embryos, created by IVF treatment in a test-tube, were formed from one male and two females in order to “lead to effective treatments for a range of serious hereditary diseases”. [Reuters]

The technicality of the process as described by the Newcastle research team “involves in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the subsequent removal of the egg's nucleus. The nucleus is then placed into a donor egg whose DNA has been removed. The resulting foetus inherits nuclear DNA, or genes, from both parents but mitochondrial DNA from a third party.”

The treatment is expected to be available in only three to five years “if all goes well” but whether the world is actually ready to take on such drastic methods of genetic modification is another matter.

The embryos formed from this research were destroyed for legal and ethical reasons but would certainly have made for interesting case studies in themselves. Imagine knowing you had 3 parents. Would that make one think differently about the world, about family, about life? Or would it just mean more Christmas presents under the tree?

The research is certainly one to be considered as extraordinary, but how far will the research go in order to eradicate the mitochondrial diseases that are evident in 1 in 5000 children? What if it actually takes the likes of four parents in order to make this a successful experiment? If that child were born, who would be mummy and daddy? All these questions first need to be answered before even considering releasing the treatment to patients, and three to five years for many seems rather too soon.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics has expressed her own conerns regarding the matter stating:

It is risky, dangerous and a step towards designer babies . It
is human beings they are experimenting with. We should not be messing around
with the building blocks of life.

Likewise, Dr David King of Human Genetics Alert said it was too far a drift towards "GM babies."

Reassuring as it can be to know that scientists are constantly setting new high standards for research, controversy never comes too far after a breakthrough and there is certainly more ethic groups only around the corner to oppose such research plans.

Read more at Reuters.

Agency Nurses on Too High a Wage (?)

Agency nurses are apparently being paid more than £120 an hour, new figures have revealed.
With the ever controversial issue of nurses wages, this new figure is bound to cause quite a stir.
The high pay is said to "plug staffing gaps in the NHS" and between the nurses and other temporary staff such as administrators, the cost to the health service is £1.18 billion every year.

Like any agency job, the higher pay is normally due to it's temporary nature, and the debate on whether a nurse should be paid the equivalent as a footballer has been argued for some time now. But where is the fairness towards the nurses who do their job full-time? Surely the answer should be that the more dedicated should equal the more worthy?

It could be argued that the nurse industry is extremely competitive, and lacking in positions, which is accurate and fair. But it is difficult to put a price on our Health Service, and it is easy to say "Nurses should be trained more so we wouldn't need agency staff" but the funding for this extra training is at the moment, not available.

An NHS Junior doctor earns £24.14 an hour, the figures show, whilst a consultant is usually on around £60.31 an hour. The Department of Health has insisted that the NHS "do its best to get value for money when employing agency staff" but this then raises the difficult question......How much is a Nurse worth?


Read more at metro.co.uk
Who do you think is worth a high wage?
See more views at the BBC.