California court rules that company made misleading and potentially harmful statements in hundreds of thousands of ads
A California appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Johnson & Johnson must pay penalties to the state for deceptively marketing pelvic mesh implants for women.
Johnson & Johnson had appealed in 2020 after superior court judge Eddie Sturgeon assessed the $344m in penalties against the US pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary, Ethicon.
Continue reading...Deaths rise even as teen drug use drops overall, with researchers pointing to flood of deadly counterfeit pills
Drug overdose deaths among high school-aged US teens have more than doubled since 2019, driven by a rise in the deadly opioid fentanyl, a new study has found.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, who analyzed mortality rates among 14- to 18-year-olds over the past decade, found that while drug use among this age group is actually falling, fatalities are on the rise, jumping from 492 in 2019 to 954 in 2020, then climbing to 1,146 in 2021.
Continue reading...Serious health and safety risks costing NHS £340m a year, public accounts committee report finds
More than one in eight privately rented homes in England pose a serious threat to people’s health and safety, costing the NHS about £340m a year, according to a report from a committee of MPs.
It also uncovered evidence of unlawful discrimination, with an estimated one in four landlords unwilling to let to non-British passport holders.
Continue reading...Practitioners’ struggles include increased workloads, greater demand from patients, and paperwork
A third of GPs in England say they want to quit within five years, according to a regular survey which warns that clinical doctors are especially unhappy with the number of hours they work.
The survey of 2,195 GPs undertaken in 2021 found 33% planned to leave “direct patient care” by 2026. The figure represents a return to levels last seen in 2015, after plans to quit peaked in 2018 when two in five GPs wanted to stop seeing patients within five years.
Continue reading...Rate of abuse against parents is highest among 19- to 25-year-olds and most perpetrators are male
At least 40% of child-to-parent violence and abuse incidents are unreported to police, according to research.
The study into the “hidden harm” commissioned by the London mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) found that the rate of violence and abuse against parents and carers was highest among those aged 19-25, and 81% of perpetrators were male.
Continue reading...Charity calls for debt cancellations for poorest countries to counter ‘worst collapse into poverty and suffering in memory’
The rising price of food caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increased energy costs could push a quarter of a billion more people into extreme poverty, Oxfam has warned.
The charity said these new challenges had piled on to the economic crises created by Covid, and called for urgent international action, including cancelling debt repayments for poorer countries.
Continue reading...The pioneering Bilan project, funded by UN, will report on gender-based violence, women in politics and female entrepreneurs
The first all-women media house in Somalia has been launched, creating a rare opportunity for female journalists in the country to research and publish stories they want to tell.
Led by one of the few female senior news producers in the country, the team of six will produce content for TV, radio and online media on issues such as gender-based violence, women in politics and female entrepreneurs.
Continue reading...Nick Herbert calls for royal commission to detoxify trans debate but criticises ‘shouty protests’
The prime minister’s LGBT adviser has said he is “dismayed” by the decision not to include transgender people in a ban on conversion practices, while describing the cancellation of the government’s equality conference as an “act of self-harm by the LGBT lobby”.
Nick Herbert also called for a royal commission to detoxify and take the politics out of the trans debate.
Continue reading...Thousands take to the streets to call for the resignation of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa
While thousands of angry cries and anti-government slogans filled the streets of the Sri Lankan city Colombo on Saturday, Chanda Upul stood quietly nearby, desperately pushing his wares of soft drinks and bottled water on protesters. But in his heart he was chanting along with them.
Sri Lanka has descended into its worst financial crisis since independence, with food, fuel, medicine and electricity becoming increasingly scarce, and calls for the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa – frequently referred to as Gota – to step down. And 50-year-old Upul, who lives in a poor northern suburb of the city, is among those who have been pushed to the brink of survival.
Continue reading...Guidance for England and Wales comes amid increasing concern over rate of obesity and cost to NHS
A health watchdog is urging millions of people for the first time to ensure their waist size is less than half their height in order to help stave off serious health problems.
The UK has one of the worst obesity rates in Europe, with two in three adults officially overweight or obese in an escalating crisis that now costs the NHS £6bn a year and wider society £27bn.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM admits households are facing ‘unquestionably tough times’, but says NI increase is right thing for the NHS
Keir Starmer says the national insurance rise is “the wrong tax at the wrong time”.
The Labour leader said:
People are really, really struggling to pay their bills. And this is just going to impact on them very, very hard.
There are lots of landlords who’ve got many, many properties and they are not going to be paying a penny more in tax. Their tenants, who are going out to work, are going to be paying more in tax.
Continue reading...PM also says women should have ‘dedicated’ spaces, amid fallout over decision to exclude trans conversion practices from ban
Boris Johnson has suggested athletes who are transgender should not be allowed to compete in sports competitions that do not match their biological sex, amid the fallout from his decision not to ban conversion practices for people questioning their gender.
The prime minister said the issue “wasn’t something I thought that I would have to consider in great detail”. Johnson also said that women should have spaces in hospitals, prisons and changing rooms which were “dedicated to women”.
Continue reading...People could write a message in a blank space on the census, to be read by future generations in 100 years
Some were funny, some were angry, some were utterly heartbreaking and all were written in the same blank space of Ireland’s census form, a “time capsule” section.
In what Ireland’s Central Statistics Office says is a world first, the official census left a blank space for people to leave messages for future generations. The voluntary section of the 27-page form is to be made public in 100 years but many people have shared their messages on social media.
Continue reading...Organisations pulled out of Safe to Be Me after government failure to ban conversion practices for transgender people
The government’s flagship LGBTQ+ conference is to be cancelled after it fell into disarray with more organisations pulling out and a key government adviser accusing ministers of waging a “woke war”.
With Downing Street under fire for watering down its commitment to ban conversion practices, the Safe to Be Me event due to be hosted in June has now been scrapped.
Continue reading...Education department probes complaints about Katoomba high school’s response to claims of harassment among students
The principal of a Blue Mountains high school has had a prestigious Harvard scholarship put on hold while her school is investigated by the New South Wales Department of Education.
The internal departmental investigation comes on top of two court cases involving staff or students at the school.
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Continue reading...Orlando Fraser to chair Charity Commission despite select committee calling him ‘slapdash and unimaginative choice’
The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has pressed ahead with the appointment of former Tory parliamentary candidate Orlando Fraser to chair the Charity Commission, despite his rejection by an MPs’ scrutiny committee.
The news that Dorries had ignored the cross-party group of MPs to appoint Fraser was slipped out in a brief statement by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) early on Friday evening.
Continue reading...Rally and vigil held in Islamabad to highlight discrimination and attacks on community, including murders of five trans women in March
Mano had gone to meet her boyfriend at a printing press in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani bazaar to get back some money he had borrowed.
“But he refused to pay,” her friend Farzana Riaz said. “Mano insisted and refused to leave without money. When Mano kept resisting, her boyfriend Sanaullah shot her.”
Continue reading...Britons face a shock as household costs soar – and some unexpected items such as beer also go up
It’s been dubbed “bleak Friday” by some: pre-announced price rises for many household bills are to take effect on 1 April, adding to the misery for consumers who are already paying more for goods and food than this time last year.
Continue reading...Landmark agreement to protect garment workers from violence follows last year’s murder of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a Dalit woman
H&M has signed a legally binding agreement with one of its largest Indian clothing suppliers that pledges to end sexual violence and harassment against women on the factory floor after the murder of a young garment worker by her supervisor last year.
In January 2021, Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 20-year-old Dalit woman, was found dead on farmland near her family home after finishing a shift at Natchi Apparel, a factory making clothes for H&M in Kaithian Kottai, Tamil Nadu.
Continue reading...Support slashed despite warnings about impact, with offices told not to discuss plans with local partners, says National Audit Office report
The British government forced through £4.2bn in aid cuts so quickly it had little time to plan the impact they would have, or consult partners, according to an official audit.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said bilateral spending – aid given directly to another government – faced some of the harshest cuts by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) – 53% compared with less than a third of the overall aid budget – because of political and legal commitments to multilateral spending.
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