Laura Kyrke-Smith says perinatal mental health care in England is ‘postcode lottery’, with disadvantaged women more likely to miss out
A new Labour MP will speak in parliament on Wednesday of her anguish over her friend’s suicide just 10 weeks after giving birth – despite the friend having repeatedly sought help for her anxiety.
Laura Kyrke-Smith, the MP for Aylesbury, will call for more specific mental health support to be embedded in maternity services.
Continue reading...Findings published as as country prepares legislation to reduce childhood obesity
Almost a third of Spain’s school canteens are offering students too many portions of fried food each week, while more than a third are not providing them with enough fresh vegetables, according to a study from the country’s national food agency.
The findings, based on figures from 2023, come as Spain’s socialist-led government prepares legislation that aims to reduce obesity by targeting unhealthy, sugary foods and making the food agency’s recommendations obligatory.
Continue reading...Mountaineers now scaling more peaks for first global study of nanoplastics, which can enter lungs and bloodstream
Particles from vehicle tyre wear are the biggest source of nanoplastic pollution in the high Alps, a pioneering project has revealed.
Expert mountaineers teamed up with scientists to collect contamination-free samples and are now scaling peaks to produce the first global assessment of nanoplastics, which are easily carried around the world by winds.
Continue reading...Chinese national, 57, staying with her daughter in Australia died after Yun Sen Luo’s advice to cease all ‘western medicine’
A Sydney-based practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine has been found guilty of professional misconduct after a diabetic woman died after his advice to cease all “western medicine”.
Yun Sen Luo was found guilty on 30 January of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct after being prosecuted by the Health Care Complaints Commission before the New South Wales civil and administrative tribunal.
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Continue reading...If successful, the scheme could speed up testing and reduce radiologists’ workload by around half
The NHS is launching the world’s biggest trial of artificial intelligence to detect breast cancer, which could lead to faster diagnosis of the disease.
AI will be deployed to analyse two-thirds of at least 700,000 mammograms done in England over the next few years to see if it is as accurate and reliable at reading scans as a radiologist.
Continue reading...Global collaboration with US researchers likely to be set back by years, including on spread of drug-resistant HIV
A flagship programme to create malaria vaccines has been halted by the Trump administration, in just one example of a rippling disruption to health research around the globe since the new US president took power.
The USAid Malaria Vaccine Development Program (MVDP) – which works to prevent child deaths by creating more effective second-generation vaccines – funds research by teams collaborating across institutes, including the US university Johns Hopkins and the UK’s University of Oxford.
Continue reading...The federal health minister cited data showing vape use among young Australians has significantly reduced meaning new laws are working. Follow today’s news live
Cyclone threat looms in northern Australia as drenched region braces for yet more rain
North Queensland is on cyclone watch with three tropical lows given a chance of developing in the coming days, bringing heavy rain that has flooded roads and homes.
Continue reading...Plans shelved include earlier cancer diagnosis, boosting women’s health and expanding access to dental care
NHS England is scrapping plans to diagnose more cancers early, boost women’s health and ramp up childhood vaccinations after ministers told it to prioritise cutting waiting times.
The health service is also abandoning pledges to expand access to dental treatment, give more people drugs to prevent strokes and enhance care for those with learning disabilities.
Continue reading...Anna Cody raises concerns over halt to hormone treatments for gender dysphoria as youth service labels it ‘discriminatory’
The Queensland government’s ban on puberty blockers for new patients seeking treatment for gender issues is “discriminatory”, according to the state’s only dedicated LGBTQI youth service, as the national sex discrimination commissioner warns the decision may harm young people.
Sex discrimination commissioner, Anna Cody, said the decision “has the potential to harm the physical and mental wellbeing of children in Queensland who are currently awaiting care”.
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Continue reading...Cells taken from blood and ‘reprogrammed’ into heart muscle cells may help patients with heart failure
Damaged hearts can literally be patched up to help them work, say researchers, in what has been hailed as a groundbreaking development for people with advanced heart failure.
According to a recent study, heart failure affects more than 64 million people worldwide, with causes including heart attacks, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.
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Labor adds homelessness focus to disability strategy
Australians with disabilities experiencing homelessness will be prioritised as the government commits to disability reforms, months after a scathing royal commission into the sector, AAP reports.
For the first time, they also include a number of national actions that all governments will work on together, with the disability community, to ensure people with disability right across Australia experience the benefits.
Some students, especially those in our cities, can see a career in agriculture as something that’s only for those who live in the regions or for those whose family own land that can be used to operate an agribusiness.
AgConnections aims to break down these misconceptions and build on the diversity of the industry, by highlighting and encouraging women and Indigenous Australians wanting to pursue a career in agriculture.
Continue reading...MP for Hayes and Harlington, whose constituency includes Heathrow, says homes will either be unliveable or need to be demolished
Q: Are doctors able to recognise depression? And can they decide if that affects someone’s capacity to make a decision about their health?
Whitty says doctors can identify depression. But he says it is harder for them to assess if that is affecting capacity.
That’s where help from colleagues from psychiatry, mental health more widely, is going to be useful. But that should be good medical practice, in my view, under all circumstances.
Certainly what I wouldn’t want is to be in a situation where the existence of the fact that someone who has a terminal diagnosis has some degree of low mood in itself just rules them out from any kind of medical intervention, this or any other. That shouldn’t be the case.
Continue reading...Pause comes as Crisafulli government launches independent review after reports gender-affirming hormones were given without proper consultation
Children with gender dysphoria will be denied puberty blockers as a state government reviews hormone therapies for minors.
The Queensland government launched the investigation after reports gender-affirming hormones had been given to children as young as 12 without authorised care.
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AFP warns parents over rise in AI-generated child abuse material
There has been an increase in the use of AI-generated child abuse material in the past year, including students creating material like deepfakes to harass or embarrass classmates, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation has said.
Children and young people are curious by nature, however, anything that depicts the abuse of someone under the age of 18 – whether that’s videos, images, drawings or stories – is child abuse material, irrespective of whether it is ‘real’ or not.
The AFP encourages all parents and guardians to have open and honest conversations with their child on this topic, particularly as AI technology continues to become increasingly accessible and integrated into platforms and products.
As a society, I think that it demonstrates the need for us to place a high value collectively on a civil political discourse, rather than an extreme one.
I wasn’t surprised to learn that of the 16 arrests, only one person was from South Australia and the rest were scattered from all over the country and for whatever reason, decided to convene in Adelaide.
Continue reading...Discovery of H5N9 came alongside detection of the more common H5N1 on the farm, leading to 119,000 birds’ deaths
The first outbreak of a rare bird flu in poultry has been detected on a duck farm in California, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Monday.
Authorities said the discovery of H5N9 bird flu in poultry came alongside the detection of the more common H5N1 strain on the same farm in Merced county, California, and that almost 119,000 birds on the farm had been killed since early December.
Continue reading...Australia ranks well when it comes to total dental care expenditure. But a closer look at the numbers reveals that trips to the dentist are a luxury many people can’t afford
Australia spent $11.1bn on dental care in 2021–2022, ranking it sixth out of 31 OECD countries for per capita expenditure.
At first glance, that statistic seems pretty good. Dig deeper? Not so much.
Continue reading...Half of all government spending on dental care goes to private insurance rebates – meaning those without often skip treatment until things get worse
Patients bear the brunt of dentist fees. But of the $1.3bn the federal government spends on the nation’s teeth, more than half goes to subsidising the uptake of private health insurance.
The inequality of Australia’s dental care system can be seen in the numbers, says Peter Breadon, the health program director at the Grattan Institute.
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Continue reading...Survey for patient watchdog finds over half of those who made complaint were not satisfied with process or outcome
A quarter of people in England experienced poor NHS care over the last year but fewer than one in 10 of them complained about it, a report by the patient watchdog has revealed.
When people did complain, more than half were not satisfied with either the process involved or the outcome, Healthwatch England said. Complaints take many months to resolve.
24% of patients had received poor care in that time – the equivalent of 10.7 million people in England.
56% took no action – and only 9% made a complaint.
20% were scared that complaining would affect their treatment.
34% did not trust the NHS to use a complaint they made to improve services.
Continue reading...Danish drug giant found to have failed to accurately report spending even after admitting to errors
The pharmaceutical watchdog has reprimanded Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk for failing to correctly disclose dozens of payments to the UK health sector as it sought to boost sales of its slimming drugs.
The Danish drug giant – Europe’s most valuable listed company – systematically misreported, under-reported or did not disclose funding given over seven years to pharmacy firms, obesity charities, training providers, professional bodies and patient groups.
Continue reading...Woman in intensive care as NSW Health urges community to only receive cosmetic injections from authorised practitioners
A Sydney woman is in intensive care and a further two people are being treated in hospital with suspected cases of botulism linked to unregulated home anti-wrinkle injections.
The case prompted New South Wales Health to issue an alert urging the community to only receive cosmetic anti-wrinkle injections from authorised practitioners or risk “serious harm and … death”.
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