Freudian Slip by the Department of Health

Freudian Slip by the Dept of Health: see the Guardian article Matthew Freud picks up £1m-a-year contract with Department of Health. The contract is intended to improve public health, e.g. reduce obesity.

Freud is a PR guy whose agency (Freud Communications) works for clients that include Pepsi, KFC, Walkers Crisps and the premium drinks company, Diageo. They are companies whose products could never be accused of being remotely good for public health. And remember Change4Life? - Freud handled that anti-obesity campaign, notable for its spectacular lack of success in reducing the nation's growing obesity problem. Well if Freud and his company have as little success at improving public health as they have so far demonstrated, at least their other clients will feel the benefit in their swelling profits. - Anyone noticed the old enemy, Conflicts of Interest, rearing its ugly head again?

New warning about high salt content of bread

BBC News reports that Consensus Action on Salt & Health (CASH) campaigners are warning again about the high salt content of bread. "A third of breads contain more salt than recommended under guidelines being introduced next year, a survey found. Most breads were within the current guidelines of 1.1g of salt per 100g - but this is being cut to 1g per 100g. Campaign for Action on Salt and Health (Cash), which looked at 300 breads, said it was "outrageous" that bread contained even the current level."

These are the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt. If you are vulnerable to salt you may like to consider cutting down on the amount of bread you eat. At any rate, you could benefit your health by choosing a lower salt bread, using the information given on the CASH website.

The Department of Health remains complacent: "The Department of Health said "considerable" salt reductions had already been made." - That's as in 'considerable' salt reductions from the scandalously high levels of salt most bread has contained for many years. The bread industry has assuredly played a major part in the distressingly high incidence of high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and obesity in modern times. It has also helped to cause most people in our country to develop a taste for salt - like an addiction - such that food with little or no added salt tastes too 'bland' to them.

"British Retail Consortium food director Andrew Opie said retailers and manufacturers are to fund independent research to look for ways of meeting the 2012 target - "while still making foods which consumers want to buy"." - I'll translate that for you. - It means that they are doing their damnedest, by means of additives and technology, to lower the salt content by the minimum they can get away with, while retaining the same degree of salty taste in order to keep their customers addicted to salty bread.

Lord Crisp, the Dept of Health, NHS hospital errors and political pressures

If you wear rose-coloured spectacles or blinkers when viewing the NHS, and if you think governments give a toss about NHS patients in any capacity other than as voters, then read this recent Telegraph article, the content of which should be electrifying. It informs us that Lord Crisp "David Cameron's new health advisor attempted to cover up a hospital scandal in which nine women died giving birth." Furthermore, "When he was permanent secretary at the Department of Health (DoH), Lord Crisp put pressure on NHS regulators to wait until after a General Election to ban the hospital from carrying out caesarean sections." This evidence was given to a public enquiry by Sir Ian Kennedy, former chairman of the Healthcare Commission. I urge you to read the whole of the article and to be shocked by it, because until people other than the actual victims become informed and seek reform of the evil system that sustains the NHS's lack of concern for patient safety, nothing effective will be done to correct it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the voluntary pledges of industry

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the voluntary pledges of industry, big business and multinationals, are unlikely to improve Public Health by the tiniest fraction of the smallest scrap of the littlest bit of an iota, and are negotiated by Governments, Health Ministers and Departments of Health, as the cynical tribute hypocrisy pays to virtue. Who but shysters would appoint the Food and Drinks Industry as advisers to the Department of Health with the aim of tackling the growing health problem of child obesity?

Seriously, why are we even considering more junk additives in processed food, instead of simply banning the salt?

Seriously, why is anyone even considering more junk additives in processed food, instead of simply banning the salt? See today's Sunday Telegraph article. - Do you really fancy a bit of dental plaque(!) mixed in with your ready-meal? your cornflakes? your slice of toast? - Of course you don't!

The Food Standards Agency should stop playing about, and so should the Dept of Health and Andrew Lansley. They should all get it made illegal to add salt to processed food and thereby do what they are purportedly paid for, i.e. protect the health of UK citizens against the self-serving interests of the Food Industry. - And while they're about it, ban the addition of transfats too! - Come on, Mr Lansley! - Show us what you're made of! - Prove that you are not influenced against such a ban because of a conflict of interest that favours food manufacturers.

Department of Health favours Big Business over Public Health for its policy on Obesity, Alcohol and diet-related disease

Read Guardian article. "The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned."

I haven't read all of the hundreds of readers' comments published beneath the article, but I've read a lot, and not one of those I've read was other than deeply cynical about this catastrophic decision by the DoH. Even the catering company guilty of providing innocent school-children with salt-laden, additive-rich, nutrient-free crap called Turkey Twizzlers, instead of with proper food for their school dinners years ago, is to play a part in the advice given to the asinine DoH.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better.

Whitewash Review excuses colossal £1.2 Billion wasted on Swine Flu 'Pandemic' that never materialised.

See Daily Mail article. It's strange, isn't it? - Cohorts of Dept of Health lawyers can be marshalled to ensure that patients damaged by medical negligence get the short end of the stick when they try to get help from the system in their predicament, but the lawyers of the drug companies always run rings around the DoH lawyers when it comes to drawing up contracts about vaccines, and ensure that come Hell or high water, Big Pharma rakes in huge profits and the NHS pays for anything that goes wrong.

Did I have a visitor from the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) to my website today?

Did I have a visitor from the MHRA to my website today? - who initially landed on the amitriptyline page and stayed on the website for about 2 hours looking at several pages? The ISP was Mhra Powerserve Customer Allocation.

If it was someone from the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) then maybe what they have learned from my website will get them to pull their little socks up!

http://www.mhra.gov.uk/index.htm: This is the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - surely a euphemistic title if ever there was one! It is an executive agency of the Department of Health and the MHRA website makes the grandiose claim that: "We enhance and safeguard the health of the public by ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe." - Well they are making a lamentable job of this!

There are no warnings for patients that they should eat no salt or food containing salt when taking certain drugs, most importantly many quite commonly prescribed steroids, HRT, other drugs containing oestrogen, amitriptyline and many other anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, and some other drugs, because these drugs can and often do cause sodium and water retention and therefore, potentially, morbid obesity and a host of other serious health problems.

If the MHRA were doing its job properly they would have long ago curbed the recklessly excessive over-prescribing of these drugs, many of which have been being prescribed for over 50 years, and implemented a mandatory monitoring of patients taking these drugs, in order to prevent morbid obesity, etc developing. - As it is, because of their failure to do their job properly, there are many thousands of obese and morbidly obese people in this country as a direct result of taking drugs prescribed by NHS doctors.

Tamiflu should not be given to children

The Telegraph reports that Tamiflu should not be given to children.

The Telegraph further reports that Tamiflu reduces flu symptoms by only half a day anyway!

What a pig's ear the government and the Department of Health have made of their swine flu strategies! The drug companies have worked a blinder in conning the powers-that-be, haven't they?

What a waste of money and resources the ludicrous Tamiflu phone debacle has been!

Contaminated Blood blunders compounded by Dept of Health's lack of compassion

The Telegraph reports that haemophiliacs who received blood in the 1970s and 1980s and were infected with hepatitis C, and some with HIV, are not going to receive the substantial compensation payments that were recommended by Lord Archer of Sandwell earlier this year.

This seems incredibly mean.

Not only have these already vulnerable people with a serious illness been given additional serious illness by way of the contaminated blood, but they have been having to waste their time - many years - and scant energies in fighting a complacent, uncaring 'system' that is so inappropriately named the Department of Health.

Children as young as two need to be checked for signs of obesity to prevent future health problems, say Government advisers.

Two-year-olds should be checked for obesity, say health experts
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Health officials have asked experts to develop suitable tests for children as young as two determine if they are becoming overweight.

Advisers say that it is often too late by primary school to start addressing bad habits.

At a recent seminar hosted by the Westminster Health Forum, Dr Will Cavendish, from the Department of Health said: "The evidence is pretty horrible that one in four children are overweight or obese at reception and one in three at year six.

"Of course, we know that child obesity doesn't suddenly pop up at age four, five. We also know that we need to act on the early years, and indeed the pre-birth, family environment in order to get at this really effectively.""

All that is necessary, and, indeed, vital, is to give the facts about what causes obesity in children.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Government departments have failed to tighten data handling rules despite losing 30 million personal files in two years, it has been disclosed.

Government failed to clamp down on data loss
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Staff are still able to copy unencrypted information from internal databases on to USB sticks, the portable memory devices that have been involved in many of the recent high-profile security breaches.

The health and transport departments – as well as the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency – have failed to make encryption mandatory despite the recommendations of a Cabinet Office report last year.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Ministry of Justice are among the major departments that allow the copying of data of encrypted data onto memory sticks, but it is not clear whether the encryption is actively enforced."

Parents will be accused by the Government of "killing their children with kindness" in a new anti-obesity campaign, it has been reported.

Parents 'killing obese children with kindness', says Government
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"The campaign is said be based on on an unpublished report by the Department of Health that has been sent to senior NHS managers. According to The Observer, the report says three million young families must be better informed about nutrition to prevent their children becoming obese.

It reportedly features a photograph of three young children with the caption: "One of us will die of heart disease or diabetes when we're older because of the foods our parents let us eat now."

In a section headed "Killing with kindness", it reportedly says: "It's hard to say no to your kids, but if you give in every time you're not being kind, you're killing with kindness. Kids who eat the wrong sorts of food and sit around all day are more likely to get heart disease, cancer, diabetes and to die young. Some will die younger than their parents."

It continues: "Parents do not value physical activity or accept responsibility for children's activity levels. Parents believe their children are already sufficiently active at school.

"Sedentary activity is encouraged by parents. Parents believe it is too unsafe to play outside. mums lack the confidence to take part in physical activity with their children.""

It is not 'killing with kindness' nor is it sedentary activity that is causing child obesity. - It is the continued misinformation that the government and the medical profession churn out about how to reduce obesity. Obesity is not caused by overeating or inactivity, so it cannot be reduced or prevented by eating less and/or exercising more.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention, caused in turn by salt sensitivity. So obesity can be prevented or reduced by addressing the problem of fluid retention. The simplest way to do this is to avoid eating salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Hospitals are facing a winter crisis as a sharp rise in cases of flu and other viruses forces some to close wards to new patients.

Hospitals forced to close wards as virulent winter bug spreads
report in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract 1:

"The vomiting bug norovirus – the most common gastrointestinal illness in the UK, affecting up to a million people every year – is causing particular problems, with NHS chiefs forced to warn sufferers to stay away from doctors' surgeries and hospitals for fear of spreading it further.

Affected hospitals include Addenbrooke's in Cambridge, Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, Worcestershire Royal Hospital and York Hospital.

Several trusts said the knock-on effect was making it difficult to meet the Government's target of admitting, or dealing with, 98 per cent of emergency patients within four hours.

One of London's three major trauma centres, St George's in Tooting, was issued a 'black alert' and closed its doors to emergencies for a number of hours on Monday after experiencing a 14 per cent surge in demand compared to the same period last year.

Staff at St George's reported that up to 20 patients requiring urgent admission had to be kept on beds in A&E as wards were full.

Some were diverted to neighbouring hospitals, including Mayday in Croydon, Kingston Hospital and St Helier in Sutton, all of which reported pressure on their own capacity.

The Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital closed its doors to all visitors last week after 12 of its 49 wards were infected, forcing it to postpone about 60 non-urgent operations.

It faced extra pressure from emergency admissions caused by falls on ice, with nearly 100 people going into the emergency department with ice-related injuries on Monday alone.

In Carlisle, two elderly care wards at the Cumberland Infirmary were closed last week in a bid to isolate the norovirus bug. Nearby Wigton cottage hospital was closed to all admissions and non-emergency transfers for the second time in a fortnight.

Two wards at East Surrey Hospital closed, while five at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn were shut or under observation.

At the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, six wards were closed, reducing the number of beds available to patients by 130.

Sarah Byrom, the chief nurse, said: "While norovirus is common for this time of year, we have seen a big increase in the number of people coming into the hospital with symptoms.""

As usual, the Department of Health is on another planet:

Extract 2:

"A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Winter crises used to bedevil the NHS. Thanks to record investment and better organisation we have not had a major winter crisis for several years. However, we constantly update our contingency plans in the light of events.""

NHS chiefs and Whitehall officials enjoyed taxpayer-funded "away day" at one of Britain's must luxurious hotels as the UK economy slid into recession.

NHS chiefs enjoy taxpayer-funded away day at luxury hotel as recession bites
article in the Telegraph

Extract 1:

"As private firms cut costs and laid off workers, nine senior managers from the NHS and the Department of health spent two days at the Great Fosters hotel near Egham, Surrey.

Great Fosters is a moated Elizabethan house with 38 rooms costing an average of £200 a night.

The Departmental Board of the Department of Health - which includes the NHS chief executive and the chief medical officer - were there on Thursday 11th and Friday 12th of September this year."

Extract 2:

"Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is totally wasteful for NHS executives to live a life of luxury at taxpayers' expense. This money was meant to improve the experience of people stuck in crowded hospital wards, not to house bureaucrats in top notch hotels. It is an outrage that while everyone else tightens their belts, the public sector just keeps on spending.""

The privacy of millions of NHS patients will be critically undermined by a government plan to let medical researchers have access to personal files

NHS medical research plan threatens patient privacy
article in the Guardian

Extract:

"The privacy of millions of NHS patients will be critically undermined by a government plan to let medical researchers have access to personal files, the health information watchdog told the Guardian last night.

The prime minister and Department of Health want to give Britain's research institutes an advantage against overseas competitors by opening up more than 50m records, to identify patients who might be willing to take part in trials of new drugs and treatments."

It can be no part of the remit of the NHS or the Department of Health to give commercial advantage to Britain's drug companies. (Let's call a spade a spade: these are commercially-oriented drug companies surely, not research institutes.) This idea is disgraceful and should be scrapped.

Millions of pounds have been wasted on NHS schemes which have not treated any patients, the Govt's own figures reveal, the Sunday Telegraph reports

Millions wasted by NHS on clinics which never opened their doors
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract 1:

"Almost £20 million has been spent on contracts which were axed last year soon after a shift in policy following the appointment of Alan Johnson as health secretary.

Close to £7 million was spent by the Department of Health (DoH) on plans to build clinics to perform basic operations and tests which were later abandoned.

A further £12.5 million was paid to private firms, after negotiations for other clinics were halted, or centres closed just months after contracts begun.

Doctors and opposition politicians described the revelations, buried in the DoH's annual accounts, as a "scandalous" waste of taxpayers money which should have been spent treating patients."

Extract 2:

"Earlier investigations by Health Service Journal have revealed that close to £220 million may have been wasted among existing private centres who were paid "block" rates by the NHS, regardless of how many patients they treated.

The latest revelations about wastage among units which did not even open their doors shocked experts.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "This is yet another example of taxpayers being left with the bill for gross mismanagement in the NHS.""

The Department of Health is the pits in so many ways, but you've got to admit that it's absolutely ace at wasting money...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

If it were not so tragic and doing such catastrophic harm, the ignorance that Dawn Primarolo displays about what causes obesity would be hilarious.

Fast food restaurants should have to advertise calorie counts, says Minister
Article in the Telegraph

Fast food restaurants should have to advertise how many calories are in their meals, the public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, has said.

Extract:

""I know good diet isn't just about calorie content, and I know there will be difficulties for independent restaurants, but we have to start somewhere. Why can't we have calorie content on menus in all chain restaurants?"

She also called for soft drinks manufacturers to produce their products in smaller sizes.

She praised drinks companies for the range of low sugar drinks on the market.

But she called for greater numbers of soft drinks to come in "snack" sizes.""

"The minister was speaking at a conference on food and health organised by the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency."

They're all as bad as each, it appears...)o: - The calorie content is the least important bit of information that is provided for food. It would not be going too far really to assert that the calorie content is completely irrelevant! - It's totally irrelevant for obesity reduction anyway, and, in my opinion, should not be included in the nutritional information on food wrappers, etc. The most important information needed is the salt content.

Until the truth is told - and nothing BUT the truth - about how to prevent/reduce obesity, then the increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes and all the other illnesses attendant on obesity, aka fluid retention, will continue inexorably to rise. - It is FLUID RETENTION that needs to be addressed - the real cause of obesity - not over-eating, the completely imaginary cause that doctors and the other ill-informed diet bullies have invented.

Obesity is not caused by eating to excess or by insufficient exercise. There has never been a scrap of reproducible scientific research or evidence to support the theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity, nor that calorie deficit reduces obesity. The theory and the advice it spawns should be abandoned forthwith. They cause great harm and suffering.

When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, fluid retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

New GP contracts have delivered "eye watering" pay rises for doctors, while some services to patients have declined, a damning report by MPs says.

GPs given 'eye watering' pay rises for less work, say MPs
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Family doctors' hours have been cut and their productivity has fallen at the same time as some received up to 58 per cent salary increases, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

The Department of Health's failure to properly estimate how much the deal would cost has also led to an overspend of £1.8 billion, the report says.

MPs on the committee also criticise the newly introduced system to link GP pay to performance, which its says allowed family doctors to earn salaries much greater than expected.

Controversy has surrounded the new contracts since they were introduced in 2004.

They were widely criticised for handing GPs large pay rises at the same time as allowing them to opt out of out-of-hours cover.

The report also attacks the contracts for failing to significantly improve access to GP services or increase the number of family doctors in deprived areas.

Edward Leigh, the committee's chairman, said that the new deal "has so far failed to live up to expectations".

"Partners in GP practices are now putting in less time and their productivity has decreased. Only their pay is burgeoning, having increased on average by an eye-watering 58 per cent since 2003," he added."

The incompetence of the Department of Health never fails to amaze. They are certainly no match for the medical profession's skilled negotiators...)o:

Confidential medical records of millions of NHS patients could be passed to private companies under controversial plans being drawn up by ministers.

Private companies could get access to millions of NHS medical records
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"The Government is considering giving firms access to a massive computer database which will contain the records of almost every man, woman and child in England.

The information is a goldmine for private companies, who could use it for medical research or for helping them to sell products to the NHS.

But privacy campaigners say they are "horrified" by the proposals which could see patients' postcodes, medical conditions and treatments - and in some circumstances, their names - passed on to third parties without their consent.

The database, part of a long-delayed scheme to give NHS staff access to computerised medical records, will hold details of almost all visits by patients to hospitals and GPs.

The plans have been dogged by controversy. Last week. ministers gave in to pressure from privacy campaigners and agreed that medics will have to gain the consent of patients before opening their computer records. Yet patients will have almost no control over the same information being passed on to companies and other bodies outside the NHS.

The Department of Health says most records passed onto third parties would be made anonymous, but admits that identifiable data - which could include patient names - could also be handed on if it was deemed to be more useful."

"Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University, said: "We have had a lot of debate about patients being able to opt out of the national scheme for patient records, but meanwhile the Government have pulled a fast one. There are no limits set on the way this data can be used; this database will hoover up all the personal medical data on every person, and it can be used for whatever the Secretary of State says it can be used for."

Prof Anderson suggested the creation of one large database would also make it easier for different parts of the state to use confidential health data for other purposes, with social workers, courts and police able to access medical files more easily.

Helen Wilkinson, a former NHS manager who founded The Big Opt-Out, a campaign against the national care records scheme, said she was "horrified" by the latest development and planning a major publicity launch to warn people of the threat it posed to their privacy and security.

She said: "We are talking about a hugely valuable commodity which will be worth a fortune to the pharmaceutical industry, and to all the companies which make their profits from the health service."

Joyce Robins, from patient pressure group Patient Concern, said patients would be left "entirely at the mercy" of those operating the scheme."

Cui bono? - I wonder which ministers have reason to favour the interests of the pharmaceutical companies (GSK, anyone?...(o:) over the wishes and privacy of the vast majority of the electorate?