Tag • #health

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Assisted dying: what are the laws in UK and what changes are proposed?

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March, 2024 - 14:24

Scotland could become first part of UK to offer terminally ill adults assistance to end their lives if Holyrood approves bill

A new bill to legalise assisted dying in Scotland has been published at Holyrood by the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, in a fresh attempt by supporters to get the measure enacted for the first time in the UK.

What are the current laws on assisted dying?

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Physician associates must be supervised by GPs, says NHS England

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March, 2024 - 12:06

Senior medical directors warn PAs are ‘not substitutes’ for doctors amid fears patients misunderstand their level of qualification

Physician associates (PAs) are “not substitutes” for GPs and must be supervised, NHS England has said.

A new letter to all GP surgeries, primary care network clinical directors, integrated care board chief executives and NHS England regional directors said PAs are “specifically trained to work collaboratively with doctors and others” and all work undertaken by PAs “must be supervised and debriefed with their supervising GP”.

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Bill tabled in Scotland could legalise assisted dying for terminally ill adults

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March, 2024 - 11:40

If law is passed Scotland would become first part of UK to offer terminally ill people assistance to end their lives

UK politics – latest updates

Scotland could become the first part of the UK to offer terminally ill adults assistance to end their lives if Holyrood approves a new bill.

The Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, who tabled the assisted dying for terminally ill adults (Scotland) bill on Thursday, said “politicians are catching up with where the public has been for some time” as extensive polling for Dignity in Dying Scotland found 78% of respondents supported legalisation.

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UK membership of Dignitas soars by 24% as assisted dying in Scotland moves closer

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 28 March, 2024 - 05:00

Bill being laid before Scottish parliament could, if approved, allow people in Britain to take their own lives within the law

UK membership of Dignitas, the Swiss assisted dying association, has jumped to 1,900 people – a 24% rise during 2023 – as an assisted dying bill is laid before the Scottish parliament.

People from the UK now make up the second largest group who have signed up to the organisation, which is based near Zurich and helps people take their own lives. The largest group is currently Germans, although they can now get help to end their lives at home after a 2020 court ruling .

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Hormone medication could increase risk of brain tumours, study finds

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 27 March, 2024 - 22:30

Patients taking certain progestogens as a contraceptive or for gynaecological conditions may be more likely to develop growths, researchers say

Millions of women around the world who use certain hormone drugs for contraception and to manage conditions such as endometriosis may have a raised risk of rare, usually benign, brain tumours, researchers say.

Scientists found that prolonged use of certain progestogen medications was linked to a greater risk of meningioma, which are tumours (usually noncancerous) that form in tissues around the brain.

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Puerto Rico declares public health emergency as dengue cases rise

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 27 March, 2024 - 21:24

Female Aedes aegypti mosquito as she was in the process of obtaining a "blood meal." (credit: US Department of Health and Human Services )

Puerto Rico has declared a public health emergency amid an ongoing outbreak of dengue infections, a mosquito-spread viral infection that can cause fever, aches, rash, vomiting, and, in about 5 percent of cases, a severe disease marked by internal bleeding and shock.

The US territory has tallied 549 cases since the start of the year, representing a 140 percent increase compared with cases tallied at this point last year, according to the territory's health department . The Associated Press reported that more than 340 of the 549 cases have been hospitalized.

In 2023, the island nation of more than 3.2 million people had over 1,000 cases of dengue throughout the year.

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Women who used abortion pills on US supreme court mifepristone case: ‘It’s maddening’

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 27 March, 2024 - 19:19

Three women share their stories of getting medication abortions, and their thoughts on that access being curtailed

Mercy’s periods had always been very regular, so when she missed one in 2016, she immediately took a pregnancy test. It was positive, and she managed to get an appointment at an abortion clinic the next day.

Despite being able to act quickly, she was in her seventh week of pregnancy by the time she could take abortion pills in Ohio – a state that was, at the time, debating banning abortion from the moment fetal cardiac activity is detected (usually around six weeks). Ohio has since enshrined abortion rights in its state constitution following a referendum.

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Britain can avoid sleepwalking into a US-style synthetic opioids crisis. Here’s how | Niko Vorobyov

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 27 March, 2024 - 15:24

There are better ways of tackling addiction and overdoses than reverting to the tactics of a failed drugs war

Last week the home secretary, James Cleverly, announced that nitazenes are now being treated as class A drugs, his statement bookended with the usual stern rhetoric about the need to keep “these vile drugs off our streets”. The maximum penalty for selling or supplying class As is life imprisonment.

Cleverly’s decision follows the discovery that several victims of deadly drug poisonings had nitazenes in their system. Nitazenes are synthetic opioids, meaning they are similar to the heroin and morphine refined from opium poppies but made entirely in a lab. First developed as painkillers in the 1950s but never approved for medical use, they have been found mixed into heroin to give the low-grade variety of the drug that extra kick, as well as in bootleg Xanax and Valium pills sold on the dark web. Up to 500 times stronger than morphine, even a tiny amount can prove fatal.

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Mind the grub: comic Ed Gamble’s hotdog banned from tube ads

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 27 March, 2024 - 14:42

Poster for sausage-themed show fell foul of Transport for London rules on promoting unhealthy food

Some comics complain that their craft is under threat from “cancel culture”. For comedians with a sausage-themed standup tour, they might have a point, after Ed Gamble was forced to remove a picture of a hotdog from posters promoting his forthcoming show on the tube network because it breached Transport for London’s junk food advertising policy.

The comic was pictured with the fast-food item in an advert for his show Hot Diggity Dog. When the design was sent to TfL for display on the underground, Gamble was told to alter the poster because it failed to comply with the organisation’s advertising policy on featuring foods high in fat, sugar and salt.