Cameron pledge to tackle drink laws

News 19 08 2009: David Cameron has promised "serious changes" to the Licensing Act as he went on the beat with police officers to see the problems of alcohol-related trouble. He said  "We've got to do something about this and I'm exploring what we can do to deal with the drink that's fuelling so much of the crime in our country."

 

Its becoming too apparent that Mr Cameron along with other Gov figures only focus on “symptoms” to treat while being psychologically blind as to themselves being the root causes of those symptoms. Will a change to the licensing Act remedy the Nations depression which has been compounded now by a recession?. Life under a continuous storm cloud of failure while onboard an axle-less train heading nowhere would eventually create great anxiety to its passengers whom, after all had paid fares for some stimulation in life!. Of course under such circumstances any temporary mental stimulation would be an alternative should any luggage contain alcohol or anti-depressants and the longer the staticalism the more one would come to depend such substances as a form of relief!. To those living on another Planet, having different standards and having sunny days, palm trees and beaches painted on canvas adhered to their guilded wallpapered Office windows do they really “understand” the reality of life as a taxpayer on which their lifestyle depends?.

 

Of the failures to choose from there are plenty but just consider the failed CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY [ CSA ] for example as adopted from the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />US and to which personal circumstances of a Nation wasn’t an issue to the Gov. Many Britons couldn’t afford to go to work and were forced onto benefits as others STRUGGLED for years awaiting enforcement such that they could not afford to work any longer!. A NO FUTURE daily TORCHURE which became too much for some by their actions in committing suicide while a mountain of MENTAL ILLNESS through depression heightened for the remainder in flooding Doctors Surgeries. It took the Gov YEARS to realise its own failure however the CSA received “fat bonuses” to the tune of £3,700,000 [in 2008] with money meant for children and to which child poverty then became a subsequent issue.

 

Mr Cameron as the Caption of HMS Great Britain will first need to assess and replace the rotten wood in the hull and decking before attempting to turn the ship onto a new course after which hopefully, new opportunities in fresh waters may arise and to which the oarsmen again would have purposeness and a future in life as oppose to now - in which the oarsmen neither have a ship to power (jobs), a Captain (leadership) or a sea chart of ones own making (future).

 

Healthy mental stimulation is about experiencing change, applying ones mind and skills, having an education for a purpose and rewarded satisfaction through success etc with some entertainment thrown in for stimulation too whereas for those stuck in a rut by people also stuck in a rut the alternative for stimulation comes in the form of needles, bottles or prescribed anti-depressant drugs. Would the suppression of one form of relief not serve to heighten the needs for the alternatives available?. Given that personal medical records may soon be networked how long will it be before data input be accepted onto a parallel system whereby alcohol retailers etc update people profile habits as digital denial codes then prevent future claims made on private medical Insurance – impracticable umm?.

 

Below is listed some old news in providing a pathway to our current position. You may find the following of interest nested in there: 

18 12 2008 Return of mad cow disease – warning.

29 05 2009 Anxiety 'hitting British workers'.

 

Past News

 

27 12 2007 Police staff disc found at dump. A police chief has apologised after confidential staff data was found in a dump. The personal information included names, addresses, telephone numbers, ranks and qualifications such as firearms or drug-testing skills of Devon and Cornwall Police employees. It was found by a man at a recycling centre in Exeter who had been looking for spare computer parts.

08 01 2008 Cameron blitz on long-term jobless. David Cameron pledged a tough approach to the "something-for-nothing culture" as he unveiled a series of measures aimed at getting the long-term unemployed back into work. The Tory leader insisted that work was the best way out of poverty as he defended Conservative proposals to strip claimants of their out-of-work benefits if they refuse to sign up to demanding US-style "return to work" programmes designed to help them find jobs.

08 02 2008 Clegg warning on 'Prozac nation'. Britain has become a "Prozac nation", increasingly reliant on anti-depressants and facing a crisis in mental health care, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will warn. In a speech to The Guardian Public Services Summit in St Albans, he will accuse politicians of "shamefully" ignoring the scale of the country's mental health problems. "Britain has become the true Prozac nation. I believe this trend has gone too far," Mr Clegg will say. "Pills must not be a crutch for the wider issues in our society which cause mental health problems."

25 05 2008 Police given hand-held computers. Details of a £50m scheme to provide police forces with 10,000 hand-held computers have been unveiled. Some 27 forces in England and Scotland will benefit from the devices, which Gordon Brown last year said would cut paperwork by 99 minutes per shift. Database access - Uses for the computers will include confirming identity, on-the-spot forms such as stop and search, and scanning fingerprints.

25 07 2008 Handyman fined for smoking in van. A painter and decorator who received a £30 fine for smoking in his own van has warned that British civil liberties are "going up in smoke".

18 11 2008 Crime detection figures ‘an insult’. Victims have been dealt a "real insult" by official statistics showing less than half of recorded violent crimes in England and Wales were solved by the police last year. Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: "It is bad enough that so much violent crime is being committed. It is a real insult to victims that over half of perpetrators are getting away with it. "This is a direct result of Labour's target culture, which has incentivised the police to pursue minor crimes over serious violent ones, and the reams of red tape that tie officers to their desks when the public wants them out on the street."

24 01 2009 Chief critical of police bonuses. The head of Greater Manchester Police has called for an end to a bonus scheme which has paid out thousands to top-ranking officers. The Times discovered the scheme has cost some authorities £190,000 a year.

04 08 2009 Police store DNA alongside leftover takeaway meal in Police fridge. A damning report into a Constabulary's custody arrangements showed widespread failures to properly manage DNA material, including case evidence. The inspection team also saw a group of officers laughing while watching a drunken inmate smashing his head on a cell wall on CCTV. One police staff member told inspectors they were "overdue a death in custody".

News18 08 2009 UK - 'Six million' set to claim benefits. The Policy Exchange think-tank states February figures showed 5,800,000 people on benefits and due to the recession it would take the figure past 6,000,000 this month. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) dismissed the report.

 

MENTAL HEALTH

 

29 07 2007 doctors do less work for lots more pay. A DAMNING official report to be published this week reveal that with the introduction of a new contract three years ago, doctors are working on average about 15% fewer hours. During the same period pay has risen by nearly a quarter. Another finding is that almost one-third of GPs, who earn an average of more than £100,000 a year, are working part-time. Gordon Brown is set to accelerate moves to force GPs to open weekend surgeries and to hold more early morning and late evening sessions. Katherine Murphy of the Patients Association, said: “The huge pay rises they are now getting have not been reflected in the care patients are receiving.

20 06 2008 Perverse Corruption as Doctors are Paid to Sell Drugs. The British Medical Journal is helping everyone understand just how deep the rabbit hole goes.  Key doctors are paid big money to promote and sell drugs.  An interview with a superstar drug rep reveals exactly how Big Pharma recruits and trains key doctors, and then pays them to make presentations about the company’s drugs with information and slides prepared by the company – and never do the doctors disclose the financial relationship.

01 05 2008 Judges back Alzheimer's drug review

Three judges found it unfair that the Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) had decided to restrict anti-dementia medicines on the NHS for newly-diagnosed patients with mild Alzheimer's.Nice had ruled that the drugs are not cost-effective for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

19 06 2008 NHS 'won't survive' dementia deluge. Leading scientists are warning the NHS will not survive the next 20 years unless funding for dementia improves. There are currently 700,000 people with dementia in the UK. "With the prevalence of dementia expected to double within a generation, the health service as we know it may well be unsustainable.

01 11 2008 Dementia – Experts warn of a dementia ‘EPIDEMIC’. Britain may be heading for a dementia epidemic caused by binge-drinking, experts have warned. Research has shown that excessive alcohol consumption can lead to the loss of brain tissue, and binge-drinking is associated with an increased risk of dementia. While Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, alcohol is said to account for around a tenth of all cases, and heavy drinking may contribute to almost a quarter.

18 12 2008 Return of mad cow disease – warning. The Government's chief adviser on the human form of mad cow disease has warned of a possible new wave of the illness. Professor Chris Higgins highlighted a case being investigated by scientists in which a patient dying from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) appears to have a different gene type - or strain - from previous British victims. The first wave of vCJD, caused by eating infected beef products in the 1980s and early 1990s, has been responsible for many deaths. The possibility of an MV sufferer has raised concerns among scientists that the illness may have a longer incubation period among this group than among MMs and that other victims may soon start to show symptoms of an infection contracted as long as two decades ago.

22 12 2008 All GPs to get dementia training. Ministers also want to set up "memory clinics" to help the growing number of patients live as normally as possible. Care Services Minister Phil Hope said: "As well as national training for GPs, we'd like to see memory clinics in every town, where people can go for treatment and support to help them live their life as normally as possible." . According to the Alzheimer's Research Trust 163,000 new cases of dementia occur in England and Wales each year - amounting to one every 3.2 minutes.

03 02 2009 Hospitals to get dementia doctors. A senior doctor will oversee dementia care in every hospital in England, the Government will announce. The strategy will also outline plans to provide more support to carers with the aim of preventing or delaying the admission of sufferers to care homes. But a review of the use of anti-psychotic drugs - one of the most controversial aspects of caring for people with dementia in care homes - will not be published until the Spring. Mr Hunt said that one in three people over 65 will die with dementia but there was currently a "systematic failure" to provide good dementia care in the UK

29 05 2009 Anxiety 'hitting British workers'. British workers are experiencing panic attacks and insomnia because of stress associated with the economic downturn, a survey has suggested Norwich Union Healthcare polled 200 GPs, 200 business leaders and 1,000 employees for its Health of the Workplace survey. Half the workers admitted to being stressed, while one in five is suffering depression. When the workers were asked about their illness, half said they were suffering from insomnia while a third said they were having migraines and 21% had anxiety attacks and palpitations. Of the GPs questioned, almost half said they have seen their patients' use of alcohol and drug increase, and 89% expect levels of depression and requests for anti-depressants to dramatically increase this year

 

Mad Cow Desease.

 

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - Mad Cow Desease.

neurodegenerative disease in cattle , that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. The infectious agent in BSE is believed to be a specific type of misfolded protein called a prion. Most scientists believe that BSE may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses. In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by February 2009, it had killed 164 people in Britain.

UK – worst Country affected – around 179,000 cattle infected and some 4.4Million slaughtered during the eradication programme. No cases were reported in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and Vanuatu.

HISTORY

1984 First animal to fall ill with BSE in Britain and LAB TESTS the following year indicated the presence of BSE.

1986 The UK Ministry of Agriculture accepted it had a new disease on its hands

1987 Prior to this year meal & bone left-overs from the slaughtering process as well as sick and injured animals such as cattle and sheep etc were a protein supplement in cattle feed. In modern industrialised cattle-farming commercial feeds are used containing ingredients such as ANTIBIOTICS, hormones, pesticides, fertilizers and protein supplements.

1989 Controls on high-risk offal were introduced after some 450,000 BSE-Infected animals had entered the food chain.

1980’s A British inquiry into BSE concluded that the epidemic was caused by cattle being fed the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal (MBM). A high temperature “rendering process” is used to sterilise such protein meal but in the 1980’s the British Government relaxed the temperature requirement for some reason known to it. Through this it was suggested that infectious agents were being fed to cattle however a later British Inquiry “dismissed” this theory saying changes in process could not have been SOLELY responsible for the emergence of BSE and changes in regulation were not a factor at all.

1990 British Diabetic Association: Concern regarding the safety of bovine insulin. The Government Licencing Agency assures that there was no insulin sourced from cattle in the UK or Ireland and that other Countries are being monitored.

1991 EU commission: Expresses concerns about possible transmission of BSE/scrapie agent through the use of certain cosmetics.

07 05 1999 BSE Inquiry-Written statement No 476. Activities of the Department of Health and its Medicines Control Agency. Previously the Agency had been asked to … Childrens Vaccines: - Identify relevant manufacturers and obtain information about the bovine material it contained, the stocks of these vaccines and how long it would take to switch to other products. Elderly Patients: reported that bovine insulin alternative products for this group were not considered satisfactory. A Medicines Licensing Committee report that same year recommended that NO LICENCING ACTION is required AT PRESENT in regard to bovine material products (including prepared bovine brain in nutrient media) which is sourced from outside the UK provided that Country be BSE free and known to practice good animal husbandry. 

12 03 2001 Government dismisses contamination fears. Farmers protested about carcasses being conveyed over long distances from Devon & Wales to a plant in Widness which could spread the infection while claiming that legs of dead animals could be seen sticking out of lorries. Brown indicates that tourism and other industries may be compensated. 

2002 The Gov was warned over farm disease TWO years before the outbreak of foot-and-mouth. Not enough was done to prepare for last years outbreak which cost Britain £Billion. The Gov had contingency plans based on the assumption that there would be no more than 10 infected premises whereas the reality was 57 farms infected before the first case was diagnosed. The Conservative chairman of the Commons public accounts select committee, said the contingency plans showed "a complete failure of imagination". Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett remarked it showed the government's success in limiting its spread to more areas once the controls were in place.

2002 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will be established - It will cover all stages of food production and supply

21 11 2002 EU damning report over UK Gov handling of foot-and-mouth. The  European Parliament, insists that a mass cull of animals on the scale carried out by the government to combat the widespread outbreak of the disease "will not be publicly acceptable again". A Tory MEP said the report, the outcome of a year-long inquiry, "should shame the government"."Its inept handling of the foot-and-mouth outbreak is now well documented," - said. "It is no surprise that the government has done everything in its powers to hide this evidence from the British people." The report shows that the outbreak could have been better contained if animal movements had been banned, -said. "There is also clear evidence that the government has been falsifying figures in an attempt to play down the true impact of the outbreak"Government figures suggest that six million animals were slaughtered. The findings point to a figure of 10 million. 57 farms in 16 counties were already infected - far beyond the scale of any reasonable contingency planning. It continues: "The British government's decision to bury animal carcasses in mass graves or burn them on pyres as part of the mass culls was, at least in some cases, taken without adequate consultation of local institutions. "As a consequence of this there were breaches of human and environmental health guidelines concerning emissions and groundwater pollution.

23 01 2003 Laws relaxed on the spread of foot_and_mouth

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2004 BSE – report of a second contorted shape of prions in a minority of diseased cattle which may imply a second strain.

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2006 Genetic Engineering: A biotech Company in the US announces it has the Engineered and cloning technology to produce cows that lacked a necessary gene  for prion production – thus theoretically making cows immune to BSE.

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07 07 2008 PM Brown urges Britons to stop wasting food as he arrived for a G8 summit on rising prices.

18 12 2008 Gov BSE Chairman highlights a possible new strain of vCJD as a dying patient reveals a variance from previous victims. It’s now suggested that depending upon ones genes (inherited from parents) that MM carriers be more susceptible (some 42% of the population) while MV carriers (47% of the Population) be more resistant thus providing a longer incubation period which may now start to show symtpoms from as long ago as two decades!. The Mother of a vCJD victim presents a petition addressed to PM Brown raising questions over the handling of the BSE crises by the former Conservative Government. 

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The tests for detecting BSE appear to vary widely as well as the regulations as to when and which cattle are tested.

As regards people anyone in the UK having vCJD symptoms must be reported to the UK Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit whereas in other Countries there is no such requirement.

Should it be that profits throught competition come before the health of others?. To stipulate that Cattle be tested for BSE at 30 months + may drive some in the Industry to slaughter at less than 30 months.