Health Policy InsightHealthcare management online analysis and intelligence
Health Policy InsightDiquat is banned in the UK, EU, China and other countries. The US has resisted calls to regulate it
The herbicide ingredient used to replace glyphosate in Roundup and other weedkiller products can kill gut bacteria and damage organs in multiple ways, new research shows.
The ingredient, diquat, is widely employed in the US as a weedkiller in vineyards and orchards, and is increasingly sprayed elsewhere as the use of controversial herbicide substances such as glyphosate and paraquat drops in the US.
Continue reading...Testing is difficult for drugs for rare diseases, and new rules may make it harder for sufferers to obtain life-saving drugs
US drug regulators have increasingly signaled a focus on faster approvals and rare diseases, but patients with ultra-rare ailments fear they are falling through the cracks, especially given challenges to conducting clinical trials.
One drug, elamipretide, garnered a narrow recommendation from independent advisers for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the agency rejected the drug’s application in May and recommended another potential pathway for approval.
Continue reading...Relatives tell of their determination to see good come from the killing of their loved ones in 2005 London bombings
In the city of Bhubaneswar, the capital of the north-east Indian state of Odisha, there is an eye clinic that has transformed the lives of thousands of children.
Before the unit was established in 2008, according to its vice-chair, there was no dedicated children’s eye care centre in the entire eastern part of India, a country home to 20% of the world’s blind children. The clinic now sees about 3,000 children a month and performs 350 eye surgeries – a significant proportion of them at no cost to the often very poor families who need them.
Continue reading...Government announces £500m project to provide single point of access for health, education and wellbeing services
One-stop shop family hubs will be rolled out across England to give parents advice and support, the government has announced. The centres will offer help with breastfeeding and housing issues, as well as supporting children’s early development and language, ministers said.
The £500m project will open 1,000 centres from April 2026, meaning every council in England will have a family hub by 2028. It will build on the existing family hubs and start for life programme to provide a single point of access for services in health, education and wellbeing.
Continue reading...Their jobs are seen as glamorous but the new reality for many is workplace stress and ‘complete fatigue’
The life of a social media creator can be high in glamour and status. The well-paid endorsement deals, the online followers and proximity to the celebrity establishment are all perks of the industry.
But one hidden cost will be familiar to anyone coping with the 21st-century economy: burnout. The Guardian has spoken to five creators with a combined audience of millions who have all experienced degrees of workplace stress or fatigue.
Continue reading...Vicky Pebsworth has spent decades saying vaccines caused her son’s autism – a connection refuted by years of research
One of the new members of a critical federal vaccine advisory board has argued for decades that vaccines caused her son’s autism – a connection that years of large-scale studies and reviews refute.
Registered nurse Vicky Pebsworth is one of eight new members to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip), all hand-picked by the vaccine skeptic and Donald Trump’s health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Continue reading...Fish or bird ownership showed no significant link to slower cognitive decline in study with implications for ageing societies
As global population ages and dementia rates climb, scientists may have found an unexpected ally in the fight against cognitive decline.
Cats and dogs may be exercising more than just your patience: they could be keeping parts of your brain ticking over too. In a potential breakthrough for preventive health, researchers have found that owning a four-pawed friend is linked to slower cognitive decline by potentially preserving specific brain functions as we grow older.
Continue reading...My mother, Sally Adams, who has died aged 73, worked for many years at Papworth hospital in Cambridge, where she was a sister in the intensive therapy unit and was one of the nurses who cared for Keith Castle, the UK’s first successful heart transplant patient, in 1979.
She worked at Papworth from 1975 to 1990 (except for a two-year spell at Treliske hospital in Truro in 1986-88). Then she switched to bereavement counselling until her retirement in 2019.
Continue reading...Healthy life expectancy for women in most deprived areas falls to the lowest level since recent records began, ONS says
Healthy life expectancy for women in the most deprived areas of England and Wales has fallen to the lowest level since recent records began, with those women now likely to spend only two-thirds of their lives in good health.
Women living in wealthier parts of England are likely to enjoy about two more decades of healthy life, the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data has shown.
Continue reading...Readers respond to Guardian coverage of health inequalities in Britain and the government’s 10-year plan for the health service
Your articles on health inequality this week included excellent coverage of the government’s project to shift the emphasis of healthcare from treatment at the clinic and hospital to prevention through public health initiatives (Downing Street’s radical plan for the NHS: shifting it from treatment to prevention, 29 June). However, one key element is missing from the analysis that has frustrated the implementation of such necessary innovations: the way that undergraduate students are educated and socialised into medicine within longstanding conservative curricula.
Historically, doctors gain an identity that is grounded in the sanctity of the “clinic” (primarily the hospital) as a well-patrolled territory with idiosyncratic rituals and language. Patients are kept on the other side of the fence. Medical education traditionally affords little work-based experience in the first two years, but after that students gain increasing exposure to clinical work. However, this is largely focused on secondary care (hospital and clinic) settings, and on cure rather than prevention.
Continue reading...The healing power of exercise should never be underestimated, but be cautious about what recent headlines seem to suggest
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
You might have seen the recent headlines on a new study on exercise and cancer recovery suggesting that “exercise is better than a drug” in preventing cancer returning. Cue a wave of commentary pitting “big pharma” against fitness, as if we must choose between pills and planks. It’s an appealing narrative – but it’s also misleading.
We don’t need to choose between the two. In fact, the best health outcomes often come from combining medicine with a broader view of health that includes movement, diet, social connection and mental wellbeing.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
Continue reading...Letter from workers, which EPA claims is ‘unlawful’, says agency is no longer living up to its mission
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday put on administrative leave 139 employees who signed a “declaration of dissent” about its policies, accusing them of “unlawfully undermining” the Trump administration’s agenda.
In a letter made public on Monday, the employees wrote that the agency is no longer living up to its mission to protect human health and the environment. The letter represented rare public criticism from agency employees who knew they could face blowback for speaking out against a weakening of funding and federal support for climate, environmental and health science.
Continue reading...Health secretary banks on resulting efficiencies to reduce number of frontline workers in 10-year health plan
Wes Streeting has staked the future of the NHS on a digital overhaul in which a beefed-up NHS app and new hospital league tables are intended to give patients unprecedented control over their care.
A dramatic expansion of the role of the NHS app will result in fewer staff than expected by 2035, with Streeting banking on digital efficiencies to reduce the number of frontline workers, a move described as a “large bet” by health experts.
Continue reading...Labour peer says he is ‘deeply ashamed’ his party is backing moves to ban group. This live blog has closed
Streeting says he has to go to the Commons to make a statement to MPs.
But first he introduces Rachel Reeves, saying that she has put an extra £29bn into the NHS.
It is thanks to her leadership that we’ve seen interest rates in our country fall four times. It’s thanks to her leadership that we see wages finally rising faster than the cost of living. And it’s thanks to her leadership we have the fastest growing economy in the G7.
If Australia can effectively serve communities living in the remote outback, we can meet the needs of people living in rural England.
If community health teams can go door to door to prevent ill health in Brazil, we can do the same in Bradford.
Continue reading...Ministers hope to revolutionise digital access to records and services, with more focus on prevention and local services
The 10-year NHS plan aims to make healthcare more digital, focus on preventing ill health and provide more services locally, rather than in hospitals. It will greatly expand the NHS app and increase the use of AI and other technology.
Structural changes aim to bring routine healthcare closer to patients, with the aim that most outpatient care will happen outside hospitals, while new neighbourhood health centres will provide most services so that acute hospitals can focus on looking after the most unwell.
Continue reading...No more plans for mean, unpopular cuts. Instead, explain why taxes must rise – and be clear about the good that will do
Rachel Reeves will not be sacked, because she is unsackable. The ever-hysterical bond markets just confirmed that by spinning out of control over her tears, then restoring previous rates as soon as Keir Starmer’s serial interviews confirmed heartfelt support after she was seen to be crying during PMQs. Quite right. Joined at the hip, her tough fiscal policy is his. History shows that prime ministers rarely last after sacking their chancellors.
The question for both, and all of Labour, is: what next? Every management guru and motivational speaker will tell you that mistakes don’t matter – the key to success is what you learn and how adroitly you change. Labour has four long years ahead and, most important of all, a stonking great majority. They are the masters so long as they don’t frighten the bond markets that ejected Liz Truss and forced Donald Trump’s handbrake tariff U-turn.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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