The Health News United Kingdom October 9 2017
- Noel Conway, 67, from Shrewsbury, who has motor neurone disease, wanted a doctor to be allowed to prescribe a lethal dose when his health deteriorates. He has lost his High Court challenge against the law on assisted dying.
- A warning has been issued over fake lipstick after a court heard that the level of lead in counterfeit products can cause severe health problems. Paul Lamerton sold fake lipsticks on eBay and Facebook with 300 times the legal level of lead, and magistrates in Plymouth, Devon, were told that if used regularly the cosmetic could result in high blood pressure, cardiac, reproductive and neurological problems.
- Transplant doctors and health charities have praised Theresa May’s decision to change how organ donation works in England in an attempt to provide more hearts, kidneys and livers for patients in need. According to NHS Blood and Transplant, the agency responsible for boosting donation rates, there are more than 50,000 people alive today in the UK who would have died if they had not undergone an organ transplant.
News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 9th of October 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41506155
A terminally ill man has lost his High Court challenge against the law on assisted dying.
Noel Conway, sixty seven, from Shrewsbury, who has motor neurone disease, wanted a doctor to be allowed to prescribe a lethal dose when his health begins to fail. Currently any doctor helping him to die would face up to fourteen years in prison. His lawyers had argued he faced a stark choice, which was unfair and the law needed to change. They said he could either bring about his own death while still physically able to do so, or await death with no control over how and when it came. He had previously said he wanted to say goodbye to loved ones “at the right time, not to be in a zombie-like condition suffering both physically and psychologically”.
He argued that when he had less than six months to live and retained the mental capacity to make the decision, he wished to be able to enlist assistance from the medical profession to bring about a “peaceful and dignified” death.
Mister Conway, who was not at London’s High Court on Thursday, wanted a declaration that the Suicide Act nineteen sixty one, which lays out the law on assisted dying, is incompatible with Article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. This relates to respect for private and family life, and Article fourteen, which protects from discrimination. But Lord Justice Sales, Missis Justice Whipple and Miste Justice Garnham rejected his case.
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In two thousand fifteen members of parliament rejected proposals to allow assisted dying in England and Wales, in their first vote on the issue in almost twenty years. Supporters of the current legislation say it exists to protect the weak and vulnerable from being exploited or coerced.
A warning has been issued over fake lipstick after a court heard that the level of lead in counterfeit products can cause severe health problems. Paul Lamerton sold fake lipsticks on eBay and Facebook with three hundred times the legal level of lead. If used regularly the cosmetic could result in high blood pressure, cardiac, reproductive and neurological problems. It could also cause possible neurological damage to unborn babies if used by pregnant women. Tests found that the fake MAC product contained three thousand seven hundred two milligram of lead – the permitted limit is ten milligram. After the case Councillor Dave Downie, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities said: “These items were not only fake, but some were dangerous.
They found that Lamerton, forty seven, was selling the lipstick at six pounds each or four for fifteen pounds. Authentic MAC lipsticks cost around sixteen point fifty pounds each. He made a eight hundred twenty three profit selling the counterfeit goods over four years between two thousand twelve and two thousand sixteen. Lamerton pleaded guilty to seven trading standards offences and narrowly avoided jail with a suspended sentence.For each offence he was given six weeks in prison, suspended for twelve months. The sentences will run concurrently.
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Lamerton was also ordered to pay four hundred pounds towards costs and a one hundred fifteen pounds victim surcharge.
Transplant doctors and health charities have praised Theresa May’s decision to change how organ donation works in England in an attempt to provide more hearts, kidneys and livers for patients in need. The prime minister announced plans to move to a system of presumed consent – meaning everyone is presumed to agree to the removal and reuse of body parts after their death unless they opt out – in her speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester on Wednesday. She said change was needed because five hundred people died last year while waiting in vain for a replacement heart, lungs, kidney or liver.With 6,500 patients on the organ transplant waiting list, “our ability to help people who need transplants is limited by the number of organ donors that come forward,” May said.
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According to NHS Blood and Transplant, the agency responsible for boosting donation rates, there are more than fifty thousand people alive today in the UK who would have died if they had not undergone an organ transplant. Of those, thirty six thousand three hundred received a kidney, nine thousand eight hundred a liver, three thousand nine hundred either a heart, lungs or both, and one thousand nine hundred a replacement pancreas. The number of people who have signed the NHS organ donor register, signalling their willingness to have their organs harvested after their death, has risen by four point nine million over the same period and now stands at twenty three point six million which is a record high.
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