Media And Teenage Boys

Over the past year, there were more newspaper stories about young people and crime than about all other stories on teenagers put together. The media refer to teenagers are yobs, feral, as sick, as scum. Unsurprisingly, research commissioned by "Women in Journalism" has found that 85% of teenage boys say newspapers portray them in a bad light. They think adults are more wary of them now than they were a year ago.

Fiona Bawdon, a committee member for WIJ: "When a photo of a group of perfectly ordinary lads standing around wearing hooded tops [is] visual shorthand for urban menace or even the breakdown of society, it is clear that teenage boys have a serious problem ... our research shows that the media is helping make teenage boys fearful of each other."

I wish that half of the media's attention was devoted to young people trying to access mental health services than this endless focus on feral youth. One in ten young adults (aged 16-25) believe "life is not worth living." Fully 95% of imprisoned young offenders have one or more mental health disorder.

We're so obsessed with being afraid of youth that we can't see their problems anymore.

"Let's Get Tested" Video Competition

The deadline for entries is 31st March!

Bits And Bobs

- The Refugee Council, the TUC, STAR (Student Action for Refugees), and other organisations are calling for the government to allow asylum seekers to work. This would help intergration, reskill refugees to offer a better future, and combat destitution. As well, the Coventry Refugee Centre is thinking of bringing this project to Coventry. Currently, the only overnight housing for destitute refugees and asylum seekers is at the Peace House's night shelter.

- A street in Birmingham (Green Lane in Great Barr) has cut its energy consumption by 20% (an average of £200 in bills per household). Caroline Handley told BRMB radio: "It was a bit difficult because a lot of it is behavioural changes and then suddenly you're thinking I can leave this on, I can't leave that on. But over the 12 months gradually you just do things without thinking now."

- Gordon Brown giving a speech to a joint session of Congress ... bless. Enjoy it whilst it lasts, Gordon, since the centre of power in the world economy is moving to India, Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia. Steve Bell is skeptical about the UK closing its own tax havens, but when you're redrawing the rules, it's "the perfect time to build important [arms control] nonproliferation goals into the world’s banking system."

A few other things to read:

- Saudi Arabia's oil production peaked in 2005.
- Libby Brookes on the 100th anniversary of the war on drugs
- A fifth anniversary next week
- PeaceJam is this weekend in Bradford
- A victory for Tesco over competition and market share
- The TUC has a new pamphlet out: Unlocking Green Enterprise

Malnutrition In Britain

Malnutrition in the UK is at drastic levels. If you are undernourished, you're vulnerable: less resistance to infection, slower healing of wounds, and reduced muscle strength. This is not a small problem. One study of 500 consecutive hospital admissions determined malnutrition in 40% of patients. 3 million people, mainly elderly, mainly in the community, are affected. The cost to society could be as high as £12 billion a year. Dr Mike Stroud gives a commentary around malnutrition here, but one of his key points is that doctors need better training to spot it.

Cooking And Eating As A Family

Raymond Blanc is also the vice-president of organic gardening charity, Garden Organic, which is just east of Coventry:

"Creating a more caring family - and the best way to create cohesive families is by cooking and eating together - is more likely to create a caring society ... Food harvested and eaten in season tends to be tastier, fresher, more nutritious, supports local communities and, because there is plenty of it, is cheaper, he said."

Photo credit: Telegraph

World AIDS Day - 1st December

I didn't want there to be a 20th anniversary of World Aids Day.

73 000 adults have HIV in the UK. 5000 more contract HIV each year, with Coventry having a higher rate than the rest of the West Midlands.

HIV prevention is straight-forward. If you're at risk of HIV transmission through drug use, there are a number of needle exchange projects near to Coventry. In straight or gay sex, men need to wear condoms. Women need more self-respect and confidence, so they can ask a male partner (whether for the night, or longer-term) to wear a condom. We need to value and protect ourselves.

If you need help and advice, you can phone THT Direct on 0845 1221 200 between 10am and 10pm on Monday to Friday, and from 12 noon to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday. Emails can be sent to info@tht.org.uk

Salt, Bread And Heart Disease

Salt = heart disease. The Independent checked 84 breads made by Warburtons, Hovis, Kingsmill, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer. Warburtons bread has 20% more salt than Sainsbury's. Reducing salt in all our food (especially takeaways) is in our long-term health interest.

Airline Pilots And ID Cards

Airline pilots are on the front line of the ID card battle: "Our members are incensed by the way they have been targeted as guinea pigs in a project which will not improve security. We will leave no stone unturned in our attempts to prevent this, including legal action to force a judicial review if necessary."

- A profile of Tasmin Omond, one of the protesters who scaled the Houses of Parliament to protest against a third runway at Heathrow.

- The £303 trillion time bomb. Go back to sleep, Britain, Gordon Brown stood back and let all of this develop, but your government is in control. Go back to sleep, Britain, here's another season of X-Factor! Here's 56 channels of it!

- A victory for asylum-seeker health-care.

- 42 writers attack the idea of 42 day detention without charge: "We don't know how lucky we are to live in a nation where police officers have all of six weeks to discover why they've locked us up."

And finally, how do they come up with these top 100 lists anyway? Andy Atkins and Barbara Stocking not in the top 50?

Tory Conference - Cameron's Speech

David Cameron spoke for 65 minutes at conference, but he didn’t mention his 2005 idea of a "carbon audit office" -- a watchdog for a new statutory framework with specific year-by-year requirements for carbon cuts. In his leadership contest with David Davis, he said such an office would perform a role in checking emissions similar to the Monetary Policy Committee in monitoring and forecasting inflation. Cameron is green only when it suits him.

I thought one part of Cameron’s speech did hit home (and it wasn’t quoted as part of Nick Robinson’s package on the BBC’s 10 O’Clock News). He read out a letter from a constituent whose wife had died from MRSA complications. The man claimed that her treatment "was like something out of a 17th century asylum not a 21st century £90 billion health service." Cameron sent the letter to Alan Johnson, as Health Secretary, and received the following reply:

"A complaints procedure has been established for the NHS to resolve concerns … Each hospital and Primary Care Trust has a Patient Advice and Liaison Service to support people who wish to make a complaint … There is also an Independent Complaints Advocacy Service … If, when Mr Woods has received a response, he remains dissatisfied, it is open to him to approach the Healthcare Commission and seek an independent review of his complaint and local organisation's response … Once the Health Care Commission has investigated the case he can approach the Health Service Ombudsman if he remains dissatisfied.”

Cameron followed up reading out the letter with the zinger: "four ways to make a complaint but not one way for my constituent's wife to die with dignity."

Tory Conference - Short-Sellers and Perks

New charges of cash-for-access-to-politicians, but it's the Conservatives this time.

The Tories have also taken hundreds of thousands of donations from people involved in the short-selling that has destablised the banking system. Paul Ruddock (Lansdowne Partners) donated over £210,000 since the start of 2006. His firm short-sold to drive down Barclays and Anglo Irish Bank share and is said to have made £100 million betting that Northern Rock would collapse. Michael Hintze (CQS Management) took out short positions on Bradford and Bingley. He has donated to the costs of running George Osborne's office. He's paid for two drinks receptions held by Cameron's office. His company has made loans of £2.5 million to the Tories. He has also supported David Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson, and donated money to support the "childhood review" being carried out by David Willetts.

With all this fundraising talk, it's time to remind ourselves about the Midlands Industrial Council.

Andrew Lansley also presents the Tory plans for health at their conference today, but he's been criticised for backing down on the traffic light labelling guide which helps consumers easily avoid unhealthy foods.

Universal HIV Testing

This is an amazing idea. As Michael Franti once sang, it's better to know than to not know:

All 15-59 year olds in some areas of England should be offered a HIV test by their GP, new recommendations say. In 42 trusts with more than two HIV cases for every 1,000 people, everyone should be offered the test when they join a GP surgery, experts said. Around 20% of the population would fall under the universal testing policy. Most of the high-prevalence areas are in London, but others include Brighton, Manchester, Blackpool and Birmingham.

See also: HIV testing in Coventry (THT)

Trescothick And Mental Illness

Marcus Trescothick, a cricketer with Somerset, has written an autobiography, Coming Back to Me. Trescothick pulled out of the 2006-7 Ashes tour due to what kept being called a "stress-related illness." It turns out that he has been having anxiety attacks since the age of 10.

We hear far more about psychologists whispering in the ears of cyclists at Olympic velodromes just before their ride. It's very rare for a professional sports player to speak out on mental illness:

"I struggled mostly with the nerves and the worrying that goes with it. It doesn't matter what you do, anybody can pick it up whether you earn £1m a year or £20 a week. It strikes when it wants to and there's not much you can do until you take pills or seek help and get back on the road to recovery."

"People try and hide it all the time. I hid it for weeks, months and a couple of years before saying I don't want to run from this any more."

"Anxiety problems are seen as a weakness. People tell you to pull yourself together. But it is an illness, it's not something you make up."

Real Bread Campaign

After watching The Hairy Bikers start a new series on bread-making and cakes the other day, I've ran across news of the Real Bread Campaign.

It's a joint effort between Sustain and Andrew Whitley, an organic baker and author.

Britain produces almost 12 million loaves a day, but only 3% are produced by regional artisan bakers. The campaign's definition of "real" bread is bread made with flour, water, salt (not mandatory) and some yeast, either naturally occuring or industrial -- with no additives or added enzymes.

Most industrial bread is made by the Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP). Traditionally, most bread was fermented (allowed to rise) for many hours, often overnight. The CBP uses high-energy mixers and "a slew of chemicals" to make a very white loaf in double-quick time.

"In contrast, if you let dough ferment for long enough, natural and beneficial bacteria work to make the bread more digestible, nutritious and tasty. Most British bread is made too quickly for these bacteria to have a chance. Fermenting dough for six hours as opposed to 30 minutes removes around 80% of a potentially carcinogenic substance called acrylamide found in bread crusts, and long yeast fermentations conserve the highest levels of B vitamins in dough."

The Real Bread Campaign aims to inform people about the state of modern bread and where to find the real thing.

"It will encourage bakers to improve their methods and to reward (with new customers) those who are already making great bread. We'll be campaigning for honest labelling of all ingredients. We want individuals, schools and other institutions to make their own real bread ... It's even been calculated that making a loaf in a home breadmaker uses less energy than buying one in a supermarket. Bake your own and save the planet? I see the beginnings of a joyful and healthy domestic economy."

Five-A-Day Fruit And Veg

The average person in the UK eats less than 3 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, instead of the recommended 5. You can download a handy chart on what qualifies as a portion here.

The Times has a top 8 list of "pick your own fruit" farms.

For August, greengages, plums, early damsons, and blackberries are coming into season. Apricots, gooseberries, blueberries, cherries, loganberries, rasberries, peaches, and redcurrants are still in season.

New APMS "Super-Surgeries" For Coventry

Scrutiny Board 4 of Coventry City Council has decided to support the idea of APMS contracts for three new GP surgeries in Coventry.

Scrunity Board 4 is reponsible for looking at policy surrounding community services, health, culture, leisure, libraries, and neighbourhoods/community safety. You can see more information on its membership and upcoming meetings here.

Under APMS (Alternative Providers of Medical Services) contracts, potential bidders - private companies, the voluntary sector or GPs - will be invited to run each surgery on a three-year contract.

The Coventry Telegraph reports:

The Local Medical Committee (LMC), which represents city GPs, is vehemently opposed to the "commercial-isation of general practice". It was represented at the meeting by secretary Dr Jamie Macpherson who warned that the cash came with "strings attached", in the form of multinational companies looking to make a profit. Socialist Cllr Rob Windsor raised concerns about some of the multi-nationals who could be potential bidders for the new Coventry surgeries. He said: "Inviting them in would be like inviting dingos to run a sheep farm. Let's have a proper look at these companies or we could see them denying healthcare to certain people."

You can take a look at the report from the committee here (6th August 2008).

A number of interesting things upon close reading of the report:

1) The Scrutiny Board decided that:

"to suggest that general practice in its current form is somehow fundamentally different to general practice provided by a consortium of GPs, or even a private healthcare company, is generally not credible."

For the committee, for-profit healthcare is the same as GPs in their current form. Hands-up, who agrees with that? For-profit healthcare means that more profitable procedures/patients will get priority, rather than what local health necessarily needs.

2) The chair, Joe Clifford (Lab - Holbrooks) is the only member to attend all the meetings/visits/briefings listed at the end. The deputy chair, Altaf Adalat (Con - Foleshill), didn't attend any of them.

3) The committee disagreed (page 10 of the report) with both the Local Medical Committee, as well as local pharmacists (The Local Pharmaceutical Committee).

12. The LMC identified what it saw as the following general flaws:

- The APMS contract creates a business-based, profit-driven approach to health care, at the expense of the existing GPs’ service-based, patient-centred approach – Dr Wells, Vice-Chair of the LMC suggested that the new contracts might be "the end of general practice as I know it".
- Short term contracts interrupt continuity of care and the GP’s role as a patient advocate
- The procurement process creates barriers to entry for GPs, notably the significant cost of preparing a credible bid
- GPs are not, in isolation, an effective response to health inequalities
- The risk that new entrants will either destabilise existing general practice provision, or fail and leave the market, thereby wasting tax payers’ money, with the additional risk that damage to health care provision in the locality will already have been done
- There are fears for the terms and conditions of salaried GPs, and questions about the quality of the practitioners
- Private contractors will offer diagnostic services and undermine their provision at
University Hospital Walsgrave

13. The LMC’s overall view is that the existing GP contracts, the General Medical Services (GMS) contract, and Personal Medical Services (PMS) contracts are the appropriate means by which new services should be introduced.

14. The Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC), which represents the city’s pharmacists, came to a similar view. The LPC saw considerable risk and potential destabilisation of the provision of community pharmacy, if there was turbulence in general practice. The pharmacists feared the new practices would include so-called "100 hour" pharmacies which are exempt from the control of entry regulations. The LPC feared that these new co-located pharmacies could put existing pharmacies out of business, and reduce the provision of "High Street" community pharmacy.

Steve Bell's "If" -- Gordon Brown's NHS

David Cameron and "Nudging"

Rachel Sylvester has an interesting take on David Cameron and personal responsibility/moral choice.

The latest must-read book at Conservative HQ is Nudge, which argues that peer pressure is a more effective way to change behaviour than state directives. Last week, Steve Hilton, the Tories' chief strategist, met one of its authors, Richard Thaler, to discuss how his approach could be applied to social problems such as drugs and knife crime. At the moment, the argument goes, people are being “nudged” in the wrong direction, with rap music that glorifies violence, soap operas that popularise antisocial behaviour and gang culture that creates a sense of family for people who have none.

The question is how to turn the nudges around. A rap song that highlighted the danger of carrying a weapon could be more deterrent than endless knife summits at No10. A health visitor who persuaded working-class mothers to read to their children might have as great an impact on education as a change in the qualifications system. In short, Mr Cameron does not just want to hug a hoody, he wants the hoodies to be persuaded to hug each other. He wants to create a smaller state by reducing demand rather than supply.

Jim, over at The Daily Maybe, has also written on this recently:

We have a society that ritually idolises violence, wealth, image and personal satisfaction over a sense of community. We have a society where many people, both young and old, feel they are outsiders to their own communities, where no-one has a responsibility to them and they have no responsibility to anyone else. Under these circumstances it's a surprise that so many people feel a sense of social responsibility.

Cameron is on to something. His objective is to keep government small and non-interventionist by encouraging civil society to be more interventionist with itself. He is wrong when he talks about "social responsibility" and withdrawing the UK from the EU Social Chapter. I think he's wrong when he characterises things like obesity and drug abuse as moral failures, rather than health issues to be treated.

But, there are aspects where his kind of approach will be right.

We need to look at why people join gangs (why gangs provide better security than the state) and why people are more willing to shoot/stab folks than 5 years ago. You can't legislate so that people stab each other less.

I think Cameron's is right about peer-pressure being, sometimes, as effective as top-down regulation. Neighbours talking with neighbours about composting, about how to travel to Italy by train, about how they installed their water butt, is the way things will happen.

It's going to be interesting how Cameron pitches this idea of "social responsibility" and differentiates it from the idea of the "nanny state" ... and Ed Miliband is already starting to respond to Cameron's rhetoric with talk of individual control of state budgets.

A New Wonder Drug For Babies

Despite a cold winter, Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year.

Johann Hari in the Independent: "Science has discovered a drug that can save 13% of all babies who currently die. It will make your baby cleverer. It will dramatically slash their chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, leukaemia, asthma or obesity as an adult. It is free."

Ian Loader, professor of criminology at Oxford:

It may be no accident that crime came to dominate British politics around the time that governments lost faith in their capacity to deliver other forms of security: we may not be able to save your job or guarantee your pension, but we will protect you from criminals.

Anti-Psychotic Drugs And Youth

Probably the most worrying story I've read this past week ...

Tranquillisers designed to treat serious conditions including schizophrenia in adults were prescribed to young people 57,000 times in 2003. But the total had risen to more than 90,000 by 2006 – a 59 per cent rise in three years.

Experts believe the increase is partly down to early detection and treatment of serious mental health problems in children, but there is also concern they are being used inappropriately to treat psychological and learning difficulties. Shortage of staff and resources are further factors. The safety and effectiveness of these drugs, which were designed for adults, have not been fully tested on children.

Paul Corry, director of public affairs for the mental health charity Rethink, said:

"It is worrying that these very powerful drugs designed for adults are being given in such high numbers to children before their brains are fully developed. If the increase is because previously undiagnosed teenagers are now getting treatment, then that is positive. But it is difficult to justify the widespread use of these drugs in younger children because it is actually unlikely they will have schizophrenia at such a young age."

Individual Carbon Allowances

A committee of MPs, the Environmental Audit Committee, has called for individual carbon allowances. There would be a national amount of carbon allowed, and each of us would have an equal portion of that quota. If you want to use more carbon than your allowance, you "buy" unused carbon from people who aren't using up their entire allowance. Year on year, the national amount gets reduced, so that, year on year, we meet our targets for domestic emissions.

Other stories:

Grease lightening, go, grease lightening.

Earlier this month, the Nigerian militant group Mend unexpectedly announced that it would halt attacks on multinational oil installations if Barack Obama requested a ceasefire.

Antony Sheehan, chief executive of Leicestershire NHS Trust, has told the BBC that government attempts to improve mental health services for the South Asian community have not worked.

Sheehan: "We really should acknowledge the impact of institutional racism in mental health and wider health and social care services, in the same way it is recognised in the criminal justice system. The real issue is just how we've chosen not to connect with these communities."