The UK decision contrasts with Germany where Acomplia is not reimbursed by health insurers because it is deemed simply to improve lifestyle.

Acomplia was once touted as a multibillion-dollar seller, but hopes for the product dimmed last year when a U.S. expert panel recommended against its approval in the world’s biggest market, after it was linked to rare cases of suicidal thoughts.

Sanofi said in October it expected only limited sales of the drug in the next few years, until new clinical trial results testing it in diabetes are ready for submission to regulators in 2009.

Men with type 2 diabetes or the metabolic syndrome, or both, are prone to have low testosterone levels. If so, testosterone replacement therapy with a gel applied to the skin may improve their response to insulin and their sexual function, according to the results of a new clinical trial.

Testosterone levels fall if testicular function is subnormal, a condition termed hypogonadism. “Consideration should be given to screening type 2 diabetic and metabolic syndrome patients for hypogonadism,” Dr. T. Hugh Jones told the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco this week.

Jones, of Barnsley Hospital and the University of Sheffield in the UK, and colleagues tested the effect of a testosterone gel (Tostran) on insulin resistance and symptoms of hypogonadism in 221 men with low testosterone levels. Read more » »

Several national LGBT organizations convened the Action Plan Working Meeting: LLEGO, the National Coalition for LGBT Health, the National Association of LGBT Community Centers, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, the Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer, the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, the National Coalition of Lesbian and Feminist Cancer Projects and the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Addiction Professionals. A 22-member steering committee was organized, representing LGBT groups nationwide, who recruited additional participants resulting in a diverse group of 64 LGBT tobacco control advocates at a planning meeting in October 2003 in Washington, DC.

Hard work and massive extra investment have brought enormous improvements in the NHS. There are thousands more doctors and nurses. More patients are being treated than ever before and they are being treated faster. We have made big strides forward but there is more to do.

Cleanliness remains a major patient concern and MRSA is a growing problem. The NHS is open about this. A great deal of work is already underway and some progress is being made. But there is much further to go.

A clean environment provides the right setting for good patient care practice and good infection control. It is important for efficient and effective healthcare.

Patients rightly expect hospitals to be clean. Just like a clean hotel, a clean hospital Read more » »

Patient Environment Action Teams were established in 2000, to make independent assessments in NHS hospitals. Under the programme, every inpatient healthcare facility in England with more than ten beds is assessed annually and given a rating of excellent, good, acceptable, poor or unacceptable.

PEATs consist of NHS staff, including nurses, matrons, doctors, catering and domestic service managers, executive and non-executive directors, dieticians and estates directors. They also include patients, patient representatives and members of the public.

Each year the programme has adapted to reflect the changing expectations of patients, the way the NHS is organised and to ensure that the results of the programme provide an accurate picture of the standards of food and food services across the NHS based on what patients say is important.
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The Tate Kids has launches online art competition for kids. What do you like drawing or painting? Music and nature? If so, have a go at this fantastic competition from Tate, BT and The Woodland Trust.

Every summer there is a huge music festival on the Isle of Wight called (funnily enough) the Isle of Wight Festival.

The festival happens outside in a great big park and is both the inspiration and the prize for the competition.

Winners get family tickets to the festival on the 13th-15th of June as well as lots of other goodies!

We ‘know’ that children who watch no-television achieve the least in school: comparable to children who watch 3-4 hours a day (fact published mid-’80’s); The ‘best’ students watched 0.5-1.0 hours a day (peak interpolated between).

But video games aren’t just DVD’s that mom returns if inappropriate material is found: they’re too expensive; and they’re not-really TV-like: they’re too intense; And content is effectually nonlinear (’random access’); And we have a ’stupid history of flaming’ on IRChats and MUDs– fueling video-prurience.

But there’s also a lot of ‘business’, in video too, And that, stirs violence in thought if its work-through becomes mentally cluttered … That disguises statistics-taking: We have to run multidimensional measurement-correlations.
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