Daily Mail…
The endless snacking could be a way of keeping hands busy. Or maybe food finally tastes good again.
But the real reason why people pile on the pounds after quitting smoking could lie in our DNA.
Scientists have identified a fat-burning gene that becomes more active when exposed to cigarette smoke.
The finding could help explain why slim smokers find their weight starts to balloon after the final cigarette is stubbed out. The scientists studied smokers who had an existing personalized medical weight loss program, which, they they didn’t follow regularly.
The reason people put on weight when they pack in the fags is because most people think that smoking is an appetite supressant. I do not know if it is or not, but most smokers will feed their addiction over having a snack.
When someone packs in smoking, they think they are hungrier more often and just nibble and snack on things because that feeling they get when they want a cigarette for the first couple of days, that barely perceptable feeling in the chest/stomach area, is the same as slight hunger pangs.
There may well be something in smoking that burns calories quicker, but if there is is doesn’t burn many, by the amount of overweight smokers about.
Armageddon is on it’s way. We are all doomed…
How dangerous is it?
Symptoms of swine flu in humans appear to be similar to those produced by standard, seasonal flu.
These include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue.
Most cases so far reported around the world appear to be mild, but in Mexico lives have been lost
You see, lives are being lost and a couple of people here in Britain might have it too!
The Daily Mail, is of course trying to calm it’s readers down and reassure them that life, as we know it, will go on. Or maybe not. lets have a look…
Private health firms have seen a surge in sales of anti-viral drugs folowing (sic) concerns that the Health Service would be unable to meet demand if a swine flu pandemic broke out.
Well, that’s the first box ticked. The NHS may not be able to cope. I wondered who’s concerned? It’s a pity we’re not told.
One company told the Daily Mail it had sold Tamiflu to 25,000 customers in one day, a further sign that swine flu panic is spreading
25,000? That’s a good days business by anyone standards. Surely the panic can’t be fuelled by our drama-queen press, though. Can it?
The firm, Healthcare Connections, said individuals were getting in touch because they did not believe they would be able to get the powerful drugs from the health service if there was a mass outbreak.
And we’re back to knocking the NHS. Why would people think that? Has the NHS suddenly become a haorder, unable to let go of anything?
The NHS has more than 33million doses of antiviral drugs – enough for more than half of the population – but there are fears the NHS would not have the capacity to get them to those who might need them.
The NHS unable to get drugs to the general population? Who fears it? Why do ‘they’ fear it? Have ‘they’ forgotten about the hundreds, if not thousands of pharmacies in the UK? This drug is a pill, it needs no special skills to actually administer the thing, unlike an injection.
Current plans are for those with symptoms to nominate a friend or relative without symptoms to pick up Tamiflu packs (pictured) from local NHS despatching centres, probably hospitals and clinics.
And pharmacies, maybe? They are the usual route for drugs to be dispensed (or is it called despatching now?) to non-hospitalised patients.
I love this next bit…
But there could be queues of thousands.
Isn’t it great? Everyone in your town, queued up at the same time, for the chemist. The line winding its’ way around the town. No cars on the road and everything else closed because everyone’s queued up to get they’re antidote to the biggest threat to mankind since, ooh, bird flu.
Healthcare Connections sidesteps this problem by dispatching the drugs to the customer’s front door when they are needed.
Thank goodness someones on the ball. Healthcare Connections are the only ones quoted in this Mail story. Would it be cynical of me to suggest this may be turning into an ‘infomercial’?
Louise Lloyd, from the company, said: ‘We make sure there are some of these drugs in the warehouse with your name on it. If there is a pandemic, and a medical adviser will confirm you need them, a car will be sent over with your drugs.
‘The Government does not have the infrastructure to do this.’
No. It wouldn’t be cynical.
Ok, Ms Lloyd. I probabably couldn’t argue against that point, But then the government deals in a slightly different magnitude of customers.
The government ‘only’ has enough of this drug for half the population and if it sent all those drugs out by car, which I doubt you do, as for £3.50 it’ll more than likely be a van on his rounds rather than a dedicated car as you make it sound, people like the Daily Mails’ readers, and of course the Taxpayers Alliance, would be apoplectic about a waste of money when all but the most isolated people (as in loneliest) can find someone to pop to the shops for them.
How many people can you supply? Not 30-fucking-million. And you can send them however you want without anyone complaining because your customer is paying for it [from Healthcare Connections main site]…
You can purchase the Antiviral Protection Plan for just £11.99* per person per year.
So, that’s more than a prescription on the NHS already, which is £7.20.
Still doesn’t sound too bad, does it. £11.99 and you’ve got a dose guaranteed allocated to you., rather than the virtually, pretty much guaranteed for you on the NHS. But if you actually get a bout of the swine flu, it gets a bit more expensive going private…
The table below shows how an upgrade to the full plan cost is broken down; to illustrate where the costs are allocated.
Healthcare Connections will only charge you for your private doctor to patient consultation, private prescription and distribution when you need access to medication.
Antiviral drug cost from manufacturer……………… £16.36
DHL medical despatch secure delivery service……. £ 3.50
Doctor to patient web consultation………………… £18.55
Private prescription/dispensary…………………….. £10.59
Total……………………………………………………. £49.00
Plus VAT @15%
£11.99/year just in case and then £49 when then poo hits the propellor. Plus VAT, it ends up just over £70 to your door.
And for £7.20 and a bit of sweet talking the Missus, I have the same result.
I think that’s a win for the NHS, for a change, despite how The Mail spins it.
The Mail
An agony aunt has been appointed to a taskforce aimed at improving social services following the Baby P tragedy.
No. No. You’ve got to be kidding?
communitycare.co.uk:
This week, ministers announced the 11 people who will join chair Moira Gibb and vice-chairs Andrew Webb and Bob Reitemeier on the taskforce, which is due to report this summer.
Unison and BASW on social work taskforce
Along with The Sun’s agony aunt, Deidre Sanders
Not everyone’s happy about it on CommunityCares’ discussion forum (the individual posts don’t have permalinks unfortunately)…
“sumag”
My colleague has just suggested that if the social workers go out to collect information they could then write to Diedre and she could in her commonsensical way tell us what to do next! She clearly has both the common touch and the ear of the government, what more could we want to help transform our profession? [Wink]
“lilybright”
More frontline social workers? What would we know about social work? No, the appointment of Dierdre Saunders is clearly inspired and anyone who suggests it’s a populist concession to tawdry media-led witchhunters is obviously a middle-class elitist with a dubious value base who should be drummed out of the profession forthwith.
I look forward to the day when scriptwriters from Casualty and Holby City are appointed to the professional bodies of nursing, medicine and allied health professions to raise standards of practice. It can only be a matter of time before one of those nice actors from Waterloo Road is appointed to the General Teaching Council.
No, it is clearly so eminently appropriate to have celebrities on professional bodies that I am left with only one question: why can’t we have Jeremy Kyle too?
“cb”
I’m also concerned about what message this sends to people about the function and role of social workers more generally if an ‘agony aunt’ is on the task force. Are we to be perceived as ‘talkers’ rather than ‘doers’. Actually the more I have thought about it, the more irritated I become.
fx7
Let’s get one thing straight – the summary dismissal of Sharon Shoesmith was not in the public interest – we had a right to hear the facts – we could have learned some vital lessons in safeguarding children and that this evidence could have been heard within the disciplinary context and this would have established whether Ms Shoesmith is a culpable party in this matter.
The Sun’s campaign against her was clearly a witch hunt – people did not just write into The Sun to complain of this evil woman, The Sun actually invited people to write in and tell them the politicians how evil she is.
As for Dear Diedre’s statement “those working in the professions in the public sector can get cut off from what are seen as common-sense values in the real world where, if you get something wrong, you lose your job. It’s what would happen to me and it’s what would happen to most of our readers”
What planet is this woman living on? I have been spat at, kicked, punched, abused, chased by dangerous dogs all in the line of my duty of protecting children; for these reasons, I stopped this area of work years ago (but I really do admire most of my children and families colleagues for having to do such a dreadful job. I guess most of us have to such nasty sharp-end violence, and that this demonstrates that if anyone is cut off from reality it is her! As for the bits about losing one’s job if you get something wrong – then all the country would be unemployed and unemployable.
As for The Sun getting things wrong – it does it all the time – it is a paper which always seem to be in the courts over allegations of lying and invading privacy – such is the moral compass and voice for the downtrodden masses.
Then Dear Diedre goes on to state “A big problem after Baby P was that Haringey didn’t even want to say sorry to start with, didn’t seem to accept responsibility”
Well in the climate of hysteria generated by The Sun, individuals and organisations get immobilised by the moral panic with which they are beleaguered – apologies – my guess is that no one in the Local Authority wanted to get in Sun’s firing line, for fear a mob would be beating a path to his / her with a view to stringing him / her up from the nearest lamp post.
Dear Diedre concludes
“If our campaign was seen as a mere witch-hunt in the social work sector, it illustrates the communication gap we have in society”
This is exactly the problem – I have this to say The Sun’s campaign against Ms Shoesmith was vindictive and vitriolic – it harked back to Cromwell’s England when Major Generals, our own Taliban, wandered the burning witches or drowning them in ponds. The Sun is a very much like that – it breeds a climate of fear – sure, there is a communication gap between us and The Sun and this is for good reason. An entire city, Liverpool, has stopped this nasty little rag following its rather nasty little piece on Liverpool following the Hillsborough Tragedy.
As for Dear Diedre saying that she was not responsible for the editorial content with regard to Ms Shoesmith, this is bit like saying “I am not responsible for the gas chambers in Auschwitz, I merely stoked the ovens” These “no flies on me” kind of statements sound quite disingenuous.
And as a parting shot to all those those Sun apologists, what kind of filthy little rag has headlines “only ten days to go, Lads, before we can bare Lisa’s boobs?” Surely, it encourages filthy old men to commit sexually illegal against young women.
The interview “fx7” references is here.
I’ll leave you with the notion that it could just be a damage limitation exercise by ministers, as Emma Maier muses…
… giving The Sun the inside track on the taskforce could be a clever because it is always more difficult to slate something you are involved in.
Hmm.
So, in another ‘looking after the children’ move, fags are going the same way as dodgy pr0n: under the counter.
And the reason?
The Guardian:
[Health Secretary Alan Johnson said] “When they [children] see a point of sale display and as a result of seeing of it they take up smoking … it’s the key evidence as to why 200,000 11-15 year-olds are smoking,” said Johnson.
You what? Is Mr Johnson seriously trying to tell me that spotty youths are going about their business, of buying football cards and Special Brew, spy this:
[[popup:fags.jpg:(thumbnail)::1:center]]
and suddenly, they are stood there, jaw open, dribble running down their chin, staring, mesmerised by the beauty of the cigarette display. The only thought running through their heads is “Pretty packets. Gotta have”.
That can’t be right, can it? If it is, then surely the logic follows that if you hide the spirits and booze, that’ll be the end of Binge Drink Britian.
It’s a good job kids don’t spend much time in pharmacists, their shelves are positively sexy.
New York Times:
A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York was trampled to death by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy.
At 4:55 a.m., just five minutes before the doors were set to open, a crowd of 2,000 anxious shoppers started pushing, shoving and piling against the locked sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., Nassau County police said. The shoppers broke the doors off their hinges and surged in, toppling a 34-year-old temporary employee who had been waiting with other workers in the store’s entryway.
People did not stop to help the employee as he lay on the ground, and they pushed against other Wal-Mart workers who were trying to aid the man. The crowd kept running into the store even after the police arrived, jostling and pushing officers who were trying to perform CPR, the police said.
FFS. It’s only stuff. Nothing is worth that.
