Tag Archives: David Cameron

Britain, Government, Health, Medical, Research, Science, Society

Research funding and support for dementia is urgently needed…

DEMENTIA

One of the greatest benefits derived from the advancement of medical science is the longer life expectancy people now have. But it brings with it an array of concerns and responsibilities, chief among them the need to come to terms with the fast-rising incidence of dementia. For far too long now it has been the poor relation of other forms of medical research, which subsequently has meant dementia attracting an inadequate level of research and public funding and support.

Dementia research is decades behind, for example, cancer, with six times more UK researchers working on cancer than dementia. This week, though, the Alzheimer’s Society which is calling for greater research and public support to treat the condition will receive a powerful endorsement for its work from the first G8 dementia summit. Dementia is an appalling and harrowing condition which destroys the final few years of a sufferer’s life, stripping them of their dignity, and the profound effects it has on families and those who provide care for the sufferer.

It is the growing incidence of the condition, however, that should now compel concerted action. Current estimates suggest some 35.6 million people around the world are living with dementia, including around 800,000 in the UK. Because of an ageing population, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that the number of people suffering with the illness could reach 115.4 million by 2050. In the UK alone, there are likely to be nearly a million people with the condition by the end of 2020.

David Cameron has said that tackling the condition is a ‘personal priority’. The Prime Minister has already announced a UK plan on research, care and awareness and that funding for dementia research will increase to around £66 million by 2015. Such announcements are always welcome but, given the scale of the challenge, seem far from adequate. The enormity of the problem in dealing with such an intractable disease needs to be recognised for what it is and for campaigners to pursue both research and funding support with the utmost vigour.

ALZHEIMER’S BRAIN SCAN

NHS PATIENTS are to benefit from a new brain scan that will help doctors confirm or rule out a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

It is to be announced that Britain will be the first place in the world where the revolutionary technique will be available for free.

The test will mean that, for the first time, doctors will be able to definitively rule out Alzheimer’s in some patients for five years. Currently, one in five cases of the disease is misdiagnosed.

It could also help doctor s to confirm an existing diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, ensuring people get the treatment they need.

The test – which is believed to cost £810 per patient – involves giving the patient a tiny amount of a radioactive chemical called Amyvid which binds to the tell-tale plaques in the brain of a Alzheimer’s sufferer.

This chemical will show up the plaques on a brain scan for the first time, allowing doctors to definitively rule out Alzheimer’s in a patient for at least five years if no plaques are present. It means the patient will not be given potentially harmful treatments if they don’t need them.

Until this breakthrough, it has not been possible to definitively diagnose someone as having the disease until after their death.

Examinations of the brains of people who have died show that one in five people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s did not in fact have it, meaning they may have been given the wrong treatment while they were alive.

Plaques, however, can be present in other conditions and the new brain scan alone will not be enough to pinpoint the disease.

Dementia is one of the main causes of disability in old age, ahead of cancer, heart disease and stroke. Whilst there are 800,000 people with dementia in the UK, about two thirds of those are Alzheimer sufferers. By 2021, more than a million people are expected to have dementia. The disease is being described as ‘the key health challenge of this generation’.

The Amyvid test – developed by US drugs firm Lilly – has previously been used elsewhere in the world, but only through private health schemes.

The use of the technique by the NHS will be the first time it has been available as part of a state-funded health system. The first patients to benefit will be scanned at Charing Cross Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, in London.

Although a negative scan would mean a person highly unlikely to develop Alzheimer’s in the next five years that would be no guarantee that the condition could develop in future years.

12 December 2013…

PREVENTATIVE MEASURES

The scientific and medical fields have been waiting for a breakthrough drug treatment for Alzheimer’s for decades. An astonishing £25 billion has been spent worldwide on trying to develop one, and yet we still don’t have anything that can slow down, let alone stop, the disease.

It’s certainly true that drugs such as Aricept may help some patients with their symptoms, but only for a short while.

That leaves patients and their families in the hopeless position of waiting for the drug and pharmaceutical companies to discover a treatment.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be like that. There are other options.

There are things that can be done to improve the situation right now – but governments, charities and other research bodies need to make a long overdue switch to a new strategy: preventing the disease.

What needs to be understood is that nearly all that £25 billion has been spent researching and testing ways to stop just one thing that goes wrong in the human brain.

The idea has been to develop drugs to block or clear amyloid plaque – the sticky damaged protein associated with dying neurons.

It was a reasonable idea, but concentrating on it exclusively – without even considering any other options – has condemned millions to a decline that might have been slowed down or prevented. How many billions do you have to spend without a result before admitting it’s time to also look elsewhere?

Some of the money should have been spent on research into its prevention. If you can’t reverse the damage, the most obvious step is to stop it happening it all.

Scientists and medical practitioners know it is possible. In fact, research suggests that a strong commitment to prevention could cut the number of Alzheimer’s sufferers by 20 per cent by 2025.

One key thing that needs to be addressed is people’s diet. For instance, switching to a so-called Mediterranean diet – rich in fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and olive oil – could have a real impact.

The G8 summit on dementia in London this week is aiming to develop a co-ordinated global action plan for tackling Alzheimer’s. A statement, signed by more than 100 leading international dementia experts from 36 countries, has been sent to health ministers calling for a major shift in direction.

These experts believe that any action plan can’t just involve drugs – it is imperative, they say, that in cutting your risk of developing Alzheimer’s requires improvements in diet and lifestyle.

Many lifestyle factors linked to heart disease also increase your risk of Alzheimer’s including high blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol levels.

More important still is that there are virtually no public funds available for trials to find out how exactly they contribute to Alzheimer’s.

Alarmingly, so little in the UK is spent on research into Alzheimer’s prevention. Over the past six years, UK Research Councils, which are funded by the Government, spent £140 million studying Alzheimer’s.

Yet, just 1p in every £1,000 went on prevention. And of the additional £49 million for dementia research pledged by this Government last year, not a single penny went on prevention.

This is tragic. For years researchers have had a chance to do something that had a reasonable chance of significantly reducing the number of people developing this disease. The Government and charities, however, have continually ignored it. Instead, billions went on a drug programme that was never shown to work.

Some people might wonder how experts can say prevention will definitely work and yet also claim it hasn’t been researched. In fact, prevention has been tested – by accident.

The proportion of people developing dementia has, surprisingly, been falling for the past 20 years. The medical journal, The Lancet, reported earlier this year that estimates for dementia in England should be reduced by almost 25 per cent.

This is partly the result of a deliberate prevention programme – but one aimed at heart disease, not Alzheimer’s. For the past two decades, people have been encouraged to make healthy lifestyle changes, such as stopping smoking and lowering blood pressure to protect their heart.

This, along with other social factors such as improved educational opportunities, has had a clear impact on Alzheimer’s risk. A healthy heart makes for a healthy brain. But just relying on measures already in place to cut heart disease risk isn’t nearly enough.

Although fewer people suffer heart disease, there has been a huge rise in obesity and diabetes, both also major risk factors for Alzheimer’s. Cutting Alzheimer’s rates is going to involve tackling diabetes risk factors as well.

Despite little funding, there have been pockets of important research on prevention.

Three years ago a controlled trial was undertaken in Oxford that showed brain shrinkage was cut by an impressive 90 per cent in people with memory problems after they took high levels of B vitamins.

Scientists in the U.S., Germany and Australia have also shown that supplements of omega 3 fatty acids, as well as exercise may cut the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Exercise seems to cut risk in several ways, including increasing oxygen available to the brain and encouraging new brain cells to grow. It also makes blockages in the brain’s blood supply less likely, cuts damaging inflammation and reduces depression (which raises Alzheimer’s risk).

A number of researchers now suggest that eating lots of sugar and other refined carbohydrates, which raise glucose levels in the blood, contribute more to diabetes risk than saturated fat does.

But only a proper programme of research will show for sure.

This is already starting to happen on the continent. The European Dementia Prevention Initiative has four trials underway looking at the effect on Alzheimer’s when you target heart disease risks and other lifestyle factors. The big pharmaceutical companies are never going to do this sort of research because it doesn’t make them money: they can’t patent exercise or nutrients.

What can make a difference is dedicated government funding for prevention.

More is needed than just money. We need a shift from thinking that only drug research and genetics and cell biology are proper science. It is very exciting being at the cutting edge of brain science, unravelling complex gene changes that cause neurons to die and the forming of damaged protein clumps. Big gains, though, in heart disease came from tackling risk factors such as smoking and raised blood pressure. Real progress to stop the terrifying rise in Alzheimer’s will come in the same way.

14 December 2013…

A DRUG TO CURE DEMENTIA WITHIN REACH

David Cameron has said that a cure for dementia or a drug that can halt the disease in its tracks will be available by 2025.

This week, the prime minister pledged to double the amount that is spent on research into the devastating illness, and to help speed up the development of treatments.

At a summit in London attended by the health ministers of the G8 nations – including the US, Canada, Japan and France – he said that a cure was ‘within our grasp’.

There are around 800,000 adults in Britain with dementia – and 44 million worldwide – but these numbers are predicted to double in the next 40 years as the population ages.

But despite the vast numbers affected, there are only a handful of treatments available, and these only temporarily slow the advance of the disease. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister unveiled a package of measures, with the health ministers of G8 states promising to share more research across national boundaries and to cut the bureaucratic hurdles which delay treatments becoming available to patients.

Reinforcing the devastating effect of the illness, Mr Cameron said: ‘This disease steals lives, wrecks families and breaks hearts… If we are to beat dementia, we must also work globally, with nations, business and scientists from all over the world working together as we did with cancer, and with HIV and Aids.’

He added: ‘This is going to be a bigger and bigger issue; the key is to keep pushing. The challenge is huge and we are a long way from a cure, but there is hope.’

Last week, researchers from University College London said they hoped that a monthly jab capable of halting dementia in its tracks could become available within the next five years. The drug – solanezumab – is in trials and could be given to patients even before symptoms have developed if the disease is picked up in scans.

Ministers hope they can speed up the time it takes for drugs to come on to the market by removing some of the unnecessary safety checks and regulations.

It can take at least ten years for drugs to be offered to patients after they are first developed – but politicians believe this could be slashed to two or three.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt who also attended this week’s summit, said: ‘The amount going into research is too little … We would like a cure to be available by 2025. It’s a big, big ambition to have. If we don’t aim for the stars we won’t land on the moon.’

Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘The UK has demonstrated global leadership on tackling dementia.’

He added: ‘We have committed to a global plan, better support for people with dementia through research, and the Prime Minister has agreed to narrow the funding gap between dementia and cancer research – something we have long campaigned for… Dementia has come out of the shadows and is centre stage, but we must ensure G8 has a lasting legacy.’

Dementia is a progressive disease, meaning that symptoms cannot be reversed. Symptoms include loss of memory, mood changes, and trouble communicating. The most common types of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

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Britain, Energy, Environment, Government, Politics, Society

Concern over energy firms refusing to pass on price cuts…

ENERGY BILLS

Intro: Millions of energy consumers on fixed deals will lose out

Millions of energy consumers with fixed price energy tariffs will not get a £50 reduction in utility bills as promised by David Cameron and George Osborne. A pledge was given this week in the Autumn Statement that electricity bills would be cut following the decision by the government to roll back some green levies.

The energy giant E.ON has announced that more than one million of its customers will get a reduction of only £12 – or 23p a week.

EDF is taking the same line with its one million fixed rate customers, who include many pensioners and families. Npower, SSE and Scottish Power may follow suit.

The Prime Minister, Chancellor George Osborne and Energy Secretary Ed Davey have made repeated pledges in their efforts to protect customers by rolling back environmental charges.

Mr Osborne said this week: ‘There’s going to be an average of £50 off people’s bills … We are absolutely insistent that this is going to be brought in.’

The smaller reduction of £12 covers the Government’s decision to switch funding of the Warm Homes Discount – a subsidy for poorer families – from energy bills to general taxation. The rest of the decrease was expected to come from changes to the Energy Companies’ Obligation Scheme, a levy applied to all bills to raise money for energy-saving measures for poorer households.

However, the element of the reduction is not being passed on to customers on fixed tariff deals by some companies.

In contrast, British Gas, the largest of the ‘big six’ suppliers, announced that all tariffs and payment methods will get a reduction of £53 from January 1.

A spokesperson for Consumer Futures, a campaign group, said: ‘The message has been that people were going to save £50 on their energy bill, but it seems a fair chunk of people will not get that. This sort of behaviour is not going to do anything to reassure customers … People feel confused and angry about their energy bills. This latest development just adds insult to injury.’

The spokesperson added: ‘I think in the current climate, bearing in mind how people are struggling, the right thing to do would be to apply the full reduction across the board. That is the expectation that the Government has created.’

Following the Autumn Statement, E.ON immediately announced a price rise of almost £60 a year for customers on standard tariffs. The changes will take effect from January 18.

The provider says that cutting the bills of fixed price customers by only £12 was justified because many of these people were already on relatively good price deals and tariffs.

EDF took a similar line and said its short-term fixed deal is some £90 a year cheaper than its new standard prices.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society

Analysis of the Autumn Statement…

AUTUMN STATEMENT

A highly charged political autumn statement delivered by the Chancellor, George Osborne, has set a trap for Labour by challenging the party to sign up to a new set of tough fiscal rules that would mean billions of pounds of new spending cuts after the 2015 general election.

Mr Osborne announced that Parliament will vote on a new ‘charter for budget responsibility’ before the election. This would set the terms of the election battle but would give maximum advantage to the Conservatives, who seem certain to pledge the running of a budget surplus once the annual deficit has been removed in 2018-19.

The Chancellor’s plans for a ‘responsible recovery for all’, however, have been dealt a blow when the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned that house prices are expected to jump by 3.2 per cent this year, 5.2 per cent next year and 7.2 per cent in 2015. This implies that the OBR expects homes to cost 10 per cent more by 2018 than it previously predicted. Labour said that brought into question the merits of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme which guarantees 95 per cent mortgages, but which critics claim could inflate another housing bubble. Labour has warned that home-buyers would be ‘back to square one’ if prices rose sharply and they were unable to get a mortgage. But Mr Osborne said the OBR’s new forecasts still left house prices 3.1 per cent lower than their 2007 peak.

The statement contained few surprises, with the Chancellor confirming limited ‘giveaways’, including a tax break for married couples, free school meals for all five- to seven-year-olds and the scrapping of a 2p rise in fuel duty due next September.

Trumpeting higher than expected growth and lower borrowing forecasts, the Chancellor said: ‘Britain’s economic plan is working. But the job is not done. We need to secure the economy for the long term.’

Mr Osborne’s statement, seen more or less as an election gambit, creates a huge dilemma for Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, who was drowned out by Tory MPs on the backbenches when he responded to it. Whilst Labour has pledged to stick to the Coalition’s day-to-day spending plans for the first year after the election the party does intend to borrow more to fund building projects such as a huge housing programme.

Charges of irresponsibility could be made by the Tories if Labour does not vote for the new charter. And whilst Labour will invariably try to find a different approach, allies of the Labour leader fear the public may stick with the Tories if Labour appears to promise more of the same austerity.

For his part, Mr Balls has vowed that Labour would not be deflected from fighting the election on the ‘cost of living’ crisis. The Shadow Chancellor said that recent statistics published showed that working people in 2015 would be £1,700 worse off on average than they were when David Cameron became Prime Minister, up from the previous estimate of £1,600. He also said that wages would fall by 5.8 per cent over the five-year term of this parliament. In its election campaign, Labour seems certain to accuse the Tories of being ‘out of touch’ and failing to understand the huge problems that ordinary people face because wages have lagged behind inflation.

The Liberal Democrats will be anxious to avoid a commitment to yet more Tory cuts. Though Nick Clegg has signed up to the idea of a new ‘fiscal framework’ which uses budget surpluses in good years to bring down debt, he seems certain to part company with the Tories by insisting that the deficit should be cleared partly by higher taxes (such as a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2m) rather than solely through spending cuts as the Tories propose.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary’ said: ‘The Liberal Democrats are an independent party. We will go into the election with our own identity, equidistant from the other two parties and with a completely different set of policies. We will not be locked into a Tory agenda.’

Mr Osborne also set out plans to impose a cap on welfare spending. Cyclical benefits for those seeking work, part of the housing benefit budget and the basic state pension will be exempt. The move could open the door for pensioners’ perks such as winter fuel allowances, free bus travel and TV licences to be pared back.

The squeeze on public sector pay will continue, with annual rises limited to 1 per cent. But in a scheme to be trialled, some government organisations will be given the freedom to make the trade-off between pay and jobs.

AUTUMN STATEMENT – MAIN POINTS:

Pensions – People in their 40s get state pension at 68. People in 30s at 69

Growth – 2013: 1.4% (up from 0.6%); 2014: 2.4%

Cuts – Extra £1bn from government departments each year until 2017

Borrowing – 2014-15: £96bn, 2015-16: £79bn, 2018-19: £2bn surplus

 

Economic growth – Growth forecast for this year increased from 0.6% to 1.4%, revised up for next year from 1.8% to 2.4%, but then down slightly for the following three years to 2.2%, 2.6%, and 2.7%.

Revised figures from the Office for National Statistics show that UK GDP declined by 7.2% in 2008-09, not 6.3% as previously thought, equivalent in value to £112bn.

Government Borrowing – The UK’s “underlying” deficit – a measure that excludes the acquisition of the Royal Mail pension scheme and the effects of quantitative easing – has been revised down by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to 6.8% this year, and to 5.6% next year.

It is then expected to fall to 4.4%, 2.7% and 1.2% in the subsequent financial years.

The OBR predicts there will be a small cash surplus in 2018-19.

Borrowing is expected to come in at £111bn for this year, falling in 2014-15 to £96bn, then down to £79bn in 2015-16, £51bn the year after and £23bn the year after that.

Public debt this year is due to total 75.5% of GDP – £18bn lower than forecast in March – rising to 78.3% next year, before peaking at 80% the next year. By 2017-18, debt is expected to be more than £80bn lower than forecast in March.

Departmental budgets will be cut by about £1bn next year and the year after.

Benefits and Pensions – The state pension age is to increase to 68 in the mid-2030s and to 69 in the late 2040s. In April 2014, the state pension will rise by £2.95 a week.

Overall welfare spending is to be capped.

Anyone aged 18 to 21 claiming benefits without basic English or Maths will be required to undertake training from day one or lose their entitlement. People unemployed for more than six months to be forced to start a traineeship, take work experience or do a community work placement or lose benefits.

Taxes and Allowances – From April 2015, capital gains tax will be imposed on future gains made by non-residents who sell residential property in the UK.

From 1 January 2014, the rate of the bank levy will rise to 0.156%, and is estimated to raise £2.7bn in 2014-15 and £2.9bn each year from 2015-16.

Employer National Insurance contributions are to be scrapped on 1.5 million jobs for young people.

Stamp duty on shares purchased in exchange traded funds is to be abolished.

The personal income tax allowance will rise to £10,000 from April 2014, and then increase from 2015-16 by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation.

A married couples and civil partners tax break, which is set to cost about £700m a year, is proposed to start in April 2015, enabling people to transfer £1,000 of their income tax allowance to their partners.

Business rates in England to be capped at 2% rather than linked to RPI inflation, with some retail premises in England to get a discount. Businesses moving into vacant high-street properties will have their rates cut by 50%.

From April, a new tax relief is to be introduced for investment in social enterprises and new social impact bonds.

Jobs and Training – The number of people claiming unemployment benefits is down 200,000, with unemployment now forecast to fall from 7.6% this year to 7% in 2015. Unemployment is then expected to fall further to 5.6% by 2018.

Total number of jobs to rise by 400,000 this year and 3.1 million jobs predicted to be created by 2019.

A boost in the government’s start-up loans scheme will aim to help 50,000 more people start their own businesses.

Export finance capacity available to support British businesses will be doubled to £50bn.

Transport – Petrol taxes stay frozen – a planned rise of 2p per litre for next year is to be scrapped.

Regulated train fares will rise in line with inflation, not at 1% above RPI as planned.

The tax disc to show motorists have paid vehicle excise duty is to be replaced with an electronic system.

Education and Families – An extra 30,000 places at English universities will be created in 2014-15. The following year, the current cap on student numbers will be abolished entirely.

Science, technology and engineering courses will receive increased funding, and a new science centre in Edinburgh University is to be named after Prof Peter Higgs, the discoverer of the Higgs boson particle.

The proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to university is up.

An additional 20,000 apprenticeships are to be funded over the next two years.

All pupils at state schools in England in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are to get free school lunches from next September, at an estimated cost of £600m a year.

Housing – The government hopes £1bn in loans will boost housing developments in Manchester and Leeds, among other sites.

The housing revenue account’s borrowing limit is to rise by £300m.

Councils are to sell off the most expensive social housing and rundown urban housing estates to be regenerated, and workers who live in council houses are to be given priority on housing lists if they need to move home to find a job.

Infrastructure – Tax allowances aiming to encourage investment in shale gas to cut tax on early profits by 50%.

More investment in “quantum technology”, which involves attempting to apply the strange behaviour of materials on a tiny scale to practical purposes, is promised.

Overseas Aid – The government’s pledge to spend 0.7% of gross national income on international development is to be met without an increase to the current aid budget.

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