Have you been affected by the cyberattack on the NHS?

The IT systems of NHS sites across England have been hit by a large-scale cyber-attack with a pop-up message demanding a ransom in exchange for access to the PCs. Hospitals across the country have staff who have been locked out of their computers and many trusts have been forced to divert emergency patients, the NHS has confirmed.

Details of patient records and appointment schedules, as well as internal phone lines and emails, have all been rendered inaccessible.

Share your experiences

Have you been affected by the cyber-attack? Perhaps you are in A&E awaiting to be treated, or are due to have an appointment with your GP. Whether you are a patient or NHS staff, you can share your experiences by filling in the form below, anonymously if you wish. We’d also like to hear from those working in the NHS.

We’ll feature some of your responses in our reporting.

Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions.

Have you been affected by the cyberattack on the NHS?

We’ve been labelled ‘anti-sex difference’ for demanding greater scientific rigour | Cordelia Fine and Rebecca Jordan-Young

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Our criticism of gender research has been portrayed as dogmatic feminism – thankfully the scientific community has looked beyond the headlines

At a time when both science and feminism are under attack, there are welcome signs that neuroscience is showing new openness to critiques of research into sex differences. Mainstream journals increasingly publish studies that reveal how misleading assumptions about the sexes bias the framing of hypotheses, research design and interpretation of findings – and these critiques increasingly come with constructive recommendations, discussions and debates.

For example, we, together with other colleagues, made recommendations in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience on best practice in sex/gender neuroscience. Some of the errors and traps we identified included human neuroimaging studies with small sample sizes, and the common “snapshot” approach, which interprets neural associations with sex as a matter of timeless and universal male and female essences, without taking seriously the fact that biological associations might as easily be the effect of social differences as the cause of them.

These charges [against us] would only make sense in a world without shades of grey

Related: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus? New brain study says not

Continue reading…

We’ve been labelled ‘anti-sex difference’ for demanding greater scientific rigour | Cordelia Fine and Rebecca Jordan-Young

Experiences of eating disorders: "I"ve been to many dark places"

Anonymous, 22
The first time I was depressed, I was 12 and I didn’t know I was ill. I didn’t even know what depression was. After a family feud and several years of being a victim of bullying, I didn’t want to live any more. I remember standing on my balcony, hands on the railing, and thinking: “Should I jump?” I thought that I was a coward, because I was afraid of dying more than I hated living. I began to self-harm, and my mental illness had the sting of a pair of scissors cutting into my skin.

I was 16 when I decided to lose weight, so the boys and the girls wouldn’t laugh any more, and perhaps, just perhaps, someone, one day, would even desire to touch me. Three years later, I was sitting on the toilet bleeding because I had taken too many laxatives, and my mental illness was as red as blood.

At 19, I gained all the weight back and along with it came anxiety and depression and the sense of failure. I had moved in London, away from my family, to study and build a new life. So why wasn’t I happy? Why had the balcony turned into a tube platform and I was wondering again: “Should I jump?”

I lost the weight again at 21, and by 22 things were OK (in a precarious, risky balance). I decided that I needed help before things got worse again. Now, once a week, I meet with a therapist, thanks to the NHS, and she asks me how my week was, and I am as honest as I can be.

I was as pretty

As a flower

Yours to pick

And then left to wither

Now

I want to be as free as the wind

As tall as a mountain

As fierce as a lion

And beautiful

Like the stars

That keep shining

After they’re long gone.

Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart, 23, Hamilton, Scotland, master’s student

Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart: ‘I will always have multiple conflicting sides to myself but I’ve found ways to bring them together more now.’ Photograph: Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart

This photo is called Alone Together, and represents the duality of my identity. I’m a recovered sufferer of an eating disorder, an abuse survivor and I was hospitalised twice before the age of 15 with depression caused by the social effects of Asperger syndrome. I have everything from attention deficit disorder to anxiety and I’m chronically ill with a connective tissue disease. And yet I’m mentally better than I’ve ever been and have found my place at university, but to get there I’ve been to many dark places.

I had two selves, like in this image – the real one that was disgusting, pathetic and deserved to be dead and mistreated, and one that others saw that was normal and good. I will always have multiple conflicting sides to myself, but I’ve found ways to bring them together more now. Recovery is possible. I’m proof.

Anonymous, 29
I have suffered with anorexia nervosa since I was 12 and have been in and out of several inpatient units. As an adult, having been a service user for the past seven years, I have seen a rapid decline in the quality of services available, not just for eating disorders, but across the whole of mental health.

NHS cuts have led to decreased beds being available for desperately ill patients, resulting in more strain on community services. Working hours and staff shortages have also put a huge strain on nurses in this field, resulting in reduced quality of patient care.

Treatment in all areas of the NHS, but particularly mental health, is being severely compromised. I am currently a patient at a hospital in south London, on the eating disorders unit. Staff shortages, lack of trained nurses and increasing demands on the few nurses on the ward, are seriously jeopardising patient care. In some cases patients are being left to deteriorate to such extremes that they have required nasogastric feeding to save their lives.

Suz Hemming, Aylesbury

Suz Hemming: ‘It took six years of my life just to get past the shape and size of the thing I have that keeps me alive – my body.’ Photograph: Suz Hemming

This photo is representative of my battle with mental illness, which I have lived with from a young age. I have borderline personality disorder, that frequently leaves me with this overwhelming sense of identity diffusion and a profound confusion and disparity between my image and my body; my thoughts and who I am. This photo creates a way of capturing who I might be in the one moment, because my rapid mood fluctuations and unstable sense of self often leave me with this idea of my life as a string of photos, disconnected from one another, with no narrative or person a its core. Its black-and-white presentation symbolises the black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking style that is the cornerstone of my illness. It’s what keeps me stuck, what keeps me searching in the mirror for an answer to the question: “Can I be just one person, a whole, not fractured with flashbacks from my past?”

Also, being in stable recovery from anorexia, the photo asks what is it in a piece of glass that has so much power? Not just over me but over you too. It took six years of my life just to get past the shape and size of the thing I have that keeps me alive – my body. This photo asks me who and what is real. Is it me? Is it her? Is it her image? Or mine? And whether any of those things can be the same as each other – each a part of a bigger part, of a much bigger picture of my journey towards living a life in a “working recovery” from acute mental illness.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

Experiences of eating disorders: "I"ve been to many dark places"

College Student with Severe Allergy Allegedly Hazed with Peanut Butter: "He Could Have Been Killed"

This article originally appeared on People.com. 

Central Michigan University is investigating an allegation that a student with a severe peanut allergy was covered with peanut butter while passed out during a hazing incident at the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity last fall, the school’s spokeswoman confirmed to PEOPLE.

Heather Smith said alleged victim Andrew Seely spent the fall 2016 semester as a student at the university.

“We take these types of things very seriously,” Smith tells PEOPLE. “So the CMU Police Department and CMU’s Office of Student Conduct responded immediately and started looking into it. The alleged incident would have taken place off-campus, so we involved the Mt. Pleasant Police Department because that would have been their jurisdiction. To my knowledge, there still has not been a police report filed with them, but it’s a potentially criminal matter.”

Mt. Pleasant Police Department spokesman Jeff Brown tells PEOPLE that, as of mid-day Thursday, they “do not have any open investigations into this information that’s been put out on social media, and we have not had any complaints filed.”

On Facebook on Tuesday, Seely’s mother — Teresa Seely — posted a photo of her son’s face that was allegedly taken after the incident.

She wrote, “Last night, we found out that our son was a victim of a hazing incident at Alpha Chi Rho Fraternity at Central Michigan University in the fall. This is a picture of what they did to him. He has a deadly peanut allergy and they rubbed peanut butter on his face while he was passed out.”

She said that “he could have been killed,” saying he was treated at the campus health clinic and “luckily he is still alive.” She also said that Seely carries Benadryl tablets and an Epi-pen at all times, adding that she had notified the school as well as campus and local police.

A spokesman for Central Michigan University’s Campus Police tells PEOPLE they are aware of the allegations but will not be conducting an investigation because the site of the alleged incident was off-campus.

RELATED:  6 Surprising New Places Nuts Are Hiding

Both Smith and the campus police confirmed that the school spoke with the student’s mother on Wednesday and informed her of next steps.

“The university — both campus police and the administration — reached out to the involved parent, and she has been directed on how to make a formal complaint and report with both the university and the Mt. Pleasant Police Department,” the campus police spokesman says.

The spokesman says the campus police and university were originally alerted to the alleged incident because of the Facebook post.

Theresa further spoke to the Detroit Free Press, explaining that her son has since transferred from Central Michigan University. She said that although the alleged incident happened in October, he only revealed it to them this week.

“We thought we were sending our child off to school in a safe environment, and obviously that wasn’t the case,”she told the paper. “He could have died from this. He has a deadly peanut allergy.”

Smith tells PEOPLE that Alpha Chi Rho has not been a recognized fraternity at Central Michigan University since 2011, when they were removed for hazing. She added that they appealed the decision last year, but were denied.

RELATED:  Peanut Allergy Treatment: The Earlier in Childhood, the Better

She says that, pending the conduction of and results from a police investigation, any CMU students involved would potentially be subject to conduct charges.

Alpha Chi Rho National Fraternity did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.

Teresa Seely also did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the family’s attorney, Dan Damman, says the Seelys “want to bring awareness to the fact that this could still be happening on college campuses.”

The family wants to “bring awareness to parents to spark a conversation with their kids who are away at college and really bring to light through universities that this is still something that is a problem,” Damman says.

He tells PEOPLE, “This young man really put his trust and his faith into these people that were supposed to be his friends.”

College Student with Severe Allergy Allegedly Hazed with Peanut Butter: "He Could Have Been Killed"

Have you been affected by NHS hospital closures and cuts to services?

There’s no more controversial decision the NHS makes than removing services from hospitals, or even closing them. To investigate the causes and consequences of that kind of change, on Friday the Guardian is spending the day at the Royal Brompton hospital, where NHS England has said that, subject to public consultation, it will stop paying for congenital heart disease services.

The hospital and its supporters say that it makes no sense to close the service, which it describes as among the best in the country. But advocates of the change say that concentrating services in fewer locations makes for better care, and that the Royal Brompton doesn’t meet agreed standards.

The Royal Brompton isn’t the only hospital affected. Newcastle, Manchester and Glenfield hospital in Leicester are facing the same proposals. More generally, NHS England’s sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) are likely to mean the closure of 19 hospitals, including five major acute hospitals. Some experts say that this is an essential part of moving the fulcrum of the NHS from hospitals to a new set of community services integrated with social care – a move they say is vital for the health of patients and the NHS alike. But others say it’s just cover for swingeing cuts.

As part of our coverage on Friday, we want to hear from our readers. Is your hospital being affected? What are your concerns? Can you understand the rationale behind the plans? Do you think you or your child could have received better care, or do you worry about the loss of local services? If you work at a hospital, are you worried about the plans, or do you believe they will raise the standard of care?

Share your stories and concerns.

Have you been affected by NHS hospital closures and cuts to services?

Why the need for empathetic citizens has never been greater

We are in the midst of an empathy deficit, according to Peter Bazalgette in his latest book, The Empathy Instinct. He believes focusing on empathy can contribute to ‘kinder health and social care, and more effective criminal justice’.

Neuroscientific findings shows that empathy works in more complex and subtle ways and has particular relevance to arts and culture. Studies conducted at UCL a decade ago provided some interesting evidence about how your perceptions and enjoyment of an activity change, depending on whether or not you’ve tried it yourself. Using ballet dancers as subjects, we compared the brain activity when you’re watching a movement you have performed yourself with one that you’ve seen many times but can’t do. It turns out that you use the parts of your brain that control movement to help you see.

This means that we need audiences that have experience of doing as well as seeing, thus grass-roots participation in the arts is essential. The need for ‘empathetic citizens’, as Bazalgette calls them, has never been greater.

Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London

Listen to this week’s podcast at theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/neuroscientist-explains

Why the need for empathetic citizens has never been greater

7 Best Foods for People Who Have Been Diagnosed With Cancer

7 Best Foods for People Who Have Been Diagnosed With Cancer

Migraines Have Been Linked To Vitamin Deficiency

Migraines Have Been Linked To Vitamin Deficiency

If Dove expects women to cheer up, it hasn’t been paying attention | Harpreet Purewal

The “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty” has spent years telling women that we can all be beautiful regardless of our shape, size and colour. Like me, you may have been too busy trying to be a modern-woman-who-has-it-all to realise this, but luckily for us, the men at Unilever pointed it out. For their latest campaign the purveyors of patronising soap have paired up with a “behavioural investigator” (me neither) to tackle negativity online.

Not the daily harassment and threats that women face online, of course. But those negative pals in your life who are always moaning to you on social media. And it’s hard to see what there could be to moan about as a woman in 2016 – everything’s great, right? You see, Dove thinks your attitude stinks as much as your armpits.

Dove (@Dove)

If you know a girl who has been negative online—about herself or others—try this fun activity to spread positivity. #SpeakBeautiful pic.twitter.com/cEZZbCz4ye

October 18, 2016

It would be easy to think of Dove as the male colleague who periodically tells you that you could go far if only you looked a little more enthusiastic in meetings, but really what woman doesn’t look better when she smiles? So next time you notice a friend being negative online why not give her a reason to cheer up; it’s not that the news today is bad, it’s the way you’re choosing to interpret it. Just tell the negative Nellies in your life to peruse a few of the many reasons she has to be cheerful – and then unfriend away.

Wage gap

Never mind that the current gap stands at 9% which is equivalent to more than a month’s free work a year, new analysis by Deloitte says the wage gap will finally close in 2069, a full 99 years after the Equal Pay Act. This may feel like far away, but if you’re a woman in your 20s today you will definitely feel the benefit because you’ll still have rent to pay. Mark 2069 in your calendars now as the time when you’ll be able to hold your head up high in the knowledge that you now earn as much as Dave!

Sexual harassment

New research from the TUC shows that 52% of women and 63% of women aged 18-24 said they have experienced sexual harassment at work. Statistics are all about the interpretation; looking at it another way, 48% of women haven’t been sexually harassed at work – that’s almost one in two women. You go girl!

The US election

This year’s presidential election has amplified the voices of women. At the time of writing, 10 have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump. The Republican candidate himself was kind enough to share a platform with three women who have made accusations of rape and sexual harassment against Bill Clinton. Cynics might argue these women are being used as pawns but I genuinely can’t remember an American presidential election when we’ve heard from so many women. And that’s without even mentioning the likely next incumbent of the Oval Office, Hillary Clinton …

Health fears

A recent study of more than a million women demonstrated what many have suspected all along; the contraceptive pill is linked to depression. The study showed that women taking the combined pill were 23% more likely to be prescribed antidepressants and those taking the progestin-only pill were 34% more likely than those not on the pill. While this sounds like a bad news story, it’s really just another victory for women’s intuition.

Maternity services

In the UK, our lady prime minister, Theresa May, has endorsed plans to crack down on maternity tourism by introducing passport checks in maternity wards. This may mean that women in late stages of labour have to hold tight, turn around, head home and find their documents, but really it shows that our labour wards are popular international destinations like the ones you find in Condé Naste Traveller and in-flight magazines!

Superhero stance

The choice of Wonder Woman as a United Nations ambassador, has been met with shock and anger. Rather than bother to find a real woman to campaign for gender equality, the UN has chosen a comic book character owned by DC (who coincidentally will be coming to a cinema screen near you in 2017). More predictable choices may have been Muzoon Almellehan, a Syrian teenager who has worked to encourage other girls in refugee camps to continue with their education or perhaps model Alek Wek, whose work with Unicef and Doctors Without Borders has helped to raise awareness about the difficulties faced by people in Sudan..

But enough with the negatives, let’s ask another question: apart from an improbable waist to bust ratio, what does Wonder Woman have that a real woman doesn’t? In choosing a work of fiction, the UN has managed to avoid any problems they might have incurred with a real woman with a body and mind. The transport, food and accommodation budget for this ambassador will be slim and you don’t have to worry about her saying anything off-brand because between them, the UN and DC control every word she says. There’s simply none of the difficulty or fuss of working with a real-life woman. If anything, this is a woman that refuses to be held back by her status as a work of fiction, and how many men can you say that about?

If Dove expects women to cheer up, it hasn’t been paying attention | Harpreet Purewal

Clive James: ‘I am continually reminded of what a misery guts I have been’

Nothing makes me feel decrepit and obsolete quite as much as when friends of my children make television programmes. That used to be my business, but now it’s theirs. Simon Finch, a friend of our family since for ever, has just done a documentary called The Good Terrorist, which is one of the best summaries I have seen about what took so long to happen in South Africa. It deals with the trial and execution of the only white man who managed to convince himself that planting a bomb in a Johannesburg station would be a dramatic blow against the oppressive white government. Finch argues the rights and wrongs with great subtlety for someone I first met when he had only recently graduated. At the same age, I myself had rarely demonstrated any subtlety at all.

On a similar time scale, my elder daughter was at university with the brilliant Sally Phillips, who later became one of the all-star cast of Smack The Pony, a show I watched in awe of its precocious maturity and accomplishment. Just lately, she wrote and narrated a documentary about the possibility that we are on the verge of eliminating Down’s syndrome. One of her children has that condition, and radiates so much happiness and sanity that I was continually reminded of what a misery guts I have been at various times of my life. I’m surprised I’m not more of wet weekend now, when I can hear the clock ticking all night: but it would be churlish to complain, and anyway there is too much to do.

Just keeping up with the very much younger set would be enough to keep me busy. Recently, my granddaughter’s 11th birthday was celebrated at a sedate tea party: all adults except for her, and some of us of advanced age. I must say she behaved with the cool poise of Grace Kelly turning 21. But is cool poise what we want from someone who makes it so clear that she prefers to spend most of her time turning cartwheels? Happily, elsewhere and on another occasion, with all present no older than she, mayhem took place. The whole thing would have been high on the Richter scale. Luckily, I wasn’t there, and in times to come I’ll be there even less. “They crowd us from the world,” said Pushkin about children.

Not that Pushkin was ever a model of precocious sanity. He should never have fought that duel with one of the biggest idiots in Europe, who spent the rest of his worthless life boasting about how he had killed the great poet. Duelling was childish, like having too much party and running around shouting. Adults learn better, given time.

Clive James: ‘I am continually reminded of what a misery guts I have been’

It’s never been easy being a teenager. But is this now a generation in crisis?

Mollycoddled and cosseted or stressed and over-pressured. Energised and engaged or bored and turned off. Young people have so many labels and stereotypes slapped on them it’s a wonder these are not visible on their endless selfies. What is undeniably true is that the evidence suggests that rates of depression, self-harm and anxiety among young people are at unprecedented levels.

Youth unemployment is more than 13%, the cost of higher education is rapidly rising, a drought of affordable housing coupled with low pay is keeping many young people sealed under the parental roof and trapped in what one report called “suspended adulthood”. The ubiquity of the internet and social media, with its dark underbelly of hardcore pornography, body shaming and cyberbullying, is encroaching on their wellbeing, while a relentless focus on academic high-achieving is turning up the pressure in the classroom. Youth, traditionally thought of as the most enviable time of life, can now look like a deeply challenging and sometimes unpleasant time of life.

But is the experience of adolescence – defined as the period after childhood, from puberty to maturity – any tougher now than it was for previous generations? And when does it stop, given that some experts argue that full intellectual maturity is reached at the age of 27.

Among the events planned for World Mental Health Day, an exhibition by a small but successful charity in London aims to unpick some of the issues around the “lived experience of adolescent development”. Open Door has helped thousands of young people with therapy and support with problems including depression, anxiety, self-harm, drug and alcohol misuse, eating disorders, psychosis, sexuality and gender identity issues since it opened in 1976.

The exhibition, Adolescence Then and Now, marks the charity’s 40th anniversary, and director Julia Britton, one of the capital’s leading consultant child and adolescent psychotherapists, says demand for its services is greater than ever. “We are operating with a constant waiting list of around 100, we can’t even meet local demand. Parts of the country have nothing at all for young people with mental illness. The lack of provision is a huge issue for now, and a huge issue being stored up for the future.”

She says many of the issues facing young people have not changed. “I look at myself as a teenager in the 1970s and so many issues were around: teen pregnancies, drug and alcohol misuse, psychotic breakdowns, financial and identity pressures. But there are many differences, too. The context certainly is different. I think there are far more pressures educationally, more sense that it’s all hinged on one exam, and certainly teachers are hugely concerned about the mental distress they are seeing. Then there’s cyberbullying where you can’t switch off and you can’t get away. Pornography, a normal part of development, is now very far removed from Playboy. A lot of young people are disturbed by what they see online.

“The internet is both helpful and not. If young people type in ‘self-harm’, they can either go to a Young Minds website where they will be offered help and support, or to a destructive group which is discussing how to self-harm and hide eating disorders. So it’s good and bad,” she says.

The sense of a struggling generation has undoubtedly taken on new dimensions. Last week a poll by the charity Young Women’s Trust found that “suspended adulthood” was affecting the mental health of one in three 18-to-30-year-olds who felt worried about the future and under financial pressures due to low pay and lack of work or opportunities. More than half of the 4,000 surveyed were having to live at home with their parents.

“Make no mistake,”says Dr Carole Easton, chief executive of the charity, “we’re talking about a generation of young people in crisis. It is not in any of our interests to write off an entire generation.”

Abena is 18. A former mental health service user at Open Door, she interviewed artist Grayson Perry in a video project for the coming exhibition. They discussed the contrasts in their teenage experiences. He told her: “My family was quite screwed up, it was quite a volatile household and quite scary.” In 1976 Perry was 16 and had already been thrown out of his home by his stepmother over his transvestism: “When I was that age you hung out on the village green and got bored with others. I had low impulse control, I was incredibly angry until I went into therapy.”

What most struck Abena, she says, was that, while his cross-dressing was a major taboo and so a pressure point for him as a teenager, “he doesn’t remember having any issues over his body image at all. He doesn’t remember having a conversation about body image. But he remembers trying to keep his dressing-up from his parents and how everybody thought transvestism was very strange and taboo. That identity didn’t exist.

“Now I think that would be far more acceptable and people would be quite relaxed about that. But I feel like there are very real pressures around body image now that he didn’t have. Having social media now, it’s real pressure around how you look, making sure every picture is perfect,” she says.

“So the pressure he had then isn’t what we have now, but we have other ones. And it all depends on where you go in the world. I’m a black woman, but that would be a very different issue if I was living in America, for example. As a young person now I don’t drink very much, but I’m going to university where there is a real culture of drinking heavily and I find that really daunting. I’ll be in a minority, and being in a minority can be very uncomfortable,” says Abena. “I don’t think I’d have gotten through my bad times, to be honest, if I hadn’t been able to access Open Door. I don’t know how I’d have coped on my own. All the worries I had which felt too big to say to teachers or even my family, I was able to say there. It felt like home.”

Leigh Wildman, a therapist and support worker for young people with special needs, is 54. “I often wonder about whether I’d be on computer games if I’d been a teenager now instead of climbing trees, kicking a tin can down the road and making camps as we did then. Then later on there was music, of course, counter-culture music and art which rescued me. I left school at 15, but in those days you could go round the industrial estate and get a job and I did lots of jobs before taking off hitchhiking round Europe when I was 18,” she says.

“My mum was pleased, but I feel young people today are much more fearful. They stay at school longer, at home longer, and the world looks very daunting. They have to knuckle down at school and there’s no space to be light-hearted or to drift a little, to find out who they are, what kind of people they like. I had time for that, and I’m very glad I did,” adds Wildman.

Another teenager, a client at Open Door, is Elena, 17. She says all her friends at school suffer panic attacks and anxiety: “If you drop grades a bit, you feel a failure, you feel the teachers immediately ignore you for the people who are high achievers.

“It’s like you have to be this robot. I think it’s harder now in terms of all the pressures to look a certain way and keep up with everything, and I think it’s harder in terms of trying to speak to your parents or people at school who are not trained because when they were growing up mental health was not something anyone spoke about.”

And she adds: “ I’d cry in the classroom a lot at school, but teachers would just be a bit uncomfortable and you’d not want to open up. I’d just say I was having a bad day. I feel a lot more hope for the future now than I used to. I never used to think there was a future for me.”

CHANGING TIMES

Television

1976 Around 93% of homes own a television. 2016 Young people spend more time online than watching TV.

Pop scandals

1976: Sex Pistols prompt a media storm by swearing live on Bill Grundy’s TV show.

2016 Kanye West faces a backlash after calling Taylor Swift a bitch in a song lyric.

University

1976 Around 14% of people go to university. 2016 Around 40% of England’s school-leavers go to university.

Youth unemployment

1976 9.1% of UK men and 8% of UK females aged under 20 are out of work. 2016 13.6% of UK 16-24-year-olds are unemployed.

It’s never been easy being a teenager. But is this now a generation in crisis?

I’ve been having an affair for 10 years – what will I do when it ends?

I’ve been having sex regularly with a married man for about 10 years. The sex is amazing, which is why we’ve continued for so long. We are intellectually matched and get on very well, but neither of us want the relationship to be anything more than it is. I feel lucky to have what I have with him. I am independent and very happy not to be in a “normal” relationship. I work overseas a lot and having him to satisfy me when I am back is perfect. I am very content with all aspects of my life.

However, I know that the relationship will come to a natural conclusion at some point. As that time gets closer (we don’t have a fixed date, but we are not getting any younger), I wonder how I will feel. Yes, I will be immensely sad to have lost a special, intimate relationship but I am not sure if I will suddenly want to share my life with someone full-time. If I do, how will I go about finding that next someone? I will have such high expectations that I wonder if I will ever find another man who can make me feel satisfied – both sexually and emotionally. I don’t want what I have to stop, but I know that is not possible. There must be others, both the single lover and the married one, who have had a similar experience.

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I’ve been having an affair for 10 years – what will I do when it ends?

Social care crisis: have you or your family been affected?

Elderly people are being hit hard by cuts to social care, according to a new report, which also warns that an increasing number of care homes are going bust.

The study, from the King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust, found that the care and support older people received depended on where they lived and how rich they were rather than their level of need.

If you or your family members have been affected by the cuts, we want to hear from you. Have services been withdrawn in your area? With the report warning that unpaid carers are increasingly expected to contribute to the care of elderly and disabled people, is this a situation you have found yourself in? Has your quality of life been affected?

Whatever your situation, you can share your experiences via our form. We’ll feature a selection of your stories in our ongoing coverage.

Social care crisis: have you or your family been affected?

Has your life been changed by organ donation? Share your stories

On average three people die a day in need of a transplant, highlighting a shortage of people willing to donate their organs.

Despite a rise in organ donation in Wales due to their “deemed consent” system, where residents are presumed to have consented to organ donation unless they positively opt out, there is still a shortfall of donors from black or Asian communities.

Last year, 466 patients died in need of an organ and a further 881 were removed from the transplant waiting list, many whom would also have died shortly afterwards.

NHS Blood and Transplant estimates that if 80% of families approached to donate a relative’s organs said yes, more than 1,000 additional transplants would take place across the UK each year.

If your life has been changed by organ donation we’d like to hear from you. Whether you’re a donor, someone who has had a transplant, or a friend or family of either, share your stories with us. What did the experience mean for you? Why do you think organ donation is so important? Perhaps you’re medical staff and work on donation and transplant procedures.

You can share your experiences with us (anonymously if you wish) by filling in the form below. We’ll include some of your responses in our reporting.

Has your life been changed by organ donation? Share your stories

Female Viagra? Almost everything You Wanted to Know About Sex Drug Flibanserin But Have been Afraid To Request

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Female Viagra? Every thing You Wanted to Know About Flibanserin But Had been Afraid To Inquire I&rsquom a 37-yr-old married female with two small young children, a total-time work, and not enough hours in the day. Putting my occupation as a journalist aside, you&rsquore darn straight I have a lot of queries about the [...]

Female Viagra? Almost everything You Wanted to Know About Sex Drug Flibanserin But Have been Afraid To Request

If I had been queen for a day, this would be a month of genuine foods, not detoxers’ nauseous green slime | Christie Watson

I would ban juicing in January. Absolutely. Prison for all juicers. For any person skulking about Holland &amp Barrett looking for spirulina or chia seed or stevia or aloe vera anything that appears like it may well be excreted from a snail. In truth: no detoxing whatsoever. On New Year’s Eve Gwyneth Paltrow would be escorted to a safe location, to resurface only in February.

I would also force the meals organizations to publish warnings on practically every thing: packets and jars and tins: “Invisible sugar in this foods is addictive and will make you body fat and sick”. Or: “You may as effectively give your little one a cigarette as feed them this, because the extended-term well being consequences are as severe”. And extra hormones in meat and milk would be outlawed. We have ample super-size young children hitting puberty at the age of eight previously.

In each and every store there would be a greater assortment of fresh, unadulterated, reasonably priced foods and drink to outweigh their additive-ridden, vitamin-deficient counterparts stuffed with secret sugar. With actual meals filling our supermarkets, and fake meals labelled accordingly, we wouldn’t want extreme food obsessions in January.

My flirtation with juicing started on 1 January 2014. “If it seems to be like Angel the hamster would consume or drink it, then it is healthier. It’s excellent for your insides,” I informed my suspicious children, handing every a glass of green slime. For three tiny servings, the juicer had devoured twenty quid’s worth of natural greens, but I was established to ply the little ones with micro-nutrients. And then I tasted it myself. I felt dangerously nauseous, my young children hated me, and I was miserable.

The outlawing of detoxing would make certain no more: one) individuals feeling dizzy, unable to focus or drive two) working to the toilet with diarrhoea, a consequence of the three cucumbers, the pack of spinach, and the 17 sticks of celery it will take to make each and every shot three) generating daily journeys to foodie Borough Marketplace for huge quantities of veggies four) taking painkillers for the headaches and abdomen cramps this diet program causes and five) even thinking about juicing raw kale, which tastes so rank I can get rid of bodyweight now just remembering it.

“Instead of all this weird overall health juice,” my 10-12 months-previous asked, “can you make it your new year’s resolution up coming year to have enjoyable? Obtaining enjoyable is a lot far better for your insides.” A clever lady, my daughter. The variety of smart courtier a queen would want all around.

If I had been queen for a day, this would be a month of genuine foods, not detoxers’ nauseous green slime | Christie Watson

Woman believed to have been cured of HIV has relapsed

Most HIV-contaminated mothers in the US get Aids medicines during pregnancy, which significantly cuts the probabilities they will pass the virus to their babies. The Mississippi baby’s mother acquired no prenatal care and her HIV was discovered for the duration of labour. Simply because of the baby’s wonderful danger of infection, doctors began her on unusually strong treatment thirty hours after birth, even just before tests could establish no matter whether she was without a doubt contaminated.

The woman was treated right up until she was 18 months outdated, when medical professionals misplaced speak to with her. 10 months later when she returned, they could uncover no indicator of infection even although the mother had stopped giving her Aids medicines.

Tests repeatedly showed no detectable HIV right up until last week, when copies of the virus had been measured in her blood. Doctors say they don’t know why the virus rebounded when it did, and stated it raises profound questions about what they know about HIV’s hideouts in the physique.

In March, medical doctors exposed that a second child born with HIV might have had her infection put into remission by very early treatment method – in this situation, 4 hrs after her birth in suburban Los Angeles in April 2013. Practically a year later on, quite sophisticated tests at a number of instances recommended she had entirely cleared the virus, but she remains on remedy so there is no way to know for confident.

Only 1 other person is imagined to have been cured of HIV infection – a San Francisco man who had a bone-marrow transplant in 2007 from a donor with all-natural resistance to HIV. He showed no sign of infection far more than 5 years later on.

Edited by Steve Wilson

Woman believed to have been cured of HIV has relapsed

You"ve been diagnosed with an incurable disease. Now what?

“It took a handful of meetings, and she informed me of some good internet sites. The MS Society has been truly valuable. But the message is that you have to find stuff out for your self. It requires a extended time and some of the solutions are scary, but it is not as scary as not understanding, and you meet other folks via charities and chat rooms who are not just surviving with MS, but thriving and residing effectively.

“My list, which I guess would be equivalent for anybody with an incurable illness, was:

one. Why has this happened to me?

two. Why now?

3. Will it kill me?

four. How soon?

five. What exactly is going on in my brain?

six. Have I done anything at all to deliver it on myself?

7. Should I stop smoking?

eight. When will men and women be ready to tell that I am unwell?

9. Are there different sorts of a number of sclerosis?

ten. Which type of I received?

11. What stage of the ailment am I at?

12. Can I fully recover or have I got it for lifestyle?

13. Will I turn into disabled?

14. Are there any drugs that will reverse the disease or slow it down?

15. What do I do if I have a flare up?

sixteen. Will I nevertheless be capable to perform?

17. Do I have to inform my function?

18. What are my rights as an employee?

19. Can I drive?

twenty. Am I going to pass it onto my children?

21. Do other people in my family members require to have tests?

22. Will it make me impotent?

23. Will it make me infertile?

24. Can I have vaccinations?

25. Is it safe to have an anaesthetic?

26. Is there some type of diet program that might assist?

27. Must I have oxygen therapy?

28. Must I have vitamin D supplements?

29. Should I keep away from dental procedures?

30. Ought to I have my mercury fillings removed?

31. Is there anything at all I can do to avoid relapse?

32. Will I go blind?

33. Will I be confined to a wheelchair?

34. Will I be in a position to speak and swallow?

35. Will my muscle groups all stiffen up?

36. Will I be in severe ache?

37. Will I drop sensation?

38. Will I grow to be incontinent?

39. Will I need to have a catheter?

40. Exactly where will the income come from when I am ill?

41. Is there any monetary help offered now?

42. Will I be capable to seem right after my young children?

43. Will my wife depart me?

44. Will I get depressed?

45. Are you absolutely confident it is multiple sclerosis?

46. Why?

47. Could it be anything at all else?

48. Will I have a horrible death, confined to bed, entirely dependent, incontinent, unable to speak consume or swallow?

49. Will I get stress sores?

50. Shall I make a will?

51. Shall I make an sophisticated directive?

52. Must I give my wife electrical power of attorney or wait and see?

53. How close are we to cure?

54. Are there any trials of new medicines I could enter?

fifty five. If I start off looking for info on-line, will it just genuinely depress and frightened me?

56. Who can I believe in to solution all these queries truthfully, kindly and accurately?

“There is a massive amount to discover if you want to get on prime of an illness like MS, but if you stick at it, you can quickly know as a lot as your GP about some issues and even a lot more about others. There’s so considerably to consider on board that I didn’t even consider at first that I may not be getting the drugs I needed right up until my (wonderful) nurse said she imagined I ought to be on a disease modifying drug (interferon beta). You presume the NHS automatically offers you the treatment method you require, wherever you occur to reside in the United kingdom. The thought of a postcode lottery, and having to fight for drugs that other men and women are given instantly, is a bit dispiriting.”

As a journalist and broadcaster, I’ve campaigned on behalf of individuals for 25 many years, and what ever condition you get, the proper expertise can be as effective as the proper drug. Approximately 100,000 folks in the United kingdom have MS. A 2013 report from the Several Sclerosis Society identified that only forty% of eligible people with MS in the United kingdom are currently on condition-modifying drugs . This report on MS treatment and care ranked the United kingdom 25th out of 27 comparator nations with regard to MS medication. Across Europe, only Poland and Romania fare worse. Accessibility to treatments varies geographically MS patients in Northern Ireland are much more than twice as very likely to be taking a DMT (ailment-modifying therapy) than people in Wales.

Knowing what treatment method you’re entitled to is no guarantee you’ll get it, but it provides you a lot more of a chance than not being aware of. In 2013, NHS England published a clear policy saying who was entitled to illness modifying medication for MS. If you’re not acquiring them and you think you’re entitled, ask why not. And preserve asking.

You"ve been diagnosed with an incurable disease. Now what?

The New York Occasions Revisits The "Debate" In excess of Electromagnetic Fields, Reviving Baseless Fears, While Ignoring What Has Been Learned

Yesterday, in its Science Occasions section, the New York Times published a piece by Kenneth Chang titled “Debate Continues on Hazards of Electromagnetic Waves.”   The report appears below a new heading “Time Travel,” an occasional column that “explores subjects covered in the Science Times 25 many years ago to see what has altered – and what has not.”

To match the new format, Chang referred to a Science Occasions post from 1989 that talked about the achievable adverse overall health effects from electromagnetic fields (EMF) produced by power lines, electrical appliances and machinery, and wiring in the home.

Even so, in actuality this situation came to prominence 10 many years earlier, when an post was published claiming that young children who lived near electrical power lines were twice as probably to die of cancer as children who had been not exposed.

This research was the catalyst for many additional scientific studies above the following three decades, and many assessments by scientific organizations and wellness agencies.  As a outcome we have actually discovered anything about EMF.

Buddies meet and chat, utilizing a cell cellphone to say hi, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico (Photograph credit score: Wonderlane)

But Chang interviewed a professor of public well being David O. Carpenter, because he had been interviewed 25 many years in the past for the Science Instances article.  Carpenter has lengthy been voicing his concern about EMF, and he tells Chang, “The whole thing is very worrisome.  We see the guidelines of the iceberg, but we have no idea how large the iceberg is.  It ought to concern us all.”

According to Carpenter, “Almost absolutely nothing has altered in 25 many years in terms of the controversy, even though the evidence for biological effects of electromagnetic fields continues to increase stronger.”

As the report indicates, a lot of the concern has shifted away from the incredibly-minimal frequency EMF (ELF-EMF) from energy lines and appliances to the higher frequency radiofrequency (RF) waves utilised by cellular telephones and Wi-Fi.

By acquiring his update from Professor Carpenter, Chang is receiving a very skewed see of the pertinent proof that has accumulated in excess of the past decades.  Carpenter is related with the Bioinitiative Working Group, a fringe group whose members are convinced that the two varieties of waves (ELF-EMF and RF) are probably dangerous.

This view contrasts with that of any number of specialist organizations and well being agencies that have assessed the wellness results of ELF-EMF and radiofrequency power and found no steady or credible proof of a threat.  These incorporate: the American Bodily Society, the Nationwide Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society American Cancer Society, the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, and the Global Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

People who look to have a vested interest in believing that EMF/RF are hazardous at the levels at which people are exposed in everyday life have a tendency to cite evidence that suits their argument.

Exactly where cell phones are concerned, they tend to cite a minority of epidemiologic research by a single study group in Sweden that seem to link use of mobile phones to enhanced threat of certain brain cancers.  But they ignore the significantly more substantial entire body of studies from all in excess of the globe which demonstrate no this kind of association.

They also disregard the fact that, in spite of the dramatic growth of cell mobile phone use over the past two decades, there has been no improve in brain cancers, either in the U.S., in Scandinavia, or elsewhere.

The believers also are quick to point to experimental studies that appear to show damaging results on cells.  However, it is usually difficult to know how the final results of this kind of studies – if appropriate – apply to complete organisms, and specifically to humans.

In 2011, the International Company for Analysis on Cancer assessed the evidence with regards to cell phones and basically located no experimental evidence supporting a role of this sort of vitality in the cancer method.  However, in an extra of caution, the agency labeled radiofrequency radiation a “possible carcinogen.”

As the Occasions article indicated, technology is evolving, and properly-created scientific studies ought to be conducted to check the results of its use.  But that is quite different from the mindset of these who select isolated, and probably anomalous, benefits in support of their conviction that power lines or cell phones are creating adverse well being effects.

The New York Occasions Revisits The "Debate" In excess of Electromagnetic Fields, Reviving Baseless Fears, While Ignoring What Has Been Learned

Don"t inform me the psychological overall health technique isn"t in crisis I have been in it | Jonny Benjamin

Sue Bailey, outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Photograph: Anna Gordon

The mental health system is in crisis. It’s a car crash waiting to happen.

That’s according to Prof Sue Bailey, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, in an interview earlier this week. Her comments came a day before the British Medical Association’s annual meeting, where delegates were told that cuts to mental health services are resulting in avoidable deaths and suicides. Sadly, neither of these stories told me anything I didn’t already know. I’ve seen at first-hand how the mental health system is failing vulnerable people. For many of us dealing with mental illness, the car crash has already happened.

In fact, my experiences of mental health care were so bad that a few years ago I completely gave up on trying to get support. I’d been going through a period of severe anxiety and had waited for months to see a therapist. But after a few sessions, she told me she was being transferred. I’d have to go back on the waiting list and start all over again.

The whole experience made my anxiety worse, so I decided I’d be better off looking after myself. That can be a real challenge because I have a long-term and serious mental illness, schizoaffective disorder. Sometimes I struggle and need support, but like many people with mental health issues, I find it difficult to ask for help. That’s partly because of the stigma around mental illness, but it’s also because I’m afraid of going back into the mental health system.

It’s been the same story since I first tried to get help when I was 17. I was feeling suicidal, but the waiting lists were so long that I didn’t get the therapy I needed. If I’d had a serious physical illness, I’d have been treated within 18 weeks, but there are no maximum waiting times for mental illness, so people can wait for years to get support. Many people miss out altogether.

My mental health gradually got worse, until eventually I reached crisis point and had a breakdown. I was taken to A&E after being found walking down the middle of a busy dual carriageway. There were no beds available, so they just sent me away with a handful of Valium.

After that I gave up hope, and decided to end my own life. Luckily for me, a stranger stopped me and talked me out of it. He gave me a simple message of hope – that I could get better. I’d never been told that before, and it changed everything for me.

From that day, things started to improve, and earlier this year I launched a campaign to find the good Samaritan who’d helped me. My search was made into a documentary, Finding Mike. Since then I’ve been inundated with messages from people who’ve been through the same kind of thing. It really brought home to me how much we’re all affected by mental health issues. All of us know someone who’s faced mental illness. But too often people tell me they’ve been let down by the system.

The fact is that not enough money is spent on care. Mental health accounts for around 23% of the disease burden in the UK, but gets just 13% of the NHS budget. Worse still, spending on mental health has been slashed even further over the past few years.

It is not just people with mental illness that have been let down. I know many doctors and nurses who feel incredibly frustrated that they can’t provide the care they want to because of the cuts.

We can improve the system, but the government needs to listen to the patients, carers and organisations who know the system best.

Research by the charity Rethink Mental Illness shows that early intervention services – which help people from the moment they become ill – make a huge difference in helping patients recover, and also save the NHS money. With the right treatment, people can get better. But instead of getting much-needed investment, these services are facing major cuts. It means that millions of people are suffering because they can’t get support, and each day 16 people in the UK take their own lives.

That’s why we must keep putting pressure on the government until it takes real action to give people with mental illness the care that we deserve. At the moment I’m going through another period of anxiety, and I should feel that I can get the support I need. It’s not right that people like me so often go through this alone.

Don"t inform me the psychological overall health technique isn"t in crisis I have been in it | Jonny Benjamin