UK
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Bad science, health risks, and the EU/US trade treaty By Molly Scott-Cato
Whether on GM foods, pesticides, or pharmaceuticals, the EU/US trade treaty aims to strip away higher European regulations that protect public health but hinder corporate profits. Continue reading
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Outsourcing cancer care – the biggest and most reckless NHS privatisation yet? By Clive Peedell
Outsourcing over a billion pounds of cancer and end-of-life services is reckless and shows just how threadbare government promises of ‘no NHS privatisation’ have become. Continue reading
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Privacy campaigners team up with leading public health professor to fix Hunt’s ‘complete nonsense’ on care.data By Caroline Molloy
Hunt’s fix for the troubled ‘care.data’ project – debated by MPs today – is “complete nonsense” according to medConfidential. They have teamed up with public health professor Allyson Pollock to propose an alternative fix to the troubled care.data project. Continue reading
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UK Government Pressed on Pro-GM Position
Food & Water Europe today asked the UK Government to change its vocal but ill-founded pro-GM position in light of the evidence that GM and non-GM farming are incompatible. Continue reading
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The NHS, the LibDems & the “Undesirable Contact Man” By Andrew Causon
The Lib Dems’s biggest donor isn’t just an alleged arms dealer – he’s also owner of an expanding private sector NHS business providing substandard care to vulnerable patients. The Choudhries and their healthcare business Alpha Health are one of the Lib Dems largest donors, giving them a total of £1.26 million over the last 10… Continue reading
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Britain: More health services face privatisation By Mark Blackwood and Paul Mitchell
Private-sector companies such as Alliance Boots and Bupa are eyeing the new contracts and have expert teams at hand, well versed at drawing up contracts. They are willing to submit loss-making bids in order to gain a foothold in the market. To meet this competition, existing providers, mainly GP surgeries and health centres, are being… Continue reading
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Snowden: NSA pressured EU into creating ‘European bazaar’ of spy networks
National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden answered questions before the European Parliament on Friday, saying that the United States spy agency pressures its allies to take steps towards further enabling widespread and indiscriminate surveillance. Continue reading
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NHS: medConfidential Bulletin, 7th March 2014
Following a disastrous showing from NHS England and HSCIC officials [from time code 1:20:30] in front of the Health Select Committee a fortnight ago, the government has laid a number of last-minute amendments to a piece of legislation called the Care Bill, which is now in its final stages before becoming law. Continue reading
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Foreign Office: How not to handle a Black Sea crisis By Mark Almond
Diplomacy is often best when it provides a smokescreen for a retreating from a foolish policy. Maybe if William Hague could act like his hero Pitt, he could persuade the White House to declare Vladimir Putin’s permission of a referendum on the future of Crimea to be a triumph of Western ideals to spread democracy… Continue reading
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Starved & evicted: Britain’s poor now treated worse than animals By Tony Gosling
If someone had told me a decade ago that the British government would deliberately starve my fellow countrymen in an attempt to bully them into slave labor jobs that wouldn’t even pay the bills, I would have laughed in their face. Continue reading
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Labour’s Andy Burnham moves to strike out “Hospital Closure Clause” By Benedict Cooper
Labour confirmed yesterday that it would be staging a last ditch attempt in parliament on Tuesday to strike out the deeply unpopular “Hospital Closure Clause”. Continue reading
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The modern return of Vagrancy Law By Joe Hermer
The crime of ‘being suspicious’ seems to be making a return as the state seems ever more keen to police the poor and vulnerable. The recent case of ‘stolen food’ from Iceland is a perfect example. Continue reading
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Triple-headed NHS privacy scare after hospital data reach marketers, Google By Simon Sharwood
On page eight, a section titled “The cloud can transform the way the NHS connects and uses data” the discussion turns to “an archive called Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)” that contains “a huge amount of detailed data” about the activity of “every Hospital in England.” A busy time, then, for HSCIC’s spin doctors and a… Continue reading
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Can anyone patch up care.data, or is it too late? By Jane Fae
Care.data has had a bad seven days. Last Tuesday it received a serious mauling by the Commons Health Committee. On Friday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt came sailing to the rescue with an announcement of new laws that will bar the NHS from selling personal medical records for insurance and commercial purposes – though care.data boss… Continue reading
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UK: Sun, sand…and indefinite detention By Jennifer Allsopp
The UK’s second largest immigration detention centre is about to open in Weymouth. Jennifer Allsopp reports on local responses to the immanent presence of hundreds of foreigners, locked up off the coast of this small and friendly town. Continue reading
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Video: Which way forward for Labour?
We publish here recordings and a report of a recent debate at the Cambridge Marxist Society, where Adam Booth, editor of www.socialist.net, Jon Lansman, editor of Left Futures, and Matthew Doyle, former political director to Tony Blair, discuss the future of the Labour Party. Continue reading
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Secret government contracts undermine our democracies. Let’s stop them By Jonathan Gray
How do we know that the money we collectively give to our governments is being properly spent? We don’t. A new campaign seeks to change that. Continue reading
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Government brushes aside NHS Free Trade Treaty Concerns By Ben Cooper
MPs raise concerns about the impact the forthcoming trade treaty, TTIP, will have on the NHS – but Minster Without Portfolio Ken Clarke says it will make no difference. The government refused to exempt the NHS from the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) despite a volley of concerns from opposition MPs aired during… Continue reading
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Is selling our medical data to insurers a crime – or not? By Jane Fae
As more revelations emerge about the sale of our hospital data to the insurance industry, misleading claims that a massive expansion in data collection is totally safe, are failing to convince. Continue reading
