The Nanny State of Europe has finally threatened to withdraw its archetypal Euro-Madness laws, preventing the sale of mis-shapen fruit and vegetables. This SHOULD be good news for consumers and producers alike, but will the 20% of produce, hitherto rejected under these laws and wasted, see its way onto the shelves. I certainly hope so but, knowing supermarkets, I am not sure. How can we waste good food, on account of its shape, while people worldwide are starving?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7723808.stm

http://www.speedsignal.com/news/eu-to-cut-out-wonky-fruit-rules/

The EU is also going to look into the safety of the so-called Nano Particles, those tiny particles that can penetrate skin with ease and which are incorporated into all sorts of products, including clothing and cosmetics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/nov/05/cosmetics-beauty-nanoparticles-royal-society

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/article3384114.ece

Good on 'em on both counts. I just hope they will come up with decent research methodology, for safety-evaluation of the Nano-Particles and not use poor animals again. Animals are an unreliable model for the human condition and, anyway, why should they suffer to aid the development of products that we only use for our vanity.

 [Why not take a look at www.alternativevet.org while you're here?]

At last, some independent research on chemotherapy, offering an unbiased appraisal, albeit on a small sector (late-stage) of cancer patients.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/12/health-cancer-chemotherapy-palliative-care

"Serious questions are today raised about chemotherapy for seriously ill cancer patients, some of whom die as a result of the drugs they are taking.

An inquiry into more than 600 deaths within 30 days of chemotherapy has found the treatment probably either caused or hastened death in 27% of cases. . . . .

. . . . The inquiry was carried out by the independent NCEPOD (National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death), whose members come mainly from the medical royal colleges.

Its findings raise difficult issues about what doctors think they are doing and what patients and their families want. Some of those who died were receiving chemotherapy to try to combat the cancer, but more were given it as palliative care ... to reduce the symptoms and give them a better quality of life as it drew to an end.

Patients usually suffer side-effects from chemotherapy, said the report's co-author Mark Lansdown, a surgical oncologist. But most patients in the study were receiving palliative treatment in which the aim was to alleviate symptoms of cancer with minimum side-effects. Yet 43% of all patients in the study suffered significant treatment-related toxicity."

It must be bad enough to have contracted a deadly disease, without having to fear the treatment. Medical research must be based more on reality, like this work, rather than on the hypothetical and irrelevant products of animal experimentation. Iatrogenic disease will continue, while research is commercially-oriented and animal-based.

 [Why not take a look at www.alternativevet.org while you're here?]

The long-foretold Animal Research Laboratory opens in Oxford.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/nov/11/animal-research-oxford-university

Why does 'science' persist in using animals for medical experiments (called research) into human diseases that have no animal parallel? Promised advances have not been forthcoming. How can they result from such a misguided process? Animal experimentation is holding back medical advances and introduces Russian Roulette into medicine [have we already forgotten the dramatic example of the six healthy volunteers who took TGN1412 for the first human trial in London, on 13 March 2006, who suffered serious toxic reactions with collapse and loss of consciousness with multiple organ failure (MOF) and were admitted to intensive care?]. The genome of a chimpanzee, according to some, is 98% similar to that of man, yet the disease of AIDS cannot be induced in chimpanzees.

According to yesterday's news reports, the hundreds of monkeys (even less like humans) that will be housed in this facility represent only 2% of the animals held there. Genetically-modified mice were the first to be moved in, yesterday.

Despite countless tragic tales of serious human damage and deaths, using the products of animal experimentation, the gravy train rolls on. Careers, kudos and money are put before animal welfare.

How will a future enlightened generation look back on this sad and wasteful practice and those who perpetrate such activity?

What has our society come to, that we very nearly saw legal action to force a thirteen year-old girl to have a heart transplant against her wishes? I shall not reiterate the sad circumstances of this case here, as plenty has already been written elsewhere.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24637947-2703,00.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/girl-13-wins-right-to-refuse-heart-transplant-1009569.html

http://calvininjax.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/girl-13-refuses-heart-transplant-and-hospital-backs-down-from-legal-action/ (you can leave comment here)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27665174/ (examines the issues more deeply)

I shall pause, however, to consider what would have been done to the likes of you and me, quite rightly, had we sought to force a 13 year-old into a traumatic experience against her wishes. There are, thankfully, child abuse (protection) laws.

Words fail me.

Why was a clumsy bureaucratic tool unleashed and almost unstoppable legal machinery launched before proper consideration had been given? I can see the point that medical personnel would be very concerned to act in a child's best interests. I cannot see how threatening the horrors of legal action against a loving family, that has been through so much trauma already, can be anything other than crass and ugly. Why the threat before the opinion of a social worker had been sought?

Would you put your dog through such an ordeal and risk, for what appeared (from the minimum information that has been published) to be the chance of a very short prolongation of life?  There was also the chance of dying alone in hospital. One assumes that Hannah would, anyway, had the proposed course of action been pursued, have to have been forced into sedation before being abducted from home.

Dignity and welfare were very much at risk. Congratulations to Andrew and Kirsty Jones and Hannah, for bringing this to public attention and, hopefully, for making other PCTs more careful in future (this incident is even more poignant, when it is considered that Mrs Jones is apparently an intensive care nurse).

My heart goes out to the family and I hope that the Disney World trip, to Orlando, Florida, becomes a treasured reality.

[Why not take a look at www.alternativevet.org while you're here?]