Drugs Nutt and the Minister

UK - Getting Drugs policy right has proved to be a thorny problem for all governments but the crisis over former drugs advisor Professor Nutt is becoming more of a tangle by the day.

The Home secretary Alan Johnson has been defending his sacking of Professor David Nutt. Some scientists are reported to have backed the sacking but further resignations have been threatened.from the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs as it emerged that the Home secretary has put the body under review. Two drugs advisory panel members have already quit in protest.

The Home Secretary could easily have ignored the remarks by Professor Nutt ,the UK's chief drugs adviser, who questioned the reclassification of cannabis as a "class B" drug. Instead the Home Secretary opted for confrontation.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was established under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 during Edward Heath's Conservative government. Colleagues of the sacked Chairman say they have "serious concerns" about his decision and whether they can continue.

This is of course not the first nor will it be the last spat between a politician and a government adviser. "Advisers advise, ministers decide." said Margaret Thatcher when Nigel Lawson resigned as Chancellor in 1989 over the role of Sir Alan Walters, her Downing Street economics adviser. Nevertheless Ministers risk losing the confidence of expert advisers across government unless they confirm their independence following the sacking of Professor David Nutt, one of Britain's most senior government scientists said yesterday.

David Nutt is Professor of Psychopharmacology at Bristol University and the spat began as when he criticised policy on canabbis and suggested that Ecstasy, LSD and cannabis are less dangerous than both alcohol and cigarettes - he has also admitted that some of his children have taken drugs.

The Home Secretary Alan Johnson told MPs that he "lost confidence" in Professor David Nutt's ability to be his principal adviser on drugs policy after he had "acted in a way that undermined the government".

David Cameron called the sacking of the Government's chief drugs adviser an “unseemly spat” today, but said that his party did not support any relaxation in the penalties for taking illegal drugs.

Junk Diet Makes You Depressed

Next time you decide to go for a Big Mac remember that it might not only be your waistline that suffers from all that processed food that your eating. A University College London survey of 3500 people found that a diet heavy in processed and fatty foods significantly increases the risk of depression.

The researchers split people into two groups – those who had a generally healthy diet, big on fruit, vegetables and fish, and those who mainly ate processed foods, like desserts and fried foods, processed meats, sweets, chocolate and fatty dairy products.

People who feel low often decide to snack on chocolate and cake - but this may only aggravate their problems, A healthy diet of vegetables, fruit and fish though can help stave off depression and mid-life crises,

The five year UK study, published this week in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that people who ate plenty of vegetables, fruit and fish actually had a lower risk of depression. Parents could help reduce the risk of their children growing up to develop depression by feeding them healthy food.

Two years jail for nasty little Burka

A Moroccan mother of six was sentenced to two years in jail in Manchester today. She had admitted concealing documents on a computer memory stick inside the sleeve of her burka. The documents contained "a mini-encyclopaedia of weapons-making" and instructions on making explosives.
Houria Chahed Chentouf, 41, admitted two counts of possessing documents likely to be useful for a terrorist. She was stopped at Liverpool John Lennon Airport while entering the UK and the memory stick was discovered when it fell from her Burka. She is a nasty little Burka and deserves all she gets.

Barbara Windsor leaving UK soap Eastenders

Actress Barbara Windsor, a 15 year stalwart of the long running UK soap series Eastenders is to leave the BBC One soap next year. 72 year old Barbera Windsor has played the feisty Mitchell family matriarch character Peggy Mitchell in the soap series since 1994.

Windsor won a lifetime achievement award at the 2009 British Soap Awards.

Barbara Windsor claims that she is leaving because she wants to spend more time with her husband although her agent has said that she will not be retiring from show business completely.
"I'll be so sad to leave Peggy behind. EastEnders has been wonderful to me and it's no secret that it changed my life all of those years ago. I'm looking forward to the future and I suppose when all's said and done, I should spend a bit more time with my old man, as he's not getting any younger." she said.

Lockerbie Investigation 8 suspects never seen

Stuart Henderson, a former detective chief superintendent who headed the Lockerbie investigation has revealed that eight potential suspects were identified at the time of the original investigation but were never interviewed.

Although the Lockerbie investigation has never been formally closed there was little evidence until recently that it was stil active. For the victims' families, the news that the Scottish authorities are reassessing the evidence will be welcome although some are worried that the police investigation into the atrocity is being publicly freshened up in an attempt to thwart demands for a full public inquiry.More than two decades have passed since Britain's worst terrorist attack but the relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing remain united by a single common goal: the truth.

The focus of the renewed investigation is a search for any new evidence which might point to the accomplices of Libyan Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, who was convicted in 2001 of the murder of 270 people and recently freed on compassionate grounds. Fresh forensic tests are to be carried out and 'several potential lines of inquiry' examined.

Christine Grahame MSP has criticised the move to renew the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing claiming it will prevent a public inquiry and stop new evidence being heard.

Libya's Col Gaddafi has told Sky News it is none of his concern who carried out the Lockerbie bombing, as police re-examine the case.

Double Car Bomb Slaughter in Iraq

Iraq suffered its deadliest terrorist attack in more than two years when suicide bombers used two car bombs and killed at least 132 people in the centre of Baghdad. Reports indicate that another 500 were wounded when the bombs targeting government buildings went off. This was one of the deadliest attack in two years with the two car bombs exploding almost simultaneously. The attacks targeted the Justice ministry and a provincial government office near the heavily fortified Green Zone.

President Barack Obama condemned Sunday's "outrageous attacks" outside government offices in the Iraqi capital and said that they "reveal the hateful and destructive agenda of those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that they deserve. These bombings serve no purpose."

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited the site of the twin bomb atrocity in Baghdad and issued a statement blaming al Qaeda and Baathist supporters of the former president Saddam Hussein. Three days of mourning have been declared.

Iran condemned the terrorist attacks and the Cairo-based Arab League (AL) strongly condemned the bombings. The atacks were also condemned by The European Union.

Meanwhile a top Iraqi General warned that Iraq risks increased instability if elections slated for January are delayed. Legislation key to the polls remains stalled. Iraqi leaders are preparing to meet to try to end the deadlock as concern grows that the January polls may have to be delayed.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is pushing for a resolution, arguing that a delay to polls would harm the legitimacy of Iraq's parliament and government.

Swine Flu US update

New York Ends Flu Shot Mandate for Health Care Workers. New York state made waves earlier this year when the health commissioner said all health-care workers had to get vaccinated. Now New York public health workers will no longer be required to be vaccinated against both the seasonal and H1N1 flu virus,

AS VACCINATION efforts go, the one underway for the H1N1 virus (aka swine flu) has not so far gone smoothly.
dupage County residents are clamoring for a limited number of free H1N1 flu vaccines offered by the Health Department,

Kansas health officials say a 62-year-old man is the ninth person in the state to die after contracting swine flu. H1N1 flu cases are surging all across California with hospitals seeing an increase and amid a reported vaccine shortage.

Only about a quarter, or nearly 450 of the 1700 Garden State health care providers that ordered vaccines have received them apparently.

The federal government promised 120 million doses of H1N1 vaccine would be available by now, but just 13 million have come through.

The Chicago Department of Public Health will begin offering free H1N1 flu vaccinations at six City Colleges of Chicago locations to those most at risk. Limited amounts of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine have arrived in metro Detroit, with health department clinics to administer it starting Saturday. Belated vaccinations could help combat a possible second wave of H1N1, federal health officials hace said.

At the same time nearly four in 10 parents do not plan to have their children get the swine flu vaccine this year, with doubts about its safety overwhelmingly cited despite the fact that more than half of recent hospitalizations for H1N1 influenza involved people younger than 25, and almost a quarter of fatalities were in that age group,