Stop TTIP

What is TTIP?

TTIP stands for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This is being negotiated between the EU and the USA, and will involve Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The aim of FTAs is to encourage the trading of goods by removing restrictions, making it easier for private companies to trade. The supposed benefits of FTAs are increased jobs and economic growth. However, the FTAs also pose some threats.

But isn’t the NHS a public service, and therefore, is not included in TTIP?

The NHS was a public service until the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. This reorganisation of the NHS allowed for private providers to take over NHS services. This fragmentation turned the NHS into a market, causing competition between private companies for NHS funding for patient services. Turning the NHS into a commercial activity means it can now be included in FTAs.

What does this mean for NHS?

The Health and Social Care Act has already been criticised of causing increased costs, reduced quality of care, and increased health inequalities. This is likely to only get worse with TTIP. TTIP will give transnationals the right to bid for all government spending on health, but there will be restrictions on the ability of the UK government to control costs and regulate transnational companies that provide healthcare services. Furthermore, it will give transnational companies the right to claim compensation if the government introduces initiatives that may reduce their profits. TTIP also makes it impossible for the UK government to reverse the privatisation of the NHS that resulted from the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.

How will this affect me?

TTIP will ultimately lower our standards of health. As transnationals can sue if new health measures affect their future profit, this means that safer or more effective treatments could not be put into practice. Furthermore, food standards and health regulations could be changed to match those of the USA, who uses a “safe until proved otherwise” principle, opposed to the EU’s precautionary principle that means tests must prove substances are not harmful. Therefore, we could see the return of banned food products like chlorine bleached chicken and growth hormones in beef. Additionally, the UK could be forced to reverse its ban on asbestos (used for insulation), which has been linked to lung cancer.

What can we do?

David Cameron needs to make the NHS exempt from TTIP.  However, the problem with TTIP, is that it is all being done in secret and many people do not know it is going on. Therefore, public awareness is vital. Please show your support by signing this petition (http://action.sumofus.org/a/stop-ttip/?sub=taf%3C/blockquote%3E) and sharing the link to it.

Suicide tourism

It was reported last week that 1 Briton a fortnight goes to Switzerland for assisted suicide. Euthanasia and assisted suicide is illegal in the UK, but perhaps this needs to be changed, as Brits account for a fifth of foreigners going the Swiss assisted-suicide or “right-to-die” clinics.

The non-profit organisation Dignitas is the only Swiss clinic to open its doors to foreigners. There are strict criteria of prerequisites that need to be met in order to access the service. First, the patient must be of sound judgement and possess a minimum level of physical ability to enable self-administration of the drug. Secondly, they must have a terminal illness (a disease that will lead to death), an unendurable disability or unbearable and uncontrollable pain. For an accompanied suicide, the patient must submit a formal request comprising a personal signed letter to Dignitas, a biographical CV describing personal background and family circumstances for the doctors to assess, and medical reports.

The course of accompanied suicide is taking an anti-emtic (drug against nausea and vomiting) followed by a fatal dose of pentobarbital, normally administered dissolved in water. Within a few minutes the patient falls asleep, slipping into a deep coma and death occurs via paralysis of the respiratory centre leading to the patient being unable to breathe.

The issue of assisted dying was recently debated in the House of Lords. Lord Falconer presented an Assisted Dying Bill offering assisted suicide to terminally ill patients deemed mentally capable and within 6 months of death. A YouGov survey found 73% of adults in England and Wales support the proposals in the Bill. However, it has only received its second reading in the House of Lords and there is a long process ahead (you can track the progress of the bill at http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2014-15/assisteddying.html).

It is argued that legalisation of assisted dying would not mean more deaths, but less suffering. However, this Bill is still limited. Only 43% of the British public agree that a doctor should be allowed to end the life of someone who is not in much pain or danger of dying, but is completely dependent on relatives, like Daniel James.  At 23, he became the youngest to go to Dignitas after a rugby accident that left him suffering with tetragplegia (paralysis from the chest down). Therefore, disability should be considered when discussing the Assisted Dying Bill. It is also important to deliberate assisted dying for those in the position who do not meet the prerequisite of being able to self-administer the drug. Will there be point in a future where once you are over the age of 18 you must put in writing what should happen to you in the unlikely event?

However, the introduction of disability and inability to self-administer the drug causes more safeguarding concerns. However, if Britain does not address these issues surrounding assisted suicide, this forces an already increasing number of people to travel to Switzerland. 

Below is documentary called Choosing To Die by Terry Pratchett, which features a 71-year-old suffering with motor neurone disease going to Dignitas. 

Let's talk about it

Image: Pauline Hughes Ceramics

Robin Williams was a beloved actor and comedian, who played many inspiring roles and his suicide was shock to the public. It is sad that such a tragedy has been the source of the recent talk about mental illness, but maybe it is what was needed for people to realise the seriousness of mental illness.

Due to the stigma surrounding mental illness, its victims are shamed into hiding their disorders and not talking about them. There is currently no definitive biological cause for mental illnesses, which leads people to believe that they are not as serious as diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. However, just because we don’t fully understand it, does not mean it is not real. Mental illness is very much all around us. Everyone knows someone affected by cancer, but you probably know a lot more people affected by mental illness. You just don’t know it. According to WHO (World Health Organisation), in 2012 there were 14.1 million cancer cases worldwide, but there are approximately 450 million people worldwide suffering from a mental disease.

In 2011, 159,178 people died from cancer in the UK. In 2012, there were 5981 deaths from suicide. Obviously this is just a fraction of the deaths from cancer, but this is just the number of successful suicide attempts. But what is most important is that these deaths could have been prevented. Suicide is not the only serious consequence of mental illness. It is estimated that 400/100,000 people self-harm. It can also be the reason behind many crimes; it is thought that as many as 9/10 prisoners suffer from a mental illness. Additionally, it often leads to substance abuse and addiction. Addiction, like mental illness, is a biological disorder; it is not just something that happens to some people. Yes, there is the initial choice to take substance, but some have a difference in their genetic make-up that makes them more susceptible to addiction via changes to the reward pathway in their brain – the mesolimbic system. Mental illness is an illness, not a deficiency of character.

Celebrities speaking out about mental illness helps to break the taboo that surrounds the subject. Catherine Zeta Jones and Stephen Fry have spoken openly about suffering from bipolar disorder, where one has mood swings between mania and depression, making it particularly difficult to treat. Actors such as Emma Thompson, Jim Carey and Zach Braff have admitted to suffering from depression. Michael Phelps, a professional swimmer and the most decorated Olympian, suffers from ADHD – which many do not take seriously as a mental illness. Both Elton John and Tom Fletcher (lead singer of McFly) have suffered from eating disorders, which are not often associated with males but are very common.

It is extremely important to recognise that males suffer from mental illnesses too. According to reports, twice as many women suffer from depression. However, men are three times more likely to commit suicide. Therefore, it is not that more women suffer from depression; they are just more likely to report it and seek help. Suicide is the main cause of death in men under age 35. We need to allow males to communicate and feel it is ok to talk about their problems – it is not weak.

This year, 1 in 4 will experience a mental illness, 8-12% of the UK population will experience depression, and nearly 5,000 young people in the UK will commit suicide this year with depression being the primary cause. Less than 50% respond to current treatments, emphasising the multifactorial cause of mental illnesses, and the need for more effective pharmacotherapies.

Help to eliminate the negativity surrounding mental illness and if you can, please donate to Mind, a UK mental health charity, at http://www.mind.org.uk/get-involved/support-us/donate. Let’s allow the world to be a place where people can stand up and ask for help.

Image: LA Screenwriter

#ALSicebucketchallenge

So you all must be aware of the ice bucket challenge that is going around on social media. However, whilst it’s great watching celebrities get their kit off for the challenge, it’s important to understand the cause behind it.

The challenge has been going on for a while, but only went viral after college baseball player Pete Frates, who was diagnosed with ALS 2 years ago, decided to start his own campaign. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is the most common form of motor neurone disease, which causes muscle weakness and loss of voluntary movement due to the degeneration of upper and lower motoneurons (neurons that control movement). It has a prevalence of 5/100,000 people, with an average onset of around age 55, and death usually occurring a few years later due to respiratory failure. So the idea of the ice bucket challenge is that pouring freezing cold water over yourself gives a numbing sensation and you are not able to move or breathe for a few seconds – mimicking the symptoms of ALS. It is a rare and seriously debilitating disease with no clear cause or effective treatment. However, charities for ALS are seriously underfunded, but this global internet sensation has prompted donations reaching $50 million to the ALS association (www.alsa.org). People may criticise the ice bucket challenge for being an excuse to look altruistic or show off your wet body, but there is no denying that it has helped to raise a lot of money for the charity, as well as awareness for the disease.

However, Macmillan started using the hashtag, and consequently, people in the UK are donating to them instead. Although the #nomakeupselfie had no relevance to cancer, it does not make it ok that Macmillan cancer charity has been using the craze to encourage donations when the point of the challenge is to give an insight into ALS. Cancer is a hugely funded charity, understandably, as everyone knows someone who has had cancer or has been effected by cancer. Donating to any charity is a wonderful thing to do, but Macmillan has taken away the importance and spread of awareness for other diseases such as ALS.

This video is what the #ALSicebucketchallenge is really all about.

And now my top 5 celebrity videos:

5. Lady Gaga - ....what?

4. Justin Timberlake

3. David Beckham

2. George Bush

1. Eddie Redmayne - this is particularly relevant as he is playing Stephen Hawking the biopic The Theory of Everything, which will be released later this year. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS at age 21!

(And there's the added bonus of Jamie Dornan)