HealthBiscuit
After intensive lobbying from the tobacco industry, cigarette manufacturers are to be allowed to put their side of the argument in prominent messages on cigarette packets. In an attempt at even-handedness, the government will permit some health warnings to be replaced with an alternative message saying ‘Smoking is really cool’ or ‘Smoking makes you look big and clever and is really great’.
A new clinic in the heart of Geneva is offering suicidal patients the chance to end it all in style with its range of dramatic role-play curtain-calls. An offshoot of the famous Swiss euthanasia clinic, Indignitas has developed a range of deals for those who don’t want to slip away quietly, including re-enactments of celebrity deaths and summary executions after a staged miscarriage of justice for those who feel life has dealt them a bad hand.
Controversial new research published today in The Lancet challenges the accepted medical wisdom that any ailment which does not result in your death must inevitably make you stronger. Doctors have discovered that among those conditions which won’t leave you feeling better than before are cancer, HIV/AIDS, strokes, Parkinson’s disease, a broken spine, Ebola, heart attacks, radiation poisoning and massive trauma to the head. In fact the study concluded that the only medical condition that will definitely make you stronger is prolonged steroid addiction, but that too can cause premature death.
Overweight celebrities such as Gavin and Stacey star James Corden are perpetuating the stereotype that all fat people are funny, a medical expert is warning. Professor Nicholas McKay of Nuffield Health says fat stars are seen as role models, helping to make it acceptable to think that obesity is linked to humour.
But a survey for the healthcare provider has now revealed that many obese people are not actually that funny.
National Health bosses are on the defensive today following a series of damaging exposés about the treatment of bugs at NHS hospitals. Ever since the damning tale of a Staphylococcus cluster being left to die on a hospital bedpan hit the headlines, newspapers have been full harrowing testimonies from viruses, fungi, prions and protozoa, all desperate to share their story.
