Experiment shows how easy doctors prescribe drugs, are they just puppets?

Here's some fascinating news in the world of medicine that really shows the drug racket -- the huge prescription drug scam taking place in this country today. Researchers sent a group of people, who said they saw the drug Paxil in a TV advertisement, into doctors' offices. Many of these patients didn't even show signs of depression, but when they named the drug, 50 percent were diagnosed as having depression, and 55 percent were given a prescription for the exact prescription drug they named.

In fact, it turns out that when people named Paxil, they were more than five times as likely to be given a prescription for it than someone who didn't name it. The researchers say this simple experiment demonstrates how 'many doctors are puppets of the pharmaceutical industry'.

Medical doctors claim to be scientifically trained. They claim to be rational people. They say that everything's a formula, so people are only given prescriptions that are medically necessary. But when a patient comes in and mentions the name of a drug, all that rationality and all that so-called scientific thinking gets thrown out the window. Over half the time, the doctor's just going to write out a prescription for the exact drug that the patient named, whether or not it is medically necessary.

In other words, the whole system of prescription drugs and using doctors is a giant con. When pharmaceutical companies run these advertisements directly to consumers, they know these consumers are going to go to their doctor and name the drug, resulting in a sale of that drug. And that's why direct-to-consumer advertising -- drug advertising on television, magazines, and so on -- remains legal. It was illegal, but the FDA legalized it in 1997 to generate profits for the drug companies that the FDA seems sworn to protect. Since then, the drug industry and prescriptions have boomed. Now we have more than 40 percent of the population on prescriptions, nearly all of which are medically unnecessary.

Some people consider prescription drugs by themselves are a giant sham, because none of them treat the underlying causes of ill health. They only mask the symptoms of disease, or try to interfere with the body's basic biochemistry. And the real story on these prescription drugs isn't being told, because these pharmaceutical companies are funding billions and billions of dollars each year in media advertising. They're controlling the budgets of these media companies by running so many ads. Because of this, the media companies out there don't want to say anything bad about these prescription drugs.

And so the message out there continues to be, "Take more drugs! Look, here's a miracle drug for cancer; here's a miracle drug for erectile dysfunction; here's a miracle drug for sinus congestion, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure..." They just name one thing after another. They run the ads, the patients hear the drug name, they run into their doctors' offices to request the drug, and they get a prescription. What a con!

And it's a brilliant con, because it involves so many different parties. The FDA makes sure these ads remain legal, and that the drug companies generate all sorts of profits. The FDA even makes sure dangerous drugs stay on the market even when they're killing people. And there are doctors who are trained at medical schools infiltrated by the drug companies. When doctors train for four years, they basically study some anatomy and physiology and then, of course, drugs, surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. They learn how to diagnose diseases and think of them all as being chemical disorders that can be treated through pharmacology and prescription drugs. The drug companies practically run many of these medical schools .

Drug companies exploit this seduction, this form of influence, to create demand for products in the minds of consumers, and then to make sure these consumers go to their doctors' offices and request those products, thus generating sales.

How the drug machine really operates
And of course the pharmacists are all involved in this; they're just filling out the orders. They're like the little machine grinders in this whole system, this whole con of organized medicine . Somebody's actually got to fill the bottles and dispense the pills, and that's what the pharmacists do. And somebody's got to write their prescriptions, that's what the doctors do. Somebody's got to act like they're providing an education on health, and that's what the medical schools do. Somebody's got to provide the so-called scientific evidence that provides some sort of justification for all of this, and that's what the medical journals do, and of course, they're largely funded by the drug companies. Finally, someone has to give all this the stamp of government approval, and that's what the FDA does.

So this whole sham, this whole drug racket, has many different players, most of whom are highly-paid professionals and smart people. Wouldn't it be great if they actually did something productive for society, rather than writing dangerous, highly toxic prescriptions out to people... rather than impairing the long-term health of our population to generate billions of dollars in profits for the pharmaceutical companies? Wouldn't it be great if all these smart people did something useful? Instead, they're just part of the drug racket, part of the system of organized medicine that masquerades as "scientific medicine."

Where's the science in scientific medicine?
I find the circular logic involved in all this fascinating, because we've again shown how the prescribing behavior of doctors is not rational. When a patient names a drug, all that training, rationality, and scientific thought just gets thrown out the window in favor of circular logic. For example, the organized medical community claims that all drugs approved by the FDA are scientifically sound. It's science-based medicine, because articles about those drugs have been published in the journals. And who edits those journals? Who are the gatekeepers who decide which articles get published and which ones don't? They are the doctors who are often on the payroll of drug companies. The drug companies fund the advertisements for the journals. And many of the FDA bureaucrats benefit financially, as they own stock options in these pharmaceutical companies.

Of course, the medical schools also rake in all sorts of money from doctors. So, what passes as organized or scientific medicine is actually whatever they say it is. It has no real scientific basis. Most of these studies are distorted anyway. You've seen how the drug companies will run twelve different studies on their drug, six of which will come up with positive results and six with negative. They bury the six that are bad and just show the six that are good. Those are the studies they forward to the FDA and say, "Look! Our drug is proven!" And the FDA will say, "It sure is! Let's rubber stamp this drug for approval!"

And then the drug companies say, “Let's start bribing doctors and giving them free trips, vacations, and lunches and let's send them checks for $10,000 as a 'consulting fee.'" "Let's get those doctors to prescribe all of these drugs." And that's how the system works. It's all circular reasoning. There is no real science happening. The whole thing is a giant charade.

To top it off, the real healing efforts in alternative medicine are routinely discredited by organized medicine. These healers are using herbal medicine with over 2,500 years of proven clinical use and millions of hours of clinical experience. I'm talking about traditional Chinese medicine, Western herbs, Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture, massage therapy, homeopathy and other modalities in the alternative medicine realm. Organized medicine says "Those aren't proven -- only our stuff is proven. Your stuff is not proven." But of course, all their stuff is the circular reasoning I was talking about. They dismiss everything outside of the corrupt system that generates profits for them.

Organized medicine is a lot like a cult
You see, scientific medicine is whatever the high priests of organized medicine deem it to be. This is why I've often described organized medicine as a cult; it is not science. True scientists ask nature what's going on. They try to find out how the universe really works. A true scientist is a humble person, a humble student, and a curious servant of nature. A true scientist runs experiments, or asks questions and tries to get nature to provide some answers.

But modern doctors, medical researchers, drug company executives, and FDA bureaucrats think they've conquered nature. They have egos so big it's amazing they can walk through doors. They think they are better than nature. They think they can overtake the nature of your body, overriding the chemistry. They think they can run your immune system, or that they can declare war on your body, attacking it with chemotherapy, radiation and other highly toxic therapies. They think they're smarter than nature.

They think they can take a plant out of nature, synthesize a molecule, and make it better. And then they can patent it and own the intellectual property, suing anybody else who tries to create the same molecule, even though nature has been creating the natural version of that molecule for eons. This is what the people in organized medicine think. They think they're the smartest people in the universe -- smarter than Mother Nature, smarter than God. And in fact, they're going to play God with your body using weird, freaky gene therapy experiments. They're putting human genes into plants now, trying to clone everything under the sun. They think they are God.

Real scientists are humble
Now a real scientist, as I said, is a humble servant of nature. A true scientist is curious and wants to find out how things work, and a true scientist, by the way, does not have a predefined set of filters in place that automatically reject new ideas. When Burzynski developed the antineoplastons for cancer therapies, a new therapy for actually curing cancer, organized medicine, if it had been scientific, should have welcomed his work with open arms. They should have said, "Thank God! Someone has come along with a cure for cancer. Thank God someone has some new theories." But no; they vilified him.

They turned him into a criminal. The FDA pursued him, sued him, oppressed him, and ostracized him from medicine. They've tried to suppress his work. Why? He had real solutions. If they have a cure for cancer, what would that mean for all the anti-cancer drugs out there? Think how many people would lose their jobs if there were a cure for cancer.

Some people would say that our national economy depends on cancer, and it depends on having all these chronic diseases. Gotta have diabetes ; otherwise, what's going to happen to all these people employed in the medical community? What about all these nurses, pharmacists, doctors, researchers, people in the nonprofits, publishers, and drug company executives? What will they do for jobs if all these diseases are cured?

Some people would say it would be a national security issue, because if you cure these diseases, then suddenly the economy changes. Suddenly you've got a lot of people out of work. And so, I believe the organized medical system doesn't want cures for these diseases. In fact, they have gone out of their way to vilify these cures, to filter them out or to discredit them. They don't want cures for these diseases; they want drugs to manage them. They want a patient who has to buy a pill today, tomorrow, and every day, for the rest of his life, because that generates profits. They don't want something to cure that patient, sending him away healthy and happy and never in need of more drugs, surgeries, or imaging tests. Just like crack dealers, they want somebody who's addicted to their drugs. They want somebody who's going to smoke that crack every day for the rest of their lives.

Pharmaceutical companies are the same way. They want somebody who's stuck on their drugs, who depends on them. That's why you often read about " disease management" in organized medicine's literature. “Disease management” is even used in reference to chronic stress, which is a big killer. It depletes antioxidants, raises blood pressure, is bad for your cardiovascular health, and even promotes cancer. But when those in organized medicine talk about stress, they often use the term "stress management." Let's manage your stress, so that you can have a little bit of stress each and every day. And you still depend on us to manage it.

I prefer to teach people how to ELIMINATE stress, to be stress free. Same thing with diseases. Doctors say there's no cure for diabetes. I say hogwash! There are many cures for diabetes. Adult-onset type 2 diabetes is one of the easiest diseases to reverse, and I mean completely reverse, through diet, nutrition, and lifestyle changes. You don't need a single drug to treat that disease. Cancer is much the same way. It is one of the easiest diseases to reverse, as long as it hasn't got so advanced that the patient's own immune system is completely shot. Your body has already reversed cancer 1,000 times or more in your lifetime; your immune system gets rid of cancer cells all the time. If you're diagnosed with cancer, it's because your immune system failed. If that happens, curing your cancer really just involves reminding your immune system how to do its job and giving it the nutritional tools that it needs to heal itself.

Why doctors hate the internet
So the overall theme to all of this is of course that organized medicine is a giant scam. The defenders of that system are really frustrated today, because experiments like this reveal that doctors just prescribe whatever patients name. Patients will get prescriptions for whatever drugs they mention. Doctors hate the internet, too, by the way. They think that patients who get information online are dangerous, because people shouldn't educate themselves. Doctors think all online health information should be censored, approved by the FDA. They think that you shouldn't be able to talk about health, disease treatment, or drugs online. It's dangerous for people to have too much information, don't you know. A little bit of book burning would go right along with that.

But the whole system is a sham, and, by the way, it is failing. It is on its way out. Organized medicine will soon be history, because patients are realizing that it doesn't work. They are figuring out that taking a lot of prescription drugs multiplies their risk of death, and they are also realizing that prescription drugs don't really help them in any significant way. Yes, they might mask symptoms on a temporary basis, but they don't make anyone fundamentally healthier over the long term. In fact, people are discovering that they feel terrible when they take these drugs. They feel more fatigued; they start having brain fog; their muscles hurt; then they have side effects to treat with more prescription drugs. It's just a cascading set of symptoms and drugs, which is good for profits in the pharmaceutical industry, but doesn't help people.

Smart people are ditching conventional medicine
Who uses prescription drugs today? I'll tell you who. People who don't know any better. In contrast, people who are informed about health -- intelligent, well-educated, smart people -- are turning to natural medicine, natural health. They're focusing on their foods and on avoiding the toxins in the food supply. They're avoiding dangerous personal care products, artificial fragrances, deodorants containing aluminum, and shampoos with unnatural ingredients.

They are engaging in physical exercise, body movement, cardiovascular training, strength training, tai chi, Pilates, martial arts, and swimming - you name it. And they're exercising their brains by turning off the television and engaging in creative activities. Even game playing with friends is good for your brain. Crossword puzzles are a great exercise. These are the things that well-educated people are doing.

This is what the healthy people in our society have figured out works. It's all about the foods; it's all about the exercise. It's getting natural sunlight on your skin, drinking fresh water, and avoiding all those consumer products the corporations want you to buy. They want you to buy the soft drinks, the snack chips, the homogenized milk products, all those sweets and candies, drugs, cosmetics, personal care products, perfumes and colognes, air fresheners, carpet cleaners, and dryer sheets. Boy, they want you to buy that stuff! But none of that stuff makes you healthy; in fact, most of it gives you disease.

Only uneducated people will rely on prescription drugs
Soon, organized medicine will be relegated only to those extremely uneducated people in society. It's going to be the low-income, low-education people who turn to organized medicine. This is the same crowd, by the way, that smokes a lot of cigarettes and buys a lot of brand name foods. People with low wages tend to have a lot of chronic diseases, and are the ones who are stuck in the system of organized medicine. Unfortunately, and I often mention this, these are the people that we need to help the most. It's difficult to do that, as it's hard to educate people who often aren't really open to new ideas. They just want to know if they're covered by health insurance, and that's it. They don't really want to learn about what to eat and what not to eat.

The dark history of modern medicine
But the future of medicine is in disease prevention, healing modalities, and energetic medicine -- phototherapy, electromedicine, vibrational nutrition, homeopathy, and so on. The future of medicine is in true healing. And I believe that in the future, people will look back at the time period we're in right now and be amazed. They'll say, "How could these people have just poisoned the entire population with chemicals, and even advertised them on TV!? How could people even call themselves doctors when all they did was write prescription drugs for people? They're just drug dealers. How dare they even call themselves doctors? And how could the medical schools not even teach nutrition? How could it be?!" Foods and nutrition are the foundation of health, yet doctors are being given virtually no education whatsoever in this area.

I tell you, future historians will look back at this time and they will think we were absolutely nuts. They will think we were crazy. They will think we were off our rockers to poison the entire population through our food supply, and then try to mask the symptoms of that through more poison called "prescription drugs." The whole system is absurd.

So I say the game is up. The whole system is a fraud. We now know it, thanks to the internet, to some really creative studies coming out, to the statistics, and to people like Dr. David Graham -- the FDA's chief drug safety scientist who has been willing to stand up and tell the truth about these dangerous Cox-2 inhibitors. Thanks to people like that, we now know the truth. We know the FDA is corrupt. We know the drug companies are out to exploit every American citizen just to make a profit, no matter how many people are killed. We know that doctors are just glorified drug dealers, and we know that medical schools are nothing but pre-training for glorified drug dealing. It's all a sad joke!

Why would you want to be an old-school anyway?
People like Dr. Andrew Weil are trying to make changes out there. He's more effective in the medical community than a guy like me, as I just tend to anger all the doctors. But he actually works with them, because he's an MD; he can help doctors transition from old school medicine to new school medicine. I really admire his work. He's doing a fantastic job, and he can speak the language of general practitioners . He knows how to talk to MDs in their language. I don't, and I don't try to. I think MDs are irrelevant because naturopathic physicians are the future. I think MDs should go out and change their careers. Go to Bastyr University and get a real education in health. MDs, you're on the way out.

We need a nation where the smartest people -- the professionals, the pharmacists, the doctors, the researchers, and so on -- actually engage in things that help people, not things that hurt people. I mean, it should be common sense, right? Shouldn't our smartest people be thinking about ways to actually help people be healthier instead of just keeping them diseased and on drugs for the rest of their lives? I think so.

Join the natural health community
If you're reading this, chances are that you already know most of this. You're already taking care of your health in a way that far exceeds what most people are doing. You have probably already experienced some of the benefits of natural health, or maybe you've experienced some of the negative side effects of prescription drugs and are ready to make a change now. Well, I say, "Welcome to the light side of the force!" Things are good over here. We are healthier. We're happier. We have good, solid self-esteem without huge egos. We feel comfortable about who we are, and we can help heal others around us by sharing information about what really works. We know when to say no to the drug companies, the doctors, or the pharmaceutical companies. We know how to be skeptical consumers.

So I encourage you to keep investigating, and keep investing in yourself. Keep learning more about health, nutrition, and wellness. And don't follow your doctor's advice if he or she says all of this is useless and discourage you from learning on your own. Fire that doctor and find yourself a new one. Work with a doctor who encourages you to educate yourself. Work with a doctor who takes the time to sit down and talk to you about lifestyle changes that can make a difference. Work with a doctor who can help you get off of prescription drugs to return to normal, healthy body function. And there are many doctors out there like that.

Again, I don't mean to paint every doctor into the same corner; just because they have the initials MD after their names, it doesn't mean they're complete idiots when it comes to health. Many doctors actually do understand health, and in fact, most of the people I admire out there, those who are the real pioneers in natural health, started out as MDs. Some of the best authors are MDs.

So examine doctors with caution. Make sure they know something beyond medical school because medical school's a joke. It's what they learned outside of medical school that really matters. And it's also how they're willing to work with you. Are they willing to communicate? Do they listen to you? Did they ask you good questions? Do they really have compassion for you, and do they really seem to have an interest in your health outcome, rather than just getting you out of the office so they can see the next patient? You have a choice, and I encourage you to exercise that choice. Saturday, July 02, 2005 by Mike Adams

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FDA: Consumer Watchdog or Big Pharma Puppet?

A group of the world's leading health experts is divulging insider information about the FDA's unethical and risky relationship with the pharmaceutical industry in the timely documentary "Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety."

As more Merck secrets are exposed and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been caught red-handed endangering the American public with less enforcement and questionable regulation over the past five years, medical community heavy-hitters are calling for immediate reform.

The film explores drug industry influence on various levels through important interviews with opinion leaders such as Dr. John Abramson of Harvard and author of Overdo$ed America, Dr. Bob Goodman of Columbia University who founded the program No Free Lunch and Dr. Jerome Hoffman of UCLA Medical School.

In "Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety" the experts point out exactly how much pull Big Pharma has within the FDA. "More than half of the budget of the division of the FDA that approves new drugs and oversees drug safety is being funded by the drug companies…" said Dr. John Abramson. "The watchdogs are largely drugged."

"Right now, our government is not terribly interested in making any reforms that would be useful, because they're so beholden to drug companies ," said Dr. Jerome Hoffman. "We have to have the clout, influence and the organization to make it so that they can't blithely go along making the FDA be something that has been widely and famously called a servant of the drug industry. We have to make the FDA a servant to us."

Filmmaker Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau said, "I think the most shocking information to come out of this documentary was the direct level of financial dependence the FDA has on the pharmaceutical industry ."

"Agency jobs and funding are sustained by the monetary success of new or existing drugs," she said. "This conflict of interest significantly jeopardizes public safety."

"Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety" comes as Slattery-Moschkau's second film about the issues within the pharmaceutical industry. Her debut film "Side Effects," was a fictional approach to exposing the issues, based on her decade working as a drug sales rep for two of the nation's top pharmaceutical companies. 12.10.06

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Mephedrone ban proves politics has 'polluted' science: Lancet

The ban on street drug Mephedrone known as 'miaow' has been rushed through for political, rather than scientific reasons, an editorial in The Lancet has warned. The leading medical journal said the relationship between scientists and the Government had been strained following the sacking of Prof David Nutt, the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, over his comments about Ecstasy.

It said that pressure had been put on the new ACMD to ban Mephedrone, despite the lack of evidence that it actually caused deaths.

The editorial said: "There was little time to consider carefully the scientific evidence on Mephedrone. The ACMD did not have sufficient evidence to judge the harms caused by this drug class. "It is too easy and potentially counterproductive to ban each new substance that comes along rather than seek to understand more about young people's motivations and how we can influence them."

It continues: "The events surrounding the ACMD signal a disappointing finale to the government's relationship with science.

"Politics has been allowed to contaminate scientific processes and the advice that underpins policy. The outcome of an independent inquiry into the practices of the ACMD, commissioned by the Home Office in October, 2009, is now urgently awaited. Lessons from this debacle need to be learned by a new incoming government."

Mephedrone will become a Class B drug from Friday April 16th and anyone found in possession of it will face a five-year prison sentence and dealing it will carry a 14-year prison sentence.

Shops and internet outlets selling the drug, labelled as plant food, have been clearing their shelves ahead of the ban. 16.4.10

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Breakthrough British scientists - receive no support

Two British scientists have made a scientific breakthrough which could save the future of fish stocks. Steve Marriot, 57, and wife Frances, 41, have invented the world's first ever system which allows sea fish such as cod - which is facing extinction - and tuna to live in fresh water. They stumbled upon the idea while on holiday ten years ago when they came across an isolated foreign lake which was used by local tribesmen.

The lake was fresh water but was filled with saltwater fish - and the couple spent a decade trying to recreate the environment to harness its unique qualities. Mr Marriot, of Holsworthy, Devon, said their invention could be used to 'restock the sea' and repopulate stricken species such as cod. He said: 'You could even set this up in the Sahara - the implications are huge. 'Cod, like many other fish species will very soon be extinct but can now be reared in freshwater tanks under computer controlled conditions.'

Mr and Mrs Marriot, both fish behaviour specialists, spent a decade developing their invention and 18 months ago the firm had just £50 in the bank. But their research has since snowballed and the pair were recently offered £25million for the business - which they turned down because they believe it has such massive potential. Their groundbreaking technology will see sea fish 'farmed' in massive freshwater tanks on dry land miles from the coast.

They have recently licensed the technique to be used at a multi-million pound Blue Fin Tuna farm in Singapore , which will rear the fish for the Far Eastern sushi market. The technology will see sea fish farms set up in fresh water tanks in computer controlled conditions - and is seen as a massive breakthrough in international fish production and food supply.

Mr Marriot said: 'This is a commercially viable system which could eventually lead to replenishing the natural stocks. 'We feel justified in saying that our approach could have a dramatic impact both commercially and on our fast dwindling stocks.'

He added: 'Many years ago we first discovered a salt water species living quite happily in a freshwater lake. The species itself was of little interest commercially but fascinating none the less. 'The lake itself was quite unique in many ways and completely isolated. 'The local tribesmen knew nothing of the remarkable nature of the lake and took the fish for granted. 'But as far as they were aware they had always been in abundance and had been a valuable food source for as long as anyone could remember.

'At that point in time we had neither the infrastructure nor the resources to investigate further and for many years the whole affair remained a curiosity.' It then took the couple seven years to replicate the habitat in a tank without any genetic modification of the fish. Their research company Diobas used a pool of over 300 international scientists to form the system, which takes three months to build and install.

Steve added: 'It was quite baffling as the salt water fish's survival in the fresh water had been relatively recent so their survival could not be due to a genetic abnormality. 'In fact the very same fish could be caught a few hundred miles away in the sea which is where they had been introduced from originally. 'We began to wonder if other saltwater species could also survive in a freshwater environment. Logic and biological studies said "no" and, to be frank, we had to agree, but somehow these fish were flourishing.'

The Marriots are now planning to relocate to Singapore after claiming they contacted every member of the House of Lords and Commons to find support - and received none. Mr Marriot said: 'Eighteen months ago, we knew we'd cracked it, but our company account was down to its last £50 and we were desperate for support.

'Very sadly, but not surprising given the current lack of vision by both the incumbent government, hamstrung local authorities and the irrational desire to give vast sums of money to bankers, we find that despite our best efforts to try and retain this revolutionary technology and the benefits of producing a relatively cheap, sustainable source of ‘fresh' fish within the UK, we have been met with the kind of blind response that has attributed to many of the embarrassing and inexcusable explanations we will one day have to give to our future generations as to why their forefathers made such a mess of running our planet'.

Even our MP's, House of Lords, DEFRA and SEAFISH have shown little or no interest in helping us to move this project forward despite the obvious potential of bringing in foreign currency and the worldwide need for the sustainability of our oceans. Perhaps however with an election looming and the need for them to come out in daylight we may get someone calling us'.

'It was a tough struggle and we needed help but we have got there. 'If I hadn't been so thick-skinned, we would never have pushed it through. It would have been much more satisfying if our home industry had taken the lead.'

An expert on fish behaviour, Mr Marriot has written clauses into the licenses of his technology to prevent 'battery farming' conditions. Experts say that to create a saltwater fish farm on an industrial scale is extremely difficult and costly. Salt is an expensive commodity and trying to control a seawater environment is technically very difficult. Sea water is also heavily contaminated and saltwater fish farms have to be very near the coast so the water can be pumped in and out. There have been saltwater fish farm projects around the world - including off the coast of Scotland - which have only enjoyed limited success. 15.4.10

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NHS 'wastes £25m on silver dressings that don't beat bugs'

Millions of pounds are being wasted by the NHS on wound dressings containing silver, a report has found. The bandages have become a fashionable weapon in the fight against hospital infections. But research shows that their £25million annual cost cannot be justified because there is no evidence to show they work better than conventional dressings.

Silver is used in many types of coverings for wounds, ulcers and burns because it is thought to stop microbes from spreading. But Ike Iheanacho, editor of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, which independently reviews evidence on drugs and treatments, claimed its investigation found the evidence for this was 'flimsy'.

Few proper scientific trials have been carried out on the subject and the little research that exists was on small sample sizes, over inadequate periods of time and poorly conducted, he said. 'Money is being wasted in most cases. In the case of infected burns there is a small amount of evidence but it's weak even there,' said Dr Iheanacho. 'The use of these dressings has become fashionable because of the rise in microbial infections in hospital.

Silver was used for its antibacterial properties before antibiotics and other chemicals were invented and there is a plausible scientific basis for incorporating silver into dressings. 'But when you look for the evidence it's not there. For leg ulcers there's probably nothing better than good compression bandaging and it's as cheap as chips.'

The high cost of using the precious metal is 'difficult to justify' when evidence that they work better than cheaper dressings is so scarce, he added. The Bulletin report said: 'Silver dressings are expensive and there have been few high-quality clinical trials to establish whether they have advantages over other, cheaper alternatives. 'Most of the studies that have been conducted have had considerable methodological limitations.

With these factors in mind, we believe the routine use of silver dressings is not justified on clinical or cost- effectiveness grounds as treatment for uncomplicated leg ulcers, when simple dressings and compression bandaging are more appropriate. 'Overall, the amount currently spent in the NHS on silver dressings appears difficult to justify in the light of the existing data.'

NHS spending on silver products rose from around £23million in 2005 to around £25million in 2006/7, according to an editorial published in the Bulletin. The latest figure is a quarter of all the cash spent on wound dressings in that year, with silver dressings accounting for one in seven of all bandages. The report said they were not suitable for acute wounds because there was some evidence, albeit weak, to suggest they can delay rather than speed up healing. 15.4.10

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Dieting without exercise 'will NOT help you lose weight'

Those who stick to a low-calories diet in the hope of losing weight shouldn't bother unless they exercise as well, according to scientists. A new study found that simply reducing portion sizes or swapping snacks for healthier alternatives was not enough to promote significant weight loss.

Scientists from Oregon Health and Science University said this appeared to be due to a natural compensatory mechanism that reduces a person's physical activity in response to a reduction in calories. This research shows that simply dieting will not likely cause substantial weight loss. Instead, diet and exercise must be combined to achieve this goal,'  said lead researcher Judy Cameron, from OHSU.

To conduct the research, Dr Cameron and her colleague Dr Elinor Sullivan, studied 18 female rhesus macaque monkeys. The monkeys were placed on a high-fat diet for several years. They were then returned to a lower-fat diet with a 30 per cent reduction in calories.

For a one-month period, the monkeys' weight and activity levels were closely tracked. Activity was tracked through the use of an activity monitor worn on a collar. 'Surprisingly, there was no significant weight loss at the end of the month,' Dr Sullivan said. 'However, there was a significant change in the activity levels for these monkeys. Naturally occurring levels of physical activity for the animals began to diminish soon after the reduced-calorie diet began. 'When caloric intake was further reduced in a second month, physical activity in the monkeys diminished even further.'

A comparison group of three monkeys was fed a normal monkey diet and was trained to exercise for one hour daily on a treadmill. This comparison group did lose weight. 'This study demonstrates that there is a natural body mechanism which conserves energy in response to a reduction in calories.

'Food is not always plentiful for humans and animals and the body seems to have developed a strategy for responding to these fluctuations,' said Dr Cameron.

'These findings will assist medical professionals in advising their patients. It may also impact the development of community interventions to battle the childhood obesity epidemic and lead to programs that emphasize both diet and exercise.' The research is published in the April edition of the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. 14.4.10

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Total abuse: Civil servants charged astonishing £1bn for taxi rides, restaurants and hotels to state credit cards

Civil servants have gone on a multi-billion pound expenses spree using credit cards paid for by the taxpayer. More than 140,000 senior public sector workers used government-issue cards to spend a fortune - some of it on fine dining, wine and £100 taxi rides. In 2009 alone they spent almost £1billion, four times as much as in 2002 and enough to pay the salaries of 50,000 nurses. Since 2002, the total has reached £5billion.

Controversial equalities chief Trevor Phillips racked up more than £6,000 over two years, including a £94 bottle of wine. Checks were so lax that one civil servant with a love of appearing in musicals paid thousands to firms involved in set production and sheet music.

Some 141,000 civil servants and quango chiefs have access to 'government procurement cards' to pay bills rather than having to submit receipts and claim money back. While the claims are not unlawful, the revelations at a time of economic crisis could undermine confidence in the civil service just as disclosures about MPs' expenses undermined trust in Parliament.

Former independent MP Martin Bell, who campaigns against sleaze, said last night: 'The rules and standards we now expect our MPs to adhere to should apply to civil servants. 'This is a time for frugality - and all those who abuse their expenses should leave their jobs. Period.'

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance , said: 'This is a terrifying sum to be racked up on credit cards, and it's even more sickening that the money is being spent on fancy meals. 'These cards should absolutely not be a bottomless pit, but should have tightly defined limits. The high number of people who are being given this facility opens up the possibility of it being abused. 'This huge figure will no doubt be viewed as an insult by the thousands of low-paid council workers living with the fear of public sector cutbacks.'

The coveted cards, issued by companies like RBS and Barclaycard, are available only to top state workers, including quango bosses, council chief executives and senior civil servants. The government insists the scheme saves the taxpayer money because fewer staff need to be employed to oversee it.

The new figures, obtained under a Freedom of Information request, show that leading claimants included Paul Leinster, chief executive of the Environment Agency, who clocked up £31,181.59 from June 2008 to March 2009 - including more than £17,000 on hotel bills and £734 on a dinner for 13 agency staff. He also charged £1,400 for staff to attend both Tory and Labour conferences.

A spokesman for the agency said Mr Leinster 'often has to stay in a hotel several times a week and take long train journeys' and added: 'Wherever possible, Paul uses the best value hotel.' Last year Stephen Macvicar, a procurement manager at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, faced a probe last year for allegedly 'misusing' his GPC to fund his passion for musical theatre.

The 41-year-old was sued by his former bosses for £58,000 after it was claimed he used the card to stage amateur dramatics productions - including one in which he played the greedy Mr Bumble in Oliver!

Local councils also racked up huge claims. At Canterbury city council, 91 corporate card holders spent £156,000 last year, of which £18,571 was on 'hotels and resorts', £1,052 on 'cruise liners' and £1,159 at 'toy shops'. Last night the council said all bills had been checked and were 'reasonable and appropriate'. The Office of Government Commerce says GPCs are issued to buy 'high volume, low value goods and services - from office supplies to taxi fares'.

But they also let holders directly buy flights, hotel accommodation, and business breakfasts and lunches as well as paying 'entertainment' costs. Applicants can use vague headings like 'travel', ' subsistence' and 'other'. A spokesman for Buying Solutions, the government agency which runs the scheme, insisted it has generated savings by 'streamlining' expenses.

He said there were 'no figures available' on card users being disciplined or cautioned for misuse. Last night the Tories promised to reform the scheme. Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: 'It's one thing to have a card system to order supplies for government offices but quite another to use them like expense accounts for highly-paid quangocrats. A Conservative government will keep a rigorous check on the personal expenses of top civil servants.' 14.4.10

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Health chiefs' pay bonanza: As nurses' salaries are squeezed, NHS bureaucrats pocket 7% rise

The pay of NHS bosses has soared by almost 7 per cent in a year - more than twice the rise for nurses. There are now 25 health trust chief executives earning more than the Prime Minister's salary of £192,400.

The Opposition seized on the figures as further evidence that Labour cannot be trusted to keep public spending under control. They show that trusts rejected a request from ministers to limit senior managers' pay rises to 2.2 per cent. Some have been offering sky-high pay to entice people from the private sector or poach them from other trusts.

The elevation of hospital trusts to foundation status - with greater financial independence - has often been accompanied by sharp increases in top salaries. Last week the Tories promised to peg the salaries of public sector bosses to no more than 20 times the lowest-paid employee.

Critics slammed the 6.7 per cent rise as the latest example of the pay bonanza in the Health Service, which has seen billions of taxpayers' money go on extra money for staff - GPs and consultants as well as managers - rather than better services for patients.

The news came as it emerged that the Tory election manifesto, to be unveiled tomorrow, will promise to make GPs available from 8am to 8pm and give them back responsibility for out-of-hours care. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance , said last night: 'These soaring pay packages are a financial drain and a huge political problem. Pay restraint is essential throughout the public sector, and it must start at the top if those further down the pecking order are going to accept it. 'For far too long the Government has indulged in massive pay rises for senior NHS staff and now they have come to expect ever-increasing amounts of taxpayers' money regardless of the economic reality.'

Janet Davies, director of service delivery at the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'It is difficult to expect nurses and other staff to be happy with their pay award when staff in their boardroom are getting three times as much. At a time when the NHS is expected to make significant savings, pay must be seen to be fair.'

Sharon Holder, national officer for the GMB union, said: 'What a disgrace it is to see an Upstairs Downstairs model, with the top echelons on the gravy train and low-paid workers whose job it is to stop the spread of viruses not getting the pay they are entitled to.'

The pay study, from Incomes Data Services, used figures from more than 380 NHS trusts in England .

It found that chief executives typically earned £150,000. But there are wide variations and 19 earn more than £200,000. The highest-paid was Ron Kerr at Guy's and St Thomas ' in central London , on £270,000. Bosses at 'elite' NHS foundation trusts - some of which are the subject of concerns about substandard care - received £10,000 more on average than those managing normal trusts.

The increase in pay is not entirely the result of boards awarding huge rises. It is also a result of a 'merry-go-round' of public sector jobs, with people seeing their pay increase markedly as they move. NHS bosses who swap trusts also enjoy the advantage of staying in a lucrative pension scheme. The 6.7 per cent rise for the top brass follows a 6.4 per cent increase the previous year. It is far above the 2.75 per cent for nurses in 2008/09.

Steve Tatton, editor of the IDS NHS Boardroom Pay Report 2010, said: 'Our survey will not make comfortable reading for those wishing to see those at the top leading from the front on wage restraint. 'These are undoubtedly testing times for those making decisions - balancing recruitment and motivation against the need to keep tight control of the public purse. But it seems the equation has fallen on the side of high salary awards.'

But Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, said many hospitals had problems attracting candidates - forcing them to put up pay. He said: 'NHS organisations are large and complex and the skills required to lead them are considerable and scarce.

'A large city hospital could have a budget of £500million to £1billion and employ 10,000 staff - comparable to many FTSE 250 companies.'

A spokesman for Guy's and St Thomas ' said: 'The pay of our chief executive, Ron Kerr, reflects the experience, expertise and responsibility that the role demands, and we are delighted to have a chief executive of his calibre. 'Guy's and St Thomas ' is one of the largest, most complex and successful NHS Foundation Trusts in the country. With an annual turnover in excess of £900million and a strong track record for both the delivery of high-quality care and for sound financial management, we expect to have an executive team which can deliver exceptional performance.'

The Department of Health said: 'NHS and foundation trusts are independent organisations and set their senior pay in the light of the recommendations of their independent remuneration committees - there are no central targets. All pay arrangements over £150,000 a year must now be publicly justified.'

Failure to tackle soaring rates of obesity and binge drinking has marred Labour's 13-year stewardship of the NHS, a study has found. Despite costly campaigns to persuade people to drink less and eat more healthily, Britain is now the third fattest country in the world.

The study by the King's Fund think-tank also found that out-of-hours GP provision has got worse, productivity has declined and cancer survival is still lagging behind much of Europe. The report said: 'Consumption of alcohol has increased since 1998, accompanied by a rise in alcohol-related hospital admissions and rates of liver disease.

'The prevalence of obesity is rising in adults and children, despite Government targets to halt the increase.' There were some improvements, notably in reducing hospital waiting times. 12.4.10

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Ignored by the political process: Anguished letter to Brown and Cameron reveals devastating toll of immigration on schools, housing and hospitals

The impact of uncontrolled mass immigration on the fabric of British life was driven home to the party leaders yesterday. A letter to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg reveals in graphic detail the struggle of one community to cope. It says public services  -  from schooling to housing, healthcare to police protection  -  are overstretched because councils have not been given the support they need.

The letter, from two independent councillors in the Cambridgeshire city of Peterborough , spells out in a straightforward and measured way how a community which 'lived in peace and harmony' has been transformed. Local schools are struggling to educate children who speak 27 different languages and health services are under unprecedented pressure. The councillors, Charles Swift and Keith Sharp, contrast the situation with that of a few years ago.

Then, they say, 'there was parental choice in education with school places. There was no homelessness. There were no problems with registering at the local doctors for health services. 'Everyone knew the local police officer and they were available at all times. People could walk the streets in safety and talk to their neighbours.'

The two men asked the party leaders for a reply, warning that the problem is a national one. But in another example of the way immigration issues have been brushed under the carpet, they have heard nothing. The letter has been sent to Mr Brown and Mr Clegg three times since January 18, without any reply. David Cameron responded with an email from his correspondence secretary promising a reply from immigration spokesman Damian Green. Mr Swift and Mr Sharp are still waiting.

The two councillors represent North ward in Peterborough where 15 per cent of people are migrants, mainly from former Communist countries in Eastern Europe which are now EU members. Their letter  -  which they also sent to constituents  -  was passed to the Daily Mail by a local resident concerned that its urgent message was being ignored.

The councillors say: 'At our local primary school, Fulbridge, which has a roll of 675 pupils, 27 different languages are spoken with only 200 of the pupils having English as a first language. 'The first-year reception class has 90 pupils, of which only 17 are white British. Every day new arrivals are turned away.

'Registration at the local doctors' surgery has rocketed with more than 90 per cent of the new arrivals being from the EU. There has been a substantial increase in women who are pregnant. 'The Health Service and Primary Care Trust in the city has overspent by millions in the past year.' A key issue is the Government's failure to support councils.

But Mr Swift and Mr Sharp make clear that the local authority cannot track all new arrivals  -  crucial information in assessing what they need. They say there were only four EU citizens on the local electoral roll in 2004. Now there are 537 and 'we know there are substantially more here'.

The councillors also voiced the local fears that immigration is fuelling a rise in crime. They write: 'We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable. Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance.'

Some 16,000 migrants, many seeking farm work, have moved to the Peterborough area since 2004. Immigrant communities account for 64 per cent of the population growth. Details of the letter emerged a day after the Daily Mail revealed shocking figures showing that nearly every job created under Labour has gone to a foreign worker. Some 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts went to immigrants.

In their letter, Mr Swift and Mr Sharp say the arrival of so many migrants has left Peterborough 's housing system in chaos, with immigrants sleeping rough and relying on the Salvation Army for food. They say many properties have been bought by speculators and turned into multioccupancy dwellings let to immigrants. 'The consequence is that our housing waiting lists have rocketed and our homeless hostels are full.'

This reinforces reports of migrants living in makeshift huts along the local river and slaughtering swans to eat. The councillors' concerns were echoed last night in a Harris poll for the Daily Mail, which reveals that seven out of ten voters are 'very worried' about the scale of immigration and believe it is a 'significant cause of unrest'.

Some 63 per cent think the influx of two million immigrants under Labour has been a 'bad thing' and three out of four want a tough limit on new arrivals. Mr Swift, 79, a former train driver and trade unionist who was awarded the OBE for his council services, said last night: 'The political leaders must listen to ordinary people. 'There must be a control on migrant numbers coming in. It is what people want. They feel the situation has got out of hand. I have spoken to rocksolid Labour supporters, rocksolid Conservative supporters. They don't know how to vote.'

Sir Andrew Green, head of the Migrationwatch campaign group, called the letter 'a vivid and convincing account of the impact of immigration'. He added: 'It is shameful that these councillors should have received no substantive reply'.

Last night a Tory spokesman said a reply from Mr Green is due to be sent before MPs' offices close on Monday. A spokesman for Mr Brown said: 'We are not currently aware of this correspondence but of course Gordon will answer any questions that are asked of him.' Nick Clegg's spokesman said: 'We are very sorry these councillors have not received a reply. They will be getting one as soon as possible.'

City that can't cope any more: While this Czech family are thrilled with their new council house, such largesse is ruining communities Helena Horvatova is proud of her seven children. She lines them up in the back garden of her terrace house and explains that the youngest, aged four months, is called Kevin.

'It is a very British name. We want him to grow up British,' says the 27-year-old Czech mother, who arrived in Peterborough two weeks ago. In broken English, she continues: 'We came to Britain because we wanted a better life for all of our children.' Mrs Horvatova pats little Kevin on his head, before plopping down on a battered bench in the middle of her garden, which is littered with rubbish. Outside the kitchen door there are grubby children's clothes and some beer cans.

Inside the house sits Mrs Horvatova's husband, Frankie. He is 29 and also is able to speak only a few words of English. 'He does not go to work,' his wife says, as her ten-year-old daughter, Nicola, tries to help as an interpreter. As the other children (Frankie, 12, Helena , nine, Marek, seven, Natala, six, and David, four) clamour for attention, their mother explains: 'My husband is claiming the Jobseekers' allowance. Back in our country he was a school cleaner, but in Peterborough they say there are no vacancies.

'The council has been very good to us. It has given us a house because we have the children. It only has three bedrooms, though, and we would like more. 'The only problem is our oldest boy has to go to school five miles away. It is difficult to get him there, but we have a car and my husband drives. 'The schools nearby are full of children who came to Peterborough before us,' she says.

I went to Peterborough after receiving a copy of a letter originally sent to the prime minister and leaders of the other main political parties by two independent councillors. The letter revealed how the city's public services are under strain and struggling to cope with levels of immigration. The councillors begged the politicians for help. Officially, the Horvatovas are among 10,000 new eastern European immigrants who have turned up in the city in the past six years.

But that is a conservative count. The East Of England Regional Assembly believes 16,000 have settled in Peterborough since Britain opened its borders to migrants from the former communist bloc countries in 2004. Yet local people are convinced this figure is a gross underestimation of the tally of foreigners arriving in this beautiful and once quintessentially English city, with a Norman cathedral where Henry VIII's first wife Catherine of Aragon is buried.

'There must be at least 20,000,' said one GP with a surgery near the city centre. 'We can tell because the total number of patients we have registered has gone up by 3,000 in just a few years. Most of the new patients are from Poland , Lithuania , the Czech Republic and Slovakia .'

At this surgery staff are also overwhelmed with increasing numbers of pregnant women. 'This whole place is about to explode with babies,' explained a nurse at a clinic, half-a-mile from Mrs Horvatov's home. 'It is a common thing for 14, 15 and 16-year-old girls who have arrived from Slovakia and Lithuania to come in pregnant or wanting fertility advice. We tell them it is illegal in this country to have sexual intercourse at their age.

'We suspect they want babies because they know it will lead to a house and child benefits. There are so many foreign girls having babies that it will change the face of Peterborough .' That change, it would seem, has already begun. Last month, it was revealed migrant workers in Peterborough are killing swans to eat and are also preying illegally on fish. Local anglers claimed ' legally-protected swans' were being 'butchered' by immigrants who are 'raping' the city's waterways by snaring the birds, battering them to death with iron bars and roasting them on open fires on the bank of the River Nene.

Witnesses say migrants camping in woods are using inhumane methods to kill fish, such as long lines with multiple hooks, which are left in the water overnight and cause a slow and painful death. While it should be stressed that many of the new arrivals work very hard for low wages - doing jobs local people are not prepared to do - there are many who have quickly learned how to work the benefits system. Each day at 1pm , when the Inland Revenue Office at Hereward House opens, a queue of girls speaking foreign tongues snakes down the road.

Their buggies and prams crowd the pavement as they wait to sign on for tax credits and child benefits - as they are entitled to under EU law. Yet, despite the availability of generous benefits, there is a growing foreign underclass in Peterborough , which is said to be the fastest growing multi-ethnic community in Britain .

People sleep rough in derelict houses, alleyways, garden sheds or under crude shelters made of wood and plastic sheeting in the parks - anywhere they can find a place to rest their weary heads at night. These are the homeless European migrants that Labour promised this week (an announcement cynically made on the opening day of the election campaign) would be thrown out of Britain , because they cannot support themselves financially.

According to EU rules, foreigners can live in other member countries for up to three months, but can only remain if they are financially independent, working or registered as students. Peterborough , with its considerable migration problems, has been chosen as the pilot scheme for the expulsion project.

This week, I saw two uniformed UK Border Agency officers (plus a policeman and two Peterborough Council staff) search three empty properties in Thistlemoor Road . They found no one. Yet the stench of urine inside, the abandoned bed clothes on the floor and a pile of unwashed cups in the kitchen sinks was proof someone had been staying there until very recently.

When I pointed out that three penniless and jobless Slovakians were living in a property just along the street, the officers got in their cars and drove away. As a result, Ivan, 37, Monica, 30, and Vadim, 42, managed to escape detection. Inside a shabby, boarded up house, they have made a home. There are two single beds and a couple of dirty rugs on the concrete floor downstairs. Through the rotting roof you can see the sky.

'We came here 20 days ago,' says Monica, with tears in her eyes. 'I worked yesterday for the first time - getting £10 for doing cleaning at a house. 'We have nothing apart from what we have found on rubbish tips. We try to keep clean and have bought a few bars of soap. The only thing I have eaten today is a bag of grapes.'

Why Ivan, Monica and Vadim have left home and journeyed across Europe to live such a squalid existence is hard to understand. 'We knew the name of Peterborough from people in Slovakia ,' says Monica in pitifully bad English while tossing back her mane of black hair. 'They said we could get everything here. There are no jobs in Slovakia . We don't want to go back and we will work hard.'

Thousands of east European migrants were drawn to Peterborough 20 years ago, attracted by jobs picking and packing fruit and vegetables, grown on the flat fenlands of East Angli . According the East Of England Regional Authority, an estimated 60 local employment agencies target migrants from the old communist bloc nations to work in agriculture.

The employment is seasonal, poorly paid and back-breakingly hard. Few Britons will contemplate doing it. From the spring until the autumn, the work allows foreigners to eke out a living. But during winter, many become increasingly desperate. Vadim takes up the story. He has a bruised cheek and a bloodshot left eye. 'We came here to earn money,' he says.

'It has not been good for us. We asked some Ukrainians renting a house down the road to take us in, to at least let us sleep on the floor. They banged me to the ground.'

This group's wretched tale is typical. Peterborough simply cannot cope with such a huge influx of foreigners - particularly at a time of economic crisis when the indigenous families are struggling in the jobs market and public services are threatened with years of cuts. The city's housing list is longer than at any time since World War II. There are nearly 7,000 families waiting for accommodation.

At the housing office, 95 per cent of the people who are seen by officials do not speak English and interpreters (paid £30 an hour) are on hand to help out. Meanwhile, primary school teachers say they are struggling to cope with the increasing numbers of pupils who speak Slavic languages. One 32-year-old teacher told me this week: 'Their parents believe in education, but the children are arriving in such vast numbers that even the most dedicated of us wonder how this will all end.'

It was three years ago that local MP Stewart Jackson raised Peterborough's social problems during a debate in the House of Commons. 'There are suburbs which were settled and peaceful, if not affluent,' he said. 'They are now the centre of mass migration. They are becoming ghettoised. 'There has been a massive increase in the number of houses in multiple occupation, some with ten people. Their demand on public services grows weekly. 'Neighbour disputes are rife. The police try to keep disparate communities from conducting turf wars, which prevents them from tacking routine crime.'

Peterborough has a history of immigration. However, until recently, the numbers were small enough for most incomers to integrate happily.

Originally, Italians arrived to work in the city's brick factories. By the Eighties, Pakistanis came to be taxi drivers, run restaurants and build property empires, buying up streets of the terraced houses which they now let out room by room to the new wave of migrants. But this time, things are different.

As the MP warned: ' Resentment, anger and hostility is rising in the host communities - the white British, AfroCaribbeans and Pakistanis alike. There are enormous potential problems brewing for Peterborough.' Prescient words. And what a pity no one was listening. 10.4.10

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Another failed awareness campaign: Millions spent on 5-a-day mantra but now we're eating even LESS vegetables

The number of vegetables eaten by Britons is falling despite the millions of pounds being spent on the Government's 5 A Day campaign, a report reveals today. It shows vegetable consumption dropped by 11 per cent in 2008 compared with the average level over the previous five years.

The fall has been blamed on the time and effort needed to prepare fresh produce, with the food described as increasingly failing to fit into modern lifestyles. Experts recommend eating five portions of fruit and vegetable a day to help stay healthy, stressing how the habit keeps hearts functioning well, and ministers have poured huge sums into advertising campaigns promoting the diet.

But critics say the research by produce industry association Freshfel Europe shows that the costly government healthy eating promotions have proved ineffective. The Department of Health alone has spent £3.3million in the past four years on the 5 A Day campaign, which publicises eating fresh produce on NHS websites as well as T-shirts and bags. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg because councils, primary care trusts and hospitals have all made their own contribution.

In the UK , average consumption of fruit and vegetables is around three portions a day. The research published in The Grocer Magazine did show a 1 per rise in British fruit consumption in 2008. However, over the last 60 years there has been a 34 per cent decline in UK vegetable consumption, with only 33 per cent of women and 37 per cent of men hitting the five a day target in 2009.

Mark Wallace, of the TaxPayers' Alliance , said: 'It's clear that despite spending a fortune on advertising and healthy eating propaganda the Government has failed to encourage people to eat more healthily. 'These figures confirm that massive Government advertising budgets are more about massaging the egos of politicians than producing positive outcomes.'

As well as the 5 A Day campaign, the Government's Change4Life promotion also urged the public to eat more fruit and vegetables with an initial £9million budget. There were also high hopes for the School Fruit and Vegetables scheme, which gives a piece of fruit or vegetable to all children aged four to six at school in England, but early research suggested consumption at home went down at the same time. The scheme cost £43million last year.

Independent nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton said changing lifestyles make it hard to push up fruit and vegetable intake. She said: 'Modern life is about rewarding yourself with a treat after a hard day, and eating fruit and vegetables does not fit in with that. 'They often need time and effort to prepare and people lack cooking skills. People tend to go for the easy microwave option: they're not against the message but it's not made easy enough for them to see it through.'

Fresh Produce Consortium chief executive Nigel Jenney said the eating trends were disappointing, adding that the 5 A Day campaign should do more to stress the poor nutritional value of processed food. 10.4.10

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The hidden agenda – now Exposed - Labour's betrayal of British workers

Nearly every one of 1.67m jobs created since 1997 has gone to a foreigner. Immigration was at the centre of the election campaign today as it emerged that virtually every extra job created under Labour has gone to a foreign worker. Figures suggested an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants.

The Tories seized on the revelation as evidence that the Government has totally failed to deliver its pledge of 'British jobs for British workers'. As Gordon Brown tried to fight on the economy and cleaning up politics, he was confronted in the Commons about how British people of working age have lost out.

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green revealed unpublished figures showing there are almost 730,000 fewer British-born workers in the private sector than in 1997. Mr Green said the Tories would reduce net migration to tens of thousands a year from the peaks of 200,000 under Labour by enforcing an annual cap.

Mr Brown rejected the idea of an immigration quota, which he said would do 'great damage to British business'. But Mr Green said the official figures were 'the final proof that Gordon Brown was misleading the public when he promised British jobs for British workers'. He added: 'Instead he has presided over boom and bust and left British workers in a worse position than when he took office 13 years ago.

'British workers have been betrayed. A Conservative government would introduce a genuine limit which would help us properly control immigration. 'We would reduce net immigration to the levels of the 1980s and 90s - tens of thousands a year, not the hundreds of thousands we have seen under Labour.' The figures will boost Tory attacks on Gordon Brown but Labour are determined to shift the focus to Conservative economic plans - launching a bitter attack today.

They are defiant despite scores of business leaders backing Tory plans to curb National Insurance and clearly believe they can turn the tables on David Cameron. Gordon Brown, at his first election press conference alongside Alistair Darling and Lord Mandelson, was claimed their proposals are 'flimsy' and drawn up on the back on an envelope, while the Chancellor declared they had 'thrown caution to the wind'.

Labour claims the Tory plans would mean making £37billion in savings this year, the equivalent of half the education budget, and argue they are totally incredible. David Cameron is moving on to flesh out his plans for a 'Big Society' but will struggle to shift the agenda as the Lib Dems have also today rounded on his economic plans.

They say Tory plans on inheritance tax, tax breaks for married couples and National Insurance will cost £13.5billion but so far just £100million of this has been set out. A new Lib Dem campaign poster claims they will have to raise VAT to 20.5 per cent to fund the proposals, costing an average family £389 a year.

The ONS figures on immigration show the total number of people in work in both the private and the public sector has risen from around 25.7million in 1997 to 27.4million at the end of last year, an increase of 1.67million. But the number of workers born abroad has increased dramatically by 1.64million, from 1.9million to 3.5million.

There were 23.8million British-born workers in employment at the end of last year, just 25,000 more than when Labour came to power. In the private sector, the number of British workers has actually fallen. The number of posts for people of working age has increased since 1997 by over 500,000, to 20.5million. But the number of British-born workers in the private sector has slumped by 726,000, from 18.4million to 17.7million.

The figures exclude people working beyond pension age, which critics say the Government includes as 'new jobs' in its assessments. Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that, over ten years, only Luxembourg had seen more of its new jobs taken by migrants.

The latest totals do not include the hundreds of thousands of migrants employed in the 'black economy'. Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch pressure group, said: 'The government's economic case for mass immigration is finally blown out of the water.'

A Labour Party spokesman said: 'Net inward migration has fallen and Labour has set out how we will use the points-based system to ensure that, as growth returns, our priority is to see rising levels of skills, wages and employment, not rising immigration. 'But we reject a Tory quota which is arbitrary and misleading - not covering most of those who apply to come to Britain - and bad for business and growth.

'Under the points-based system the door is currently closed to unskilled workers from outside the EU, and the rules are being tightened on students working part-time. Skilled jobs must be advertised in Jobcentre Plus before being opened to migrant workers. 'Unemployment is around half a million lower than people anticipated last year, as thousands of British workers benefit from the help and support we offer. 'With more than 480,000 vacancies right now we are making sure no one gets left behind.' 

Politicians of all parties have lamentably failed to tell the truth about how immigration has changed this country beyond recognition during Labour's 13 years in power. Here JAMES SLACK explains what is really happening...

NET MIGRATION
Net inward migration to the UK , the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving, is up threefold since Labour came to power.

In 1997, it stood at 48,000. By 2004, fuelled by a surge in new arrivals from Eastern Europe , it reached an all-time record 244,000, and in 2007 it was 237,000. The following year it did begin to fall, as Britain headed into a deep recession, but the total still stood at 163,000.

Mr Brown suggested the as-yet-unpublished figure for 2009 would be 147,000. But this was incomplete data which excluded asylum seekers, visitors who decide to stay long-term and arrivals from Ireland and earned the Premier earned a swift rebuke from Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority. The Tories have pledged to reduce the level of net migration to 'tens of thousands' - but have yet to specify a number.

POPULATION GROWTH
The Office for National Statistics projects that - based on current levels of migration - the UK's population of 61million, will grow to 70million by 2029. The figure has become a battleground between the Government and those pushing for stricter immigration controls.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson initially said he did not 'lie awake' worrying about such rapid growth. He is now insisting the ONS figure is only a projection and that the statisticians have been wrong in the past. The number of immigrants living in Britain has almost doubled in less than three decades. The total foreign-born population now stands at 6.7million.

JOBS
Mr Brown's now notorious 'British jobs for British workers' pledge is fatally undermined by employment figures from the ONS. These show that, in the private sector, there were 288,000 fewer UK-born people working in the third quarter of last year than there were in 1997.

Mr Brown likes to include people working beyond pension age as 'new jobs' - but if you strip them out, there are 637,000 fewer. Overall, immigration has accounted for more than 1.64million of the 1.67million jobs created since 1997.

THE BLACK ECONOMY
For much of the last decade, Britain has been a magnet for illegal immigration and it has never been possible to put a definitive figure on the numbers entering this way. Migrants mass at the Sangatte refugee camp near Calais, then smuggle themselves into the UK, often hidden in lorries. The stowaways vanish into a black economy estimated to be worth billions of pounds.

Commonly, illegal immigrants work in kitchens, agricultural and construction jobs. Immigration staff, struggling to cope with a backlog of asylum claims, do not have the resources to track them down. During the 2005 election campaign, Tony Blair repeatedly refused to estimate how many illegals were living here. A month after being re-elected, his Government produced an estimate of 570,000.

The campaign group Migrationwatch says the true total could be as high as 870,000. Some Labour ministers have flirted with calling an 'amnesty' but it has been rejected as electorally unpopular.

EASTERN EUROPE
Officials estimated that, following EU enlargement in May 2004, between 5,000 and 13,000 Eastern Europeans would move to Britain. But by the end of 2009 the number who had signed the Home office's Worker Registration scheme alone was 1,041,315.

This does not include the self-employed or those who did not bother to sign. The unexpected influx - mainly from Poland - placed significant strain on schools, the health service and local councils, who have still not been properly funded for the new arrivals. 

CITIZENSHIP
Handing out passports to foreign nationals is how the Labour Government changed the make-up of society for ever. In 1997 just 37,010 people were given citizenship. Last year the Home Office approved an all-time record 203,865 applications, an increase of 58 per cent in a year.

In total, Labour has now created 1.5million new British citizens - all with full voting rights. Ministers have repeatedly promised to toughen citizenship rules, most recently by insisting migrants must earn a passport by doing voluntary work.

ASYLUM REMOVALS
Labour has never recovered from the mayhem which occurred at the start of this century, when a record number of asylum seekers poured into the UK. Even on conservative estimates, it has left around 285,000 failed claimants living in Britain - but the number being removed is falling.

In 2009, there were 10,815 removals or voluntary departures, down 16 per cent on 2008. Of those who went, 2,985 benefited from the Assisted Voluntary Return scheme - worth £3,000 each. The Government's target of concluding 90 per cent of asylum cases within six months by December 2011 has been dismissed as 'unachievable' by Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine.

Only a third of failed asylum seekers - 7,850 out of the 26,832 served with deportation notices - were actually removed in 2008. Inspectors have recently identified a new backlog of 40,000 cases massing in the asylum system.

STUDENT VISAS
In 1998, the number of visas handed out to overseas students was 69,607. In 2008/9, this figure had risen to 236,470. The Government's own figures suggest more than one in ten of the foreign students studying in this country last year was sponsored by a bogus college. At least 1.5million student visas have been handed out in the past eight years alone.

The beneficiaries included Christmas Day transatlantic flight bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - given permission by the Home Office to study mechanical engineering at University College London between 2005 and 2008. A string of other terror suspects have used the student visa route into the UK .

PRISONS
Britain 's jails have been turned into what the Tories have called a 'United Nations of crime' containing inmates from 160 different countries. The 11,546 foreign nationals represent one in every seven inmates in our prisons. They range from murderers and rapists to burglars, paedophiles, drug dealers and thieves. There are only 192 member countries of the United Nations, so all bar 32 are represented in the British prison system.

The vast number of overseas inmates is a major factor behind the overcrowding which has led to the early release of UK criminals.

THE SECRET PLAN
Arguably, the most damaging charge of them all. New Labour's election manifestos made little or no mention of immigration policy. But according to a draft report by the Cabinet Office, written in 2000, ministers had a secret plan to 'maximise the contribution' of migrants to the Government's 'social objectives'.

Former Labour advisor Andrew Neather, who worked on the report, said the aim was to 'rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.' But critics have called the plan 'irresponsible and one which has transformed Britain from a wealthy nation to one with crippling debts and a culture of benefits'. 8.4.10

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Chant yourself healthy: Meditation hailed as antidote to high blood pressure and depression  

It was embraced by The Beatles and became synonymous with the 1960s hippy lifestyle of peace and love. Now medical experts believe transcendental meditation could be used to treat high blood pressure and psychological problems. More than five decades after the relaxation therapy became popular, two studies have found that it worked significantly better than good diet and exercise in tackling the stresses of modern life.

Transcendental meditation - known as TM - was spread by the teaching of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who started a worldwide movement in 1957. The technique involves the daily chanting of a mantra. Advocates include film directors Clint Eastwood and David Lynch and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Following research in the U.S. natural medicine expert Dr Robert Schneider said: 'The clinically significant reductions in depression without drugs or psychotherapy in these studies suggest the transcendental meditation programme may improve mental and associated physical health in older high-risk subjects.'

The two studies, at Charles Drew University in Los Angeles and the University of Hawaii, looked at more than 100 people aged 55 years and older who were at risk from cardiovascular disease. Those who practised TM showed a 48 per cent reduction in depressive symptoms compared with those given dietary and exercise advice.

Dr Sanford Nidich, of Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, said: 'The findings of these studies have important implications for improving mental health and reducing the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.' Those doing TM were asked to spend at least 20 minutes twice a day meditating with their eyes closed. The findings were presented yesterday at the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Seattle.

Last year separate U.S. research found heart attacks, strokes and deaths fell by 47 per cent in a group using TM. Experts said the results suggested the technique lowers blood pressure by keeping vessels open. TM was famously practised by The Beatles after they met the Maharishi in the 1960s. He died in 2008.

Critics claim it can be used to spread a quasi-religious message and that meditation can be dangerous for some but no reason or explanation was provided as how it could be dangerous. 8.4.10

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Failure to ensure GPs can speak English properly has cost lives, MPs told

Patients have died because ministers failed to ensure foreign doctors working out-of-hours shifts can speak English properly, MPs said last night.

It was wrong that Britain was sticking rigidly to EU rules which outlaw checks on overseas GPs' language skills - while France flouted them, said the MPs in a damning report. In France they invite foreign GP's for an interview to assess their language skills and if not up to scratch they either turn them down or invite them to brush up on their language skills, which is a sensible move considering peoples lives are at risk. In the UK we do nothing.

The Commons health select committee also poured scorn on the Government for agreeing to GPs' demands for a lucrative contract which makes it too easy for them to opt out of responsibility for out-of-hours care. This has forced the NHS to bring in doctors from abroad.

The General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, has met Health Secretary Andy Burnham to request an end to the ban on language tests but was told that disobeying with the directive would end in fines from Brussels. The MPs concluded: 'The GMC informed us that the situation in France was different: there, the regulator undertook language tests within the remit of the EU directive.

'If the GMC had been able to check the language skills and clinical competence of European doctors wishing to practice as GPs, lives might have been saved.' It added that employing 'European locums who have inadequate English and/or general practice expertise has led to poor care and the deaths of patients'.

The report comes days after it was revealed that a hospital in Oxford was having to send staff on English lessons because 70 different nationalities were at work there. An inquest in February criticised the current out-of-hours arrangements following the death of patient David Gray in Cambridgeshire in 2008. He was killed by exhausted German doctor Daniel Ubani who administered ten times the normal dose of diamorphine.

The GMC is prevented from checking doctors' English under a European directive, which says to do so would hamper the free movement of people. Ministers say letting the GMC to carry out such checks would land them with a huge fine from the EU - and that there is no chance to renegotiate the directive until 2012.

However, primary care trusts have a legal duty to check language skills - but many of them do not do so, as the case of Dr Ubani showed. His poor English meant he was refused work by the NHS in West Yorkshire - but was later accepted in Cornwall.

The MPs said it was shocking that no one at Cornwall 's Primary Care Trust had been disciplined for failing to check language competency.

The committee's report said that 'as a matter of extreme urgency', ministers should seek to get the directive changed 'to enable the GMC to test the clinical competence of doctors and undertake systematic testing of language skills so that everything possible is done to lessen, as soon as possible, the risks of employing another unsuitably trained or inexperienced doctor in out-of-hours services'.

In a stinging attack on the GPs' contract, which allowed more than 90 per cent to opt out of responsibility for patients out of hours, the committee said: 'It has some serious weaknesses, in particular in the use of [ European Economic Area] doctors and the failure to check their language skills and clinical competence, which led to the killing of a patient, Mr Gray, by Dr Ubani, a German locum.'

It added: 'The Department of Health showed little regard to securing value for money for taxpayers when they negotiated the out-of-hours GP reforms in 2004. Even Health Minister Mike O'Brien admitted to the committee that GPs had 'got the best deal they ever had from that 2004 contract and since then we have, in a sense, been recovering'.

Patients' Association director Katherine Murphy said: 'If France can implement a more rigorous system, so can we. 'If the Department of Health don't think we can then they need to explain why. Transparency is vital.'

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'There is a legal obligation on a PCT to refuse to admit a doctor where the PCT is not satisfied that the doctor has the necessary knowledge of English.'

Tory health spokesman Mark Simmonds said: 'This report highlights the significant failures of Labour's out-of-hours system.' 8.4.10

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Five fruit and veg a day does not significantly reduce cancer risk: research

Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day may not reduce your risk of cancer significantly despite it being official guidance, a study has found. Official guidelines recommend at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day in order to be healthy but new research has found that this may not have a substantial effect on cancer.

For every extra two portions consumed the risk of cancer reduced by just three per cent, the research conducted by a team at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York suggested. It comes after other experts said thousands of cases of cancer could be avoided if Britons drank less alcohol and maintained a healthy weight.

More than 400,000 people were involved in the respected EPIC trial from across Europe , including Britain and the results are published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute .

Average, across the whole group, was around 335 grams of fruit and vegetables a day, or around four portions. This varied greatly between the countries with people in Sweden eating the least and those in Spain eating the most. Experts said that although the link between fruit and vegetables and cancer incidence was weak there was strong evidence that the diet reduced the risk of heart disease and should still be recommended.

Dr Walter Willett, of the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston , America , said: "In summary, the findings from the EPIC cohort add further evidence that a broad effort to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables will not have a major effect on cancer incidence. "Such efforts are still worthwhile because they will reduce risks of cardiovascular disease, and a small benefit for cancer remains possible. Research should focus more sharply on specific fruits and vegetables and their constituents and on earlier periods of life." He said those eating five portions a day had a 30 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those eating an average of 1.5 portions a day.

Meanwhile other experts said even a modest link between fruit and vegetable consumption on cancer risk, if applied to the whole population still meant thousands of cancers could be avoided with a healthier diet. Dr Rachel Thompson, Science Programme Manager for World Cancer Research Fund, said: “This study suggests that if we all ate an extra two portions of fruits and vegetables a day, about 2.5 per cent of cancers could be prevented.

“Given the fact that there are many types of cancer where there is no evidence eating fruits and vegetables affects risk, it is not surprising that the overall percentage is quite low. But for the UK , this works out as about 7,000 cases a year, which is a significant number. “If you look at specific types of cancer, including mouth, pharynx and larynx, stomach and oesophagus, the evidence shows that eating plenty of fruits and vegetables probably reduces risk.

“Even if fruits and vegetables did not directly reduce risk, it would still be a good idea to eat them because people who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables are less likely to become overweight. Scientists now say that, after not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight is the most important thing you can do for cancer prevention.”

Yinka Ebo, health information officer at Cancer Research UK , said: “This study, the largest on diet and cancer to date, shows that eating lots of fruits and vegetables can slightly reduce your cancer risk. “It's still a good idea to eat your five-a-day but remember that fruits and vegetables are pieces in a much larger lifestyle jigsaw. There are many things we can do to lower our chances of developing cancer such as not smoking, keeping a healthy weight, cutting down on alcohol, eating a healthy balanced diet, being physically active and staying safe in the sun.”

The researchers found that high fruit and vegetable consumption was more beneficial for those who drank heavily. The authors added that the results may be skewed because people who ate lots of fruit and vegetables were also likely to be healthier overall, with fewer smokers, lower alcohol consumption and greater physical activity levels. 7.4.10 Also see: The Big Fat Lies about Britain 's obesity epidemic

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The great swine flu ripe off: How £300million was squandered on swine flu jabs that we didn't need and didn't even receive

Up to £300million of taxpayers' money has been wasted on swine flu jabs that were never needed. Ministers ordered 90million doses of a vaccine last year at a cost of £540million as panic over the illness gripped the country. But as the 'pandemic' failed to materialise it soon became clear that the order was far too large.

The Department of Health tried to get out of the enormous contract but the drug firm, GlaxoSmithKline, refused to back down. Yesterday the Government announced it had signed a compromise deal that caps the number of shots of Pandemrix at 34.8million - but, astonishingly, at twice the price first agreed. It means the Government will pay for two-thirds of the original deal but only receive just over a third of the doses.

The mild nature of the illness meant only 5.1million doses have been used. The deal was yesterday criticised by the Tories and pressure groups, who said it proved the Government had mismanaged the seven-month outbreak. The Department of Health ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population, with three-quarters to be supplied by GlaxoSmithKline.

But it did not have a break clause in the contracts signed with GSK - unlike with the drug firm Baxter, which had its order cancelled for all but nine million of 36million doses. The cost of the original GSK order has never been revealed but at £6 a dose it could have reached £540million. The contract is now being capped at 34.8million doses, including those already received, with a one-third cut in the price.

The Department of Health also announced yesterday there would be no cancellation fee. Under the agreement, the Government will also purchase an as yet undefined amount of the H5N1 bird flu vaccine as well as courses of GSK's anti-viral flu treatment Relenza.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham insisted that 'significant savings' had been made. 'I am pleased we have reached an agreement that is good value for the taxpayer and means that the department has retained a strategic stockpile to protect the UK population without incurring a cancellation fee,' he said.

'This both protects the public purse and ensures the UK remains at the forefront of pandemic preparedness worldwide.' Britain will donate 3.8million doses of the vaccine to the World Health Organisation for use in Africa ahead of the rainy season.

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley accused Gordon Brown of 'seeking to bury bad news' on the day the election was called.

'This is a careless waste of precious NHS money,' he added. 'Labour failed to ensure there were proper break clauses in the contracts which means that British taxpayers have got an extremely bad deal.'

The TaxPayers' Alliance strongly criticised the mismanagement of the seven-month outbreak. Chief executive Matthew Elliott said: 'It's an outrage that the Government has squandered millions of pounds of taxpayers' cash because they did a poor job of negotiating the contract for the swine flu vaccine. 'That money could have gone towards life-saving drugs for NHS patients but instead we have a huge stock of surplus vaccines and an excessive bill for doses we never needed. 'While there is obviously a margin of error in any assessment of the possible need for pandemic vaccines, this is an eye-watering amount of money to waste.'

Simon Jose of GlaxoSmithKline said: 'Understanding of the H1N1 pandemic has significantly evolved since the declaration (of a pandemic) by the World Health Organisation last June and we recognise that governments' needs and public health priorities are changing. 'We are committed to working with them to respond to their needs as the pandemic evolves and find appropriate and fair solutions'.

'In line with these principles, we are pleased to have reached a settlement, which has been mutually agreed as representing fair value for the UK Government and for GSK.'

The drug firms that cashed in on a 'crisis'.

The Mail investigated in February how drug firms, the World Health Organisation and ministers helped stoke fears of the swine flu 'pandemic'. Here is an abridged version of our disturbing findings:

Scientists and pharmaceutical companies that profited from the swine flu scare stand accused of grossly exaggerating the risks of the outbreak.

In Britain it was predicted up to 65,000 would die from the virus. The Government sprang into action and spent £1billion stockpiling anti-virals such as Tamiflu and ordering enough vaccines to give two doses to every man, woman and child.

The National Pandemic Flu Service or 'Swine Flu Hotline' was set up to take the pressure off GPs and 'diagnosed' 1.7million as suffering from the illness. Of these 1,125,000 collected free Tamiflu prescriptions.

The Government also launched a mass vaccination programme which gave 4.25million the jab and stockpiled between 90 and 120million doses of the vaccine.

But the Doomsday scenario never unfolded. Just 457 people died of swine flu, but as 80 per cent of these had underlying health problems, only around 100 died of swine flu alone.

The Government argues this relatively small impact is thanks to its prudence. But in Poland , which refused to inoculate against swine flu, only 150 people died from the illness out of a 40million population.

And research suggests as many as eight out of ten people diagnosed with swine flu by the hotline did not have it. This means more than 800,000 of the million-odd packets of Tamiflu were given needlessly.

The World Health Organisation stands accused of announcing 'a false pandemic' in June last year. Critics claim the drug firms manipulated the WHO into downgrading its definition of a pandemic so they could cash in. In all, the companies behind the vaccines and anti-virals will pick up an estimated £4billion windfall from swine flu.

GlaxoSmithKline has revealed sales of its H1N1 vaccine reached £835million in the fourth quarter of last year. In the same period, Novartis notched up vaccine sales of more than £800million, the vast majority from H1N1 sales. Swiss drugs firm Roche reported profits up 14 per cent to £8.89billion last year, helped by sales of Tamiflu. These companies vehemently deny having influenced the way in which the swine flu pandemic was managed.

Scientists warn it is far too early to say that the threat from the H1N1 virus is over and that next winter swine flu will return. But with a perception that the scientific community has cried wolf one too many times, the fear is that individuals will be less inclined to follow such advice. 7.4.10

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Why is your pharmacist fobbing you off with cheap copies of branded drugs?

About a year ago Susan Robinson's epilepsy was being controlled with a drug called Topamax. But then something started to go wrong. 'I began to have a lot more fits, as many as two a week instead of one every one or two months. 'It was really scary - I never knew when it was going to happen,' recalls the 57-year-old from Tunbridge Wells.

'I developed epilepsy late - in my early 50s - and am still coming to terms with it. 'But just when it was starting to become manageable, I was tipped back into the state I'd been in when it all started,' says Susan, who used to work as a personal assistant to NHS managers.

Then Susan took a closer look at the packaging of her prescription. 'It looked different to the others I'd had. It had Portuguese writing and was called Topamac. 'The pharmacist said he had substituted it for my regular brand-name drug to save money.'

Susan was getting a cheaper copy known as a generic drug, which have the same active ingredient as a brand-name drug and are expected to have the same effects. Generics make up 83 per cent of prescriptions in England and are vital for keeping the drug bill down: on average, a branded drug costs £20 per prescription, while the generic version costs £3.75.

In 2008, even though 46 million more prescriptions were issued, generics cut the drug bill by £50 million. They are generally accepted by doctors as safe and effective. But sometimes small differences between the original and the copy may be harmful.

In February a group of leading medical professionals warned that without proper consultation, using generic versions of drugs for epilepsy, brain disorders, asthma, heart disease and skin problems could damage patients. Their comments were prompted by proposals from the Department of Health to allow pharmacists to switch patients to a generic version of some drugs even when the doctor had written a prescription for a branded version.

The consultation ended last month and the department will be announcing its decision soon. The proposals are expected to save the NHS £37 million a year. But they have worried doctors. A poll published last week by the Ethical Medicines Industry Group (EMIG) found that three-quarters of doctors, in primary and secondary care, opposed the change.

So why are some generics so risky? When a drug is tested and gets a licence, the manufacturer has exclusive rights to sell it for whatever it likes for ten years. After that, other companies can make their own versions. The generics firm does not need to research or test the drug, so manufacturing costs are lower.

The drug licensing body, the Medicines And Health Care Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), tests it to make sure it is the same as the original - what is called 'bioequivalent' - but doesn't run any more trials. This is where the problem lies, according to some experts. 'The tests to check that generics are the same as the original drug are not sensitive enough,' says Professor Trevor Jones, who is a former director general of the Association Of The British

Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). 'Small differences in the amount of the drug or how fast it is absorbed can have big effects.' The testing involves giving one dose of the generic drug to 20 or so young healthy volunteers, explains Dr Peter Meredith, a pharmacologist at the University Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. 'This doesn't tell you what the drug is going to do in elderly patients who are more sensitive and may be on several other drugs,' he says. 'It also doesn't give you reliable information about what happens when you take it for months or what effect several doses has.'

Another concern is drugs which have to be given in very precise doses, as is the case with epilepsy and some heart medication. Too much or too little of the active ingredient can be dangerous. 'The amount of the active ingredient can be as low as 80 per cent of the original or as much as 25 per cent stronger and still count as being the same,' says Dr Meredith.

A study published last year found those who took several generic versions of an epilepsy drug were more likely to be hospitalised than those taking the branded version (Topiramate). But critics have complained that the patients knew which drug they were getting, which may have affected their response.

Generics are also allowed to have different fillers and mixers. 'Generic skin creams can have different oily bases,' says Dr Stephen Kownacki, a GP and executive chairman of the Primary Care Dermatology Society. 'If your drug is changed and the new one has a base you respond badly to, that can cause a nasty flare-up of inflammation.'

Different absorption rates caused problems with generic versions of Zyban, an antidepressant and smoking-cessation drug. In 2007, U.S. patients claimed a generic drug caused increased anxiety and irritability, headaches and nausea. Tests found that although the active ingredient was exactly the same, the generic version was absorbed into the blood much faster.

Patients were getting much more of the drug in the first few hours and much less later on. According to the MHRA, there is no danger. 'There is no difference in safety or efficacy between branded produces and generic versions of the same product, ' said a spokesperson. 'All products, generic or branded, must go through the same licensing process and are thoroughly tested.'

Professor Aaron Kesselheim, a physician and drug policy researcher at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital, summarised all the studies comparing generic with branded heart drugs that had to be used within narrow limits. He found no difference.

So are many people being harmed by generic drugs? What makes it hard to determine the extent of the risk is - are there vested interests on both sides? The companies with branded drugs lose millions - sometimes billions - of pounds when a patent ends, so they are naturally not very keen on generics.

Professor Kesselheim believes that drug company money can influence opinion about generics. Even though the 47 studies he looked at found no difference, more than half of the editorials written to go with them came out against generics. Kesselheim's explanation was that the authors' opinions had been 'skewed by the financial relationships of editorialists with brand- name pharmaceutical companies'.

All the clinicians who have spoken out recently deny any commercial interests. 'I don't represent any trade interests, I represent my patients,' says Dr Kownacki. 'Once there is a list for substitutions, we won't have any control over what is added. It is the thin end of a large wedge.'

Susan is now back on her brand-name drug - and her condition is under better control once again. 'I'm going to be looking very carefully at the packaging from now on,' she says. 'If I see anything different, I'm taking it back right away.'

WHEN GENERIC DRUGS CAUSE PROBLEMS 

HEART: Cardiologists claim the doses in generics may not be precise enough. Generic versions of the LDL lowering drug simvastatin are widely prescribed, but a study at Oxford University last year found that high dose generics can cause more side effects than brand names that lower cholesterol more effectively.

ASTHMA: Patients given generic corticosteroid inhalers by pharmacists were twice as likely to have poorly controlled asthma, Aberdeen University researchers found.

EPILEPSY: Research published in the journal Neurology last year found patients who were switched between generics were nearly three times more likely to suffer a head injury.

OSTEOPOROSIS: Researchers at the Université Paris-Sud found generic versions of FOSAMAX were more likely to stick to the sides of the oesophagus, causing irritation and damage. They suggest differences in oesophageal tolerance between branded Fosamax tablets and generics may exist.

PARKINSON'S: The dosage for Parkinson's drugs has to be precise. Critics of generics say switching to copycat drugs, which have different packaging, can cause confusion in patients who may already suffer mental problems.

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Health cuts 'will put lives at risk' say doctors protesting against plan to axe jobs and wards

Patients’ lives will be at risk if NHS managers go ahead with secret plans to sack hundreds of doctors and nurses and close dozens of wards, clinicians warned last night. Top doctors spoke out after a shock survey revealed that managers at cash- strapped NHS trusts were planning a devastating wave of cuts after the election.

The poll revealed that a third of hospitals plan to sack doctors and other clinicians – which the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) warned could lead to further tragedies like that at Mid Staffordshire, where 1,200 patients died on a filthy A&E ward. A quarter expect to make nurses and healthcare assistants redundant, while a further 25 per cent plan to directly cut patient services – slashing the number of beds or operations provided.

The survey of NHS finance directors, in the respected Health Service Journal magazine, makes a lie of ministerial claims that post-election cuts will not affect the frontline. Health Secretary Andy Burnham wants the NHS to make £20billion of cuts by 2014 – and insists the savings can be made without affecting patient care.

But the survey indicates that this statement is, at best, wildly optimistic. Dr Andrew Goddard, the RCP’s director of medical workforce, said last night: ‘Reducing clinical staff is a quick fix when times are tight, but ends up costing far more in both financial and human costs in the long term. ‘We must not fall back on the panicked slash-and-burn policies of the past if we are to avoid repeating the horrors of Mid Staffs.’

Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said: ‘After 13 years of Labour government it is scandalous that we are facing the prospect of cuts to frontline services. It’s very far from what was promised and what voters should expect.’ Both the main parties say they will increase NHS spending in real terms after the election. 

But an ageing society and the increasing drugs bill mean that, even once these rises are taken into account, billions of pounds of cuts will have to be found elsewhere. The magazine survey of its panel of 45 finance directors – one in nine of the total – found that even more frontline services would be in the firing line after the election. Some 25 per cent of hospitals plan to ‘reduce capacity’ – meaning slashing operations, or cutting wards or beds.

Critics say the number of beds in the NHS is already too low, increasing the risk of infection. Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: ‘We cannot allow a second-rate service to develop with cuts in clinical staff. ‘We have been given reassurance after reassurance that frontline services will be protected, but this survey shows the rhetoric doesn’t seem to match the reality in some places.’

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: ‘Frontline services are at risk under Labour. 'The number of managers is rising five times as fast as the number of nurses and now Labour’s boom-and-bust approach means hospitals are having to look at cuts.’

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘To ensure the quality of NHS services continues to improve, services must be more productive.’