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Minimum alcohol pricing 50 times more effective, calls for more screening for bowel cancer patients and Ebola hits US

While Labour and the Tories launch an NHS bidding war to hog the health news headlines, the papers do find room for other health-related stories.

The latest weapon available to anti-booze campaigners is a study that concludes that minimum alcohol pricing would be 50 times more effective at cutting harmful drinking than current government policy.

The Telegraph reports that researchers at the University of Sheffield found that a minimum price of 45 pence per unit of alcohol would lead to heavy drinkers downing 137 fewer units of alcohol per year. The government’s policy of banning alcohol as a loss leader will reduce alcohol consumption among problem drinkers by a measly three units annually, they claimed.

The BBC carries news of a study that recommends that bowel cancer patients aged under 50 should be genetically screened for a condition that could put them at higher risk of developing further cancers.

A team from Exeter and Cardiff universities recommends that patients should be tested for Lynch syndrome, which increases peoples’ risk of developing a number of cancers. Teenager Stephen Sutton, who raised millions of pounds for cancer research, had a family history of the syndrome.

And Ebola isn’t going away, with reports of the first recorded case of the disease being diagnosed in the US.

A patient who was already infected travelled to Dallas from Liberia, and the Daily Mail reports that he was initially sent home from hospital with antibiotics after he complained of feeling unwell. The hospital did not admit him until he returned two days late, according to the newspaper.


          

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