The health news headlines on Wednesday 12 October 2011.
According to the Guardian, the Government is bracing for a House of Lords vote on its controversial health reforms today, with one minister warning that an amendment delaying the bill could have ‘grave implications' and kill it off.
Health minister, Earl Howe, has written to peers saying this could completely derail the health bill, with the Independent saying that ministers have been reduced to ‘pleading' with peers not to ‘wreck the bill'.
The same paper publishes a letter from 1,000 doctors in England calling on peers to reject the legislation.
Meanwhile health minister Simon Burns has written a Telegraph article saying an ‘important shift in health care decision–making towards putting patients directly in charge of decisions affecting their lives' will result from further roll-out of the summary care record.
An effective alcohol strategy must involve minimum pricing as industry partnerships and voluntary codes won't cut it, former GP turned Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston tells Pulse in an interview and the Guardian in a comment article.
The Independent reports that alcohol-industry campaigns to promote responsible drinking may instead be encouraging people to drink more, according to a new study from Glyndwr and Bangor universities in Wales.
According to the Guardian the NHS breast screening programme is picking up many cancers that might just have gone away if they had not been detected, according to an analysis. Scientists from the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration argue that up to a third of women who go for breast screening are over-diagnosed and over-treated.
The Times [behind paywall] on a Cleveland Clinic study that suggests that taking vitamin E supplements might actually increase the risk of prostate cancer and advice that a healthy balanced diet is much better than supplements.
However women who eat a bar of chocolate a week could reduce their chances of having a stroke by 20%, according to a new Swedish study from the Karolinska Institute.
