HIV-positive doctors, dentists and health workers are be allowed to practise all medical tasks, after the Government decided to lift an ‘outdated’ ban.
Healthcare workers with HIV will be allowed to carry out all medical procedures if they are on effective combination anti-retroviral drug therapy and have an undetectable viral load of HIV in their body.
Public Health England will keep a confidential register holding data on infected health workers, and they will be regularly monitored.
Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said it was time to scrap ‘outdated rules’ that hold back some of the best healthcare workers ‘because of a risk that is more remote than being struck by lightning’.
The Guardian reports that breastfeeding for six months can delay the onset of breast cancer by a decade - but only if you don’t smoke.
Spanish researchers said that cases of the disease could be cut dramatically if more women breastfed.
Bad news for bon viveurs over at the Telegraph, as health ministers apparently ‘want to take the alcohol out of wine’.
Concerned about the levels of wine drinking among the middle classes, they want to change EU laws to redefine ‘wine’ to include drinks that contain little or no alcohol. They are also pressing supermarkets to stock more low-alcohol products.
Health minister Earl Howe says he has the public’s long-term best interests at heart. But wine critic Victoria Moore warned that wine that has been through an artificial process - akin to decaffeinating coffee beans - tastes ‘rubbish’.
