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DH accused of suppressing evidence, two-thirds of people will be obese by 2025, and NHS porn-addiction treatment centre

Jeremy Hunt has been accused of suppressing inconvenient evidence on the impact of a sugar tax by the GP chair of the health select committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston.

The Guardian reports that Dr Wollaston has made formal protests about the Department of Health’s attitude to transparency and publishing evidence in a letter to the head of Public Health England, Duncan Selbie.

Pulse reported last week that Dr Wollaston had accused the DH of double standards over its refusal to publish the PHE study on the impacts of sugar in time for a health select committee enquiry into obesity.

Two thirds of Brits will be overweight in the next ten years according to the Telegraph, who label the results of another predictive study on obesity trends as ‘astonishing’.

The study by the World Obesity Federation predicts that nearly 5 million more men and women will become overweight and obese by 2025, bringing the total to 36 million. The Telegraph appears to have confused the population of England with that of Britain in citing its two thirds figure, as this is actually closer to half the 65 million people in Britain.

And finally, the NHS has launched a treatment centre to help patients recover from ‘online addictions’ such as gambling, online gaming or internet pornography.

The Mirror pre-empts actual criticism of the centre by reporting that ‘critics will argue spending vital cash on internet addictions at a time when the health service is £1billion in the red and hit by savage Tory cuts is a waste.’ But the service is currently seeing 100 patients being treated there – 39 with porn addictions.

The Mirror quotes Roger Goss, co-director of action group Patient Concern saying: ‘The onus is on the NHS to make sure they are treating people where they think the risks are very serious and not to waste their money on this. If people watch a bit of porn from time to time then so what?’