Category: news

Systems should change to reflect the fact that people are no longer old at 65, the study says

The cost of old age on health services in industrialised nations may need to be re-measured, a study suggests.

Rising life expectancies and improved health means the population is ageing more slowly and the burden not be as dramatic as feared, scientists say.

The US and Austrian study in Science magazine, proposes a new way of measuring ageing which is not reliant on fixed chronological ages.

This will help calculate the cost of old age and retirement more accurately.

According to scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, Stony Brook University in the United States and the Vienna Institute of Demography, the current method of measuring ageing has been based on misleading information.

“Most of our information about ageing comes from indicators published by the United Nations and statistical agencies,” said Professor Warren Sanderson from IIASA and SBU.

“These indicators, which are used worldwide to determine health care and retirement costs, are based on chronological age and in many instances consider people as being old when they reach age 65 or even earlier,” he said.

Traditionally the old-age dependency ratio, OADR (the number of people aged over 65 to people of working age), was used to assess the burden to the society of supporting elderly people.

The increase of that ratio was considered to reflect the growing burden of the ageing population on the pensions system.

But this measure is now out of date, say the authors of the study, because people live longer and someone at age 65 is not an old person anymore.

The same problem occurs if policy-makers use the old-age dependency ratio as an indicator of the burden of ageing on health care costs.

Most health care costs occur in the last few years of life and these years happen at ever later ages as life expectancies increase.

The study authors provide a new dependency measure they developed called the adult disability dependency ratio (ADDR).

It is based on disabilities that reflect the relationship between those who need care and those who are capable of giving it.

Their study shows that when ageing is measured based on this ratio, the speed of ageing is reduced by four-fifths compared to the conventional old-age dependency ratio.

These methods of measurement have policy implications, say the authors, because: “slow and predictable changes in pension age justified by an increased number of years of healthy life at older ages may be more politically acceptable than large, abrupt changes justified on the basis of budget stringency.”

In the UK, the normal pension age is scheduled to rise from 65 to 68 by 2044.

And in Germany it is expected to rise from 65 to 67 by 2031, with the US retirement age increasing to 67 in 2027.

Population ageing will be the source of many challenges in the future.

“But there is not reason to exaggerate those challenges through mismeasurement,” says the study.

Michelle Mitchell, charity director for Age UK, said: “This study clearly shows viewing older people simply as a ‘burden to society,’ is an out-of-date concept.

“On the contrary, increasing longevity and improved health care mean many older people are able to make a very positive and important contribution to our society.

“At the same time,” she added, “it’s important to remember that while life expectancy is increasing, people are living with disabilities for longer than before and a huge gap in life expectancy remains between rich and poor people.”

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Surgical treatments for Barrett’s oesophagus have been invasive and relatively risky in the past

Swallowing a sponge on a piece of string could help prevent a deadly form of cancer, UK experts claim.

Medical Research Council scientists have created the “cytosponge” which collects cells from the stomach.

These cells can be checked for a pre-cancerous condition called Barrett’s oesophagus which can affect people with a long history of heartburn.

One in 10 people with the condition will go on to develop oesophageal, or food pipe cancer.

Around 375,000 people develop Barrett’s oesophagus in the UK each year.

One in 10 of them will go on to develop oesophageal cancer. Over 80% of those diagnosed die within five years.

Surgical treatments for Barrett’s oesophagus have, in the past, been invasive and relatively risky. But procedures can now be carried out using keyhole surgery.

The ideal testing method uses an endoscope, a long thin tube with a camera on the end. But it is expensive and equipment is limited.

The MRC’s study is reported in the British Medical Journal.

The team say the cytosponge could be used in primary care as an inexpensive and easily-administered test.

When the sponge is swallowed, it expands to a three-centimetre mesh in the stomach. It is pulled out after five minutes and the cells it collects can then be analysed in the lab.

The researchers, from the MRC’s Cancer Cell Unit in Cambridge, tested the device on 500 patients aged between 50 and 70, who also had endoscopies to check the results.

The sponge detected over 90% of cases of Barrett’s oesophagus.

Dr Rebecca Fitzgerald, who led the research, said: “The UK has the highest level of this form of oesophageal cancer in Europe, and cases in the western world have risen rapidly over the past 20 years.

“As oesophageal cancer carries such a bleak prognosis for patients, it has become more and more obvious that a safe, minimally invasive and easily administered method of diagnosis for Barrett’s oesophagus is urgently needed.

“We are delighted that this trial has shown that patients find this method acceptable and it is a practical screening option.”

The researchers will now carry out more studies into the sponge’s effectiveness.

Writing in the BMJ Peter Bampton, associate professor in gastroenterology at Flinders University in Australia, said: “Although larger studies are needed to validate these and other markers, future screening and surveillance for Barrett’s oesophagus might use a two-step approach, with endoscopy being reserved to confirm the diagnosis.”

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Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has embraced the scheme

A “payment-by-results” project to cut re-offending is being officially launched.

Investors have put £5m in social impact bonds to fund rehabilitation work with 3,000 Peterborough Prison inmates.

They could earn a potential return of £3m from the government if their cash helps to rehabilitate criminals.

The project, which may also cut court and jail costs, was given the go-ahead by Labour and has been embraced by new Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.

Mr Clarke has indicated the scheme may be introduced in other prisons in England and Wales if it is successful.

The social impact bond scheme is jointly run by the Ministry of Justice and Social Finance, an ethical investment bank run by a former top City banker.

The money raised by Social Finance from charitable trusts and social investment groups will fund organisations including the St Giles Trust, a specialist charity with a proven record in rehabilitating offenders.

If the money cuts reoffending, the scheme could return £8m to investors, comparable to an annual return of 7.5% in a conventional bond-market investment.

Reoffending among the target group must fall by at least 7.5% to trigger the dividend payments in each of the six years of the bond’s operation.

The return on social impact bonds is seen as a share of the financial benefit gained by society made when a criminal goes straight.

But as with other finance bonds, there is no guarantee of a return and investors could lose all of their money if reoffending does not fall.

The scheme was originally launched by Labour ministers before the general election, but has had cross-party support since.

The prisoners sentenced to less than a year at Peterborough Prison will take part in the scheme.

Specialists in cutting rehabilitation will give each inmate intensive help to reform throughout their sentence and continue the high-levels of support once they walk through the prison gates.

Mr Clarke said that reoffending was the “weakest bit of the criminal justice system” and that the radical bonds would help tackle it without using taxpayers’ money.

“It pays by results,” said Mr Clarke. “We’re going to pay what works and what works should therefore grow and what doesn’t work will vanish.

“I like the innovative funding, the payment by results, the collaborative groups, and if it succeeds if will grow and if it doesn’t, by that time we will be trying something else.

“But sooner or later, something has got to be done about reoffending.”

Social Finance said there would be indications of whether project was succeeding within a year but the full return would not be known until the end of the six-year investment term.

Social Finance director Emily Bolton said: “Investors benefit and the government gets some cost savings. The better the reductions in re-offending, the higher the investors’ return

“It’s not taking money out of the system, in fact it’s enabling us to transfer the money to more socially valuable things.”

But Paddy Scriven general secretary of the Prison Governors Association, said the scheme must not exclude the most persistent offenders.

He said: “If we’re looking at tackling reoffending, then this is a very positive step, providing it works.

“The thing that has to be guarded against is that if this sort of scheme spreads and it is payment by results, that the not-for-profit sector people and charities that are administering it don’t cherry-pick the most likely successes and leave the very hardline cases to the Prison Service, or more importantly the Probation Service. Then the success is measured unevenly.”

Jon Collins of the Criminal Justice Alliance, a reform campaign group, said: “This exciting pilot project has the potential to successfully rehabilitate thousands of prisoners by providing them with the support that they need to turn their lives around.

“Bringing money in from new investors to fund this work will also ensure that it is able to continue at a time when the Ministry of Justice’s budget is facing severe cuts.”

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Taiwan has celebrated the end of ‘Ghost Month’ with an unusual contest dating back at least two centuries.

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A number of genetic factors can put men at higher risk of prostate cancer

Screening men with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer can lead to early diagnosis of prostate cancer, a UK study says.

More cancers were found in carriers of BRCA gene mutations, and they were twice as likely to require treatment.

Scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital screened 300 men aged between 40 and 69.

The study aims to screen a total of 1,700 men over five years.

Preliminary results from the first group of men are published in the British Journal of Urology International.

This is the first large international prostate cancer screening study targeted at men with a known genetic predisposition to the disease.

Called IMPACT (Identification of Men with a genetic predisposition to ProstAte Cancer), the study is gathering data in 32 centres in 11 different countries.

Scientists already know that a number of genetic factors can put men at a higher risk of prostate cancer.

These include mutations in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.

A BRCA2 mutation can increase risk by up to seven-fold, while a BRACA1 mutation is thought to double risk in men under 65 years old, says the study.

In the group studied, 205 men had confirmed gene mutations and 95 tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations.

All were given a PSA test, a blood test for prostate specific antigen.

Twenty-four men had an elevated PSA result and they were then offered a prostate biopsy.

The biopsies revealed that nine mutation carriers had prostate cancer, compared to two in the non-carrying control group.

PSA screening has been contentious in the past because of concerns about over-diagnosis. How effective it was at reducing mortality also remained unclear.

But scientists in this study found that the number of cancers detected relative to the number of biopsies conducted was 48%, compared to 24% in the general population.

Targeted screening

Professor Ros Eeles from the ICR and Royal Marsden, who led the study, said: “Although these are early results, it appears that PSA screening is reasonably accurate at predicting potentially aggressive prostate cancer among men at higher risk of the disease due to a genetic predisposition.”

“This study provides support for continued screening in men with genetic mutations,” she said.

Figures show that more than 36,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in the UK.

Professor Eeles says targeted screening of men at high risk of prostate cancer, “could help us find more cancers, the sort of the cancers you can treat.”

But she stresses that the BRCA gene mutation is not common in men. Only men with a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer should ask for a genetic test.

While the test is not routinely offered in the UK, men over 45 can request one.

John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said: “These results are early, initial results from a study which will take many years to complete.

“We await with interest the full results of this study and we urge the UK National Screening Committee, the body responsible for assessing the validity of the PSA blood test as a screening tool, to consider the research findings once the study is complete.

“In the meantime, it is imperative that we move quickly to a position of ‘universal informed choice’ where all men – particularly those over 50 or at increased risk of the disease – have the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to have the PSA test,” he said.

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As Muslims around the world begin the Eid festival, marking the end of Ramadan, US citizens reflect on the standing of their religion in their country.

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Pte Anthony Coscarella says he was always destined to join the army

With three duffle bags, a combat pack and an empty rifle, US Privates Russell Gaskin, Anthony Coscarella and Mesmer Despeignes each board a plane at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They are heading for Afghanistan.

The three recruits, are infantrymen with the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles. Their regiment, the 506th, served in Normandy and was made famous by the book and TV series Band of Brothers. It saw action, too, in Vietnam.

And now it will be part of the final push in a surge of 30,000 troops that America hopes will turn the tide against the Taliban, and end the nine-year war.

Born in Trinidad, Pte Gaskin trained as a mechanic, but the economic slowdown was bad for business, so he signed up.

He admits that this is a step into the unknown: “I don’t know what’s going to be thrown at me, I’m just trying to be ready for whatever, that’s all you can be. You just got to be reslient and buckle-up.”

With multiple stops – first Ireland, Romania and then Kyrgyzstan – it takes the three soldiers a week-and-a-half to reach Paktika province in southern Afghanistan.

Five days are spent at the dust-blown Forward Operating Base Sharana. There is training in detecting and avoiding improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the deadliest threat from the Taliban.

The recruits spent first five days relaxing and training at Forward Operating Base Sharana

Their first five days in Afghanistan were costly ones for American forces – 21 US soldiers were killed, most by IEDS. It gives the infantrymen pause for thought.

“They’re sneaky,” said Private Gaskin. “You could shoot at somebody. But an IED, you can’t touch that. But our vehicles hold up well against IEDs”.

But mostly the soldiers spent these days of downtime, relaxing in their tent, watching movies, and preparing mentally for the battle ahead.

For 19-year-old Pte Coscarella, the youngest of the three, it has been a time for reflection.

“I’ve been thinking, praying and calling home. I’m trying to make the best of it because I won’t have a lot of time when I’m out there,” he said.

Pte Despeignes is the scrawny mascot of the group. His family comes from Haiti, but he has never been further from his home in Brooklyn. He is not sure what to expect, but has faith in his training and those around him.

“All I know is I will trust everyone of my teammates, and we’re gonna be ready, we’re gonna give it our all.”

At a remote outpost in the pine forests near the Pakistan border, older hands from the regiment are already on the frontline.

US soldiers hope the surge will help to turn the tide against the Taliban

Combat Outpost Zerok is attacked by Taliban mortar or rocket fire most days. The past week has been quiet, perhaps because it is the end of Ramadan – or perhaps because it is time to harvest pine nuts from the surrounding forests.

The outpost is run by Easy Company. They too have been swept in by the surge. For most, it is the second tour of duty here.

For Srg Bartley Cardwell, it is the third. He says the Taliban have become more sophisticated over the years.

“From when I was here the first time, back in 2002, they are the same guys who fought against the Russians. But now they’ve been fighting with the US, or coalition forces for almost 10 years. They definitely know how we fight, they’re more prepared,” he said.

But he has hope that with the new concentration of troops – the 101st Airborne has gone from covering seven Afghan provinces to just one – progress can be made.

“That was the problem the last time we were here. We were so spread out, it’s hard to make a difference when there’s so few of you in such a remote, large area.”

A platoon takes a patrol into a local town and stops in the bazaar.

A shopkeeper explains that his neighbour was kidnapped for selling the Americans T-shirts. The soldiers take down the details and move on to patrol in the hills, were the Taliban often make their way into the country from neighbouring Pakistan.

The troops know they will not be able to stop the insurgents coming across that border. But they hope that, because of the surge, more troops might be able to deter them and that extra numbers of patrols will make locals feel safer.

The three privates have moved on to another base, one more stop and they will be at their final post. For the first time they are given their full quota of ammunition – seven magazines each, 210 rounds. For the first time their rifles are ready for action, and so are they.

But for Pte Coscarello, joining the army, and combat experience, is about more than just taking on the Taliban.

“I always felt I was meant to do it,” he said.

“Since I was very young, I thought I was meant to do something bigger than around where I lived. Not just go to college or work at a local restaurant, like everyone else. I wanted to do something worldwide, something with a higher purpose. This is how I can get there.”

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Education authorities are facing a call to merge, so that classrooms may be spared the worst of the cuts

Education authorities are facing a call to merge so classrooms may be spared the worst of the cuts in public spending, it has been revealed.

The former chairman of the spending watchdog, the Accounts Commission, has said that action is needed to avoid duplication of services.

Alastair McNish said he anticipated that council leaders would not “like turkeys, vote for Christmas”.

Mr McNish is also the former chief executive of South Lanarkshire Council.

Cosla, the umbrella body for local councils, said it was already striving for efficiencies and some authorities were looking at the viability of merging some services.

Mr McNish told BBC Scotland: “The problem is severe, it won’t go away.

“My one fear is that the phrase ‘turkey’s voting for Christmas’ will come across the minds of Cosla and all those in power in the local authorities across Scotland.”

Isabel Hutton, education spokeswoman for Cosla, said: “Education cannot be left out of the whole of the local government settlement when we are looking at the finance cuts that are coming forward.

A special BBC News season examining the approaching cuts to public sector spending

Spending Review: Making It Clear

“It is not just local government, it is health, policing, fire services, so to concentrate solely on one area such as education, I don’t think that solves the problem of the mammoth task that the whole of the public sector faces in the months and years ahead.”

Education Secretary Michael Russell said: “I have already said that I am keen to hear about local authorities’ ideas which would better deliver the twin principles of access and excellence in our schools.

“Within that, I shall also welcome and support ideas that will deliver education services more efficiently through more effective deployment of resources across boundaries.

“Already, some education authorities do manage and deliver aspects of education services jointly; and further such developments will likely, and should be, a part of authorities’ responses to the forthcoming spending review and tightening of public finances at all levels.”

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The poem is part of a collection of documents kept at Cambusmore House

An unpublished poem by one of Scotland’s greatest writers, Sir Walter Scott, is to be read in public for the first time.

The poem, called The Hills of Killearn, is part of a “hidden collection” of documents kept at Cambusmore House near Callander.

Sir Walter spent many holidays at the house as a young lawyer.

The nine letters in the collection, written over a number of years, will be going on display in Callander.

For more than 200 years, the poem and correspondence has been in the care of the Baillie-Hamilton family of Cambusmore House.

The letters were written to an associate of Sir Walter who used to live there.

The reading and exhibition are part of the “ScottsLand” programme, which marks the 200th anniversary of Sir Walter’s famous The Lady and the Lake poem.

ScottsLand director Elspeth McLachlan said: “The discovery of the unpublished poem and letters is very exciting.

“We are very lucky that the Baillie-Hamilton family have given us access to these wonderful examples of Scott’s writing.

“The letters show what a strong influence the Trossachs had on Scott and how they inspired him to produce some of his most popular work.”

The poem was written during one of Sir Walter’s many visits to the area and mentions several local places, including Aberfeldy and Callander.

Its first reading will be on 14 September in Roman Camp Country House Hotel in Callander.

The letters will be displayed at the town’s McLaren Leisure Centre on 11 September and then at the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park office the following week.

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Presenters dancing, lessons in how to fall over and the man who drives a dining room table. It’s the week’s weird and wonderful video stories in Newsbeat’s Odd Box with Dominic Byrne.

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Wing Commander Andy Green gives a tour of the Bloodhound SSC model

To break the world land speed record requires ambition, courage, persistence, ingenuity – and a great deal of money.

Raising the funds required is one of the many challenges facing the British team behind the Bloodhound supersonic car project.

The plan is deceptively simple: to take a car beyond the 1000mph barrier, making it faster than a speeding bullet. Literally.

It may sound like the self-indulgent dream of an insatiable adrenaline junkie, but in fact the project has an altogether more altruistic purpose.

The idea, in a nutshell, is to inspire the engineering brains of the future and combat a serious decline in the number of engineering graduates in Britain.

“We’re in trouble. Very big trouble”, says Richard Noble, the director of the project.

“The fundamental problem is that the country is simply running out of engineers – and that’s very bad news for the future of our economy”.

The Bloodhound project could cost much more than current estimates suggest

Mr Noble has form in the record breaking business. He held the land speed record from 1983 to 1997. He then led the team behind Thrust SSC, the first car to break the sound barrier.

He says he was approached by Britain’s Ministry of Defence and asked to come up with an “iconic” project that would inspire school children to become passionate about science and technology.

The result is Bloodhound.

But a project such as this has to be paid for. The process of researching, designing and building the car alone is expected to cost £6.6m – of which more than £4m still needs to be raised.

That could prove tricky, given the current mood of austerity and cost-cutting, with researchers across the land seeing the potential sources of funding shrinking fast.

Meanwhile, there is every chance the Bloodhound costs continue to rise, according to Mr Noble.

“The difficulty is that we are creating something that’s never been done before”, he says.

“We don’t know how long it’s all going to take once the car is up and running – or how much it’s ultimately going to cost.”

The budget for Bloodhound is already significantly higher than the £2.8m cost of Thrust SSC – the super sonic car that set the current world land speed record in 1997, when it achieved a speed of 763 mph.

But given the scale of the technical challenges involved, the £6.6m figure is actually remarkably low.

By way of comparison, a top Formula One racing team can get through several hundred million pounds a year.

Even so, attracting sponsors to such a high risk project has been far from easy.

The initial research was funded by just five founder sponsors, among them two universities and a government agency. The only corporate backers were the fuels company STP and the services firm Serco.

Since then, many more businesses have come on board. Most have simply provided goods and services, to help build the car and keep the project on track.

A select few, however, have also provided funding.

And it is this small group, along with the founder sponsors, that actually get to put their names or logos in prominent positions on the car.

But in a cloud of dust at 1000mph, those logos are unlikely to be very visible. So will the sponsors really benefit?

“It’s true our name won’t be seen when the car’s running,” acknowledges Chris Boocock of Rainham Industrial Services, a company usually more involved in asbestos removal than record breaking.

“But this car will spend the rest of its life in a museum – and our logo will be on it. It’s our bit of history – and that makes it good value”.

So sponsors can expect to share in the glory if the project succeeds. Or in the embarrassment.. After all, there remains a distinct possibility it could fail, and fail disastrously.

“Well, it’s a bit like going to the moon or climbing Everest,” says Chris Merrick, a director of the education supplies firm Promethean. “Faint heart ne’er won fair maiden, I guess.”

Promethean, one of Bloodhound’s most high profile backers, is supplying interactive tools to help schools and colleges keep track of the programme.

“There are risks of course,” says Mr Merick.

“But we believe if we can help create a generation of scientists and engineers to solve the world’s problems, then they’re risks worth taking.”

Technological discoveries arising from the project will be shared

The backers who are already on board are clearly enthusiastic, but there’s no doubt the project has struggled badly for funding – and has had a difficult time during the economic downturn.

Big household name sponsors are remarkably conspicuous by their absence, and during 2009 the project was nearly derailed when its bank refused to lend money to bridge a gap between sponsor payments.

So the team has been looking at new ways to fund itself – without relying wholly on the generosity of neither government nor big business.

It has just begun a quirky campaign to try to get small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) on board as well.

To achieve this, it has set aside a small amount of space on the car for up to 100 SMEs to put their names – each slot measuring 10cm by 10cm, and costing the advertiser £10,000.

In theory, this could raise up to £1m for the project.

History suggests that the struggle to raise enough money will ultimately prove to be every bit as challenging as the land speed record attempt itself.

When Thrust SSC broke the sound barrier in 1997 it relied heavily on donations from the public, through its fan club, the internet, and a campaign by a national newspaper.

Without more support from the business community, the Bloodhound project may ultimately have to do something similar.

But there is one potentially lucrative source of revenue the project has rejected out of hand.

Although it will be developing pioneering technology, it will not be patenting or selling any of it.

“Absolutely not,” says Mr Noble. “This is a project about education, about inspiring a new generation of engineers.

“That means we publish all the data freely so that people can look at it and understand how it works.

“You either do something like this properly, or you don’t do it at all.”

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The pastor of a small US church who planned to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11 has cancelled his protest.

Terry Jones said he was calling off the event after the group behind a planned Islamic centre near Ground Zero in New York agreed to relocate it.

But the cultural centre’s organisers said they had no plans to move it.

Mr Jones’ plan had been internationally condemned and had already sparked many protests around the world.

Mr Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, which has fewer than 50 members, had named Saturday International Burn a Koran Day.

But at a news conference, he said he would now travel to New York on Saturday to meet those behind the Islamic centre and discuss its relocation.

President Barack Obama had earlier warned Mr Jones the burning would be “a recruitment bonanza” for al-Qaeda.

The US State Department had warned US citizens of an increased risk of attack, while international police organisation Interpol also issued a warning of the risk of violent response.

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England Women are beaten on penalties in the World Cup semi-final by reigning world champions the Netherlands.

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Four prisoners with ties to al-Qaeda have escaped from the US-controlled section of Baghdad’s Karkh prison, US officials say.

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