Semua Kabar

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has urged doctors in England to “vote no” in a ballot on industrial action which gets under way on Tuesday.

In a BBC interview, he urged resident doctors, the new name for junior doctors, to “work with the government” and warned strikes risked hampering the progress being made in the NHS.

He said it was in no-one’s interests for strikes to take place.

Last week it was announced resident doctors would be getting a 5.4% average pay rise this year – more than other doctors, nurses and teachers.

But resident doctors, who took part in 11 strikes in 2023 and 2024, said it was not enough to make up for below-inflation pay awards since 2008.

The union is urging members to vote for industrial action, with sources saying strikes would be the likely action taken.

This year’s pay rise comes after resident doctors were awarded rises worth 22% over the previous two years.

Streeting agreed to that deal shortly after coming into office, ending a dispute which had lasted more than a year.

Taking account of this year’s pay rise, it means the starting salary for a doctor fresh out of university has risen by £9,500 over the past three years to around £38,800, the government said.

But the British Medical Association (BMA) said even after the latest pay rise another 20% was needed to bring wages back to where they were in 2008.

Resident doctors’ committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said: “We are urging doctors to vote yes to strike action.

“By voting yes they will be telling the government there is no alternative to fixing pay – this cannot wait for different fiscal circumstances and a healthier NHS. The answer is to fix it today.”

The vote on industrial action runs until 7 July.

Streeting said his door was always open but added there was no more money to increase salaries above the latest award.

And he said a fresh bout of strikes would put attempts to rebuild the NHS at risk.

Speaking to the BBC, Streeting said: ” I don’t think strikes are in their interests, in patients interests and I certainly don’t think it’s in the interest of the NHS overall.”

Streeting has often cited the deal he reached last year to end the previous round of strikes as evidence of the government’s ability to reform the health service and cut waiting lists.

Meanwhile, BMA sources said consultants were likely to start a dispute process over their 4% rise – the first step towards moving to an industrial action ballot.

Other staff including nurses, midwives and physios have been given a 3.6% increase. The Royal College of Nursing said it was “grotesque” nurses were getting less than doctors for the second year in a row.

The Scottish government has agreed a deal worth 8% over two years with health unions representing all staff apart from doctors and dentists. There have been no strikes by health workers in Scotland.

The health secretary said a meeting with families was the most “harrowing” he’s held in the role.

A coroner pays tribute to Katie Watson, who appeared on Channel 4’s Geordie Hospital.

Union members have called for the NHS to stop using private companies.

The Unite union says some staff working on advanced projects have been refused special allowances.

A medical tribunal has found a senior doctor’s failings amounted to gross negligence and misconduct.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

Nitrous oxide – known colloquially as “laughing gas” – has many uses, from a painkiller during dental procedures to a whipping agent for canned whipped cream.

While its euphoric side effects have long been known, the rise of vaping has helped create a perfect delivery vehicle for the gas – and a perfect recipe for an addiction, experts warn.

Meg Caldwell’s death wasn’t inevitable.

The horse rider from Florida had started using nitrous oxide recreationally in university eight years ago. But like many young people, she started to use more heavily during the pandemic.

The youngest of four sisters, she was “the light of our lives,” her sister Kathleen Dial told the BBC.

But Ms Caldwell’s use continued to escalate, to the point that her addiction “started ruining her life”.

She temporarily lost use of her legs after an overdose, which also rendered her incontinent. Still, she continued to use, buying it in local smoke shops, inhaling it in the car park and then heading straight back into the shop to buy more. She sometimes spent hundreds of dollars a day.

She died last November, in one of those car parks just outside a vape shop.

“She didn’t think that it would hurt her because she was buying it in the smoke shop, so she thought she was using this substance legally,” Ms Dial said.

The progression of Ms Caldwell’s addiction – from youthful misuse to life-threatening compulsion – has become increasingly common. The Annual Report of America’s Poison Centers found there was a 58 % increase in reports of intentional exposure to nitrous oxide in the US between 2023-2024.

In a worst-case scenario, inhalation of nitrous oxide can lead to hypoxia, where the brain does not get enough oxygen. This can result in death. Regular inhalation can also lead to a Vitamin B12 deficiency which can cause nerve damage, degradation of the spinal column and even paralysis. The number of deaths attributed to nitrous oxide poisonings rose by more than 110% between 2019 and 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Possession of nitrous oxide was criminalised in the UK in 2023 after misuse among young people increased during the pandemic. But while many states have also outlawed the recreational use of the product in the US, it is still legal to sell as a culinary product. Only Louisiana has totally banned the retail sale of the gas.

Galaxy Gas, a major manufacturer, even offers recipes for dishes, including Chicken Satay with Peanut Chili Foam and Watermelon Gazpacho on their website. With flavours like Blue Raspberry or Strawberries and Cream, experts warn this loophole – as well as major changes in packaging and retail – has contributed to the rise in misuse.

Until recently users would take single-use plain metal canisters weighing around 8g and inhale the gas using a balloon. But when usage spiked during the pandemic, nitrous oxide manufacturers began selling much larger canisters online – as large as 2kg – and, eventually, in shops selling electronic vapes and other smoking paraphernalia.

Companies also began to package the gas in bright colourful canisters with designs featuring characters from computer games and television series.

Pat Aussem, of the Partnership to End Addiction, believes these developments are behind increased misuse:

“Even being called Galaxy Gas or Miami Magic is marketing,” she said. “If you have large canisters, then it means that more people can try it and use it and that can lead to a lot of peer pressure.”

The BBC reached out for comment to both Galaxy Gas and Miami Magic but did not receive a response. Amazon, where the gas is sold online, has said they are aware of customers misusing nitrous oxide and that they are working to implement further safety measures. In a response to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s news partner in the US, Galaxy Gas maintained that the gas was intended for culinary use and that they include a message on their sites warning against misuse.

Concern about nitrous oxide misuse increased last year, after several videos of people using the product went viral online.

On social media, videos of young people getting high on gas became a trend. A video uploaded in July 2024 by an Atlanta-based fast-food restaurant featured a young man inhaling Strawberries and Cream flavoured nitrous oxide saying “My name’s Lil T, man”, his voice made deeper by the gas. To date the clip has been viewed about 40 million times and spawned thousands of copies.

Misuse also featured heavily in rap music videos and Twitch streaming. Guests tried it on the Joe Rogan Show and rappers including Ye (formerly Kanye West) spoke about abusing the substance publicly. Ye has since sued his dentist for “recklessly” supplying Ye with “dangerous amounts of nitrous oxide”.

In response to the trend, TikTok blocked searches for “galaxy gas,” and redirected users to a message offering resources about substance use and addiction. Rapper SZA also alerted her social media followers about its harms and slammed it for “being MASS marketed to black children”.

In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an official alert warning against inhaling the gas after it “observed an increase in reports of adverse events after inhalation of nitrous oxide products”.

The FDA told the BBC that it “continues to actively track adverse events related to nitrous oxide misuse and will take appropriate actions to protect the public health”.

But for some, these warnings came too late.

In 2023, the family of a 25-year-old woman, Marissa Politte successfully sued Nitrous Distributor United Brands for $745m in damages after the radiology technician was killed by a driver high on nitrous oxide. The jury found the company responsible for selling the product in the knowledge that it would be misused.

“Marissa Politte’s death shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but my God, it should be the last,” Johnny Simon, the Politte family’s lawyer, said at the time. In the years since there have been several fatal traffic accidents involving the gas both in the US and the UK.

Meanwhile, Ms Caldwell’s family have launched a class action lawsuit against manufacturers and distributors of nitrous oxide, hoping to remove the product from retail sales across the US for good.

“The people who administer nitrous oxide in a dentist office now have to go through hours and hours of training, she said. “It just is crazy to me that the drug can be purchased in a smoke shop to anyone who goes in.”

“Unfortunately, it’s become very obvious that the manufacturers and the owners of the smoke shops are not going to do the moral thing and take this off the shelves themselves,” Ms Dial said.

People from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela who had temporary permission to stay in the country are receiving emails telling them to go.

California senator Alex Padilla was pushed out of the news conference by authorities after he interrupted Noem.

The US defense secretary appeared to acknowledge incidental plans also exist for Panama, but avoided giving direct confirmation.

US Senator Alex Padilla was put in handcuffs after interrupting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news update on the Los Angeles ICE raids.

The appointees have “committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data”, the vaccine sceptic said.

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A man with a rare form of blood cancer has travelled 10,000 miles to meet the stranger who saved his life.

Luke Melling, 31, from Melbourne, Australia, says he was “staring death in the face” before receiving a stem-cell transplant from Alastair Hawken, of Grantham, Lincolnshire.

The match between the pair was so perfect that the men now believe they could be distantly related, as both their families hail from Preston, Lancashire – the town they chose for their emotional first meeting.

They are sharing their story to encourage more people to join the NHS Stem Cell Donor Registry.

Three years ago, Luke, who was then 28, was desperately ill in hospital with Hodgkin lymphoma.

He had been living with the condition since he was 16 and, despite being in remission four times, the cancer kept coming back.

After exhausting all other treatments, he was told he needed a transplant of stem cells – which can be found in the bone marrow and produce essential blood cells – to survive.

But no-one in his family, and no-one in Australia, was a match, so doctors started searching global stem-cell registries for a donor.

“It was pretty much like, ‘This is it – this is the only option you have. It’s either this or you’re going to die’,” Luke says.

“Finding out that my sister wasn’t a match was terrifying – we just didn’t know if there would be anybody registered who would be a suitable match for me.”

But then, after a six-month wait, Luke was told there was hope. The register had discovered a potential donor on the other side of the world.

“When we found out we had the perfect match, that was an emotional moment,” Luke recalls. “I remember mum – she was in hysterics, crying.”

For Alastair, then 48, the phone call came out of the blue. A regular blood donor, he had signed up to the NHS registry in 2008.

When he was asked if he was still willing to donate, the father-of-three did not hesitate.

“It was no problem at all,” he says. “What can I do, where can I be? It was nice to be wanted, or to feel that I could be of use to someone.”

Before the donation, Alastair was injected with a high-strength cell-generating drug. After a couple of days he could barely move, but he was told that showed the process was working and the body was “over-generating stem cells”.

He then went to a hospital for the stem cells to be “harvested” in a process similar to blood donation, while he was fed snacks and watched television.

“There’s no discomfort,” he says. “The stem cells are taken out and packaged up, and then they’re counted in the laboratory – 85 million is what we needed for Luke, and that’s what was taken.

“I felt amazing – my body was made up of fresh stem cells – and then my [harvested] stem cells went on their journey.”

The cells were cryogenically frozen within hours to be sent to Australia, where Luke was waiting.

Luke had his transplant a month later, but all he knew about the donor was that he was a 48-year-old man from the UK.

He was not allowed to contact Alastair until two years had passed and the treatment was considered successful.

At that point, Alastair did not know whether Luke had survived.

“I just hoped. I hoped and prayed that he had,” he says.

And then an email dropped into his inbox via the stem cell registry.

“It was like all my Christmases had come at once,” Alastair recalls. “It was a really beautiful moment.”

The men were put in contact with each other and finally met in Preston on Friday.

Luke told Alastair: “To have someone like you, who is so beautiful, lovely and kind, having done all this, I’m glad it’s your cells. I just can’t thank you enough.”

For his part, Alastair, who runs a gingerbread business, describes the donation as his “legacy”.

He told Luke: “If I achieve nothing more than just seeing that smile on your face, then I’ve achieved everything I need to achieve.”

Preston was a fitting place to meet as Alastair’s grandparents lived in the town and Luke’s family also have roots there.

Luke, who is now 31 and back to full health, feels he can put the last 15 years behind him. He has even run a marathon.

“Meeting Alastair in person is a dream come true,” he says. “What do you say to the person who has given you your life back by literally giving a part of themselves?

“Me being able to get on that plane and fly across the world is possible only because of him.

“The moment I got to give him that huge hug and thank him in person is a moment I’ll never forget.”

Alastair, now 51, hopes their story will encourage others to sign up to the stem cell registry.

“Meeting Luke today really brings home just what a difference that simple act can make,” he says.

“I just wish more people would put themselves forward to be on the register to donate, whether it’s platelets or organs or blood or stem cells – that is just the gift of life.

“There’s nothing that makes you feel more complete as a human being – and when it’s a success story, like it clearly has been in our case, it makes everything all worthwhile.”

Additional reporting by Paul Johnson

The NHS is encouraging more people aged 17-40, from all ethnic backgrounds, to join the NHS Stem Cell Donor Registry, to give more patients a better chance of finding the life-saving matches they need.

Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.

A charity that helps parents with young babies says it is itself “massively feeling the pinch”.

Jo Kelly says she will be giving it her all as she competes for Great Britain.

Femi Elufowoju Jr says the actor talking about prostate cancer encouraged him to get checked.

A failed stem cell transplant was one of the factors that led to the death of Tina Doig.

Breast cancer patient Neil Ferriby from Hull has had lymph nodes and three tumours removed.

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It’s a condition that affects more than 10 million people in the UK. It can change futures, end careers, and shrink worlds. So when a hack comes along that says it can “cure”, or at the very least fend off a migraine, people will try it.

While there are medical treatments, there is no cure. Prescription medication can be very effective – but it doesn’t always work. For many people there is no simple solution.

Some discover their own ways of managing the debilitating pain: blasting the side of their face with a hairdryer, or sitting in a hot bath while wearing an ice pack and drinking a smoothie.

But now a new hack has suddenly gone viral – the McMigraine Meal. A simple offering of a full-fat cola and a portion of salty fries seems to be doing the trick for hundreds who’ve been extolling its virtues on TikTok.

If there is any science behind these hacks – what do they do to the body?

Nick Cook, from Oxfordshire, carries “a wallet full of drugs” around in case of a migraine attack. He will “try anything” to make the pain go away, he says.

“When you live with the condition, and you’re working a five-day week and you need to carry on, you’ll give anything a go.”

At its worst the pain around Nick’s eye socket can feel like his eyeball is getting crushed. He says it’s the caffeine and sugar in cola that helps him.

“If I catch it soon enough it can sometimes work, when my vision goes fuzzy and I can feel one coming on.”

He stresses that drinking cola doesn’t replace his amitriptyline tablets – the daily pain medication he takes to try to prevent migraines – but it does sometimes help him “last until the end of the day”.

For Kayleigh Webster, a 27-year-old who has had chronic migraines all her life, it’s the salt on the chips that might slow down a migraine attack.

“It can help,” she says cautiously, “but it’s certainly not a cure.

“Migraine is a complex neurological condition – and it can’t be cured by a bit of caffeine, salt and sugar in a fast food meal.”

Kayleigh’s tried cocktails of different medications, putting her feet in hot water, a flannel at the back of the head, acupuncture, cupping – but they’ve had little effect.

One of the few treatments that has given her relief is medical Botox – having dozens of injections in her head, face and neck. It’s still not clear how Botox works for migraine, but it’s believed to block powerful pain signals being released from the nerves.

A migraine – which can last days – is very different to a headache, which tend to be short-lived and can be treated more easily with painkillers like paracetamol. Migraines can cause head pain, neck pain, numbness, blurred vision, and even affect speech and movement.

Skulls dating back to 3,000 BC show ancient Egyptians even had trouble with migraines – but despite that long history, their exact cause is still unknown.

It’s thought pain receptors in the blood vessels and nerve tissue around the brain misfire – sending incorrect signals that something is wrong. But we don’t know why some people have an oversensitive nervous system – and why it reacts to some things and not others.

Experts say there’s not enough research into why only some people – around one in seven – are affected, or what can actually help.

Dr Kay Kennis, a trustee for the Migraine Trust and a GP who specialises in migraines, says while there are elements of the McMigraine meal that can help stave off an attack, these aren’t innate to “a McDonald’s”.

“The caffeine in the coke can act as a nerve disruptor, it is a substance that affects nerve activity. For some, that disturbance works in a positive way,” Dr Kennis says.

“There are some painkillers that people take for migraines that have caffeine – and some do respond well to that – but we don’t fully know why.”

But she warns against using caffeinated fizzy drinks like cola as a way of regularly managing migraines.

“Too much caffeine can be a trigger too – and you can end up in a worse situation in the long run,” Dr Kennis says.

Other ingredients in a fast food meal, like the salt on the chips, can affect nerve activity, she explains, but adds the effects of sodium on migraines have not been tested.

She also warns that not only is fast food often ultra-processed and not conducive to a healthy diet, it can contain high levels of Tyramine, a natural compound commonly found in many foods, which can actually cause severe migraines.

For Eloise Underwood none of the quick fixes on social media work.

The chronic migraine sufferer has been looking for a “magic cocktail” for seven years – she’s seen people recommend putting feet in scorching water (not recommended by experts and potentially dangerous); drinking hot coffee (caffeine can be a trigger); or various vibrating devices which have had little effect.

“There are so many videos online that take advantage of the desperation we all feel,” Eloise explains.

She’s left several jobs – often due to lighting and noise in an office environment triggering migraines. She recently stopped working as an interior designer and has now launched a business pressing and framing wedding flowers from her home.

She wears loop ear buds to reduce the sharpness of the sounds around her, and limits her social life.

“People think a migraine is just a headache – that’s just one symptom of it,” Eloise says. “For me, a migraine is a whole body experience…

“Migraines have completely made my life smaller.”

Prof Peter Goadsby, a neurologist at the NIHR-King’s Clinical Research Facility, says research is beginning to produce positive results after years of underfunding.

His latest study shows medications known as gepants could block a group of pain receptors in the lead-up to a migraine attack, cutting off the pain before it starts.

“Any new treatment is a glimmer of hope,” Eloise says. “They do say that nothing will work for everyone – but something will work for someone.”

Lifestyle changes can also make a difference, Prof Goadsby explains. It might be boring, he says, but basically – “be careful of your brain”.

“You want to have regularity, avoid the highs and lows. If you can feel the warning signs – yawning, sleepiness, mood change, passing more urine and even craving salt and sugar – listen to your body.

“Listen to your body – don’t listen to TikTok, that’s my advice.”

Nick has been doing exactly that. He might reach for the odd cola and salty fries, but he’s moulded his whole life in order to manage his migraines.

“I don’t drink, I wear sunglasses even if it’s cloudy,” he says. “I don’t go wild. When me and my partner go away, half the stuff we take is to help us manage our migraines.”

On a recent stag-do weekend, Nick noticed the difference between his and his friends’ lives.

“They were up all night drinking to the early hours,” Nick says. “I turned up with my own pillow, apples, bananas, Weetabix, and any snacks I would need to keep me going, because hunger can be a major trigger.

“I’m in bed by midnight – but my mates know me, and that’s OK, because this is how I have to live my life.”

The apps use artificial intelligence to create fake nude images of people without their consent.

Separate bills to let terminally ill people end their life are being considered at Westminster and in Scotland.

But the NHS in England is still well below its target for seeing patients within 18 weeks.

The trial, involving patients in Yeovil and Taunton, is looking at reducing courses of antibiotics.

Marine pilot Ian Lawrence and his family spent a year volunteering on a hospital ship.

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New cases of the sexually transmitted infection syphilis have risen again in England, continuing a trend dating back to the early 2000s.

While the overall number of people diagnosed with gonorrhoea has fallen, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases where the infection is drug resistant, new UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data shows.

Health experts say this is a real concern, although the actual number of drug-resistant cases remains very low.

The NHS recently announced the rollout of the world’s first vaccine programme to protect against gonorrhoea, aimed principally at gay and bisexual men.

Overall, there were 9,535 diagnoses of what is described as early-stage syphilis in England in 2024, up 2% on 2023.

But the overall figure for syphilis, including what is called late-stage syphilis, or complications from the infection, rose 5% to 13,030.

The figures for gonorrhoea show a more complicated picture.

Overall, 2024 saw a 16% fall in gonorrhoea cases, with 71,802 diagnoses compared to 85,370 in 2023, with the greatest fall among 15- to 24-year-olds.

Giulia Habib Meriggi, a surveillance and prevention scientist for sexually transmitted infections at UKHSA, urged caution over the decline.

“This is the first year in the last couple of years where [the numbers] have actually gone down,” she said.

“It’s still the third highest number of cases we’ve had in a year in recorded history, so it is sort of good news but it doesn’t mean it will stay that way.

“It is obviously really important for people to still get tested regularly and use condoms with new partners.”

By contrast, there has been an acceleration in diagnoses of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea.

Some strains of the bacteria which causes the disease no longer respond to the first-line treatment, the antibiotic ceftriaxone.

The numbers themselves remain low, with 14 cases reported in the first five months of 2025, compared with 13 cases for the whole of 2024.

But six of those 14 cases so far this year have been extensively drug-resistant, meaning they were resistant not just to ceftriaxone but also to second-line treatment options.

Most of the ceftriaxone resistant cases were linked with travel to or from the Asia-Pacific region, where levels of ceftriaxone resistance are high.

UKHSA scientist Prarthana Narayanan describes the trend as “worrying”.

“The numbers are still small but the reason this is worrying is because, once resistance in gonorrhoea becomes endemic, then it becomes extremely hard to treat, because ceftriaxone is the last first-line therapy we have for it.

“We want to make sure that the spread of resistant strains is reduced as much as possible to try and prolong how long we can use ceftriaxone to treat it for,” she said.

Numbers of sexually transmitted infections remain high, warns UKHSA, with the impact felt felt mainly in 15- to 24-year-olds, gay and bisexual men and some minority ethnic groups.

But the increase in drug resistant cases of gonorrhoea is a real concern, amid wider worries around the growth in antimicrobial resistance.

The World Health Organisation describes antimicrobial resistance as an issue of global concern and one of the biggest threats to global health.

It threatens our ability to treat common infections and to perform life-saving procedures, including chemotherapy for cancer, caesarean sections, hip replacements, organ transplants and other operations.

This is why, even though only 14 cases of drug-resistant gonorrhoea were identified this year, health experts urge anyone having sex with new or casual partners to use a condom and get tested regularly, whatever their age or sexual orientation.

Separate bills to let terminally ill people end their life are being considered at Westminster and in Scotland.

But the NHS in England is still well below its target for seeing patients within 18 weeks.

The trial, involving patients in Yeovil and Taunton, is looking at reducing courses of antibiotics.

Marine pilot Ian Lawrence and his family spent a year volunteering on a hospital ship.

A medical tribunal has found a senior doctor’s failings amounted to gross negligence and misconduct.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

The ban on the sale of single-use disposable vapes will come into force on Sunday across the UK, aimed at protecting children’s health and the environment.

It means shops and supermarkets will no longer be able to stock them – but they can still sell rechargeable or refillable devices.

Disposable vapes have been cited as a key driver in the rise in youth vaping, while every week five million vapes are thrown away.

Ministers predict it will have a significant impact but health experts say further regulation is needed to tackle youth vaping.

Retailers in England breaching the ban face a £200 fine for the first offence with potentially unlimited fines or jail for those who repeatedly re-offend.

The ban was first announced for England by the previous Conservative government but the law was not enacted before last summer’s general election.

Labour then pushed ahead with it.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have introduced their own bans, timed to coincide with the one in England.

Vape use has risen rapidly over the last decade with 9% of the British public now buying and using e-cigarettes.

Latest figures suggest about one in four vapers use the disposable versions, although that proportion has fallen since the ban was announced.

And while it is illegal to sell vapes to anyone under 18, disposable vapes, often sold in smaller, more colourful packaging than refillable ones, have been cited as an important factor in the rise of youth vaping.

Currently one in seven 18 to 24-year-olds vape but have never smoked.

Vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking but it has not been around for long enough for its long-term risks to be known, according to the NHS.

The environmental impact is considerable. Single-use vapes are difficult to recycle and typically end up in landfill where their batteries can leak harmful chemicals like battery acid, lithium, and mercury into the environment, the government said.

Batteries thrown into household waste also cause hundreds of fires in bin lorries and waste-processing centres every year.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates almost five million single-use vapes were either littered or thrown into general waste each week last year.

Environment minister Mary Creagh said: “For too long, single-use vapes have blighted our streets as litter and hooked our children on nicotine. That ends today.

“The government calls time on these nasty devices.”

But Action on Smoking and Health chief executive Hazel Cheeseman questioned what impact the ban would have, pointing out new refillable vape kits were coming on to the market that look and cost similar to the single-use ones.

She said it would not be until the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which includes powers to regulate marketing, branding and advertising, came into power that the issue of youth vaping could be truly tackled.

“Their appeal is driven by bright colours, wide availability and cheap prices,” she said.

“The new regulations will hopefully help to address the environmental impact, but government will need further regulations to address the appeal of products to teenagers.”

She said this was very much a balancing act as vapes were an important tool to help people quit.

“Vaping is very much less harmful than smoking and is the most popular aid to quitting in the UK,” she added.

John Dunne, of the UK Vaping Industry Association, said bans were “not the answer”.

He said he was concerned that a black market in single-use vapes could develop and some people may be tempted to return to smoking cigarettes.

“Disposables have played a huge role in reducing smoking levels amongst adults to record low levels. It’s why we are seeing stockpiling in the lead up to the ban,” he added.

Scott Butler, executive director of Material Focus, an independent not-for-profit organisation, said that he was still concerned that vapes are still difficult to recycle and reuse.

He said customers and businesses should demand sustainable options.

“Given the rampant binning and littering that we already see, will we see any behaviour change? Only if producers, importers and retailers step up and meet their long existing legal obligations to provide and pay for takeback and recycling,” he said.

Officers also identified seven men who they believed to be working for less than the minimum wage.

Separate bills to let terminally ill people end their life are being considered at Westminster and in Scotland.

But the NHS in England is still well below its target for seeing patients within 18 weeks.

Disposable vapes are still being sold in some shops despite a recently introduced ban, the BBC finds.

The trial, involving patients in Yeovil and Taunton, is looking at reducing courses of antibiotics.

Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.  The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

An exercise programme for colon cancer patients can cut the risk of dying by a third, a major international trial shows.

The researchers said it was “not a large amount” of exercise and any type of workout from swimming to salsa classes counted.

The results could change the way colon cancer is treated around the world.

Scientists are already investigating whether similar exercise regimes could improve survival for people with other diseases, such as breast cancer.

“It’s a bit of a mind-shift, thinking of treatment as something you do, not just something you take,” says researcher Prof Vicky Coyle from Queen’s University Belfast.

In the trial, the three-year exercise programme started soon after chemotherapy.

The aim was to get people doing at least double the amount of exercise set out in the guidelines for the general population.

That could be three-to-four sessions of brisk walking a week, lasting 45-60 minutes, Prof Coyle says.

People got weekly face-to-face coaching sessions for the first six months, which then dropped to once a month.

The trial, involving 889 patients, put half on the exercise programme. The other half were given leaflets promoting a healthy lifestyle.

The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed after five years:

Meanwhile, eight years after the initial cancer treatment:

Exactly why exercise has this beneficial effect is unknown, but ideas include the impact on growth hormones, inflammation levels in the body and how the immune system functions – which patrols the body for cancer.

Dr Joe Henson, from the University of Leicester, said the results were “exciting”.

He added: “I saw first-hand that this reduced fatigue, lifted people’s mood and boosted their physical strength.

“We know that physical activity regulates several key biological processes that could explain these results, and further research will help us uncover why exercise is having such a positive impact.”

Colon cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, with around 31,800 people diagnosed each year.

Caroline Geraghty, from Cancer Research UK, said: “This trial has the potential to transform clinical practice, but only if health services have the necessary funding and staff to make it a reality for patients.”

Femi Elufowoju Jr says the actor talking about prostate cancer encouraged him to get checked.

Breast cancer patient Neil Ferriby from Hull has had lymph nodes and three tumours removed.

Invitations be sent out by the NHS every five years instead of every three for women aged 25-49 in England, if they have a negative test.

NHS patients could be treated using the non-invasive device by this summer.

Raymond Dingwall, who has chronic health issues, describes the permit renewal process as “ludicrous”.

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For gluten-free, citrus-free and tomato-free Kerry Clayton, shopping and cooking is a challenge.

As well as her own food requirements, her 10-year-old son is dairy and wheat-free.

The family shops at multiple stores each week to get the best free-from options, cooks adaptable meals like jacket potatoes and pasta, and makes cakes and cookies from scratch.

She spends about an hour a week baking, on top of running two online jewellery businesses and parenting another child.

When M&S launched its Only range in March, with products featuring six or fewer ingredients, Ms Clayton described it as “a dream”.

That was despite higher prices – its one-ingredient corn flakes cost £2.50 for a 325g box, compared with 90p for 500g of the standard kind.

“For standard shoppers, it seems a lot, but for us with allergies, it’s about normal,” says Kent-based Ms Clayton.

“It’s hard to find enjoyable things we can all eat. If you’re used to the luxury of standard cereal, you might not enjoy alternatives, or understand the extra cost – but for those of us that need low ingredient food, it’s perfect.”

Life might just be about to get a lot easier for Ms Clayton. More retailers and food brands are taking M&S’s lead to offer more items containing fewer ingredients, prompted by the concern around ultra-processed food (UPF) that has been growing since Dr Chris Van Tulleken released his book, “Ultra-Processed People”, in 2023.

There is much debate over how to classify ultra-processed foods.

However, less processed foods are growing in popularity.

Matthew Hopkins, founder of IND!E, a platform which helps small food and drink brands get into big retailers, says he’s seen a 40% increase in retailer enquiries over the past year about products with fewer ingredients. He is taking bigger orders specifically from Ocado, Selfridges and John Lewis.

“Retailers are responding to growing consumer demand for simpler, more recognisable ingredient lists,” says Harrogate-based Mr Hopkins.

Feeling the need to offer a less-processed product, plant-based brand THIS, which makes meat-free sausages, burgers, chicken and bacon, has recently launched a new Super Superfoods range.

It’s designed to be the protein component of a meal, and features natural ingredients, like beans, seeds and mushrooms.

THIS is also responding to surveys indicating that shoppers are avoiding meat replacement products, due to their processed nature and the presence of artificial additives.

Luke Byrne, innovation and sustainability director at THIS is concerned about “consumer confusion and hesitation”.

“We understand we are classified as a UPF, however, that has little bearing on whether our products are healthy, because their nutritional properties are extremely good. Our products are high in protein, high in fibre, low in saturated fat and low in sugar,” says London-based Mr Byrne.

“It has been frustrating in many ways as it has shifted the focus away from the most important thing about food, which is the nutrition aspect.”

So has the public been misled that all ultra-processed food is bad, and all unprocessed food is good?

Nutritionist Dr Laura Wyness thinks so, expressing disappointment that the M&S Only range puts “hype over health”.

“It may be that consumers are looking for products with shorter ingredient lists, but to leave out fortified nutrients is a backwards step for public health nutrition. We should be encouraging more nutrient dense foods in the diet, and fortifying products such as plant milk and dairy alternatives and breakfast cereals,” says Edinburgh-based Dr Wyness.

“This seems like one occasion that the customer is not always right – mainly due to the misinformation that is informing their food choices.”

Dr Jibin He says UPF as a term is not a helpful indicator of whether something is healthy or unhealthy, as the concept, and how it is explained to the public, is flawed.

Processed food, Dr He notes, will remain an essential part of feeding a large and growing human population, as processing ensures food safety, extends shelf life, and reduces waste.

“Take tofu as an example. It is a great source of protein, low in fat and considered as a healthy alternative to meats, particularly red meat. It is also more environmentally friendly.

“However, tofu could be considered as a UPF whereas red meat would be an unprocessed food,” says Dr He, who is head of science and a chartered food scientist at Teesside University. He has also collaborated with food manufacturers and food technology companies to improve processing technologies.

He argues that tofu might fall into the ultra-processed category if it had certain additives.

For food brands wanting to create less processed products, Dr He advises that it can be done by simplifying the formulas of existing products, and looking at new processing and packaging technologies that mean fewer ingredients can be used.

“Many food products have extremely complex formulas, and a manufacturer may not fully understand the functions of each listed ingredient in their formula.

“I would advise food manufacturers to closely examine their formulas and identify which ingredients are absolutely necessary and which they can do without,” Dr He recommends.

“Novel food processing technologies can also help produce products with higher nutritional retention and longer shelf life without significantly altering the physical structure and chemical composition of the food.”

Dr He is also expecting a rise in marketing to push the virtues of less processed food products, as well as to justify their higher price points.

Premium porridge brand 3Bears, for example, recently launched its own range of low ingredient breakfast cereals, in partnership with footballer Harry Kane. Mr Kane appears in product promotion, and is also a company shareholder.

3Bears’ oat cinnamon loops, containing seven ingredients, are priced at £3.99 for 250g.

That’s compared with Only multigrain hoops from M&S, containing five ingredients, at £2.50 for 300 grams, while Waitrose Essential multigrain hoops are £1.25 for 375 grams, and contain 22 ingredients.

“With our oat flakes it was really hard to get the texture and crunchiness right – as we only wanted to use three ingredients, and oats are very different to process than other grains. With the costs of creating products with fewer ingredients higher and the process harder, the price points are reflective of this,” explains 3Bears co-founder Caroline Nichols.

For some foods, the debate over UPF, seems less of a problem.

The UK confectionery market continues to grow steadily, and is worth about £14.8bn, despite it having a high proportion of UPF products.

Ice cream ball brand Little Moons might list over 30 ingredients on some of its flavours, but it now exports from the UK to 35 countries, and supermarkets have copied it with own-brand versions.

Ross Farquhar, the company’s marketing, innovation and sustainability director, is confident that treat food brands can ride out the UPF storm, so he isn’t in a hurry to slash Little Moon’s ingredient list.

“The reality of a category like ice cream is that certain ingredients are needed to keep the product stable through the food supply chain, like emulsifiers and stabilisers. So unless we’re all going to start making ice cream at home regularly then off-the-shelf ice cream still has a role to play,” says London-based Mr Farquhar.

“I’m sure the M&S ‘Only’ chocolate bars are delicious, but they’re speaking to a very specific audience, and I doubt the big confectionery brands are going to be willing to compromise the core product attributes consumers love.”

Light shows involving hundreds and even thousands of drones are becoming big attractions.

Workers at Reaction Engines felt they were close to completing a revolutionary jet engine.

Billions of dollars of US federal funding for green energy projects hangs in the balance.

Indian start-ups are using local materials and innovative ideas to make useful and affordable products.

The vigilance needed in the military can be an asset in the cybersecurity industry.

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UK doctors are attempting to clear dangerous superbug infections using “poo pills” containing freeze-dried faeces.

The stool samples come from healthy donors and are packed with good bacteria.

Early data suggests superbugs can be flushed out of the dark murky depths of the bowel and replaced with a mix of healthy gut bacteria.

It is a new approach to tackling infections that resist antibiotics, which are thought to kill a million people each year.

The focus is on the bowels which are “the biggest reservoir of antibiotic resistance in humans” says Dr Blair Merrick, who has been testing the pills at Guys and St Thomas’ hospitals.

Drug-resistant superbugs can escape their intestinal home and cause trouble elsewhere in the body – such as urinary tract or bloodstream infections.

“So there’s a lot of interest in ‘can you get rid of them from the gut?’,” says Dr Merrick.

The idea of poo-pills isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. Faecal transplants – also known as a trans-poo-tion – are already approved for treating severe diarrhoea caused by Clostridium difficile bacteria.

But scientists noticed hints that faecal transplants for C. difficile also seemed to get rid of superbugs.

New research has focused on patients who had an infection caused by drug-resistant bacteria in the past six months.

They were given pills made from faeces which people had donated to a stool bank.

Each stool sample is tested to ensure it does not contain any harmful bugs, undigested food is removed and then it is freeze dried into a powder.

This is stored inside a pill that can pass through the stomach unscathed and reach the intestines where it dissolves to release its poopy powdery payload.

The trial has taken place on 41 patients at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals in London to lay the groundwork for a large-scale study.

It showed patients were up for taking a poo pill and the donated bacteria were still being detected in the bowels at least a month later.

Dr Merrick says there are “really promising signals” that poo pills could help tackle the rising scourge of superbugs and that donor bacteria could be going to microbial war with the superbugs as they compete over food and space on the lining of the gut and either rid the body of them completely or “reduce them down to a level that doesn’t cause problems”.

The study also suggests the array of gut bacteria becomes more varied after the therapy. This is a sign of good health and “may well be promoting colonisation resistance” so it is harder for new infectious bugs to get in.

“It’s very exciting. There’s a real shift from 20 years ago where all bacteria and viruses were assumed to do you harm; to now where we realise they are completely necessary to our overall health,” says Dr Merrick.

Earlier this week scientists showed the good bacteria our bodies meet – in the hours after we are born – seem to halve the risk of young children being admitted to hospital with lung infections.

Our body’s own human cells are outnumbered by the bacteria, fungi and others that live inside us – known as the microbiome.

This has led to research implicating the microbiome in everything from Crohn’s disease to cancer to mental health.

If poo pills are proven to work against superbugs in larger studies then the researchers think they could be used for both treatment and prevention in people at risk.

Medical procedures that suppress the immune system – including cancer therapies and organ transplants – can make the body more vulnerable.

“A lot of these individuals come to a lot of harm from drug resistant organisms,” Dr Merrick.

The UK’s drugs regulator – the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – said there were more than 450 microbiome medicines currently in development.

“Some of them will succeed, so I do think we will see them coming through quite soon,” said Dr Chrysi Sergaki, the head of microbiome research at the MHRA.

“We could potentially, in the future, replace antibiotics with microbiome [therapies] – that’s the big picture, so there’s a lot of potential.”

Separate bills to let terminally ill people end their life are being considered at Westminster and in Scotland.

But the NHS in England is still well below its target for seeing patients within 18 weeks.

The trial, involving patients in Yeovil and Taunton, is looking at reducing courses of antibiotics.

Marine pilot Ian Lawrence and his family spent a year volunteering on a hospital ship.

A medical tribunal has found a senior doctor’s failings amounted to gross negligence and misconduct.

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US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, has removed all 17 members of a committee that issues official government recommendations on immunisations.

Announcing the move in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy said that conflicts of interest on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip) were responsible for undermining trust in vaccinations.

Kennedy said he wanted to “ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.”

Doctors and health experts have criticised Kennedy’s longstanding questioning of the safety and efficacy of a number of vaccines, although in his Senate confirmation hearing he said he is “not going to take them away.”

On Monday he said he was “retiring” all of the Acip panel members. Eight of the 17 panellists were appointed in January 2025, in the last days of President Biden’s term.

Most of the members are practising doctors and experts attached to major university medical centres.

After the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves vaccines based on whether the benefits of the shot outweigh the risks, Acip recommends which groups should be given the shots and when, which also determines insurance coverage of the shots.

Noel Brewer, a professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health who served on Acip for a year, called Kennedy’s decision “norm-breaking”.

“I was stunned, but not surprised,” he told the BBC. “It was deeply disappointing and more than a bit upsetting.”

Kennedy noted that if he did not remove the committee members, President Trump would not have been able to appoint a majority on the panel until 2028.

“The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” Kennedy wrote.

He claimed that health authorities and drug companies were responsible for a “crisis of public trust” that some try to explain “by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes.”

In the editorial, Kennedy cited examples from the 1990s and 2000s and alleged that conflicts of interest persist.

“Most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Acip members are required to disclose conflicts of interest, which are posted online, and to recuse themselves from voting on decisions where they may have a conflict.

Dr Brewer said the panel had “one of the most rigorous conflict of interest procedures of any federal committee”.

The members had a wide range of vaccine expertise, and thoroughly reviewed and debated vaccine data to make the best decisions for the public, said Paul Offit, a former Acip member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

In his editorial, Kennedy said that the “problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt”.

“The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy,” he claimed.

Dr Bruce Scott, president of the American Medical Association, a professional organisation for American doctors, said mass sacking “upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.”

“With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses,” Dr Scott said in a statement.

Kennedy’s move appears contrary to assurances he gave during his confirmation hearings. Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator from Louisiana who is also a doctor, reported that he received commitments from the health secretary that Acip would be maintained “without changes.”

On Monday, Cassidy wrote on X: “Of course, now the fear is that the Acip will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.

“I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

Public health experts share Cassidy’s concerns that Kennedy may appoint vaccine-sceptics to the board.

Such replacements would mean some vaccines “won’t be recommended at all” and other effective shots could “no longer be reimbursable by insurance companies”, said Peter Lurie, a former FDA official.

“As a consequence, we will see still further declines in vaccination rates, and then a resurgence of the diseases that they could have prevented,” he said.

Kennedy did not say who he would appoint to replace the board members. The health secretary appears to be calling people himself and asking them to serve on the panel, said Dr Offit, who said he has heard from at least two people Kennedy called.

“His whole notion of radical transparency – this is the opposite of that,” Dr Offit said. “This is one man making a decision behind closed doors.”

Acip has a meeting scheduled starting 25 June, at which members are scheduled to vote on recommendations for vaccines for Covid, flu, meningococcal disease, RSV and other illnesses.

Dr Brewer said Acip had some of the “best scientists in the world”, adding that the secretary would have a hard time finding that calibre of experts again on short-term notice.

The BBC contacted the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Acip chair, Dr Helen Keipp Talbot, for comment.

People from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela who had temporary permission to stay in the country are receiving emails telling them to go.

California senator Alex Padilla was pushed out of the news conference by authorities after he interrupted Noem.

The US defense secretary appeared to acknowledge incidental plans also exist for Panama, but avoided giving direct confirmation.

US Senator Alex Padilla was put in handcuffs after interrupting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news update on the Los Angeles ICE raids.

The appointees have “committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data”, the vaccine sceptic said.

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