HEALTH CARE - Experience of an American Doctor in UK

"An American Doctor Experiences an NHS (UK) Emergency Room" by
Dr Jennifer Gunter, Huffington Post Blog 8/14/2014

You know it's going to be one of those days when one of the first tweets on vacation (in UK) inquires about the closest hospital.

Victor, one of my 11-year-olds, had something in his eye courtesy of a big gust of wind outside of Westminster Abby.  He was complaining enough to let me flip his eyelid and irrigate his eye on the square in front of Big Ben.  (I'm sure several people thought I was torturing him).  Despite an extensive search and rinse mission no object or relief was to be found.  I fretted about going to the hospital.  It wasn't the prospect of navigating a slightly foreign ER, but simply the prospect of the wait.  While I am a staunch supporter of the British NHS in the back of my mind I envisioned a paralyzingly full emergency room and an agonizing 18 hour wait only to find he had nothing in his eye (the basic antechamber of Hell scenario).  To ensure we really needed to go I gave Victor a choice between the emergency room and a toy store (Gunter's third rule), but he declined the toys so off we went to St. Thomas hospital, conveniently right over the bridge.

The hospital was on the aging side and a little drab, but clean and well-marked.  I didn't have to ask anyone for directions.  We had to take a number to be registered, but waited less than five minutes.  I gritted my teeth a bit in preparation for the we-are-not-from-the-UK conversation, but it wasn't an issue at all.  I offered my US insurance number for billing, but was told they didn't need it.  The clerk was, however, impressed with the fact that I flipped his eyelid and irrigated his eye before coming.  "Well, you did all the right things," and looking at his red and watering eye she smiled and said.  "Looks like you are in the right place."

Registration completed, we waited to be seen by the children's part of the ER.  A registrar (resident) did a quick triage within five minutes of our registering (also impressed with the eye irrigation) and then a nurse did his vitals and took a history.  After that we waited less than 15 minutes for the registrar to do a formal assessment.  He wanted ophthalmology to do the evaluation.  I was a bit surprised the ER doc wouldn't do it, but every facility is different and when they found out that Victor was born at 26 weeks and had retinopathy of prematurity they got a bit jumpy.  Everyone does.  I was OK with ophthalmology checking him out.  What I have learned from years of medicine is don't mess with the local order.

We were walked over to the urgent care clinic and were warned that the ophthalmology registrar was covering the whole hospital so it might be a while.  This was our longest wait, about 20-30 minutes.  She was very nice (also working on her PhD).  Dr. Katie Williams (she gave me permission to use her name and her photo) diagnosed Victor with a corneal abrasion and easily snagged the offending speck of dirt wedged under his eyelid.  Once removed Victor exclaimed, "It's gone!," and within a minute or two the redness cleared up.  She put in antibiotic ointment and gave us a tube to use at home.

"So where do I pay?" I asked Dr. Williams.

The answer, you don't.  Perhaps they might bill us, she just wasn't sure.

I was about as dumfounded at her answer as she was at my asking.

I protested that it wasn't fair.  We had used services and I was very prepared to pay.  I also have insurance that covers emergencies when out of network, so I was pretty sure I would be reimbursed at least some of the visit.  However, we were just sent away.  They do have my address so it is possible I will get a bill in the mail.

I am very curious what similar care would have cost in the US.  The saddest commentary of all is that it is really impossible to tell as billing practices are so bizarre and opaque.  My guess is it would be a minimum of $1000 in America for cash (which is egregious).  If I ever get a bill from the UK, I'll post a follow-up.  If anyone has had similar care in the US and received a bill please do post in the comments.

But what of this idea that national health care means DMV-purgatory worthy waits, Dementor-staffed death panels, Saxon-age medical equipment, and incompetent care?  Well, I can tell you we had great care at St. Thomas and Dr. Williams was fantastic.  The slit lamp wasn't brand new, but it worked just fine.  Sure it's an N of one, but I've been to the ER more times than I can count with my other son and this was as smooth as the best care we've had in the United States.

We could have hit the ER at an opportune time, but to expand my N I've also asked many people about their medical care while I've been in the UK.  Not one person wanted to abandon the NHS.  I've heard of excellent care and some care that was lacking, but the bad care has nothing to do with the "national" part.  Rather it was diagnostic errors or a full hospice unit, things that I hear about with the same incidence back in the world of commercial insurance.  Take away the accents and I could easily have been listening to a group of Americans discussing their care.  With one exception, no one in the UK is left wondering what the price will be or gets an egregious bill.

It makes you wonder exactly what frightens Americans about the NHS?

My answer, the cause is Republican propaganda paid for my Big Pharma.

CANCER - Gene Discoveries Path to New Drugs

"New clinical trials underway for advanced lung cancer patients" PBS NewsHour 4/19/2014

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Another medical story that caught our attention this week.  Word of what’s described as a pioneering clinical trial for patients with advanced lung cancer.  What’s novel is not necessarily the drugs being used, but how many and how they’re being targeted.  Dr. Mark Kris, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, joins us.  So what are they doing in the U.K. with this clinical trial?  What’s so interesting about it?

DR. MARK KRIS, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center:  They are taking a discovery that was made here almost ten years ago now where specific genes are damaged in lung tumors.  And the damage brought on by those genes makes those cancer cells very susceptible to medications.  So if you find one of these genetic changes and give a patient a drug targeting that, almost surely their cancer will shrink and normal tissues are not affected.  I mean it’s exactly what oncologists hope to do.  What they’re doing now in the U.K. is developing a nationwide program partnering with pharmaceutical companies that are developers of these drugs to do the testing in a much more generalized way and to test for many of these different gene mutations at the same time.  So in essence a patient might have ten chances to find something in the tumor that’s in their body.  Ten chances to get a medication.  And also the pharmaceutical companies supplying drugs to go along with the discovery of those genetic markers and help individual patients.

SYRIA - BBC UK Report

"A fork in the road for UK foreign policy" by Mark Urban, BBC News 8/29/2013

The prospect of parliamentary opposition preventing the UK joining in US military action over Syria is a defining moment in British foreign policy.  It poses questions both about the future of the UK-US alliance and the ability of the British prime minister to make war without a majority in the House of Commons.

To be clear, there have been important moments before when a British government has declined to take part in a US-led campaign.  Perhaps the two most significant were former Prime Minister Harold Wilson's decision not to commit British troops to Vietnam and John Major's to give the 1992 intervention in Somalia a wide berth.

There were differences of view back then between different government departments or Cabinet members.  I can remember, for example, from talking to Whitehall figures at the time that the Ministry of Defense was hostile to the idea of deploying to Somalia, whereas the Foreign Office was more positive about the idea.

In the end though both the Wilson and Major governments made judgements, political ones, after hearing the views of various experts or interested parties.

Although the Wilson decision in particular was characterized by some at the time as a significant setback to the UK-US relationship there was no lasting damage and the two countries have happily joined forces to rain destruction on their foes in the years since.

Today's situation is different because it would appear that Prime Minister David Cameron is unable to deliver military support to the US despite his insistence that the two countries must stand together and that action must be taken to deter Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime from further use of chemical weapons.

Change in stance

From US President Barack Obama's point of view, this could transform the UK from the position of his country's most dependable ally into a significant complicating factor as he seeks to reassure a reluctant Congress and public that the US must act.

Mr Cameron's potential inability to deliver UK support reflects a failure to convince people, experts and public alike, that action against Syria is in the UK national interest.  This is a particular irony given his 2010 electoral stance that British governments had sometimes been too ready to support the US without a proper consideration of whether it would benefit the country to do so.

Throughout the past two years, I have found contacts in the British military, Foreign Office, and intelligence services pretty much unanimous in opposing direct intervention in Syria, or in reciting all the practical difficulties that would prevent such action having a positive effect.

On Wednesday a senior military figure described to me the proposed limited cruise missile and airstrikes as "naïve and childlike", suggesting they would be too small to have any major effect on the regime and could produce all kinds of unintended consequences.

Do it "properly", with extensive support to the opposition over a prolonged period, or don't do it was the message - and it was given with a strong implication that there was no will in the US or UK to make a commitment of that kind.

'Royal Prerogative'

It has been Downing Street that has repeatedly returned to the issue of armed intervention in Syria, albeit with occasional support from the Foreign Secretary, William Hague.  But despite this determination, and the appalling images of suffering emerging from that country, neither the professionals in Whitehall nor the wider public have warmed to the case for getting more deeply involved.

So while Harold Wilson or John Major recognized that expert advice or public opinion were helpful in shunning a role in a US-led war, Mr Cameron tried to go against the grain and appears, barring a reversal of political fortunes, to have come unstuck as a result.

The dangers, in terms of White House views of Britain, of failing to deliver support are significant.  It is already the case that many in Washington refer bitterly to Britain's failure to "stay the course" in southern Iraq or deliver a more positive outcome there.

There have been times when a British prime minister has managed to launch military operations despite public hostility or deep divisions.  The gulf between public reluctance to get involved and a PM doing what he or she felt was necessary in order to maintain the UK-US relationship or Britain's permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council could be finessed or ignored.

This was a political reality, but also a constitutional matter, with Downing Street regarding itself as having "the Royal Prerogative", the ability to go to war without a vote of Parliament.

Under former Prime Minister Tony Blair this became increasingly hard to maintain, and of course, he recognized the importance of getting a Commons vote in favor of military action in Iraq.

At the time the Bush White House, seeing the political cost of doing so and potential for a humiliating defeat in the Commons, offered Mr Blair a way out.  He declined to withdraw UK forces from the invasion.

Now it would appear that the ability of a British government to commit to military action without broad parliamentary support in any but the most urgent emergency has gone.  Given the war weariness and indeed anti-Americanism of much of the British public, that has important implications for the future of UK-US relations.

MEDIA - BBC Scandal Update

"Crises at BBC Brought Rules, Then a Failure" by SARAH LYALL and NICHOLAS KULISH, New York Times 11/14/2012

Excerpt

It was 2004, and the British Broadcasting Corporation was gripped by a crisis over journalistic standards that had led to Parliamentary hearings, public recrimination and the resignations of its two top officials. Vowing change, the corporation established elaborate bureaucratic procedures that placed more formal responsibility for delicate decisions in the hands not of individual managers, but of rigid hierarchies.

The corporation also appointed a deputy director general in charge of news operations; established a “journalism board” to monitor editorial policy; issued numerous new guidelines on journalistic procedures; and put an increasing emphasis on “compliance” — a system in which managers are required to file cumbersome forms flagging dozens of potential trouble spots, from bad language to “disturbing content” like exorcism or beheadings, in every program taped for broadcast.

More crises would follow — the history of the BBC can be measured out in crises — and with each new one, the management team under Mark Thompson, director general from 2004 through mid-September 2012, added more guidelines and put more emphasis on form-filling and safety checks in news and entertainment programs. An organization already known for its bureaucracy became even more unwieldy (the editorial guidelines are now 215 pages long).

But it is these very structures that seem to have failed the BBC in the most recent scandal, in which its news division first canceled a child abuse segment it should have broadcast, and later broadcast one it should have canceled. In the first instance, it appears that people overseeing the program were too cautious, so that top managers were left unaware of its existence; in the second, managers may have relied too much on rigid procedures at the expense of basic journalistic principles.

“They burned their fingers,” said Tim Luckhurst, a journalism professor at the University of Kent who worked at the BBC for 10 years. “They wanted systems that could take responsibility instead of people.”

HISTORY - U.S. vs U.K. Over IRA Oral Histories

"U.S. and U.K. Entangled in Legal Battle to Release Former IRA Militants' Stories" PBS Newshour 8/23/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Boston University acted as a safeguard for the oral histories of former Northern Irish militants. Participants were promised their stories would remain private until their deaths. But new clues in an unsolved murder in Ireland triggered the U.S. Department of Justice to subpoena the tapes. Special correspondent Kira Kay reports.

BRITON - Bank Settlement in Laundering Case

"British Bank in $340 Million Settlement for Laundering" by JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG, New York Times 8/14/2012

Excerpt

Standard Chartered, the British bank, has agreed to pay New York’s top banking regulator $340 million to settle claims that it laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in tainted money for Iran and lied to regulators.

The agreement is a victory for Benjamin M. Lawsky and his 10-month old agency, the New York Department of Financial Services, which took on the bank alone in charging that it schemed for nearly a decade with Iran to hide from regulators 60,000 transactions worth $250 billion.

Some federal authorities worry the deal has the potential to undercut a sweeping settlement between the bank and federal regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. They are also investigating Standard Chartered, a 150-year-old bank based in London with operations across the globe.

The $340 million deal is a huge amount for a single state regulator, and it falls near the middle of the collective settlements that the Justice Department and the Manhattan district attorney have reached with other global banks in recent years over money laundering charges, from $619 million with ING bank in June to $298 million with Barclays in 2010.

Standard Chartered has maintained that only $14 million of the $250 billion in transactions violated federal regulations. In a statement announcing the settlement, Mr. Lawsky said, “The parties have agreed that the conduct at issue involved transactions of at least $250 billion.”

The bank said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that “a formal agreement containing the detailed terms of the settlement is expected to be concluded shortly.” Standard Chartered “continues to engage constructively with the other relevant U.S. authorities. The timing of any resolution will be communicated in due course,” the filing said.

After frantic negotiations with Mr. Lawsky’s office, which threatened to revoke the bank’s state license at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Standard Chartered made a calculation to settle, in part, to resolve the public relations headache, according to people briefed on the matter.

The agreement ends a week-long international drama that thrust the upstart regulator into the spotlight and pitted Mr. Lawsky against federal authorities who thought he was overstepping his bounds and British authorities who accused him of tarnishing the reputation of their banks.

The size of the settlement is puzzling to some federal officials, including the Justice Department, because there is still widespread disagreement about the extent of the bank’s wrongdoing, according to regulators briefed on the matter.

OLYMPICS - London Countdown and Preview

"Countdown Begins for Olympic Games as Torch Travels Past London Landmarks" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 7/26/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: As the torch for the Olympics traveled through London, anticipation for the opening ceremonies was palpable. Independent Television News' Geraint Vincent reports from London while final preparations are completed for the start of the 2012 Games.

"Olympics Preview: Reporting Results in Record Time; A Runner with 'Cheetah Legs'" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 7/26/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Olympics-watchers have more options than ever for following the Games as they happen. Ray Suarez talks to sports writer Christine Brennan from London about security, how to watch and what to watch, including high-profile swimming, track and field and gymnastics match-ups, plus the story of a South African double-amputee runner.

OLYMPICS - Britain's Largest Peacetime Operation

"Olympics Organizers Grapple with Security Concerns" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 7/18/2012

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): A little more than a week before the torch is lit at the London Olympic Games and organizers are still grappling with a series of problems. They range from a decision today to trim opening night ceremonies that would have lasted past midnight to much more serious concerns, like a shortage of private security guards.

The British Home Office wrestled today with what to do about the security issue.

Keir Simmons of Independent Television News begins our coverage with this report.

KEIR SIMMONS: Already, the government is drafting in 3,500 extra military. They were continuing to set up camp in East London today. They may need plenty of space. Another 2,500 could be called upon.

Such is the failure of G4S to provide security staff. The company is training more people. But the opening ceremony is now desperately close.

The issue they are facing in here tonight comes down to this. Do they trust G4S if it says it now has enough staff, and get blamed if that turns out to be wrong again? Or do they call in even more service men and women and get criticized if they aren't needed? And they need to make the decision in the next 24 hours.

ITV News has learned that the home secretary overruled a plan to cut training like this in order to get more security guards. One proposal was even to teach G4S employees on site whilst they were already working. The idea that this was even suggested has some deeply worried.

KEITH VAZ, Home Affairs Select Committee: The concern yesterday was whether or not G4S would have the numbers on the day. The concern today is that those who turn up perhaps have not been trained as well as they should be to pick up those pieces of information and those telltale signs which mean that they should stop people.

KEIR SIMMONS: Tonight, the prime minister was visiting troops in Afghanistan. Some of the military working at the Olympics will have been serving here just weeks earlier.

DAVID CAMERON, British Prime Minister: When it comes to the Olympics, we have to have -- be ready for any contingency. We have to make sure they're a safe and secure Olympics. I salute and applaud what the military have done to step in, and I think they're doing an excellent job. If there are further steps we have to take, of course, we will take them.

KEIR SIMMONS: All the same, in Coventry and at venues across the country today, police were again needed, because too few G4S staff have turned up.

"Planning for the 2012 Olympics, Britain's 'Largest Peacetime Operation'" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 7/18/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: ith a little more than a week until the Olympic opening ceremonies, issues such as transportation, weather and security have arisen. Gwen Ifill talks with Stephen Wilson of the Associated Press and Kevin Wamsley of Western University about whether organizers are fully prepared for the start of the games.

BANKS - Britain's Barclays

"Britain's Barclays Investigated for Rigging 'Libor' Rates" PBS Newshour 7/6/2012

Excerpt

MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): The scandal ventures on a key interest rate called LIBOR and on attempts to manipulate it.

Last week, Barclays paid $450 million in fines to settle accusations by British and U.S. regulators that it helped rig the LIBOR rate in a way that benefited its business. LIBOR is the acronym for the London Interbank Offered Rate. It is determined by what banks report they are paying to borrow from other banks.

The rate has huge significance. It's used to set interest rates in more than $350 trillion of contracts globally, ranging from home mortgages to complicated financial swaps. The settlement set off a firestorm, leading to the resignation this week of Barclays CEO Robert Diamond and hearings in Parliament. Regulators are looking at other global banks as well.

For more, we turn to David Enrich, European banking editor for The Wall Street Journal.

BRITON - Queen's Jubilee

For those living in a cave........


"Britons Go All Out for Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee"
PBS Newshour 6/4/2012

WALL STREET - Goldman Sachs Culture Outed

"Public Rebuke of Culture at Goldman Opens Debate" by SUSANNE CRAIG and LANDON THOMAS JR, New York Times 3/14/2012

Excerpt

Until early Wednesday morning, Greg Smith was a largely anonymous 33-year-old midlevel executive at Goldman Sachs in London.

Now everyone at the firm — and on Wall Street — knows his name.

Mr. Smith resigned in an e-mail message to his bosses at 6:40 a.m. London time, laying out concerns that Goldman’s culture had gone haywire, putting its own interests ahead of its clients.

What the e-mail didn’t say was that about 15 minutes later, an Op-Ed article he had written detailing his criticisms was to be published in The New York Times. “It makes me ill how callously people still talk about ripping off clients,” he wrote in the Op-Ed article.

The Op-Ed landed “like a bomb,” inside Goldman, said one executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The article reignited a debate on the Internet and on cable television over whether Wall Street was corrupted by greed and excess. By noon, television crews crowded outside Goldman’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan. More than three years after the financial crisis, the perception that little has changed on Wall Street — and that no one has been held accountable for the risk-taking that led to the crisis — looms large in the public consciousness. While it was an unusual cry from the heart of a Wall Street insider, many questioned whether it would prompt any change.

Goldman disagreed with the assertions in the Op-Ed article, saying that they did not reflect how the firm treated its clients. Top executives have previously said that despite some rough times of late, clients have stuck with the firm.

Friends of Mr. Smith, who had a list of Goldman’s business principles taped on a wall by his computers in London, say they were not surprised by his public farewell. “He has a really high moral fiber and really cared about the culture of the firm,” said Daniel Lipkin, a Miami lawyer who went to Stanford with Mr. Smith. Mr. Lipkin learned about the Op-Ed on Wednesday from Mr. Smith. “He sounded confident and felt good about his decision to go public,” he said.

WAIT! I thought that to goal of Wall-Street-Big-Business IS to rip off clients. They make more money that way.

AFGHANISTAN - Drawdown Update

"Obama, Cameron Outline Afghanistan Drawdown Plans"
PBS Newshour 3/14/2012

SYRIA - British 'Non-Lethal' Aid to Rebels?

"Britain considering 'non-lethal' help for Syria rebels" from AFP, The Telegraph 3/8/2012

Britain has not ruled out providing more 'non-lethal' help to Syria's rebels, according to William Hague, the foreign secretary, after America said it was considering supplying radio equipment.

Mr Hague told MPs at the Foreign Affairs committee that Britain would "continue to offer help to peaceful Syrian opposition groups – practical assistance."

"I also don't rule out giving more non-lethal help, but we haven't countenanced doing that beyond groups that are, so far, located outside Syria and are trying to pursue a peaceful, democratic transition," he added.

Mr Hague said there would be "logistical difficulties" in providing such help to groups inside Syria and admitted there were fears that equipment could end up in the hands of al-Qaeda militants.

"We always consult closely with the United States," Mr Hague said, adding that Britain had provided non-lethal help to Libyan opposition groups before the toppling of Moamer Gaddafi's regime.

Leon Panetta, the US defense secretary, had on Wednesday said the United States was looking at providing non-lethal aid such as radio equipment to help opposition forces in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Asked at the Senate Armed Services Committee if the US was ready to deliver communications equipment to Syrian rebels, Panetta said: "I'd prefer to discuss that in a closed session but I can tell you that we're considering an array of non-lethal assistance."

Mr Hague said a violent overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime would have "unknowable consequences" for the region and that a peaceful political transition was the most desirable outcome.

He added that Britain, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, was continuing to negotiate with Russia and China on how to bring an end to the bloodshed in Syria.

But he warned that Russia and China, which have twice vetoed UN resolutions on Syria, are "paying a diplomatic price for the position they have taken".

"They should be concerned about their ultimate national interests in Syria," said Hague, arguing that if the Assad regime falls "then it is actually in the national interests of Russia and China to support a political transition."

The Syrian army meanwhile sent more troops to the northwest province of Idlib. Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the troop build-up appeared to indicate a major military operation was imminent given reports in the official press of "armed terrorist groups" in the region.

The group added that six people, including a chili, were killed across the country on Thursday.

NEWS CORP - Cooks and Liers, British Style

"News Corp.'s Succession 'in Flux' as James Murdoch Resigns" PBS Newshour 2/29/2012

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): ..... the continuing fallout and widening scope of investigations into the Murdoch newspaper empire in England. It's the subject of international attention today after another leadership shakeup today.

Thirty-nine-year-old James Murdoch has been under pressure since the phone-hacking scandal erupted in Britain last summer. Now the youngest son of Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as executive chairman of News International, the British newspaper division of his father's media conglomerate.

James Murdoch oversaw News of the World, the tabloid engulfed and ultimately driven out of business by revelations that journalists regularly hacked voicemails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims.

Murdoch and his deputies all said they had no idea what was going on.

JAMES MURDOCH, News Corporation: I feel regret. Clearly, the practices of certain individuals didn't live up to the standards and quality of journalism that we believe in, and that I believe in, and that this company believes in.

GWEN IFILL: But the disclosures kept coming. Murdoch twice changed his story about what he knew and when. Some lawmakers were left incredulous at this parliamentary hearing in November.

ECONOMY - British Nationalism and the EU

"After Rejecting Euro Deal, Cameron Defends Decision Before Parliament" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 12/12/2011

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): And finally tonight, Europe's new fiscal deal, minus one major player, with financial and political reverberations.

Today's stock sell-off was widespread, and it came after markets had a weekend to ponder Friday's agreement at the European Union crisis summit. Investors and traders turned thumbs down on a deal to stave off future debt crises. It would bolster the European bailout fund and force governments to submit budgets for central review.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was the only member of the 27-nation EU to reject the pact.

DAVID CAMERON, British prime minister: I went to Brussels with one objective: to protect Britain's national interest. And that is what I did.

JEFFREY BROWN: Cameron took to the floor of the House of Commons today to defend his dissent. It was centered on sheltering Britain's financial sector from increased EU regulation.

DAVID CAMERON: Those safeguards on the single market and on financial services were modest, reasonable and relevant. We were not trying to create an unfair advantage for Britain. I wish those safeguards had been accepted. But, frankly, I have to tell the House the choice was a treaty without proper safeguards or no treaty. And the right answer was no treaty. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but it was the right thing to do.

JEFFREY BROWN: Cameron won support from many Britons, including some in the financial industry based in the city of London, the British Wall Street.

But the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Ed Miliband, denounced Cameron.

ED MILIBAND, British Labor Party leader: The reality is this: He has given up our seat at the table. He has exposed, not protected, British business, and he has come back with a bad deal for Britain. The prime minister, Mr. Speaker, claimed to have wielded a veto.

But a veto, let me explain to him, is supposed to stop something happening. It's not a veto when the thing you wanted to stop goes ahead without you.

Mr. Speaker, that's called losing. That's called being defeated. That's...

(SHOUTING)

ED MILIBAND: That's called letting Britain down.

JEFFREY BROWN: Cameron's Conservative Party governs with a coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats. Their leader, Nick Clegg, had applauded Cameron on Friday. But, by Sunday, he changed his stance.

NICK CLEGG, British deputy prime minister: Well, I am bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week's summit, precisely because I think there is now a real danger that over time the United Kingdom will be isolated and marginalized within the European Union. I don't think that is good for jobs in the city or elsewhere.

JEFFREY BROWN: Back in Brussels, a top EU Official, Olli Rehn, echoed the concerns expressed by Clegg and other European leaders.

OLLI REHN, European commissioner for economic affairs: We want a strong and constructive Britain in Europe, and we want Britain to be at the center of Europe, not on the sidelines.

JEFFREY BROWN: The subject also came up today in Washington, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Our concern hasn't been over the position that the U.K. has taken. It's whether the decisions made by other members of the eurozone countries within the EU will work.

"British Foreign Secretary: 'We Should Be in Europe but Not Taken Over by Europe'" (Part-2)
PBS Newshour 12/12/2011

IRAN - British Embassy Stormed

"Iran students storm U.K. Embassy in Tehran" AP, CBS News 11/29/2011

Excerpt

Hard-line Iranian students stormed the British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against Western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The mob surged past riot police into British Embassy compound two days after Iran's parliament approved a bill that reduces diplomatic relations with Britain following London's support of recently upgraded Western sanctions on Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.

Less than two hours later, police appeared to regain control of the site. But the official IRNA news agency said about 300 protesters entered the British ambassador's residence in another part of the city and replaced British flags with Iranian ones.The British Foreign Office harshly denounced the melee and said Iran has a "clear duty" under international law to protect diplomats and offices.

"We are outraged by this," said the statement. "It is utterly unacceptable and we condemn it."

It said a "significant number" of protesters entered the compound and caused vandalism, but gave no other details on damage or whether diplomatic staff was inside the embassy, although the storming occurred after business hours.

The semiofficial Mehr news agency said embassy staff had left the compound before the mobs entered.

Western governments should realize that according to Iranian doctrine we are Satan, therefore they have an obligation to ignore International Law.

HEALTH - Good News for Type-1 Diabetics, Artificial Pancreas

"Could implantable electronics revolutionise the healthcare industry?" by Laura Hopperton, New Electronics 11/8/2011

Excerpt

Leading edge semiconductor technology is enabling the development of smaller and more powerful medical devices for use inside the human body.

Despite the challenges of designing for environments that are typically inhospitable to conventional electronics, research teams from around the world are developing novel methods for the continuous, real time monitoring and sensing of a range of chronic diseases.

These advances, according to Dr Timothy Constandinou, deputy director of the Center for Bio-Inspired Technology at Imperial College London, are providing patients with a more portable, precise and personal way of managing their illness than ever before.

"We've come a long way since the days of the humble pacemaker," he noted. "Advances in biomedicine and information and communications technologies have enabled the healthcare industry to move towards a smarter, more decentralized approach centered not on the physician, but the patient.

"Our research involves a strong combination of integrated miniature sensing with intelligent processing, leveraging on state of the art semiconductor technology. We aim to make electronics work with biological processes, while still remaining small and consuming tiny amounts of energy."

Perhaps most significant of all about Imperial's research is that it relies heavily on a biologically inspired approach. Dr Constandinou explains: "This means that, rather than take a problem and engineer a mathematical solution, we say to ourselves 'how does the body do it?' and then model some electronics around that."

Dr Constandinou and his fellow biomedical engineers recently completed work on an artificial pancreas, which they believe has the potential to 'close the loop' on Type 1 diabetes.

The bionic system comprises an electrochemical sensor that monitors blood sugar levels continuously; a chip that mimics the unique electrical characteristics of alpha and beta cells in the human pancreas; and two small pumps worn on the body.

"In a patient with Type 1 ¬diabetes, the body's immune system attacks and kills the insulin, secreting beta cells and causing an increase in blood glucose," explained Dr Constandinou. "Over time, the glucagon secreting alpha cells also tend to fail, so people with Type 1 diabetes become prone to episodes of extremely low blood sugar.

"As such, we designed the chip's control algorithms to mimic the very different behaviors of the two cell populations. An alpha cell tends to react to rapid electrical events (spikes), while the beta cell tends to react in bursts of voltage spikes, punctuated by low voltage silent periods that last for seconds or even minutes. When glucose concentrations rise, the beta cells remain in the high voltage burst state longer, secreting more insulin as a result."

Imperial's bionic pancreas mimics this biological process by detecting the user's glucose level via a sensor every five minutes. If it reports a high level of glucose, the silicon beta cell generates a signal that drives a motor.

This motor pushes a syringe, dispensing insulin into the tissue beneath the skin until the glucose reading at the sensor drops. If the sensor reports a low glucose value, the silicon alpha cell activates the second pump to administer glucagon instead.

"This biometric approach diverges from today's dominant method of delivering only insulin using a relatively simple control system," commented Dr Pantelis Georgiou, who led the project. "The great thing about our system is that it lets people with diabetes do away with multiple insulin injections and administer the insulin in a more biologically faithful way. This reduces any secondary complications and means patients no longer have to worry about what they eat and drink."

COMMENT: I did predict this quit awhile ago because it was technologically possible.

I also have a personal interest, I now have Type-2 Diabetes, which could develop into Type-1 if I am not careful.

This development is, of course, not ready for prime-time. When it does hit the "street" it will be costly, but considering the number of Type-1 Diabetics there are in the world, the costs will come down over the years.

How fast the costs come down will depend on:

• How fast the biomed industry recovers costs of development (or so they tell us)


• The overall demand and usage


• Any government support world-wide

IF government healthcare starts paying for this, and how soon, will have a big effect on the speed costs come down. Governments will have to see a positive cost-benefit to paying for this.

That is they will have to see an overall savings in health care costs when they consider ALL the costs from the complications of Diabetes when compared to the cost of the Artificial Pancreas and implantation.

This could be jump-started by nations whose philosophy considers the health of citizens as being of prime importance and are willing to pay even before costs come down.

The hold back will be market greed. How long will the biomed industry keep prices high, beyond recovering development costs, just to make more money.

BRITAIN - The Murdoch Family Soap

Couldn't happen to a "nicer" family.... Sleaze-bags.

"In Rift Between Murdochs, Heir Becomes Less Apparent" by JEREMY W. PETERS, New York Times 10/18/2011

Excerpt

It was a striking display of unity: Rupert and James Murdoch, father and son, walking side by side through central London as they faced a crisis that had laid siege to their company. Pushing through a crush of paparazzi on a street not far from Buckingham Palace, James reached out to place a reassuring hand on his father’s back.

But behind that facade, the disclosure of widespread phone hacking at News Corporation’s British newspaper division was only the latest and most serious episode to test a father-son relationship that has frayed over the last few years, leaving both men at times not even on speaking terms. And that rift, which has been known only to those closest to the company, has opened up a question central to Rupert Murdoch’s legacy — can one of his children ever take the helm of his $62 billion media giant?

Their disagreements, which were described in detail by more than half a dozen former and current company officials and others close to the Murdochs, stemmed in large part from the clashing visions of a young technocratic student of modern management and a traditionalist who rules by instinct and conviction. The tension grew worse as the gap between the New York headquarters and James’s London operations, where he oversees the company’s European and Asian holdings, proved difficult to bridge.

The elder Mr. Murdoch reached his boiling point last winter, said one of the former officials, and delivered a blunt ultimatum to his son.

“You’re coming back to New York, or you’re out.”

The son consented. But now, as investors place more pressure on the Murdochs to disentangle themselves from the company they have tightly controlled for three generations, his role in the company is under threat. Shareholders will meet on Friday in Los Angeles to decide whether to re-elect the News Corporation board, which includes Rupert, James and Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son. Though the family holds a 40 percent stake, giving the Murdochs effective control, and most analysts expect them to be re-elected, several large shareholders and a prominent investor advisory firm have recommended voting against them.

BRITAIN - Updated, on the Riots

"Across Britain, 'The Worst Riots in a Generation' Rage on"
PBS Newshour 8/9/2011


"What's Fueling the Rioting Raging Across United Kingdom?"
PBS Newshour 8/9/2011


"Riots Expand Outside London as Many Britons Worry Over Safety, Property"
PBS Newshour 8/10/2011

WORLD - Polar Bear Kills 1, Injures 4

"Polar bear kills British boy in Arctic" BBC News 8/5/2011

A polar bear has mauled a 17-year-old British boy to death in the Arctic and injured four other UK tourists.

Horatio Chapple, from Wiltshire, was with 12 others on a British Schools Exploring Society trip near a glacier on the Norwegian island of Svalbard.

The four who were hurt - two severely - included two leaders of the trip. They have been flown to Tromsoe in Norway where their condition is stable.

BSES chairman Edward Watson described Mr Chapple as a "fine young man".

Mr Watson said the society had been in touch with his family - who live near Salisbury - and had offered "our utmost sympathy".

He said: "Horatio was a fine young man, hoping to go on to read medicine after school. By all accounts he would've made an excellent doctor."

He said the society's executive director was traveling to Svalbard, adding: "We are continuing to gather information on this tragedy."
Helicopter scrambled

The attack, near the Von Post glacier about 25 miles (40km) from Longyearbyen, took place early on Friday.

The group contacted the Svalbard authorities using a satellite phone and a helicopter was sent to rescue them.

The BSES, a youth development charity, said the injured men were trip leaders Michael Reid and Andrew Ruck, who is from Brighton but lives in Edinburgh, and trip members Patrick Flinders from Jersey, and Scott Smith.

They suffered head injuries but are now stable, Norwegian authorities said.

The father of Patrick Flinders, Terry, said he believed the polar bear had crossed a trip wire and into his son's tent.

"According to the doctor and the other people Patrick was trying to fend off the polar bear by hitting it on the nose - why, I don't know, but he did and... the polar bear attacked him with his right paw across his face and his head and his arm," he said.
Extremely dangerous

Those worried about their relatives should call 0047 7902 4305 or 0047 7902 4302.

The UK Foreign Office said the British ambassador was leading a consular team to Tromsoe to provide assistance to the expedition group.

Lars Erik Alfheim, vice-governor of Svalbard, said polar bears were common in the area.

"These days when the ice comes in and out like it does right now, it's not unlikely to encounter polar bears. Polar bears are extremely dangerous and it's an animal that can attack without any notice."

The BSES group of 80 people were on a trip which began on 23 July and was scheduled to run until 28 August.

A blog on the group's website dated 27 July described polar bear sightings from their camp where they had been marooned due to "an unprecedented amount of ice in the fjord".

"Despite this everyone was in good spirits because we encountered a polar bear floating on the ice, this time we were lucky enough to borrow a kind Norwegian guide's telescope to see it properly," it said.

"After that experience I can say for sure that everyone dreamt of polar bears that night."

Earlier this year the governor's office warned people about bear attacks after several were spotted near Longyearbyen.

Polar bears are one of the largest land carnivores, reaching up to 8ft (2.5m) and weighing 800kg (125st).