AP - First birth control, now prenatal testing? Once again a fact of life for many American women has become a jarring issue in the presidential race.

AP - As millions watch the sequin-clad samba dancers at Rio de Janeiro's iconic Carnival parade Sunday, at least a few eyes will turn toward the stars, or at least toward the VIP boxes hosting celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Fergie.

Reuters - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it will resolve a potentially life-threatening shortage of two leading cancer drugs by allowing one of them to be imported from abroad and rushing approval for a new manufacturer to make the second.

AP - Medication via remote-control instead of a shot? Scientists implanted microchips in seven women that did just that, oozing out the right dose of a bone-strengthening drug once a day without them even noticing.

AP - Efforts by India and the European Union to strengthen trade are threatening India's ability to deliver lifesaving medicines to the world's poorest, analysts say as the two sides push through protracted negotiations on a free-trade pact.

The president of the British Chiropractic Council, Richard Brown, recently gave his account of the much publicised libel suit that the BCA instigated against Simon Singh. It makes fascinating reading.

"Co-author with Ernst of Trick or Treatment; Alternative Medicine on Trial, Singh promoted his book by writing a piece in the UK's Guardian newspaper in which he was critical of a patient information leaflet produced by the BCA called Happy Families, which made claims of effectiveness for chiropractic treatment of a number of childhood disorders, including colic, asthma and bedwetting. Singh claimed that the BCA 'happily promotes bogus treatments' even though there was 'not a jot of evidence'. The BCA was faced with a dilemma. Did it sit by and permit an assault on its reputation and good name, or did it stand up for its members and challenge the criticism? For years, chiropractic had been castigated in a succession of critical articles, but here was a published article which had explicitly named a chiropractic association and had made defamatory comments about it.

"The BCA took advice from a leading specialist London libel lawyer, and was told that it had a cast-iron case. A number of meetings took place and the BCA also sought advice from other sources, including leading academics. Faced with a decision to either meet the criticism with silence or confront the issues head on, the BCA wrote to Simon Singh and demanded an apology and a retraction. He refused.

"In a move largely unexpected by many, rather than sue the newspaper, the BCA sued Simon Singh personally for libel. In doing so, the BCA began one of the darkest periods in its history; one that was ultimately to cost it financially, reputationally and politically."

Many Guardian readers will be amazed that chiropractors treat childhood diseases at all, particularly as there is little or no good evidence to show that chiropractors do more good than harm to children. So what could be "defamatory" about calling this "bogus"? To understand this better we have to delve into the history of chiropractic.

D D Palmer, the founding father of chiropractic, stated about 100 years ago that "95% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae, the remainder by luxation of other joints."

This opinion still seems to be shared, at least to some degree, by a sizable proportion of chiropractors. Therefore it seems logical for many chiropractors to treat children for a wide range of conditions.

A survey of 548 members of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association showed that all of them administered spinal adjustments to their pediatric patients. The three most frequent indications for such treatments were "wellness care", ear, nose and throat conditions, and digestive problems.

Another survey of about 400 US chiropractors revealed that roughly 17% of them regularly treat children, and the US National Board of Chiropractic Examiners currently claim that there is good evidence to show that chiropractic is an effective treatment for a range of pediatric conditions including colic, bed wetting, otitis media and asthma.

Chiropractors who believe in the gospel of their founding father are convinced that spinal "subluxations" of the vertebrae impede the flow of our life energy which, in turn, is the cause of most illnesses.

Yet there is no scientific basis for the concept of chiropractic "subluxation". Unsurprisingly, then, there is no good evidence that paediatric conditions respond to chiropractic manipulations.

This is true for "wellness care", adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, ear, nose and throat problems, digestive disorders and infant colic.

Even a report commissioned by the British General Chiropractic Council in the aftermath of the BCA vs Singh libel case confirmed this lack of sound evidence.

And what about the risks? There is no effective reporting system for adverse events after chiropractic treatments. Consequently, we have to rely mainly on anecdotal evidence. Several hundred severe and frequently life-threatening adverse events have been reported, mostly caused by vertebral artery dissections after chiropractic neck manipulations.

Due to under-reporting, these figures are probably only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. Vohra et al have demonstrated that "serious adverse events might be associated with pediatric manipulation".

Even the report sponsored by the General Chiropractic Council stated that "the true incidence of serious adverse events in children as a result of spinal manipulation remains unknown".

Yet the chiropractic profession seems to remain in denial. The National Board of Chiropractic Examiners has stated categorically that "the risk estimates attributed to cervical manipulation are less (by orders of magnitude) than those associated with various medical procedures and even simple lifestyle activities."

Given the publicity of the BCA vs Singh libel action, combined with the lack of benefit and the fear of harm through chiropractic, it seems only natural that many people objected to the unfounded claims of UK chiropractors.

In the BCA's president's own words:

" ? an army of scientists, sceptics and comedians was mobilised to disgrace, degrade and demolish the chiropractic profession. Cabinet ministers, BBC journalists and erstwhile Members of Parliament also joined the fray, determined to pitch in and use the case to reform what they claimed were Britain's draconian libel laws.

"In using the case as a powerful vehicle to promote his Sense About Science campaign, Singh's crusade mobilised a dark force of UK sceptics who suddenly found their raison d'etre, shifting their attention from the fairy tales of homeopathy to the cure-all claims of chiropractors. Following a call to action, an army of PC pilots and laptop lizards began a war which was to lead to one in three UK chiropractors facing formal disciplinary proceedings from its regulator, the General Chiropractic Council.

"Using a software package to highlight key words in chiropractors' websites, claims were uncovered relating to everything from haemorrhoids to hair loss, chlamydia to cancer. A total of 718 complaints were made to the General Chiropractic Council (GCC), alleging that chiropractors were misleading the public and exploiting their lack of knowledge over health matters. The GCC faced fitness to practice hearings on a scale previously unknown in the healthcare regulatory world."

And what was the outcome? Were the chiropractors who had been making unsubstantiated claims disciplined? The short answer is no. "Following a robust legal defence mounted by the BCA on behalf of its members, over 91% of the allegations against chiropractors were dismissed as being not proven."

One is tempted to conclude that little has changed, but this would be wrong. It is too early to estimate the effects of the libel case on UK chiropractic.

However, in more general terms, I can see plenty of good that has come out of it. Worldwide, the libel action led to a new awareness of alternative medicine, a recognition that there are rules all healthcare professionals must follow, and the realisation that those who ignore them are irresponsible and must therefore be held to account.

Previous research has found contradictory evidence for the risk of depression in older mothers. In a study published in November, Catherine McMahon at Macquarie University in Australia found rates of major depressive illness were below average in mothers aged 37 or older in the four months after they gave birth.

In the latest study, Muraca-Muir trawled the records of 7,936 women whose details were held by the Canadian Community Health Survey, a national project designed to give a representative picture of health across the country.

She looked at rates of depression among mothers, as scored by a standard diagnostic interview. The average across all age groups was 9%. But older mothers seemed to be at greater risk of depression than younger mothers, after the researchers had taken account of other influences on mental health, such as marital and socioeconomic status, and chronic disease.

"We saw a fivefold increase in risk among women aged 40 to 44, compared with those in the 35 to 39-year-old group," Muraca-Muir said. Details of the study were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.

Though they tended to be richer, better educated, and more likely to be married ? factors that typically reduce the risk of depression ? the comfort that brought seemed to be overwhelmed in older mothers, perhaps through feeling more anxious about their pregnancy.

If the findings are borne out, they suggest that GPs and family members should offer more support to what is a fast-rising group of women. The number of babies born to women aged 40 to 44 in England and Wales rose from 9,220 in 1990 to 25,973 in 2010, according to the Office for National Statistics. The number of babies born to women aged 35 to 39 rose from 51,905 to 115,841 over the same period.

"We've identified a potential high-risk group that is growing rapidly," Muraca-Muir said. "We need to be able to counsel women on what the psychological consequences of late pregnancy might be."

CNN reports that the bill is being backed by Republican Robert Marshall, a long-running abortion opponent who has tried to repeatedly pass laws which give rights to the unborn child.

A petition opposing both bills has been organised by ProgressVA and already has 23,526 signatures. It argues that "women's medical decisions about her body should be between her, her family and her doctor" ? not the government.

Dahlia Lithwick, a writer for slate.com, also argues that the bill in support of a "transvaginal ultrasound" contravenes the landmark ruling of Roe vs Wade, which cleared the path for safe, legal abortion in the US. Litwick writes: "The problem is not just that the woman and her physician (the core relationship protected in Roe) no longer matter at all in deciding whether an abortion is proper. It is that the physician is being commandeered by the state to perform a medically unnecessary procedure upon a woman," she says.

According to information from the Guttmacher Institute it seems that Virginia is not alone in passing through laws which require an ultrasound ? seven other states also require this: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The Virginia law still has to pass through the state senate education and health committee. Campaigners hope that the media backlash will help shed light on the bill and put the rights back into the hands of women.

Karri Stokely is a poster girl for a different way to look at health. After receiving an Aids diagnosis in 1996, at the age of 29, she was treated for 11 years with a cocktail of drugs. But then she saw an internet video saying that HIV was a hoax, stopped taking her medicines ? and felt terrific.

"I'm not getting any answers from the mainstream as to why I'm healthy, and why my husband is negative, and why I can quit these drugs," she explains in her own video, which is currently being promoted online. "I think it's a crime. It's crimes against humanity."

Her doctor was aghast ? HIV treatment is for life. "He looked me right in the eyes and said: 'You have done a very stupid thing, and you will be dead very soon,'" Stokely recalls. "My response to him was: 'That's funny, because right now I'm feeling pretty good.'"

That was in April 2007. She died four years later, so her comments are a postcard from the past. "Karri Stokely passed away on April 27th 2011," explains a website run by London journalist Joan Shenton. "She said she wouldn't go quietly so we are keeping her moving interview below on our homepage."

But Stokely's path (via pneumonia) was already well trodden. Dying in denial is a phenomenon. The first traveller on this path I knew was an American singer, Michael Callen, author of a self-help book, Surviving Aids. It was published by HarperCollins in 1990. Three years later, Mikey died.

Shenton is Britain's premier critic of what she calls the "completely wrong" science of HIV. Her site offers as examples the cases of Jody Wells and Huw Christie, the first two editors of a fringe magazine Continuum. Both chose not to follow medical advice and found death.

"We're waking up to the truth and the more of us that survive and live on in health to beat the odds, the more the lie will be shown up for what it is," Wells wrote in May 1994, 16 months before he passed away.

That was just before new therapies transformed life expectancy, and saw many young men who might have followed his denial path rise from their deathbeds and go dancing.

Shenton's site also showcases material on Christine Maggiore, a Californian businesswoman who helped found an international group, now called "Alive and Well Aids Alternatives". That was before her three-year-old HIV-positive daughter died of pneumonia and, in 2008, her own death.

"This was a woman of class, grace, integrity and wisdom," comments Stokely on an internet memorial wall put up after Maggiore's funeral. "From the time we found out 'the truth' surrounding the Aids debacle, Christine had always made herself available for help and guidance."

Here are intelligent, well-educated, idealistic people who wrestle their freedom from the grip of morbid sickness, big pharma products and despair. There's a heroic quality about storming towards your destiny, arms outstretched, eyes wide.

These crusaders' passing, however, gives paradoxical power to those who ushered them along in their journey. Like many health and science cranks (and shrewd defence lawyers), those who persist in the assertion that Aids isn't infectious brandish their embarrassments, thrust them in your face, before moving to the next level of denial.

Shenton, who is now archiving a quarter century of uninterrupted campaigning, assures me on the phone that "Karri is very important".

"I think she died from the side-effects of the drugs. She'd stopped taking them, but she'd been taking them for about 10 years before."

There's no answer to that, of course, but while Shenton comes across as the queen of denial, its pharaoh also has some words on Maggiore's fate. According to Peter Duesberg, the scientist who fathered this philosophy, about 6% of deaths in the over 50s are from pneumonia, and "she is one of those."

"Big deal," he snaps about her death, in a frankly barking podcast interview. "It's nothing. It's consistent with everything I know."

Two weeks' from now, Duesberg, 74, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, celebrates (and I have to suppose he will) 25 years of this stuff. For it was on 1 March 1987 that, in a 22-page paper, he set out his case that HIV is harmless.

"It is concluded," he declared in the journal Cancer Research, "that Aids virus is not sufficient to cause Aids and that there is no evidence, besides its presence in a latent form, that it is necessary for Aids."

Thus was born the "Duesberg hypothesis", which his critics say has led to sickness and death far beyond white, middle-class eccentrics. By some reckonings, in South Africa alone the denialist convictions of former president Thabo Mbeki led to more than 300,000 premature fatalities and 35,000 preventable infant infections.

In fact, Aids denialism predates the Duesberg hypothesis. It was born in the first months of the epidemic. Even in 1981, when I wrote my first report, there were what I then called "two competing hypotheses" for the disease, which had just been spotted by US government epidemiologists among East and West Coast gay men.

One proposed an infection, the other a crummy "lifestyle". And little has changed since then. Although science backed the first, the second limped on, blaming recreational drugs, pharmaceuticals and sexual practices in developed countries, and water, bugs and nutrition in Africa.

The website that features Stokely and Maggiore on its front page proclaims that it is "Rethinking Aids", but as 25 years have been torn from the calendar, little has been rethought. They still say HIV is harmless, or doesn't exist, and that leading Aids scientists are "criminals". Heterosexuals don't get sick from HIV and millions of Africans aren't infected. And there's apparently a global conspiracy to conceal this.

"My secret to staying healthy is really nothing magical," explains Stokely, meanwhile, in her, perhaps eternal, message in a bottle. "I think a very, very large part of it, as with any diagnosis you get, is the biology of belief. The mind is very, very strong on the health of the human body."

Brian Deer was named UK specialist journalist of the year at the 2011 British Press Awards

If, like me, you are training for your first marathon, or are one of the many people who have recently taken up running, you will be obsessing about injuries ? or rather, how to avoid them. Faced with various aches and pains and with no idea how to address them, I asked a range of experts for their advice.

The physio

Paul Hobrough is a chartered physiotherapist and runs Physio&Therapy.

"My ethos has always been prehab rather than rehab. Coming in at an early stage is far better than when you are actually injured, but it's not as good as seeing a physio straight away when you decide to run a marathon.

"Mainly what we see are chronic injuries that build up slowly over time. The most common are knee-related: runner's knee, patellofemoral pain syndrome, and iliotibial band friction syndrome. They are usually down to the fact that people have an ankle instability, or they are not controlling the legs well with their hip muscles.

The second most common is shin splints or medial tibial stress syndrome. Then achilles tendinopathies and plantar fasciitis, on the under side of the foot.

"You would struggle to get most people who didn't want to run a marathon to balance for 20 seconds on one leg. They will almost certainly have an instability somewhere. If you get them to do something functionally close to running, such as a single leg squat, you will notice their knees deviating and hips swinging out laterally. These tests show me that this person isn't running 26.2 miles without having a lower leg injury.

My biggest bugbear is when people say they aren't sure that they are going to take up running and use an old pair of running shoes they've had for years. And they get injured and wonder why. It's so important to get that fitting done correctly. There is too much information out at the moment about barefoot running as opposed to supportive shoes. Fundamentally you need to get a good fitting somewhere that is well respected. If you want to take up barefoot running you should ideally have no history of injury, good mechanics and not be an overpronater.

"The minute that you feel a slight niggle, speak to somebody. Because if you're thinking in eight weeks time I would like to enjoy running a marathon, being physically prepared and able to walk the week afterwards, then what are you waiting for? It makes no sense trying to run it off. There is no heroism involved."

The elite runners

Liz Yelling is an Olympic marathon runner and Commonwealth Games medallist.

"I make sure that injury prevention is as much a part of my plan as the hard training. This includes a small amount of time spent stretching after each run, plus core stability and conditioning work, focusing on my personal weaknesses. I also have regular massage and physio checks to work on any tight areas that could cause a problem. This is supported by good nutrition and hydration, which help the body to recover faster.

"The biggest mistake people make is not listening to their body when they can feel an injury coming on. Pushing on regardless ends up with lost time and enforced rest when immediate action could have got runners back on track quicker. If I get an injury I rest immediately and seek my physio's advice about the best action to take. This ensures that I am doing the right thing from day one and that I don't waste time treating it incorrectly. It is only when I know what is wrong through accurate diagnosis that I can make a call on how long I will need to rest. If this is for a week or more I can then select the appropriate cross training to help sustain fitness while allowing the injury to recover."

Ben Moreau is a British European Championships and Commonwealth Games marathon runner. Moreau hopes to compete in the marathon for Team GB at London 2012

"Injury is a big part of training; at least trying to avoid injury and dealing with it when it happens. I make sure that my core strength and general conditioning is good by doing classic circuit exercises twice a week. Any problems are amplified the more miles that you run: if one leg is slightly longer than the other, you have a hip imbalance or weakness on one side of your body, that can cause an injury in other places.

"Most injuries come from the fact that the body isn't ready for it yet. All of a sudden people start hammering themselves, getting really into it at the beginning, and the injuries come from there. I would tell people to build up their training really slowly, and don't feel that every week has to be their best ever. If you build up for a couple of weeks then have an easy week, that allows the body to recover and cope with the extra stress, then slowly start to build again."

Benedict Whitby is the European Cross Country Team silver medallist 2009, National Marathon silver medallist 2009 and was no. 1 English marathon runner 2010

"A big part of an athlete's ability to succeed is not just their determination to come back from the setbacks they face, but also their ability to learn from previous mistakes in order to limit the recurrence of such injuries. Upon returning from injury I find one of the toughest mental battles to overcome is having to start again from scratch. Fitness is so temporary and being sidelined for a couple of weeks could result in a setback of two months. When you do return to full training you feel as though you have never run before and doubts often set in as to whether you will ever get back to your best. It takes months of perseverance, often with other minor set backs along the way. With persistence however, you do eventually get there and when you do there is no better feeling."

The coach

Phoebe Thomas coaches with Nick Anderson as Running With Us, official training partners of the Brighton Marathon.

"If there was just one muscle group I would encourage you to target, it is your glutes. This large set of muscles plays a huge role in stabilising each stride you take. They reduce rotation in the pelvic and hip area and assist in lower limb stability. The one-leg squat is an ideal exercise to strengthen the glutes: any overpronation will be reduced and you are less likely to suffer from the common running injuries that occur due to other muscles working in the wrong way."

The podiatrist

Wayne Edwards, musculoskeletal podiatrist and director of operations of HFS Clinics.

"The vast majority of running injuries are due to poor foot function and poor muscle balance. When choosing a pair of running shoes ensure that they fit properly and feel comfortable. It is a myth that you need to go up a shoe size to ensure this comfort; half a size is adequate.

"People have a wide variety of foot shapes. Low-arched mobile feet need more support from the shoe - those available for this are often grouped as stability or motion control shoes. Average-arched feet can be accommodated in most neutral shoe designs. High-arched feet benefit from cushioning. We recommend that people go to a specialist running shop and have video gait analysis to work out the right shoe for them."

The nutritionist

Mhairi Keil is a performance nutritionist for the English Institute of Sport

"Paying attention to the nutrients you are consuming is key for minimising injury. Correct nutrition will enhance muscular performance, optimise recovery, and support the immune system, helping to prevent illnesses and infections. Muscle damage caused during training will impact on subsequent sessions and failure to repair the tissue can accumulate, resulting in a greater muscle injury. Risk of injury is increased when muscles are fatigued, so pay attention to fuelling-up strategies and energy provision during long or intense runs.

"Nutrition can also play an essential role in the recovery of tissues should an injury occur. It is important to understand what the type of injury is, eg bone, muscular, tendon, as certain nutrients play a greater function depending on the tissue damaged. For example, nutrients essential for bone repair include calcium, vitamin D, protein, magnesium and copper. Muscle injuries would focus more on high quality proteins and antioxidants, along with vitamin C and zinc for cell replication. Tendon damage can be more difficult to support from a nutritional perspective, however factors that can help to control or reduce excessive inflammation such as the antioxidants found in green tea, omega 3s, polyphenols found in red kidney beans and berries, and resveratrol found in red grapes can play a role."

The ultramarathon runner

Dean Karnazes is author of Run! 26.2 Stories of Blisters & Bliss.

"Work on building strength in the muscles of your legs by doing squats, lunges and using the cross-trainer in the gym. Having strong leg muscles will support your joints and tendons, which take a pounding when training for a marathon. Being in good overall shape helps to support your stride and posture as the miles add up. Train hard one day then do a lighter training session the next to allow your body recovery.

"Don't run in shoes that are overbuilt or have extensive motion control gimmicks built into them. An increasing volume of literature is pointing toward the benefits of 'minimalist' footwear.

"If there is time to work on your style, avoid landing on your heel and rolling to your toe. Shorten your stride and land midfoot with quicker foot turnover. Studies show that heel-to-toe rolling leads to overuse injuries."

The doctor

Dr Rod Jaques is director of medical services at the English Institute of Sport and has attended four Olympics with the British team.

"I would advise a novice marathon runner to buy a good quality pair of running shoes, worth £60+. You should change these for every 300-400 miles of training.There is no golden recipe: it is very idiosyncratic and depends on your own training base. When you get up to a reasonable level of fitness you should periodise your training so that you have hard weeks followed by easy weeks. This provides an opportunity for your bone and soft tissues to recover.

"You have to do at least three runs in excess of 15 miles in the lead up to the marathon. This is to prepare yourself psychologically and physically that you can go over 15 miles. On the day you will do 26.2, but there is evidence that if you train between two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours, you're going to be able to make four or four and a half hours. The crowd effect is very important and that helps to carry you through the last six miles of the race, which will be equivalent to the first 20 miles of the race, in terms of effort. People often describe it as being two races: one to 20 miles and from 20 to 26 miles.

"If you have a cold, feel fatigued or have an injury, have an easy day training or don't train at all. It's not imperative to train every single day. What is important is to balance your training with your recovery. Taper training prior to the race then do not run for seven days beforehand to allow your glycogen stores to build up to maximum levels. Psychologically you are itching to get going but physically your fuel stores really do have to be absolutely topped up and you can't drain them. There is no point entering the race with slight aches. You really need to be absolutely fresh because it's going to be a very hard day."

The Kenyan way

Adharanand Finn spent a year in Kenya training with elite runners. His book, Running with the Kenyans, is published by Faber & Faber on 5 April.

"The best thing that we can learn from Kenyans about preventing injuries is not to be afraid to skip a training session if you're tired. Their mantra is 'listen to your body'. Pushing things when you are over-tired is a common reason for injuries. One of the top coaches in Kenya told me that because it can be hard to get decent treatment for injuries they are more careful not to overdo things. 'We ride close to the edge here,' he says, 'but, when we get too close, we have to pull back.'

"It helps that Kenyans don't count up their weekly mileage, which means they're less inclined to feel bad about missing a session. Of course all of this could be easily misinterpreted by those inclined to feel lazy before a run. The reason Kenyans can take such a relaxed approached and still be successful (I'm generalising here, but it is widely true) is because they are so highly motivated to succeed that they wouldn't skip a session unless they felt it was really necessary."

The biomechanics expert

Dr Joanna Scurr is head of the biomechanics research group in the department of sport & exercise science at the University of Portsmouth

"We have been investigating appropriate breast support for sport, particularly running, for the past seven years. Our research has shown that sports bras can improve sporting performance, reduce breast pain and reduce the risk of breast sag. However, there is no such thing as the ultimate sports bra. Appropriate breast support is very individual and therefore we recommend that women try on the sports bra before purchasing; jump up and down in the changing room to determine how much support you think the bra will provide, move your arms and upper body around to determine whether the bra will stay in place."

The gait specialist

Boris Bozhinov is a gait analysis specialist for Nike.

"Pretty much everyone who is training seriously overpronates. So you need support or cushioning to take the force when your feet hit the ground. I recommend training with several different shoes that provide a mixture of support, so you can improve your muscles. It won't happen straight away but will build up in time and lessen your chance of getting injured."

Share your own tips and experiences of running injuries below

Vision Bangladesh is a scheme run by the charity Sightsavers and the NGO Brac seeking to raise at least £1m to eradicate 80% of blindness in the Sylhet a region of 12 million people by 2013 and nationally by 2020. Under the "£1 on the bill" scheme, replicating StreetSmart's similar idea for raising money for the homeless, customers at participating restaurants are given the option of donating £1 through their bill. "Sometimes, customers leave £5 or £6," says Shah Athar, owner of Cafe Rasoi in Heathfield, East Sussex, which has raised £3,000. "Some have even paid the whole £20 for the operation when they find out more about the whole scheme."

Penelope Mawson, communications director for Brac UK, has been encouraged at the number of restaurants taking part. "At a time of recession it shows real community spirit that these restaurateurs have backed this scheme," she says.

Cheques are still coming in, but Mawson estimates that the 300 restaurants signed up to the scheme will raise £100,000 in 2011. The plan is to make a £1-on-the-bill an annual event with more and more restaurants joining in. Since its rollout last year, Vision Bangladesh has exceeded targets, carrying out 38,700 cataract operations in 2011 instead of the 30,000 planned, and more than 316,000 people were screened instead of 300,000.

Sylhet a 30-minute flight from the capital Dhaka, was chosen as the launchpad because many Bangladeshis in the UK come from this region, which is known for its pretty tea plantations. The first Sylhetis settled in Liverpool and Humberside through their work in the merchant navy in the second world war. Others worked in the docks in east London.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of Brac, saw the potential of the Bangladeshi diaspora in the UK and its estimated 10,000 Bangladeshi restaurants. When Brac came to the UK last year to drum up support for Vision Banglasdesh, he said: "I want Bangladeshis to help their fellow-Bangladeshis."

At Vard hospital, a 30km drive from Sylhet town past lush green paddy fields, a dozen patients who had their operations the day before are waiting to have their bandages removed. Most are elderly because cataracts ? a clouding of the lens ? are age-related.

As the bandage comes off her right eye, Shabzan Begum, who gives her age as between 60 and 65, receives a drop and is given a pair of dark glasses. Initially, her reaction is subdued. "I can see clearly, I can see much better than before," she says, without much emotion.

But after a few minutes she cries silently as the enormity sinks in. When someone holds a up flower and asks her whether she can see the colours she replies with a big smile: "Yes, I can see them all and that one is red."

Borhan Uddin, 60, a tailor who had lost his livelihood, says: "I had a shop but lost everything, I had to sell all my machines, live on handouts and for the last two years I could not see anything at all. Now I can go back to work and start life as it used to be."

Some of the British Bangladeshis who have come to the hospital are visibly moved, including Muzahid Khan, a community leader from Greater Manchester. "That operating theatre did it for me," he says. "Seeing that operation crystallised the whole thing; that £20 just came to life right here."

According to the old wives' tale, nobody ever sees a dead donkey, and as George Carlin observed, "You never see a really big, tall, fat Chinese guy with red hair", either. To which I'd like to add: you never meet someone who describes themselves as an "afternoon person", do you?

The population divides into larks, night owls and people who are neither. The distinction often seems to have as much to do with self-image as energy cycles: it's close to sacrilegious to be a morning person if you're in a band, say, while hard-charging celebrity businesspeople seem obliged to tell interviewers that they wake at 4.30am. (That's the reported rising time of both Disney and Apple's current chief executives, though as this column has noted before, sleep studies suggest that such claims are often exaggerated.)

Nobody, on the other hand, feels they come into their own about an hour after lunch. The "afternoon slump" enfolds us in its toxic mist of lethargy and irritation. It seems to be global; not long ago, sociologists analysed the "mood words" in 2.4m tweets and discovered that the Twitterverse gets crotchety in the afternoon in India, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, and North America. "I really dislike afternoons," said Kingsley Amis, who wrote best in the mornings and evenings. The only remedy, he felt, was "drinking more cups of tea until the bar opens at six".

Actually, that's far from the only remedy. Opinions differ on whether the slump can be avoided entirely ? ultimately, there may be no arguing with circadian rhythms ? but the world of productivity books and blogs abounds with suggestions. You could avoid eating too many carbohydrates at lunchtime, and make sure you get some sunlight; if, unlike me, you're capable of napping, you could take a "caffeine nap": drink coffee, drift off, then wake as the caffeine hits your brain. Failing all that, to the extent your job allows, you can schedule your day so the slump coincides with brainless tasks.

But here's a possibility striking enough to jolt you from your depleted haze: what if those groggy afternoon hours might be some of your most creative? As the British Psychological Society's Research Digest reported recently, psychologists in Michigan divided hundreds of students into night owls and larks, according to their own declared preferences for times of day, then posed them problems that demanded insightful thinking. (Such as: a coin dealer calls the police when he's offered a valuable-looking coin that says it was minted in 544BC. How does he know it's fake?) Some faced these tasks around 9am, others around 4pm. By a clear margin, larks did best in the afternoon and night-owls in the morning ? the opposite of what you'd expect. The unfocused dreaminess of the "off" hours seemed to aid creative thinking. The same didn't apply to more analytical problems, involving mental arithmetic.

Anthony Burgess ? who may be the "afternoon person" exception who proves my rule ? was on to this years ago. "The unconscious mind has a habit of asserting itself in the afternoon," he told the Paris Review. "The morning is the conscious time, but the afternoon is a time in which we should deal much more with the hinterland." Whether you think of yourself as a morning or an evening person, perhaps it's time to rethink. And perhaps you should be doing that thinking at your drowsiest time of day.

oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk; twitter.com/oliverburkeman

? Whippets are all well and good as bed warmers (Letters, 17 February) but I've always found a ferret wrapped in a flat cap more effective, especially up north.
Gabriel Brodetsky
Beckley, Oxfordshire

? Heating the bed is not always a good thing as bed bugs like the warmth and go ape. I get in to a cold bed, give out a loud roar, shiver for a while and things generally heat up. It makes a man/woman out of me ? like taking cold showers. Rather that than be eaten alive.
Jacqueline Cotter
Manchester

? A mineral water bottle filled with hot water makes an excellent hot water bottle and stays warm all night. The water can then be used for washing the breakfast dishes the next morning.
Ulrika Meller
Shoscombe, Somerset

? As a teenage "exchange" visitor to a French village in the 1950s, one night I was given a well-corked wine bottle filled with hot water wrapped in a towel.
Marion Bolton
Middlesbrough

? It seemed unlikely the contents of a hot water bottle, left overnight, would make a satisfactory cup of tea in the morning (Letters, 12 February). But the sense of economy appeals, and I suspended disbelief when I saw Albert Steptoe in the BBC's Steptoe and Son do exactly that.
Peter Addison
Shepton Mallet, Somerset

? Did Disraeli put a tea bag into the bottle before going to bed, thereby inventing the Teasmaid?
Rhian Peters
Kendal, Cumbria

? Just a cautionary word to those heating their beds with electric bulbs, however well shielded: make sure you don't fall asleep in your chair while the heater goes on getting hotter. 27 years ago, my mother had a commercial bedwarmer which consisted of a bulb inside a tin protector/diffuser shaped like a partially flattened sphere. One night, the bed caught fire. My mother died in the blaze. Not good.
Gareth Jones
Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire

? When I was a child, our beds were efficiently warmed and aired using an electric bedwarmer made by Belling. It consisted of a circular metal structure, about 18in in diameter, and containing a lightbulb. The warmer had to be stood in an upright position in the bed ? lying it flat was considered too dangerous as the mattress might get too hot. My 85-year-old father still has several of these bedwarmers in use.
Gillian Flynn
Sale, Cheshire

? My 91-year-old mother was very disappointed when her bedwarmer stopped working a few months ago. It was a round pink-painted metal container (like two woks), with a 40-watt light bulb inside. She had used it for years and thought the world of it. I was less enthusiastic, when asked if we could repair it, to find bare wires inside. I think it started life around 1950, or possibly before, bought for my ailing great grandmother. My mother, now the great-grandmother, has just acquired one of the new generation plug-in electric hot-water bottles, and admits it is a marvel, keeping her and the bed warm from bedtime until morning. Whether it will last 60 years is another matter.
Sue Treagus
Manchester

The stomach bug, caused by seasonal norovirus, spreads rapidly between people and is difficult to kill off by cleaning. It has ruined countless holiday cruises, closed hundreds of hospital wards and torn through prisons.

In recent weeks, three US cruise ships have been forced to return early to their ports for deep cleaning after outbreaks of norovirus saw hundreds of passengers and crew struck down with diarrhoea and vomiting. Cruise ships are required to report norovirus outbreaks to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention when 3% or more of those onboard go down with the bug.

"When it hits in a situation like a cruise ship, it spreads like wildfire," said Charles Arntzen, co-director of the Centre for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University.

Laboratories in England and Wales have confirmed more than 1,100 cases of norovirus in the first four weeks of 2012, according to figures from the Health Protection Agency. So far in this winter season there have been 755 outbreaks in English and Welsh hospitals, leading to 520 ward closures or restrictions on admissions.

Though the illness is generally mild and clears up in two to three days, people can remain infectious for more than three weeks. Most people who are fit and healthy make a full recovery.

"You can have diarrhoea and wash your hands thoroughly afterwards, but if you leave as few as 10 viruses on a door knob, and someone else picks it up, they can get the disease and spread it," Arntzen said. Since the 1980s, a second, more virulent strain of norovirus has emerged and now accounts for around 85% of outbreaks.

To develop the vaccine, scientists working with Arntzen took a gene from norovirus that codes for its protective protein coat and added it to a common tobacco virus. When the virus infected tobacco plants and multiplied inside their cells, it produced thousands of copies of the norovirus protein, which coalesced into virus-like particles. The particles are harmless, but can be used in a vaccine to trigger an immune attack on the virus.

Arntzen's group has teamed up with a group in Kentucky that grows tobacco plants on an industrial scale to manufacture the vaccine. From 1kg of tobacco plant, the researchers can make 10,000 doses of vaccine.

Lab tests of the vaccine showed it was most effective when given as a nasal spray, combined with a dried aloe extract, which made the vaccine stick to mucous membranes in the nose. Vaccine that contained aloe stayed in the nose for around three hours, which is long enough to prime immune defences in other mucous membranes around the body including the gut, where the norovirus strikes.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.

The final version of the vaccine is likely to carry virus-like particles from both major strains of norovirus, and possibly some common sub-strains, to ensure it provides broad protection against the bug. A single shot of nasal spray could be effective for six months to two years, Arntzen said.

The vaccine, which could be available in four to five years, may prove popular in children's day care centres and among cruise ship workers, hospital staff, carers in old people's homes, and the military, all of which face regular outbreaks of norovirus.

"All of them showed substantial improvements in eyesight. They also came to see objects with lower contrast, and more subtle differences among faces and moving objects," said Daphne Maurer, a psychologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, described her study at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.

She said: "All of them showed substantial improvements in eyesight. They also came to see objects with lower contrast, and more subtle differences among faces and moving objects,"

The work builds on previous research that suggests video games can help other eye disorders. In October, Somen Ghosh at the Micro Surgical Eye Clinic in Kolkata, India, reported that playing the video game Unreal Tournament improved the eyesight of 10 to 18-year-olds with amblyopia, or lazy eye.

Maurer worked with six people aged 19 to 31 who were born with dense cataracts in each eye. The cataracts block out almost all detail of the visual world, except distinct changes in light or dark.

Most children born with the condition have an operation early in life to remove the cataracts and are fitted with contact lenses to correct their vision. But despite the treatment, they grow up with poorer eyesight than healthy individuals.

"Newborns [with the condition] can see but only large objects of high contrast. Their vision is 40 times worse than that of adults. This improves dramatically over the first six months, but takes about seven years to reach adult levels," Maurer said.

"Even with treatment as early as two months of age, a baby with this condition will still end up with a visual deficit," Maurer said. The problem persists because the cataracts disrupt the normal development of the child's visual cortex, the area of the brain that processes visual information. "Although the problem starts off in their eye, it ends up being a problem in the visual cortex."

Playing a video game appeared to rewire the patient's visual cortex and reverse some of the damage to their eyesight. Games achieved the best results when players were engaged at the highest skill level they could manage.

Maurer expects the improvement in eyesight will last, but is monitoring the patients. She said a clinical trial was the next step before video games could be commonly prescribed by doctors.

"We used to think this deficit was permanent, but recent evidence suggests that it may not need to be. The adult brain may still be sufficiently plastic to allow remediation," Maurer said. " video games have got a lot going for them in terms of them being an optimal visual therapy."

Maurer is now working with other researchers to develop a non-violent computer game. "I don't favour making people play first-person shooters," she said.

This week, Naomi wrote about the health risks of silicone breast implants and failures of oversight and regulation by the government agencies in the US and UK charged with safeguarding women's health. The issue was uppermost in her mind after she had appeared on a recent edition of the BBC's Newsnight programme, where she debated the ramifications of a particular case ? the misuse by a French company implant-maker, PIP, of industrial-grade silicone ? with health minister Anne Milton.

Naomi will be joining commenters for a live webchat here in the discussion thread from 1pm till 2pm EST (6-7pm UK time). Commenting will be switched on then, and the thread will remain open afterwards. Please join Naomi, especially if you have personal experience and insight to share.

More than 2,800 women have been formally referred for NHS care having received breast implants at the centre of a global health scare at private clinics, according to government figures.

The Department of Health statistics show that as of 12 February a total of 2,860 women in England had been referred to the NHS by their GP because the clinics which carried out the procedures had failed to help or had closed. Of that number, 565 were referred in the preceding week alone.

So far, almost 1,800 of the women have had an outpatient appointment, with 1,140 undergoing scans and 79 either having the implants removed or being scheduled for such an operation.

The numbers give a further sense of the potential impact to the NHS of the revelation that a French manufacturer of breast implants, Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), manufactured them using a non-medical grade silicone. The company was closed down in March 2010 with its founder, Jean-Claude Mas, 72, later placed under investigation on a criminal charge of causing bodily harm.

The government has said it will provide free care to British women affected, but plans to recover costs from the private clinics. The new figures show that 477 of the women referred to the NHS so far received implants from the Harley Medical Group, with 91 from Transform and the remainder listed as "other", which might include some from Harley and Transform.

News of the potential health risk spread rapidly since December, when the French government advised 30,000 women to have substandard PIP implants removed following warnings that they were more likely to rupture than other implants.

The firm ? at one time the third-biggest global supplier of breast implants ? cut costs by using its own concoction, not approved for medical use, which included a mix of agricultural and industrial grade-silicone. While 40,000 British women have the PIP implants, the government has said there is no urgent clinical need for all of them to have these removed.

Some UK private clinics immediately agreed to free removal of the affected implants. Others took a different position.

Transform initially refused before saying last month that all patients who received PIP implants since the start of 2001 would have free scans and the offer of removal, although replacement will cost £2,500 if warranties have run out.

Harley Medical Group, which fitted the implants to almost 14,000 British women, will remove them from those who underwent operations in the last 10 years but only if they have suffered a rupture and have a scan as proof. If they were put in within the last six years, patients will be eligible for a replacement and, between six and 10 years, patients will be charged cost price to replace the implants.

The junior health minister, Anne Milton, said: "Most patients who have been forced to get help from the NHS because their private clinic has refused to support them seem, so far, to be choosing not to have their implants removed. This appears to show that these women are getting the reassurance they need from speaking to an expert or having a scan.

"All but one of the NHS hospitals that used PIP implants have been able to contact all their patients. They have been offered a consultation with a specialist. The expert group does not believe there is enough evidence to advise women to have their implants removed. But it is right that women should be able to seek reassurance from a specialist."

Data from the NHS information centre covering 167,300 pregnancies reveals that 20% of women in the north-east were smokers when they gave birth, compared with 6% in London.

Across England, 13.4% of women were smokers at the time of delivery, down from 15.1% in 2006/07.

The percentages vary widely by region, from 2.8% in Brent, London to 30.3% in Blackpool, Lancashire.

The figures show smoking rates were "considerably higher" in every northern strategic health authority than in the south.

Information centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: "Smoking can cause a range of serious health problems, including lower birthweight, pre-term birth, placental complications and perinatal mortality.

"The statistics we have published today highlight stark regional variation in the proportion of women smoking at the time of giving birth.

"They will be of considerable interest to those responsible for promoting good health during and after pregnancy."

Louise Silverton of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said the figures were "alarming".

She said: "The north-south divide revealed in these statistics highlights the gaping health inequalities in access to appropriate public health services.

"The RCM believes midwives play a vital role in promoting public health. Therefore, we urge all strategic health authorities and local authorities to invest in midwives to support smoking cessation programmes.

"We need more midwives to deliver the public health agenda and signpost parents to the most appropriate services. Nationally, we are campaigning for 5,000 more midwives."

Public health minister Anne Milton said: "The regional variation we are seeing here is unacceptable and we want to reduce rates of smoking throughout pregnancy across all areas of the country.

"NHS doctors, nurses and midwives are working hard with their local communities to tackle this. We are also giving councils the power and the budget to tackle issues like this locally."

to.pbs.org/x9KDIZ

Medical News Today - ... certain places in neighboring Shenzhen, a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, following the death there of a man confirmed as having the deadly form of bird flu known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239801.php