The Appeal Court has ruled an NHS advisory body should have been more transparent in the way it made decisions over Alzheimer's drugs. Eisai, which makes Aricept, had challenged the process by which it and similar medicines were restricted to people with late stage disease. Three judges said the advisory body should have released details of how it reached its decision. However, the ruling does not mean the drugs will be more widely available.
An alert over the safety of a type of walking frame has been issued by the medical devices regulator. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is concerned about a defect in frames manufactured by Trulife Limited. The problem concerns the plastic height adjustment clips that can fail, causing the user to fall.
A disabled Derbyshire man who allegedly threatened a group of teenagers with an imitation gun will not be prosecuted. The youngsters said they had stopped to help Michael Shaw, 67, from Ironville, with his broken down mobility scooter last September. They said he then brandished the weapon. Mr Shaw claimed he felt intimidated and so showed them the gun.
The operator of the Tyne and Wear Metro is reviewing its ban on mobility scooter users travelling on the system without a helper. The ban was imposed after two accidents in which scooter owners crashed through train doors and onto tracks.
Children who attend daycare or playgroups cut their risk of the most common type of childhood leukaemia by around 30%, a study estimates. Researchers reviewed 14 studies involving nearly 20,000 children, of which 6,000 developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). It is thought early infections may help the body fight off the disease. The University of California, Berkeley study will be presented to a leukaemia conference in London.
Scientists are to investigate whether eating chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease in women with diabetes. Volunteers - postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes - will be asked to eat a bar of chocolate a day for a year.
