The hidden danger of slush ice drinks to young children
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has warned parents and carers against giving slush ice drinks containing glycerol to children under the age of seven.
Glycerol, used as a sugar substitute to prevent slushies from freezing solid, can cause very low blood sugar levels and unconsciousness in young children if consumed at high levels.
The FSA's updated advice, following recent intoxication incidents, takes a more precautionary approach to protect children.
Businesses are advised to limit cup sizes and avoid offering free refill promotions to children under 10 for drinks containing glycerol.
The warning applies to ready-to-drink slush drinks in pouches and home kits, with businesses urged to use only the minimum necessary glycerol.
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BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Breakthrough Alzheimer's drugs too pricey to be offered on NHS
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Mother jailed for aborting baby at 39 weeks would now go unpunished
Within a week of her due date, Sarah Catt aborted her baby. She claimed that her son was stillborn and that she had buried his body, but no evidence of the baby was ever found. Catt is among a small number of women in England and Wales to face prosecution after terminating their pregnancies. However, under new regulations set to be brought in, she – and others like her – would never have been arrested. On Tuesday night, MPs voted with a majority of 242 to decriminalise those seeking an abortion at any stage of gestation and for any reason. Abortion in England and Wales is currently a criminal offence. However, it is legal if carried out up to 24 weeks and with an authorised provider, with very limited circumstances permitting one after this period. Women may also take prescribed medication at home if they are fewer than 10 weeks pregnant. The vote has divided public opinion, with many welcoming the 'hard-won victory' for women, and others believing that it goes too far, arguing that ' late-term abortions kill babies '. In September 2012, Catt, then 35, was convicted of aborting her baby when she was 39 weeks pregnant. During her trial at Leeds Crown Court, and following an analysis of her computer, jurors heard that she had bought a drug from a company in Mumbai to induce labour, and that she delivered her baby at home by herself. The judge was told that Catt had been having an affair with a work colleague for seven years, and that her husband was unaware of the pregnancy and was not consulted about her decision to have an abortion. She already had two children with her husband and had previously had a scan while 30 weeks pregnant at a hospital in Leeds, confirming the pregnancy. However, suspicions were raised when she failed to register the birth weeks later. After giving birth to her son, Catt said he was not moving or breathing, and that she buried his body but never revealed the location. She pleaded guilty to administering a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage. Sentencing her, after a trial in which she was described as having 'shown no remorse or given an explanation for what she did', Mr Justice Cooke said that she made a 'deliberate and calculated decision' to end her pregnancy, and that the gravity of her crime lay between murder and manslaughter. However, in June 2013, Catt had her eight-year prison sentence reduced to three-and-a-half years. Lady Justice Rafferty, heading a panel of three judges in the Court of Appeal, described the original sentence as 'manifestly excessive', while Catt sobbed in the dock. Catt is among half a dozen women to have faced prosecution for having an abortion, and who, following the MPs' recent vote, would not now be criminalised. Sophie Harvey is also among them. She was just 19 when she gave birth in her bathroom. Her stillborn baby was found wrapped in a towel and placed in a household rubbish bin. Six years later, in December last year, Harvey and her partner Elliot Benham both pleaded guilty at Gloucester Crown Court to conspiracy to obtain a poison with the intent to procure a miscarriage and endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child. Harvey was sentenced to an 18-month community order, while Benham was ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work. The court heard that they did not want the baby, but when Harvey discovered she was pregnant the foetus was found to be 28 weeks old – four weeks over the legal limit – and that they had paid for drugs to cause the abortion. According to recent Freedom of Information data released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), between 2019 and 2023, 21 defendants (16 men and five women, aged between 24 and 59 years old) were charged with administering or procuring drugs or using instruments to induce an abortion, or child destruction. Of them, ten defendants were convicted and five were convicted on other substantive offences. Further high-profile cases have continued to divide public opinion. Nicola Packer was still bleeding and in pain when she was handcuffed. She was recovering from surgery for a stillbirth when police arrived at hospital later that day and accused her of illegally aborting her baby. Ms Packer took abortion medication, which was prescribed over the phone during the Covid-19 lockdown in November 2020, when she was aged 41. She delivered at home, and brought the foetus to a London hospital in a backpack the following day. Jurors heard that she took the medications when she was around 26 weeks pregnant, though the legal limit is 10 weeks, and that she knew this. However, Ms Packer denied this and spoke of her 'shock' at being pregnant, before breaking down, saying: 'If I had known I was that far along I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have put the baby or myself through it.' In May 2025, she sobbed as she was acquitted of 'unlawfully administering to herself a poison or other noxious thing' with the 'intent to procure a miscarriage'. She had spent almost five years facing the threat of prison. Ms Packer has since spoken out about how, instead of being sent home to recuperate following her surgery, while in custody and in pain, she was not given anti-clotting medication on time, having been told it was 'not a priority'. Furthermore, in June 2023, Carla Foster was sentenced to 28 months in prison for terminating a pregnancy between 32 and 34 weeks. The then 44-year-old mother-of-three claimed she felt too ' embarrassed ' to see a doctor after becoming pregnant in 2019, and that she did not know how far along she was. She also received abortion medication over the phone during the Covid-19 pandemic, and a court heard that she lied to a nurse practitioner from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), convincing them that she was seven weeks pregnant. Shortly after, she made a 999 call telling operators that she was in labour and had suffered a miscarriage. She was initially charged with child destruction and pleaded not guilty. She later pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion, which was accepted by the prosecution. The Court of Appeal later reduced her sentence to 14 months suspended. Sitting at the London court in July 2023, Dame Victoria Sharp described her case as 'very sad', adding that 'it is a case that calls for compassion, not punishment'. In 2024, the CPS dropped its case against Bethany Cox, then 22, from Teesside, who was accused of causing her own miscarriage after purchasing drugs in 2020, as the first Covid-19 lockdown ended. At the time, Nicholas Lumley KC, her barrister, said that she had been interviewed by police in the 'throes of grief', and had been investigated for three years. It is not known how or when the baby died, and the prosecution dropped the case due to 'evidential difficulties'. As a result of MPs' vote this week, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which outlaws abortion, will be amended so that it will no longer apply to women ending their own pregnancies. That means that Ms Packer, Ms Foster, Ms Catt, Ms Cox, Ms Harvey, and others like them in similar circumstances would no longer be prosecuted. The vote was tabled by the Labour MPs Stella Creasy and Tonia Antoniazzi, who criticised the current 'Victorian' laws being used against vulnerable women, and said that the decriminalisation would ensure women do not face arrest, investigation, prosecution or imprisonment regarding any pregnancies. Following the vote, Heidi Stewart, chief executive of BPAS, hailed the vote as 'a landmark moment for women's rights in this country and the most significant change to our abortion law since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed'. In contrast, Kathleen Stock, a former philosophy professor at the University of Sussex, who was forced to quit her job in 2021 following a high-profile row with the institution over her gender-critical views, was among those criticising the vote. 'Late-term abortions kill babies,' she said. 'Viable babies.' Catherine Robinson, spokesman for Right To Life UK, also raised concerns about the implications of the vote. She said: 'Removing the legal deterrent against women having abortions outside of a clinical setting beyond 24 weeks will only make it more likely that women in vulnerable circumstances will take similar action in future, putting themselves at risk. The current legal deterrent protects women from coercion at the hands of abusive partners and from taking actions they may later regret.' The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said that the vote marked 'a dark day', and described the result as 'heartbreaking', 'horrifying', 'extreme' and 'barbaric'. According to the latest available data held by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 251,377 abortions for women in England and Wales in 2022. This marked the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced in 1967, and an increase of 17 per cent over the previous year. The vast majority of them were medically induced and funded by the NHS. According to recent polling by Ipsos ahead of the vote, 71 per cent of Britons think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 47 per cent believe that the current 24-week time limit for most abortions in England and Wales is 'about right'. When asked about illegal abortions, just over half (55 per cent) think that the person who performed the abortion should face a penalty. However, considerably fewer believe that the woman who had the abortion (32 per cent) or someone else who arranged the abortion (37 per cent) should face a penalty.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Keir Starmer insists assisted dying Bill has not been rushed as dozens of MPs say it should receive more scrutiny
Keir Starmer has dismissed warnings that the proposed legalisation on assisted dying is being rushed. The Prime Minister insisted that plenty of time had been devoted to the controversial plan despite dozens of his MPs pleading for it to receive more scrutiny. He also indicated that he will back the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the knife-edge vote tomorrow. But he said he would not try to sway opinion as the Government has remained officially neutral – though he previously promised leading campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen he would make time for assisted dying to come to the Commons. Asked during the G7 summit if he will be voting for the Bill, the PM replied: 'I've done my best not to influence the vote. My own view, I think, is well known and long-standing.' When pressed as to whether the critics within his party were wrong to raise concerns about the process, Sir Keir replied: 'It is a matter for individual parliamentarians. 'There has been a lot of time discussing it, both in Parliament and beyond Parliament, and quite right too, it's a really serious issue.' Since the bill passed its first Parliamentary hurdle in November, Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind has introduced a series of changes, including removing the safeguard of a High Court judge signing off applications A majority of 55 voted in favour the Bill last year, meaning that 28 would need to switch sides to bring it down, and at least a dozen have publicly turned against it in recent weeks. Even MPs sympathetic to the principle of legalising assisted dying plan to vote against it due to the actions of Labour's Kim Leadbeater. Since the bill passed its first Parliamentary hurdle in November, she has introduced a series of changes, including removing the safeguard of a High Court judge signing off applications. She instead put forward the concept of a panel of experts who would consider requests. Yet many professionals claim her plan is unworkable and more than 1,000 doctors have urged MPs to reject it. Some 50-plus Labour MPs want the third reading vote be delayed, warning the final version of the Bill has not been published and only 12 of 133 proposed amendments have been voted on.
