Why you should think twice about hugging lambs this summer
Cryptosporidiosis is a severe parasitic infection that causes serious gastrointestinal illness, with symptoms including watery diarrhoea and stomach pains.
Public Health Wales has advised farmers to prevent close contact between visitors and lambs this summer to curb the spread; people should also wash their hands after contact with animals.
The alert follows an investigation into 74 cases of cryptosporidium linked to a petting farm in Vale of Glamorgan earlier this year, which led to 16 hospitalisations, including a four-year-old boy.
There were also 17 outbreaks of the infection connected to farms across England and Wales in the previous year.
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Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Richard Bacon reveals he's now reliant on heartburn tablets and vitamin injections to cope with the fallout from his heavy drinking - and quit AA because it's 'boring'
Richard Bacon has opened up about his long-running struggle with alcohol addiction - admitting he's sleep-deprived and reliant on heartburn tablets and vitamin injections to cope with the fallout from heavy drinking. Richard was famously just 18 months into his dream job at Blue Peter when he was fired at the age of 22 after admitting he took cocaine in a London nightclub in 1997. He has since been open about his continuing addiction struggles, recently opening up in a candid podcast chat. The presenter, now 49, said that he struggles to take accountability after a doctor told him his addiction is a disease inherited from his alcoholic mother. 'I went to see an alcohol doctor not long ago,' he said in the chat. 'I'm not out of control or anything, but I do think I should drink less. It affects your sleep and I get bored of being tired. 'I don't get enough sleep because I drink too much. I enjoy drinking.' Speaking on The Perfect Day podcast with Jessica Knappett, he added: 'You know you drink too much when you have a lot of Rennie. You know you're middle aged and you drink too much and you're popping those things.' The father-of-two also confessed to a regular habit of having vitamin B12 injections to cope with the after-effects of drinking too much. 'A vitamin B12 injection in your bum is famously good for hangovers. It brings you back to life,' he said. 'At the end of last year and for the first few months of this year, I had one a week. I've got this doctor - he's a bit like Michael Jackson's doctor - he just gives me anything I ask for.' 'At one point I had eight prescriptions and there wasn't really much wrong with me. He's just like, 'you're a bit deficient in this, bit deficient in that. Bit of this, bit of that.' A lot of it's sort of vitamin based, but weirdly prescription based. But it did work… He's terrific.' Richard was sacked from children's TV programme Blue Peter in 1998 after admitting to taking cocaine. To this day he is the only presenter in the history of the show to have been sacked. 'I got a Blue Peter job at 21 and then lost it at 22 and it was a big scandal at the time,' Richard reflected. 'I suppose there's something about getting caught for taking drugs where you can just come back, can't you? It's not one of the worst ones. 'There are far worse ones that make you look like a malicious person. If you beat someone up, do something aggressively sexual, say something racist... those reveal something about you that people don't like. I think the desire to get drunk and get high is something people generally can get over.' Now a successful creator of TV formats and the man behind shows like This Is My House and I Literally Just Told You, Richard admits his lifestyle can still get in the way. 'What I find annoying about myself is if I have a night of not drinking, I'll go into the office - I work on ideas... and I'll just have so much energy, and I'll be better at it.' Despite still drinking regularly, he added he ditched Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) because he found the meetings 'boring'. 'I've gone through loads of periods of stopping, and I've done periods of AA. I admire AA. It's a strange combination of people telling the most dramatic stories you've ever heard that I find really boring. I'm not even joking.' He recalled one meeting in Chelsea with several famous faces in the room. 'This guy was telling this story - he'd come out of prison and he'd gone to prison because he'd got high and he'd stolen a car and he was chased by a police helicopter then he drove through a police barricade. And I remember just sitting there checking my watch going, 'boring!' 'Imagine someone you know telling you that story? 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'So now I think I can just say to my wife: it's not my fault! It's grandad's fault. It's mum's fault.' He added: 'I drink and I enjoy it and I don't seem to get in trouble so it's fine. It's not so much that I'm worried about being dangerous. I just the calories and the sleep. That bit is annoying.' To slash calories in his drink, he said, he avoids beer and red wine and sticks to vodka - particularly in the form of a martini with a twist. 'When you go to a bar and order vodka and they go, what sort of vodka do you want? I think they all taste the same! It's so irrelevant.' The former Radio 5 Live and Capital FM host lives in north London with his wife Rebecca McFarlane and their two children, Arthur, 13, and Ivy, 11. He admits parenthood didn't quite sober him up the way people might expect. '[Rebecca] had always wanted to be a mum,' he explained. 'So it was a really wonderful thing, but I think she looks back with disappointment at me at that time because I was still going out and not pulling my weight and coming in late. 'I think those first few years, I didn't snap into what you're kind of required to do quickly enough. So there was too much of a burden on her.' He continued: 'I hadn't wanted to be a parent until I met her, and then we fell in love really intensely. And she would talk about kids a lot, and that made me think, oh, right, OK. 'I recently tried to imagine having another baby... I'm so pleased I'm out of that phase. Rebecca did the real work here, but it is definitely harder than people say. 'No one really says how hard it is. They're constantly relying on me to keep them alive. It's like, f***ing hell. When they're young - two, three, four - they're flat out annoying.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
NHS chief accuses BMA of ‘extortion'
The head of the NHS attacked the British Medical Association (BMA) for demanding 'extortionate pay' amid a strike row. Sir Jim Mackey, the NHS chief executive, criticised the doctors' union in a message to NHS hospital trust leaders. Junior – now resident – doctors have entered the last of a five-day strike that began on Friday. The BMA has rejected 18 emergency requests by NHS hospitals for striking doctors to cross the picket line and help. Hospitals are able to make emergency requests for help to striking doctors – called 'derogations' – to help stop patients coming to harm, such as in emergency departments and cancer care. However, Sir Jim said that of the 18 rejected requests, the BMA would only support half of these 'if extortionate pay rates were offered to striking doctors'. In a message seen by The Telegraph, he said they had worked to 'overhaul the process for patient safety mitigations' with nine requests approved by Sunday night. But he added: 'Unfortunately, despite all requests being made and verified by senior medics, 18 have been rejected by the BMA, with half of those rejections saying the BMA would support only if extortionate pay rates were offered to striking doctors.' He encouraged NHS bosses to keep putting them forward where they were needed. The exemptions are requested by senior NHS medics in exceptional circumstances to protect patient safety and must be agreed on a case-by-case basis by BMA leaders, including chairman, Dr Tom Dolphin. As of Sunday evening, there had been 47 requests for 125 doctors, according to the BMA. Some are pending or were withdrawn. The resident doctors are demanding a 29 per cent pay rise to return them to 2008 levels of pay. They have been awarded a 28.9 per cent pay rise since Labour came into power, including a 5.4 per cent rise for this financial year. Nurses, who are expected to overwhelmingly vote to reject their 3.6 per cent pay rise, could also ballot to take industrial action later this year. One emergency request rejected by the BMA was for a resident doctor to carry out biopsies on men with suspected prostate cancer at Milton Keynes Hospital. The doctor subsequently volunteered to return to work and was praised by Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, for their 'bravery'. He said it 'ensured these men got the care they deserve'. Of the requests granted by the BMA, one was for a doctor to return to work on a neonatal ward caring for new born babies in Nottingham City Hospital. The BMA said it was launching a separate, related dispute with the Government over 'training bottlenecks'. A survey of 1,053 resident doctors finishing their foundation training found that 52 per cent had not secured a job for next month. After two years of foundation training, resident doctors begin speciality training to become consultants or GPs. The BMA said this year there had been more than 30,000 doctors applying for just 10,000 posts. Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan, BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs said:'It's absurd that in a country where the Government says bringing down NHS waiting lists is one of its top priorities, not only is it not prepared to restore doctors' pay, but it also won't provide jobs for doctors ready, willing and capable to progress in their careers. 'Commitments from the Government to address this don't go far enough or are too vague to convince us that they understand the gravity of the situation, so we're making clear that, alongside pay, we are entering a dispute and demanding action so that no UK-trained, capable, doctor is left underemployed in the NHS.' It comes as health workers represented by the trade union, Unite, voted to reject the 3.6 per cent pay award for this financial year. Some 89 per cent rejected the deal, with the union saying it was prepared to take strike action. It represents a range of NHS staff including paramedics, healthcare assistants, and cleaners. Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, said: 'When it came into power this Government was clear that the NHS was broken. But staff are still leaving in droves and morale is still at an all-time low. The NHS can't be repaired while the Government continues to erode pay and drastically cut NHS budgets.' Health workers in the GMB union have also rejected the pay deal while the Royal College of Nursing is due to announce a ballot of its members this week.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
I asked for a PSA test on a whim, then found out I had prostate cancer
Paul Henderson received his official diagnosis of Stage 2 prostate cancer on June 17. In this weekly diary, he will be sharing what life is like after diagnosis: the tests, the scans, the fear, and what it's like when you have to sit down with your loved ones to tell them that you have cancer. I got the call that changed my life at 3:04pm on Tuesday April 15. It was a short two-minute conversation with my doctor. The next day I received a copy of my referral letter. It read: Urgent Suspected Cancer. My contribution to that phone call was minimal. A sequence of the words 'OK', 'Right', 'Oh…' and 'Thanks for calling'. As my doctor explained my test results, what hit me was a mixture of surprise, shock and fear. I understood what she was saying. But as I sat at my desk and stared blankly out of my office window, I simply couldn't process the information. The news was bad, I got that, but just how bad was it? My mind raced with all the possible outcomes then slowly I tried to get things in perspective. 'Don't panic,' I told myself. 'Maybe it's not as terrible as you think it is.' I didn't know it then, but within three months that quick chat would become a formal diagnosis of stage 2 prostate cancer and then me on an operating table having life-changing surgery. Time flies when you aren't having fun, right? As a 56-year-old journalist who has worked in the media for over 30 years covering a variety of subjects, including health, I like to think that not much fazes me. As the associate editor for British GQ, I've ridden motorbikes with Keanu Reeves, swapped recipes with Robert De Niro, sung an impromptu duet with Mike Tyson and advised Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson to get into politics, all without batting an eyelid. But cancer blindsided me. When I went to see my doctor early in 2025, it wasn't for anything specific. For a few months – perhaps more months than I realised – I hadn't been feeling myself. I was tired, lacking in energy and had started suffering from back pain. I had slightly high cholesterol and blood pressure, but I also felt like something wasn't quite right, as though I'd lost a little of my mojo. Welcome to your mid-50s, I thought. But my wife Marilyn viewed me differently. Not only had she noticed my general malaise, she was also starting to worry that I was getting worse. I was becoming irritable, impatient and generally out of sorts. So she encouraged me to make an appointment at my local health centre. And like all good husbands, I did as I was told. On the surface there was nothing much to worry about. I don't smoke, don't drink much, my weight is average and I work out a couple of times a week, so I'm pretty fit (if a little boring). My wife and I walk our mini-dachshund, Ziggy Pup, every morning, so I always get my 10,000 steps in. We try to cook healthy food, we socialise and recently celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. As a freelance journalist with my own creative media agency, I had plenty to keep me busy. And although our kids still live at home, they are both old enough (Nyah is 22 and Fox is 20) to look after themselves (most of the time). And after a routine examination everything seemed to be OK. However, just as I was about to leave I asked my GP if perhaps I should have a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test. I didn't have any specific symptoms (no frequent trips to the toilet at night, no problems with erections etc) and there was no history of prostate cancer in my family. It certainly wasn't something I was worried about – it just seemed like a good idea at the time. She readily agreed and I made the necessary arrangements for a blood test. Then simply got on with my life. It was a couple of weeks later when I got the call that changed everything. 'We've had the results back from your PSA test and they have come back elevated,' Dr Mahmood told me. I was stunned. The word that stuck in my head was 'elevated'. What did that mean? Was it slightly too high? Way too high? Does that mean I have cancer? I'd like to tell you that these were the questions I asked. They weren't. I just dropped in a few polite affirmations to convey that I was listening and waited for her to finish. 'So I am going to refer you to the urology department at Whipps Cross Hospital and then we will have a better idea,' she told me. 'But just to let you know, the letter might sound worrying, but that is just NHS protocol to ensure you are seen within two weeks.' And that was it. When Marilyn came home from work, I told her about the phone call. I had to watch as she tried to absorb what I was saying. Not only was it the first time I had had to tell someone I loved that I might have cancer, she is the most important person in my life. The words stuck in my throat (it would not be the last time) and we were both in tears. After I had explained what happened, the first question she asked was what the PSA score had been. I didn't know. Not only that, I didn't even know what to ask. I felt almost comically hopeless and we laughed. The next day I called the surgery and asked for a copy of the test result. My PSA was 18.1. It should be less than 3. And that's when I became a case of Urgent Suspected Cancer. I was in the system. I was also scared. Frequently asked questions How should I ask my GP for a PSA test? The PSA blood test is available free to men who request it, and you can book an appointment with your GP to discuss the potential pros and cons of the test. However, the PSA test isn't suitable for everyone, so GPs will use their clinical judgement and may advise against it. For example, GPs are unlikely to recommend a PSA blood test if your general health means you wouldn't be fit enough for treatment, or if treatment is unlikely to help you live longer.
