Latest news with #EatBreatheThrive
Times
12-05-2025
- Health
- Times
Anorexia sufferers may use assisted dying bill to end their lives
Scotland's proposed right-to-die law risks allowing people with anorexia to end their lives even though they may eventually recover, experts have said. Chelsea Roff is the founder of the charity Eat Breathe Thrive that works to help people with eating problems. She said the legislation as it stood could be misused by people in deep despair and unable to access vital treatment on the struggling NHS. Roff and her colleague, Professor Catherine Cooke-Cottone, studied assisted dying around the world and found at that least 60 people with eating disorders had been allowed to end their lives. That number is expected to be far higher due to inadequacies in record-keeping. Scotland's lawmakers will vote on Liam McArthur's private member's bill on assisted dying for terminally-ill patients
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Anorexia sufferers could access assisted dying after MPs refuse to close Bill loophole
Anorexia sufferers could access assisted dying after MPs refused to close a loophole in Kim Leadbeater's Bill, charities have warned. Proposals that would have prevented people with the condition from being able to access assisted dying 'as a result of stopping eating or drinking' were rejected by MPs scrutinising the proposed legislation on Tuesday. Eating disorder charities and campaigners said they were 'extremely disappointed' by the decision and warned that assisted dying laws in other countries had been used by women with eating disorders. Ms Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill seeks to enable those with six months to live to receive medical assistance to end their lives. As the Bill enters the committee stage, the fear that the law could wrongly allow anorexia patients to qualify as a result of malnutrition has emerged as a key issue. Naz Shah, a Labour MP, on Tuesday proposed clarifying the Bill to specify that someone who 'would not otherwise' qualify as terminally ill 'shall not be considered to meet those requirements as a result of stopping eating or drinking.' She told the committee: 'If we wish to protect people with anorexia and other eating disorders, we must rewrite this Bill... 'I must underline, this is not a hypothetical point. It is not some clever objection that has been dreamed up without reference to the real world. It has actually happened. It has happened not once, but dozens of times in countries that have assisted dying.' Ahead of Tuesday's session, MPs received a letter signed by 34 representatives from leading eating disorder charities, urging them to support Ms Shah's amendment. However, the proposed change was rejected by 15 votes to eight. Chelsea Roff, a researcher and founder of Eat Breathe Thrive, a US charity, told The Telegraph: 'We are extremely disappointed that the committee has chosen not to close the loopholes in this Bill that put people with anorexia at risk.' Ms Roff, who gave oral evidence to MPs on the committee last month, said her own research had found that at least 60 patients had accessed assisted dying because of anorexia in jurisdictions where it is already legal. She said: 'The international evidence is clear – assisted dying laws have already been exploited to help young women with eating disorders die by assisted death in Oregon, California, and Colorado. Even when presented with that evidence, some members of the committee have chosen to ignore it. 'The Bill clearly states that a person cannot qualify as terminally ill due only to a mental disorder. But this does not stop someone with anorexia – or indeed, someone abusing alcohol – from qualifying based on the physical deterioration caused by their illness. 'MPs may think such cases would never happen here. So did lawmakers in Oregon. We are urging the MPs to act now to ensure similar tragedies don't happen here.' Tom Quinn, director of external affairs at Beat, the UK's leading eating disorder charity, told The Telegraph they were 'very disappointed' the amendment did not pass. He added: 'Eating disorders should never be classified as terminal, and this amendment would have added much-needed clarity around the issue.' Gemma Oaten, chief executive of the charity Support and Empathy for People with Eating Disorders, said: 'Once again, those struggling with eating disorders are being overlooked, despite our relentless efforts to bring attention to this critical issue.' The Royal College of Psychiatrists has also called on MPs to amend the draft legislation 'to explicitly exclude physical effects of mental disorder as the basis for eligibility'. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
25-02-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Anorexia sufferers could access assisted dying after MPs refuse to close Bill loophole
Anorexia sufferers could access assisted dying after MPs refused to close a loophole in Kim Leadbeater's Bill, charities have warned. Proposals that would have prevented people with the condition from being able to access assisted dying 'as a result of stopping eating or drinking' were rejected by MPs scrutinising the proposed legislation on Tuesday. Eating disorder charities and campaigners said they were 'extremely disappointed' by the decision and warned that assisted dying laws in other countries had been used by women with eating disorders. Ms Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill seeks to enable those with six months to live to receive medical assistance to end their lives. As the Bill enters the committee stage, the fear that the law could wrongly allow anorexia patients to qualify as a result of malnutrition has emerged as a key issue. Naz Shah, a Labour MP, on Tuesday proposed clarifying the Bill to specify that someone who 'would not otherwise' qualify as terminally ill 'shall not be considered to meet those requirements as a result of stopping eating or drinking.' She told the committee: 'If we wish to protect people with anorexia and other eating disorders, we must rewrite this Bill... 'I must underline, this is not a hypothetical point. It is not some clever objection that has been dreamed up without reference to the real world. It has actually happened. It has happened not once, but dozens of times in countries that have assisted dying.' Ahead of Tuesday's session, MPs received a letter signed by 34 representatives from leading eating disorder charities, urging them to support Ms Shah's amendment. However, the proposed change was rejected by 15 votes to eight. Chelsea Roff, a researcher and founder of Eat Breathe Thrive, a US charity, told The Telegraph: 'We are extremely disappointed that the committee has chosen not to close the loopholes in this Bill that put people with anorexia at risk.' Ms Roff, who gave oral evidence to MPs on the committee last month, said her own research had found that at least 60 patients had accessed assisted dying because of anorexia in jurisdictions where it is already legal. She said: 'The international evidence is clear – assisted dying laws have already been exploited to help young women with eating disorders die by assisted death in Oregon, California, and Colorado. Even when presented with that evidence, some members of the committee have chosen to ignore it. 'The Bill clearly states that a person cannot qualify as terminally ill due only to a mental disorder. But this does not stop someone with anorexia – or indeed, someone abusing alcohol – from qualifying based on the physical deterioration caused by their illness. 'MPs may think such cases would never happen here. So did lawmakers in Oregon. We are urging the MPs to act now to ensure similar tragedies don't happen here.' Tom Quinn, director of external affairs at Beat, the UK's leading eating disorder charity, told The Telegraph they were 'very disappointed' the amendment did not pass. He added: 'Eating disorders should never be classified as terminal, and this amendment would have added much-needed clarity around the issue.' Gemma Oaten, chief executive of the charity Support and Empathy for People with Eating Disorders, said: 'Once again, those struggling with eating disorders are being overlooked, despite our relentless efforts to bring attention to this critical issue.' The Royal College of Psychiatrists has also called on MPs to amend the draft legislation 'to explicitly exclude physical effects of mental disorder as the basis for eligibility'.
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Ex-supreme court judge says high court signoff for assisted death unnecessary
A former supreme court judge has told MPs that applications for assisted dying should not need high court approval. Lord Sumption told a committee scrutinising the assisted dying bill that the requirement for signoff by a high court judge was 'unnecessary and in some respects undesirable'. No other jurisdiction in the world that allows assisted dying has such a requirement, he said. The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill would allow adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live to end their lives, subject to approval by two doctors and a high court judge. Sumption, who served in the UK's supreme court until 2018, said: 'It is not entirely clear what the judge is supposed to do … Is he there to ensure that the two doctors have done their job and the ducks are all in a row, or is he there to form his own view on these matters, completely independently of all those who have given certificates? 'If the latter, one is talking about quite a time-consuming process, involving a lot of additional evidence. It seems to me this is a protection which no other country, so far that I am aware of among those who have authorised assisted dying, have included.' He said a proposal for a special panel of judges to deal with assisted dying applications might 'resolve the problem of the shortage of capacity in the high court. It would not, however, resolve the problem of the overengineering of the procedural provisions of this bill.' The clause 'infers a protection that is largely illusory and undoubtedly very time-consuming … It involves the intervention of the state in an intensely personal agonising process, which to my mind is inappropriate.' MPs also heard doctors from Australian states which have legalised assisted dying argue that the criterion of six months to live should be increased to 12 months. Dr Cam McLaren, a Melbourne oncologist, said: 'I always say to people, we do not know they have six months left to live until they have six weeks left to live. And we as oncologists know, in the matter of one CT scan, we can change a person's prognosis from 18 months to three months. 'All of a sudden they see their life ending and then they begin an [assisted dying] application that takes a month to apply.' Dr Clare Fellingham, the deputy director of medical services at Royal Perth hospital, said the UK had a 'golden opportunity to look across every jurisdiction that already has laws in operation, and cherrypick the very best bits of what is working well in those jurisdictions to create the very best, most robust but also most patient-centred legislation you can.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Other witnesses raised concerns about the bill. Chelsea Roff, the founder of Eat Breathe Thrive, said at least 60 people with eating disorders had successfully applied for an assisted death in other jurisdictions. People with diseases such as diabetes and HIV/Aids may also be able to circumvent terminal illness criteria by refusing medication or sustenance, she said. Richard Robinson, the chief executive of Hourglass, said there was 'an epidemic of abuse against older people at the moment' which was 'vastly underplayed'. Older people would be vulnerable to pressure to opt for an assisted death despite the safeguarding provisions in the bill, he said. Sumption said: 'I think we must all be conscious of the fact that coercion, even when it is overtly applied, is extraordinarily difficult to detect.' He added: 'We have to live with the limitations of what human beings can do.'
