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john-langley-bristol-blogger · 2 years

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Omnicon -the new variant in political incompetence. Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021. 4.05pm.

Enter Mark Drayford, the Welsh First Minister, who is as dry as a nun's lady garden, and as beige a politician as you can get.

This is a man who I'm convinced is able to talk himself to sleep - have you not heard him? Slow and monosyllabic in delivery of every word he utters, this man would save the NHS an absolute fortune on sleeping pills if he was the prescription for insomnia. The type of person the Samaritans would employ to increase its call volume during slow periods, and which by all accounts could be any time soon the way things are going currently. It would seem that even Welsh journalists give Drayford the widest possible berth unless it's of absolute necessity to interview him because a fall in across-the board-audience/readership figures would be enough to send advertisers off for therapy.

The reason I say all this is due to the introduction of yet another piece of Omicon based, ludicrous legislation, whereby the people of Wales will be fined for going to work, but still able to freely socialise in a pub in order to prop up the ailing hospitality trade - or so it would seem to anyone with a modicum of logic. By the very simple process of evaluation, all pubs now have the green light to become offices while developers continue to build office blocks to the benefit of those who now work from home.

Are you with me so far? Okay, so this is all very well and good unless of course, you happen to work in a pub which you are now not allowed to go to because this would involve traveling to where you work. Is it just me who sees a slight problem here, I wonder?

I'm thinking that boiled down it's okay to work as long as you are socialising at the same time while enjoying alcohol-based beverages. By all means, correct me if I'm wholly mistaken, but isn't the Welsh First Minister just nicking an idea from the Conservative government that's recently been slammed for having get-togethers under the guise of work while Covid's prevalent? However, due to Welsh legislation, you can no longer travel to where you work in the pub trade, and therefore everyone has to stay at home and work (unless you are in the pub trade), which to all intents and purposes means massive lockdown via a back door and without actually declaring it as a lockdown.

To be honest, I think I'm just so lost with the mind-boggling mystery of all this I've actually started rambling, and worse still, talking to myself like I'm on the road to crazyness!

I freely admit to not being the brightest person in this world, but neither am I a complete dunce. It, therefore, concerns me that I am able to notice basic flaws in Welsh Assembly legislation while Mark Drayford seemingly doesn't. Yet he studied Latin at the University of Kent, and graduated from the University of Exeter - in what, Latin? Whereas I left school at sixteen with not a single qualification to my name.

I'm not one to deny the fact that where politics is concerned, the ability to speak and read Latin is a clear and rightful prerequisite, and no doubt a useful skill when communicating with Boris as it proves its value in all those years of study when you both speak the same language while on opposite sides of the political fence, doesn't it? Not even Jeremy could have managed this. By the way, where is Jeremy now? Operating his Islington allotment fruit and veg stall from the backbenches of the House of Commons, possibly. You know, a bit like a farmers market for MP's, with red cabbages red onions as the deal of the week. After all, he has to keep the momentum up somehow.

As it so happens Drakeford, who is regarded as very much to the left of the Labour party was the only sitting Cabinet member in any part of the UK to support Jeremy Corbyn in his bid for the national leadership of the Labour Party in 2015, while he was Minister for Health and Social Services, and irony of ironies, among so many other things within his somewhat glittering political career he guided the Human Transplantation Act through the Sennedd, which given the ludicrousness of this latest farce on Welsh workers makes me wonder whether his academic brain was transplanted with that of an idiot.

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redsoapbox · 6 years

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MY TOP TEN ALBUMS LIST OF 1983

As someone who has always been an obsessive list-maker, I can’t quite comprehend how I’ve resisted the temptation, in the three years of redsoapbox, to blog to the world my thoughts on favourite films, books, records, etc. However, during some much-needed spring cleaning over the weekend, I stumbled upon a list of my favourite albums from 1983 and my defences collapsed on the spot. So I ’m putting it out there, regardless of the risk to my reputation (ha, ha).

1.Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits

The album, of course, that marked Waits’ change from jazzy, bohemian barfly to surrealist junkyard poet. I hadn’t had much to do with Waits up until this point but subsequently bought up his back catalogue on the strength of this masterpiece. Waits described the transition in style this way - “I hatched out of the egg I was living in. I'd nailed one foot to the floor and kept going in circles, making the same record”. “In the Neighbourhood”, the alt.torch song “Frank’s Wild Years” and the little love poem “Johnsburg, Illinois” were the obvious standouts. Swordfishtrombones still remains on heavy rotation in the McGrath household today.

Selected track - “In the Neighbourhood”

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2. Life’s a Riot with Spy Vs. Spy - Billy Bragg

Sometime in 83/84, I showed up at the local Polytechnic to watch The Icicle Works and fell head over heels in love with unbilled support act, Billy Bragg. As a fully paid-up member of the Labour Party, I bought into Billy’s ‘socialism of the heart’ in a big way. I stood there open-mouthed as the ‘Bard of Barking’ cranked out “Milkman of Human Kindness”, “New England” and “To Have And Have Not”. The gig ended on an unbelievable high, with Billy joining Ian McNabb and co. on stage for an encore which included a medley of “Jailhouse Rock”, “L.A. Woman” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. I’ve seen Billy ‘one-man Clash’ Bragg play a dozen times since, and this fifteen-minute masterpiece remains high in my all-time top twenty albums list.

Selected track - “To Have And Have Not”

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3. Hysterics - The Nightingales

In the sixties, you got to define yourself musically/culturally by choosing between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, for post-punks like me, though, it was a straight choice between The Fall and The Nightingales (of course, you could secretly worship both and I did!). I was always, deep down, a Robert Lloyd man - I once fired off an angry letter to *Mojo taking Morrissey to task for lumping the ‘gales in with The June Brides and The Jasmine Minks - and still regard the frontman as one of the best lyricists in pop music history. It was a real joy to witness The Nightingales come back from a 20-year hiatus (during which Lloyd worked as a Postman) with 2006′s Out Of True, an album which gives Hysterics a real run for its money. One of my top 5 all-time favourite gigs was The Nightingales/Happy Monday’s/Ted Chippington corker in the Poly of Wales in 1984/85.

Selected track - “This”

The Nightingales have not been too well-served by the internet and there is next to nothing in terms of live footage before their reformation. They did, however, record 8 Sessions for John Peel, including the one below from the 5th of December 1983 which kicks off with “This”, the only song from Hysterics that I could track down for the purposes of this piece.

* The letter was published in issue no 151.

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4. Murmur - R.E.M.

Having disastrously passed up the chance to catch ‘some new American band’, who in fact turned out to be none other than R.E.M., at Rumney’s run-down New Ocean Club in November 1984, I had to wait a further five years to see the band play (in Newport and Birmingham) as part of their Green tour. By then, of course, the whole world had fallen in love with the college rockers turned conquering heroes. Albums such as Document and Green may have propelled Athens’ finest into the big leagues, but the Byrdsian mumble-fest that is Murmur remains their masterpiece. A belated thumbs-up to Big Al for turning me onto the band in the first place.

Selected track - “Talk About The Passion”.

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5. Power Corruption and Lies - New Order

You can’t begin to discuss the strange and surreal story of New Order’s rise to world domination without first engaging with the personal tragedy of Ian Curtis and the dramatic fall of Joy Division. How the remaining members of Manchester miserabilists Joy Division - Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris - recovered from the suicide of their friend and frontman Curtis in May 1980 to remodel themselves as the unexpected pioneers of Indie dance (Blue Monday is the biggest selling 12 inch record of all time) is surely one of the tallest tales in the annals of popular music.

Full disclosure here - there was a time in the mid-eighties, stretching to somewhere between 12 and 18 months, where I barely listened to anything other than Joy Division/New Order. Curtis had already died when I bumped into two old school friends, Tosh and Dai, huddled in the doorway of The Criterion pub at closing time one stormy Friday night in Pontypridd in the winter of 1983. In what was undoubtedly a drunken conversation, I heard the name Joy Division for the very first time. The next morning, with praise for JD still ringing in my head (unless that was the hangover), I headed straight for Hurleys Toy Shop (there was a record store in the back, staffed that morning by another friend from school, Huw, a mod who was clad in his usual Parka). I asked him to put on the first Joy Division record that I had caught sight of, which, try and stifle the laughter here folks, happened to be odds & sods compilation Still. The thrumming, glacial intro to “Exercise One” slowly unfurled and then, at 1.43 precisely, Curtis’ doomy, dislocated voice kicked in and my life would never be quite the same again. And I hadn’t even heard a track from Unknown Pleasures or Closer, let alone the classic singles “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Transmission” or “Atmosphere”.

New Order tried and failed to recapture that sound with their debut album Movement, but they were saved by the unlikeliest of transitions - the doom merchants became dance doyens, a shift signaled by the singles “Everything’s Gone Green” and “Temptation”.The members of New Order underwent personality transplants overnight and cemented their place in the pop pantheon.

Selected track - “Age of Consent”. The video below is the notorious live BBC concert, where everything in the lead-up to the gig has gone wrong. Bernard, visibly bursting at the seams with anger, isn’t best pleased, to begin with, and things are about to get worse!. I must have watched that twenty-minute broadcast a million times!

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6. The Icicle Works - The Icicle Works

It’s been many a long year since I played this album and off the top of my head I can only name a couple of the tracks - “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” and the top twenty hit “Love Is A Wonderful Colour”. I was, though, a hardcore fan at the time, buying every album and a fair few of the Ian McNabb solo efforts that followed, including his majestic Head Like A Rock (1994), featuring members of Crazy Horse. Around the time of that album, he played a gig in Newport in front of a very paltry crowd. He took to the stage, looked around him and murmured ‘so this is Newport’. He never uttered another word during the set and looked well fed-up with life. He did, though, play the storming “Fire Inside My Soul”, which more than made up for his couldn’t care less attitude.

Selected track - “Love Is A Wonderful Colour”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFUGLNz1YfY

7. Punch the Clock - Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Another album that needs a good dusting down! Aside from King of America (1986), I usually confine myself to the Greatest Hits compilations when I’m in the mood for a slice of EC these days. Funnily enough, this month’s issue of Uncut has a feature on the album's producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley in which they recall that ‘the premise of the record was Elvis needs a hit, and a hit in America. Keep that in mind”. Langer recalls Costello freaking out on the last night of recording, claiming the album sounded crap. There are great tracks here - “Shipbuilding”, “Everyday I Write the Book” and “Pills and Soap” but there won’t be too many Costello aficionados claiming it as his best work.

Selected track - “Let Them All Talk”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjr9zAknhbI

8. Soul Mining - The The

Although we weren’t to know it at the time it was Matt Johnson’s follow-up to this fine record, 1986′s crusading, state of the nation classic Infected, that would truly stand the test of time. Soulmining shouldn’t be neglected, however, with fine tunes like “This is the Day” and “Uncertain Smile” to its credit.

Selected track - “This is the Day”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAue9jqLB74

9. Perverted by Language - The Fall

Probably The Fall record I played the most down the years (along with Live at the Witch Trials), mainly because I was obsessed with “Eat Y’ Self Fitter”. Any track beginning

I’m in the furniture trade / Got a new job today / But stick the cretin / On the number-three lathe’, deserves our absolute devotion.

As with most Mark E. Smith compositions, I haven’t got a scooby’s as to what the substance of the song is actually about, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? when you can belt out ‘Where’s the cursor? Where’s the eraser? until you’re fit to drop.

Selected track - “ Eat Y’Self Fitter” of course!

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFCOt6wbm80

10. Inarticulate Speech of the Heart - Van Morrison

The Belfast Cowboy’s streak of legendary albums, from 1968′s Astral Weeks through to 1974′s Veedon Fleece (discounting workmanlike efforts such as His Band and Street Choir in 1970 and 1973′s Hard Nose the Highway), was well and truly over and his mid-eighties slump entirely predictable by the time of this average undertaking. Still, anything that bears Morrison’s stamp upon it is bound to include a magical track here or there. In this case, it was the momentously odd “Rave On, John Donne” and the Morrison masterclass that is “The Street Only Knew Your Name”.

Selected track - “The Street Only Knew Your Name”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa8sdU6bxlA

Clearly, there are some glaring omissions here, but I was a 21-year-old slip of a lad at the time, and all in all, it’s a pretty fair list, I think. The top 4 are all still to be found in my top 30 albums list and I wouldn’t disown any of the others 35 years on. Those were great gig-going years - many thanks to Duncan, Huw and Stephen who accompanied me to some of the concerts mentioned above, and plenty of others besides in my indie heyday. I guess I still owe you petrol money, guys?

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ezatluba · 4 years

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How Koalas With an S.T.D. Could Help Humanity

When it comes to finding a vaccine for chlamydia, the world’s most common sexually transmitted infection, koalas may prove a key ally.

Skroo, a wild koala visiting Endeavour Veterinary Ecology clinic, on June 25. Researchers at the clinic are testing a vaccine against chlamydia in koalas, which is very similar to the human form of the disease.Credit...Russell Shakespeare for The New York Times

By Rachel E. Gross

July 13, 2020

The first sign is the smell: smoky, like a campfire, with a hint of urine. The second is the koala’s rear end: If it is damp and inflamed, with streaks of brown, you know the animal is in trouble. Jo, lying curled and unconscious on the examination table, had both.

Jo is a wild koala under the purview of Endeavour Veterinary Ecology, a wildlife consulting company that specializes in bringing sick koala populations back from the brink of disease. Vets noticed on their last two field visits that she was sporting “a suspect bum,” as the veterinarian Pip McKay put it. So they brought her and her 1-year-old joey into the main veterinary clinic, which sits in a remote forest clearing in Toorbul, north of Brisbane, for a full health check.

Ms. McKay already had an inkling of what the trouble might be. “Looking at her, she probably has chlamydia,” she said.

Humans don’t have a monopoly on sexually transmitted infections. Oysters get herpes, rabbits get syphilis, dolphins get genital warts. But chlamydia — a pared-down, single-celled bacterium that acts like a virus — has been especially successful, infecting everything from frogs to fish to parakeets. You might say chlamydia connects us all.

This shared susceptibility has led some scientists to argue that studying, and saving, koalas may be the key to developing a long-lasting cure for humans. “They’re out there, they’ve got chlamydia, and we can give them a vaccine, we can observe what the vaccine does under real conditions,” said Peter Timms, a microbiologist at the University of Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He has spent the past decade developing a chlamydia vaccine for koalas, and is now conducting trials on wild koalas, in the hopes that his formula will soon be ready for wider release. “We can do something in koalas you could never do in humans,” Dr. Timms said.

In koalas, chlamydia’s ravages are extreme, leading to severe inflammation, massive cysts and scarring of the reproductive tract. In the worst cases, animals are left yelping in pain when they urinate, and they develop the telltale smell. But the bacteria responsible is still remarkably similar to the human one, thanks to chlamydia’s tiny, highly conserved genome: It has just 900 active genes, far fewer than most infectious bacteria.

Because of these similarities, the vaccine trials that Endeavour and Dr. Timms are running may offer valuable clues for researchers across the globe who are developing a human vaccine.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery

How bad is chlamydia in humans? Consider that around one in 10 sexually active teenagers in the United States is already infected, said Dr. Toni Darville, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina. Chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide, with 131 million new cases reported each year.

Antibiotics exist, but they are not enough to solve the problem, Dr. Darville said. That’s because chlamydia is a “stealth organism,” producing few symptoms and often going undetected for years.

“We can screen them all and treat them, but if you don’t get all their partners and all their buddies at the other high schools, you have a big spring break party and before you know it everybody’s infected again,” Dr. Darville said. “So they have this long-term chronic smoldering infection, and they don’t even know it. And then when they’re 28 and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m ready to have a baby, everything’s a mess.’”

In 2019, Dr. Darville and her colleagues received a multiyear, $10.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop a vaccine. The ideal package would combine a chlamydia and gonorrhea vaccine with the HPV vaccine already given to most preteenagers. “If we could combine those three, you’d basically have a fertility anticancer vaccine,” she said.

Chlamydia’s stealth and ubiquity — the name means “cloak-like mantle” — owes to its two-stage life cycle. It starts out as an elementary body, a spore-like structure that sneaks into cells and hides from the body’s immune system. Once inside, it wraps itself in a membrane envelope, hijacks the host cell’s machinery and starts pumping out copies of itself. These copies either burst out of the cell or are released into the bloodstream to continue their journey.

“Chlamydia is pretty unique in that regard,” said Ken Beagley, a professor of immunology at Queensland University of Technology and a former colleague of Dr. Timms. “It’s evolved to survive incredibly well in a particular niche, it doesn’t kill its host and the damage it causes occurs over quite a long time.”

The bacterium can hang out in the genital tract for months or years, wreaking reproductive havoc. Scarring and chronic inflammation can lead to infertility, ectopic pregnancy or pelvic inflammatory disease. Evidence is mounting that chlamydia harms male fertility as well: Dr. Beagley has found that the bacteria damages sperm and could lead to birth abnormalities.

All of this — except the spring break parties — is true in both humans and koalas. Researchers who work with both species note that koala chlamydia looks strikingly similar to the human version. The main difference is severity: In koalas, the bacterium rapidly ascends the urogenital tract, and can jump from the reproductive organs to the bladder thanks to their anatomical proximity.

These parallels have led Dr. Timms to argue that koalas could serve as a “missing link” in the search for a human vaccine. “The koala is more than just a fancy animal model,” he said. “It actually is really useful for human studies.”

An ancient curse

No one knows how or when koalas first got chlamydia. But the curse is at least centuries old.

In 1798, European explorers reached the mountains of New South Wales and spied a creature that defied description: ear-tufted and spoon-nosed, it peered down stoically from the crooks of towering eucalyptus trees. They compared it to the wombat, the sloth and the monkey. They settled on “native bear” and gave it the genus name Phascolarctos (from the Greek for “leather pouch” and “bear”), spawning the misconception that the koala bear is, in fact, a bear.

“The graveness of the visage,” The Sydney Gazette wrote in 1803, “would seem to indicate a more than ordinary portion of animal sagacity.”

In the late 19th century, the Australian naturalist Ellis Troughton noted that the “quaint and lovable koala” was also particularly susceptible to disease. The animals suffered from an eye ailment similar to pink eye, which he blamed for waves of koala die-offs in the 1890s and 1900s. At the same time, the anatomist J.P. Hill found that koalas from Queensland and New South Wales often had ovaries and uteruses riddled with cysts. Many modern scientists now believe those koalas were probably afflicted with the same scourge: chlamydia.

Koalas today have even more to worry about. Dogs, careless drivers and, recently, rampant bushfires have driven their numbers down so far that conservation groups are calling for koalas to be listed as endangered. But chlamydia still reigns supreme: In parts of Queensland, the heart of the epidemic, the disease helped fuel an 80 percent decline over two decades.

The disease is also the one that most often sends koalas to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, the country’s busiest wildlife hospital, located 30 miles north of Endeavour. “The figures are 40 percent chlamydia, 30 percent cars, 10 percent dogs,” said Dr. Rosemary Booth, the hospital’s director. “And then the rest is an interesting assortment of what trouble you can get into when you have a small brain and your habitat’s been fragmented.”

Dr. Booth’s team treats “chlamydia koalas” with an amped-up regimen of the same antibiotics used on humans. “I get all of my chlamydia information from the C.D.C.,” she said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States, “because America is the great center for chlamydia.”

But the cure can be as deadly as the disease. Deep inside a koala’s intestines, an army of bacteria helps the animal subsist off eucalyptus, a plant toxic to every other animal. “These are the ultimate example of an animal that’s completely dependent on a population of bacteria,” Dr. Booth said. Antibiotics extinguish that crucial gut flora, leaving a koala unable to gain nutrients from its food.

In a 2019 trial led by Dr. Timms and Dr. Booth, one of five koalas treated with antibiotics later had to be euthanized “due to gastrointestinal complications, resulting in muscle wasting and dehydration.” The problem is so dire that vets give antibiotic-treated koalas “poo shakes” — fecal transplants, essentially — in the hopes of restoring their microbiota.

For the past decade, Dr. Timms has worked to perfect a vaccine. Rather than treat animals once they are already sick, a widespread vaccine would protect koalas from any future sexual encounter and from passing the infection from mother to newborn. His formula, developed with Dr. Beagley, appears to work well: Trials have shown that it is safe to use and takes effect within 60 days, and that animals show immune responses that span their entire reproductive lives. The next step is optimizing it for use in the field.

At Endeavour, the vets treating Jo got a surprise: Molecular tests showed she was chlamydia-free. That meant she could be recruited for the current trial, which is testing a combined vaccine against chlamydia and the koala retrovirus known as KoRV, a virus in the same family as H.I.V. that similarly knocks down the koala’s immune system and makes chlamydia more deadly.

Dr. Timms is hoping that this trial and another in New South Wales will be the “clincher” — the last step before the government rolls out mass vaccinations. If he is right, it could be good news for more than just koalas.

Of mice and marsupials

Dr. Timms began his career studying chlamydia in livestock before moving on to using mice as a model for a human vaccine. Cheap, plentiful and amenable to genetic manipulation, mice have long been the gold standard for studying reproductive disease.

But the mouse model comes with serious drawbacks. Most glaringly, mice exhibit a profoundly different immune response to chlamydia than ours, making the idea of testing a mouse for a human vaccine “completely flawed,” Dr. Timms said.

After a decade of doing mouse work, he reasoned that he could take the insights he had gleaned and apply them to an animal that was actually suffering and possible to cure: the koala. “We don’t need a vaccine for mice,” he said. With “koala work, as hard as that is, and as difficult as that is, the results you get are the ones that matter.”

The more Dr. Timms worked with koalas, the more he realized that these marsupials were not so different from you and me. Here was a species that, like us, was naturally infected with several strains of chlamydia and suffered from similar reproductive outcomes, including infertility. He realized he might have a useful model animal on his hands.

“You’re better off doing a bad experiment in koalas than a good experiment in mice,” Dr. Timms said. “Because koalas really do get chlamydia and they really do get reproductive tract disease, so everything you do is relevant.”

Outside Australia, many researchers say the idea of a koala model is clever but difficult to implement. Dr. Darville pointed out that it would be expensive and logistically impossible to test 30 different vaccines in koalas. (According to Endeavour, it costs roughly $2,000 to pluck one koala from its tree and give it a health exam.)

Still, Dr. Timms said, the challenge was worth attempting: “The reason that we’re making a case that in between mouse and humans you should put koalas — rather than guinea pigs, minipigs and monkeys — is that koalas address all of the weaknesses, to some degree, that the others have.”

Paola Massari, an immunologist at Tufts Medical School, is collaborating with Dr. Timms to test a different potential vaccine in koalas. “The koala represents a perfect clinical model, because it’s an animal for which you can do some experimentation that’s a little more than what you can do in humans,” she said. “And at the same time, if you get results, you are curing a disease (in koalas).”

An unlikely alliance

On a hot February afternoon, Dr. Booth strode out into the blaring sunlight of the Australia Zoo grounds. She was heading to the chlamydia wards, which in 2018 were officially named the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward after a grant was donated on the comedian’s behalf. About 20 sick koalas were being treated with antibiotics that day, with dozens more on the road to recovery.

Dr. Booth stepped up to a leafy enclosure, where a fluffy gray female eyed her curiously from her perch. This koala was originally brought in for chlamydia but had since recovered; her reason for being here, listed on her cage, was “misadventure.”

“This is little Lorna, who’s rather interesting,” Dr. Booth said. “She has a baby in her pouch and she’s had problems with her glucose metabolism” — she had diabetes.

Wasn’t it unusual to have an animal that gets such humanlike diseases: diabetes, cancer and sexually transmitted infections? “We are but an animal,” Dr. Booth said, throwing her hands up in a gesture of unity with the world. “We didn’t think of it first.”

It is still uncertain to what extent the research on koala chlamydia will help in developing a human vaccine. (Dr. Darville had been working for nine months when Covid-19 hit, shuttering her lab and slowing scientific progress.) What is certain is that the research done on human chlamydia has greatly benefited koalas. From human antibiotics to mouse insights, wildlife veterinarians have far more tools than before to save the vulnerable marsupials.

For Dr. Booth, helping koalas is more than enough. “I don’t want to save humans,” she said. “My emphasis is completely the other way: I want to use human research to help save other animals. Because they don’t have a voice unless we speak for them.”

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labourpress · 7 years

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Jeremy Corbyn speech to Welsh Labour Conference, Llandudno - 25.3.2017

***Check against delivery***

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, speech to Welsh Labour Conference, Llandudno – Saturday 25 March 2017

Thank you for that welcome. It is a pleasure to be here in North Wales again in Llandudno.

Events in Westminster on Wednesday afternoon showed the brutality that one man can reap.

But it also showed the humanity, the bravery and the solidarity that really defines us and that binds us together in times of darkness and adversity.

The police, the security personnel, the NHS staff; they ran towards danger, put themselves at risk to protect and save lives, they are heroes.

And we particularly pay tribute to Police officer Keith Palmer who lost his life protecting others.

To all those who lost loved ones, who were injured, we send our love.

Our values of unity and solidarity are needed now more than ever. We know from previous occasions that some sick people have tried to sow division and hate.

So please, look after each other, help one another and think of one another.

I want to say thank you to Carwyn and Labour Assembly Members for continuing to show the difference that Labour can make in government.

Special mention too must go too Mark Drakeford, the Chancellor of Wales, who is implementing your programme despite the fact that your budget is being cut year-on-year six per cent in real terms by the end of the decade. That’s equivalent to almost £1.2 billion less for vital public services - a decade of cuts imposed by Tories in Westminster.

Our shadow Wales Secretary Christina Rees is fighting your corner in the House of Commons, working with Gerald Jones, our shadow minister for Wales and I thank them both.

I also want to put on record my thanks to Jo Stevens for the work she did in the brief before that.

Wales has great representation in Westminster. Nia Griffith our shadow defence secretary, who accompanied me recently for the unveiling of the Iraq and Afghanistan Memorial recognising those involved in those conflicts. Whatever our view of those wars, we should always respect those who are sent to fight and risk their lives.

And I also want to pay tribute to that great Welsh Labour campaigner, Carolyn Harris MP, leading an excellent campaign for the Children’s Funeral Fund.

It was frankly a disgrace that in the Budget, the Tories again ignored this simple and humane demand. That parents who suffer the loss of a child don’t have to then worry about the financial costs of giving them a funeral.

I know that Labour councils like Cardiff and Swansea have already waived fees, as has Co-op Funeralcare, but at a time when council budgets are squeezed and billions are being given away in corporate tax cuts we should be able to find just £10 million a year for this basic measure.

I want to praise another of my good Welsh comrades, although he lives in England, Mark Serwotka, for his campaign to change to a system of presumed consent for organ donation.

In Wales, you have done that and lives are being saved as a result.

I was so proud to speak alongside Mark at the recent NHS demo in London. It was the first speech he had made for several months, his first public engagement since a successful heart transplant. And I’m glad he’s one of half a million people who are now members of our party.

Deemed consent for organ donation is one just one example of the difference a Labour government makes.

As Nye Bevan said, “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it”. And in Wales you have that faith.

The only country in the UK to show an improvement in ambulance response times.

Improving outcomes for stroke and cancer patients.

And the British Heart Foundation says you’re a “world leader” for cardiac rehabilitation.

And, as NHS budgets are cut in England, the Welsh Labour government found an extra £240 million in their last Budget, taking your combined spending on health and social care 6% higher than in England.

And the Welsh Labour government in Cardiff Bay has achieved so much more.

On Social care you have protected funding and seen delayed discharges fall, unlike in England where under the Tories they have risen by over one-third.

And with Flying Start for early years to help children get the best start in life.

And then there’s your childcare offer of 30 hours a week for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds, free breakfasts for primary school children.

500 extra Police Community Support Officers to keep neighbourhoods safe.

Record rates of recycling, the second best of any country in Europe and the third best in the world. Protecting the environment, and preserving resources, for future generations.

And when the Tories abolished the Agricultural Wages Board the Welsh Labour government established the Agricultural Advisory Panel for Wales to protect wages in the farming sector.

On housing, where you are building homes for those affected by the Tories’ cruel bedroom tax, investing over £200 million in a warm homes scheme to insulate thousands of homes across Wales. And congratulations to Flintshire Labour council building council homes again.

And I also commend your decision to end right-to-buy. When the government in Westminster is only replacing one council home for every six sold off then we know what they’re doing is taking away good housing.

There is so much to be proud of in Labour Wales.

Even constrained by cuts in your block grant what Labour has achieved in Wales stands as a beacon.

A beacon that shines a light on the Tories’ abject failure – socially, economically and morally.

Their never-ending cuts agenda, while giving away £70 billion in the next six years to the rich and big business - that shows their priorities.

Austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity.

Britain’s infrastructure is second rate and falling even further behind other major economies.

This government has an abysmal record; they have failed to modernise the economy whether it’s in broadband, energy, transport or housing.

And, at the same time, they have not done enough to make finance available to the innovative small business sector.

That’s why Labour is committed to establishing a National Investment Bank with regional investment banks for every region of England.

This year the Welsh Labour government is creating the Development Bank for Wales.

With its purpose to create and safeguard over 5,500 jobs a year by 2022.

Providing more than £1 billion of investment support to Welsh business over that period.

This has not come out of the blue. Labour in Wales has nearly two decades’ experience of working with small business and local councils to develop the role of Finance Wales into the Development Bank for Wales.

And my business team at Westminster will take a keen interest in the launch of the Development Bank for Wales and the work it does to generate growth and jobs.

Last week, the Prime Minister twice accused me of wanting to bankrupt Britain by borrowing money to fund investment.

But as every businessperson knows there is a world of difference between borrowing for capital spending and borrowing to fund the payroll and day-to-day trading or service delivery.

And as any homeowner who has ever had a mortgage knows, taking on huge debt can save you money in the long run.

We should not be afraid of debt or borrowing.

At the end of the Second World War, the Labour government of Clement Attlee didn’t say “oh dear debt is 250 per cent of GDP let’s park those grand ideas about public ownership; a National Health Service, building council homes, or creating the protection of social security”.

No. They built a country to be proud of. They established the institutions that made our country fairer, more equal and stopped people being held back.

But people are being held back today, despite your best efforts here in Wales.

Disposable incomes are the lowest in Britain.

Energy bills are the highest in Britain.

One in four Welsh workers earns less than a living wage.

An estimated 90,000 people on zero hours contracts in Wales.

Those facts are the direct consequence of Tory ideology.

An ideology that believes;

That our national assets should be sold off to the highest bidder

That the only industry that matters is the one in the city of London’s square mile

That trade unions should have the most restrictive laws in Europe

That if you cut taxes on the rich and big business it trickles down to us all

And their latest one; you can cut your way to growth and prosperity.

Well Labour rejects every tenet of that failed Tory ideology.

We need a new political settlement and a new economic settlement.

As we leave the European Union, and the process starts next week, it’s time for Labour to set out our agenda, our vision for Britain

So our agenda is about investment, so that we support industries to succeed and create the high skill, high pay and high productivity jobs that have been destroyed in so many communities.

The Tidal lagoon scheme in Swansea that our shadow Business Secretary Becky Long Bailey visited last week, this is a huge opportunity.

To invest to kick-start a whole new industry that will lead to more investment and jobs elsewhere around the UK.

To create tens of thousands of skilled jobs and quality apprenticeships.

To help keep the lights on in this country and meet our energy needs.

And to help decarbonise our economy, and ensure, as Labour has pledged, that 60 per cent of our energy comes from renewable sources by 2030.

So I say to the Tory ministers in London; stop dithering and act now to invest in all our futures.

We know what happens when the government dithers, we saw it with the steel industry last year.

A foundation industry for our country and one which must be supported by a government procurement strategy too.

Because how can it be that under the Tories, the Ministry of Defence is commissioning Nordic steel for our defence needs while the Scottish SNP government is using Chinese steel for the Forth Bridge.

Changing our economy is also about ownership so that we all share in the rewards.

The privatisation of our utilities and our industries was the biggest ever redistribution of wealth in this country to the very richest few.

It gave the privatised industries the green light to hike prices, cut staff and cream off higher profits at all our expense.

Across much of Europe energy and water are being brought into public ownership, whether nationally, regionally or locally.

And when things are run in public ownership then the profits don’t just go to a few wealthy shareholders, they go to us all.

We have to put back minimum standards too, from the labour market to the housing market, the injustice and insecurity have to stop.

Work must pay a living wage. A home must be the bedrock of security for everyone, whether renting, buying or owning.

Security at home - and security at work - are the foundation stones of the good life.

They will underpin Labour’s promise to the country.

The Tories never have and never will promise that because fundamentally they’re on the side of the rogue landlord and the bad employer.

In Westminster last year the Tories voted down a Labour amendment to the Housing Bill that simply would have required homes for rent to be fit for human habitation.

Where Labour councils bring in landlord licensing, the Tories oppose it.

When Labour brought in the minimum wage, the Tories opposed it.

And they continue to attack trade unions because they know that unity is strength. They know that by acting collectively, workers can stand up to bad bosses.

So very simply here’s three things a Labour government will do:

We’ll build the homes that people need to live, not that investors need to make a profit.

We’ll make the minimum wage a real living wage - at least £10 per hour by 2020.

And we’ll repeal the Tories’ Trade Union Act.

Our vision is all the more important as we head towards the uncertainty of Brexit. Uncertain because of the recklessness of Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox. And uncertain because of the complacency of Theresa May and Philip Hammond.

Businesses need reassurance on investment, but they also need, as the Welsh Labour government has demanded “full and unfettered access to the single market”.

The Foreign Secretary says it would not be apocalyptic to leave the European Union without a deal. It would be “perfectly OK”, he says.

Tell that to the Ford workers at Bridgend. Tell that to the Steel workers at Port Talbot. Tell that to the Airbus workers in Broughton.

Their jobs depend on our European exports - to our “full and unfettered access to the single market”.

I know that our shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer and our shadow International Trade Secretary, Barry Gardiner will be working alongside Carwyn, Mark and the team to ensure Labour stands up for people’s jobs, the economy and investment.

The Labour Party has been most successful when we have been at our most united.

Whatever our differences we all know that what unites us is so much more and so much stronger.

And we know that our communities need a Labour council, a Labour mayor and a Labour government.

In Wales this May, Labour is defending over 500 seats in 22 unitary authorities. We lead 12 of those councils -10 outright - and I know Carwyn and all members of the Labour Party in Wales will be united in not only defending those council, but fighting to make gains too, including in Denbighshire.

Whether it’s at the town hall, in Cardiff Bay, or at Westminster- Labour being in power means having someone who is standing up for you.

United we stand, divided we fall.

And united I believe this great party can do great things, together.

Thank you.

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nulawtoronto · 5 years

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Nova Scotia Enacts Presumed Consent For Organ Donation

https://www.northtorontolawyers.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/pexels-photo-236380.jpeg There are many things that people should consider before they die. As estate and trust lawyers, we always remind our clients of the importance of planning for their eventual death by preparing wills and considering other items such as powers of attorney, trusts, and more. One consideration that is important to many, but not often a top topic of conversation is organ donation. Up until this week every province and territory in Canada required people to opt into organ donation. However, just this week, Nova Scotia implemented what is known as presumed consent for organ donation, which means that every adult in the province will automatically be considered an organ donor unless they opt out of doing so. A goal to increase organ donation rates The Human Organ and Tissue Donation Act came into effect on April 2, 2019. It made Nova Scotia the first jurisdiction in North America to have legislation requiring people to opt out of organ donation. Until April 2, Nova Scotians had to opt in as donors when receiving or renewing health cards. The goal of the law is to increase the number of organ donations. According to a press release issued by the province, “In 2018, 21 Nova Scotians became organ donors and 110 donated tissues like corneas and heart valves. There are 110 Nova Scotians waiting for organ transplants.” According to an article by the CBC, Nova Scotia hopes to increase donation rates to above 20% in order to match those found in some European countries. The article states that while 90% of Canadians say they support organ donation, less than 20% have opted into becoming donors. Not everyone supports the change The act won’t take effect for another year. In the meantime, supporters of the law are trying to quell the concerns of people who oppose it for any number of reasons. Some people are critical of the law because it takes away from the individual’s right to choose. Dr. Stephen Beed, medical director for Nova Scotia’s critical care organ donation program told the CBC these critics include those from the Catholic Church, which is supportive of people donating organs, but not supportive of presumed consent because it reduces a person’s ability to make an autonomous decision to give. Meanwhile some other religions have concerns about organ donation, how it is handled, or when someone should be considered dead. Dr. Sam Shemie, who works with Canadian Blood Services, told the CBC that presumed consent captures people who would have opted into organ donation but missed their chance because they died before doing so. But she added, "At the same time, you have to protect people who don't wish to donate. There are legitimate reasons, personal, philosophical, religious for not donating and any presumed consent or opt-out system needs to accommodate those people who do not wish to donate. And that's been the experience in Wales as well is that it's not shoved down people's throats," Contact the experienced family and estate lawyers of Arbesman Hamilton LLP for excellent legal guidance for all of your estate planning needs. We work with our clients to help them achieve their long-term goals and objectives while ensuring protection for their family and loved ones. We can be reached online or by phone at 416-481-5604. Full Article: https://www.northtorontolawyers.ca/nova-scotia-enacts-presumed-consent-organ-donation/

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delightfullyglitterygalaxy-blog · 6 years

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buy research paper online stem cells ethics, research, and regulation Regulation of stem cell research in the United Kingdom, Eurostemcell

The people donating their eggs, sperm or embryos for research provided consent to do so The embryos must not be allowed to develop in the laboratory beyond 14 days after fertilisation No embryo created or used in research can be transferred to a woman When a derived human embryonic stem cell line is fully characterised and cultured to ensure uniform characteristics it is a condition of all Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority research licences that the cell line is deposited in the UK Stem Cell Bank. Regulation of stem cell research in the United Kingdom. I- Research on human stem cells. A) Current legal position. Tissues and cells for research not to be transplanted into humans. An ethical approval for specific research projects. Human tissue held for a specific research project approved by a recognised Research Ethics Committee (REC) (or where approval is pending). The ethical approval is delivered by a Research Ethics Committee (REC) and it must be applied for using the guidance provided by National Research Ethics Service (NRES) at the Health Research Authority. Tissue banks that have been approved by a REC can provide human tissues to researchers, whom do not need to store them under a Human Tissue Authority licence during the period of the research project, subject to certain requirements. However, specific project approval by a recognised REC will be required, or the samples will need to be stored under a Human Tissue Authority licence, if the research is not carried out in accordance with these requirements. A Human Tissue Authority establishment licence for human tissue stored outside a specific research project. An establishment licence delivered by the Human Tissue Authority is required to remove and store human material for research in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Human Tissue Authority provides a detailed list of what is to be considered as ‘relevant material’ under the Human Tissue Act 2004, and as such regulated by the Human Tissue Authority for research notably: List of Relevant Material. The Human Tissue Authority’s licensing role covers licensing premises to store tissue from the living and licensed establishments for tissue to be removed from the deceased for research. From a person who died prior to 1st September 2006 and at least one hundred years have elapsed since their death Being held ‘incidental to transportation’ for a period no longer than a week Being held whilst it is processed with the intention to extract DNA or RNA, or other subcellular components that are not relevant material (i.e. If research is undertaken under REC approval from a recognised REC at an establishment that does not operate as a research tissue bank And other cases (See Part 2. A Designated Individual (DI) has to be appointed in each licensed establishment. The DI has a statutory responsibility under the HT Act to supervise activities taking place under the licence.... View more ...

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charissa-comm-blog · 7 years

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Making a choice about organ donation will save lives

D66 made a new law that makes it mandatory for everyone who is eighteen or older to register whether they want to be an organ donor or not. If they do not, they are automatically an organ donor. This got me thinking. I talked to my boyfriend about it and he told me that he is not an organ donor because he does not know his DigiD code, which you need to register, and he is too lazy to ask for a new one. He does want to be an organ donor though. I also do, and I found myself guilty of not being registered because it wasn’t at the top of my to-do list. This is why I think the new law by D66 is an effective law since many people are not registered even though they want to be an organ donor and this helps people to take action. I am going to illustrate how this can save numerous human lives.

2016 was not a positive year for organ donation in the Netherlands. 11% less organs were donated compared to 2015. Many people do not register as organ donors because they are lax. This is often because they do want to be an organ donor but it is not a priority so they never get to it. This results in the loss of human lives that didn’t have to be lost in the first place. A research that the ‘Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek‘ did in 2012 proved that 38% of the people that are not registered as an organ donor, indeed want to be an organ donor. 11 million people have not made a choice yet which means that the 38% I mentioned earlier represents 4.180.000 people. I don’t know how to translate that to how many organ transplantations can take place if all these people had been registered, but I can imagine that it is a lot and that is unfortunate.

Take responsibility Because of this new law by D66, everybody has to make the choice for themselves whether they want to be an organ donor or not once they turn eighteen. Without this law and them being ‘forced’ to make a choice, people often do not make any choice at all and let other people (deliberately or not) decide for them. In this case, this will be the doctor or next of kin. Dr. André Baranski, transplantation surgeon at the ‘Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum’, stated in LUMC’s annual report of 2015 that people often do not want to talk about whether they want to be an organ donor or not within the family circle. When someone suddenly dies, the next of kin often does not know what they should do and have to make a difficult decision in this already difficult time. An example is Anjo van der Mortel. She had to make the choice for her braindead husband. She feels like she did not get a proper goodbye right now because of it. It all happened fast because the doctors have to act fast and her husband died on the operation table instead of with her. She believes that you can not imagine what kind of impact this has on the next of kin until you are put in this position yourself. This is why it will cost less stress for the next of kin if you were to have made this choice for yourself and the next of kin will probably have more peace with it.

Save more lives It would save more lives if everyone has to make a choice. More people would register as an organ donor if they had to make a choice. The more people are registered, the more human lives will be saved. In Wales and Spain there are laws that are similar to the one proposed by D66 and there it does provide more organ donors. Menno Loos, the chairman of ‘Stichting 2 Miljoen Handtekeningen’, said that in Spain there are 36 organ donors a year per one million inhabitants and in the Netherlands there are only sixteen. Currently there are more than a thousand people on the waitlist for a donated organ. 150 patients a year die while being on that waitlist because the donated organ comes too late. Also about 100 people a year get off the waitlist because their conditions get so bad that an organ donation can not save them anymore.

Altogether, it is wonderful that D66 made this new law that everyone who has reached the age of eighteen is an organ donor unless you explicitly state that you don’t want to. Nowadays people do not put any effort in registering themselves as an organ donor while they want to be. They also often leave the choice up to others which put them in a difficult position. Making it mandatory to register if you want to be an organ donor or not saves human lives. I registered the moment I finished writing this blog. I hope you will do the same.

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paulflynnunrevised · 7 years

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Welsh life saving reform for England

On Monday, my Private Members Bill will be introduced, seeking to extend the Welsh system of deemed consent for organ donation to England.

The Bill has received cross-party support from English, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs eager to see the system implemented. The Welsh Soft opt out scheme has been responsible for the saving of 39 lives. An English equivalent is long overdue.

Below is a copy of the EDM I have tabled, a list of the Bills supporters as well as information on the effect of the scheme in Wales.

EDM 852

Organ Donation Presumed Consent

This House congratulates the Welsh Government on the introduction of presumed consent for organ donation in Wales; notes that 39 lives have been saved in the past year; is concerned that the UK has one of the lowest rates of organ donation consent in Europe; notes the UK target to increase organ donation consent rates to 80% by 2020; further notes the model successes of presumed consent in Wales which could be replicated across the UK to increase numbers of organs available for donation.

Those who have agreed to sponsor the Bill are as follows:

Paul Blomfield

Michael Fabricant

Kerry McCarthy

Kate Green

Mike Wood

Siobhain McDonagh

Mark Durkan

Dr Philippa Whitford

Danny Kinahan

Dan Jarvis

Yvonne Fovargue

Helen Hayes

Kelvin Hopkins

Ronnie Cowan

In England, in order to donate your organs, you must ‘opt in’. That is you must take the positive step to state that upon your death, you would like to donate your organs to another. In Wales, following the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013, the system is now different. People living in Wales now have three choices:

If you want to be a donor, you can either register to be a donor (opt in) on the NHS Organ Donor Register or do nothing

If you do nothing, we will regard you as having no objection to donating your organs. This is called deemed consent.

If you do not want to be a donor, you can register not to be a donor (opt out) on the NHS Organ Donor Register

It is important to note that this law does not mean that people who feel strongly about not donating must now do so. In fact, the opposite is true. If you feel strongly about not donating your organs you can ‘opt out’ of the system, or appoint a representative to decide this on your behalf when you die.

This Bill would reconcile the position in England, with that of Wales.

Why did Wales change the law?

In 2014-15, 14 people died in Wales while waiting for a transplant.

Organ Donation is rare. Less than 1% of people in Wales die in a way that allows organ donation to take place. In 2014 31,439 people died in Wales. Around 250 of these died in a way that would have allowed them to become a potential organ donor. In 2014/15 only 72 people became organ donors.

Another reason for the shortage is that many families say no to organ donation if they don’t know if their loved one wanted to donate.

The new system will be clearer for everyone. If family members are approached about organ donation, they will know that their loved could have opted out but chose not to.[1]

The Law in Wales and its effects

Wales moved to a soft ‘opt-out’ system for organ donation on 1 December 2015.

9 out of 10 people support organ donation, but only 3 out of 10 people in Wales had put their names on the Organ Donor Register. Under the soft opt out system, if you have not registered a clear organ donation decision (opt-in or opt-out), you will be treated as having no objection to being an organ donor. This is called ‘deemed consent'.

It is called a soft opt-out system because your family will always be involved in all discussions about donation. They will need to be present to answer questions about your health, lifestyle and where you lived. They could also say if they knew you did not want to be an organ donor. If your family or appointed representatives cannot be contacted, donation will not proceed.

Deemed consent means that if you do not register a clear decision either to be an organ donor (opt in) or not to be a donor (opt out), you will be treated as having no objection to being a donor. Deemed consent applies to people over the age of 18 who live and die in Wales. Deemed consent does not apply to living donation. Deemed consent only applies to people over the age of 18. When children reach a point that they can understand organ donation they can record their decision on the register or appoint someone to make organ donation decisions on their behalf if they wish to do so. Until they can understand organ donation, the decision to donate, or not donate, falls to a child's parents or guardians. Parents and guardians can register a decision on behalf of their children if the child is unable to understand organ donation.

The Statistics surrounding organ donation

There are presently 6,599 people waiting on the organ donation waiting list in the United Kingdom. In 2015/16, the figure was 6,463. Yet in 2015/16, there were only 4,605 organ transplants in the UK.[2] Approximately, 71.3%.

In Wales during the same period there were 192 patients on the organ donation waiting list, yet 214 organ transplants. That is 111%.

The figures for Wales prior to the ‘opt out’ system showed that 220 patients were on the active organ transplant waiting lists, yet only 173 organ transplants took place. 78.6% of necessary donations.[3] Although this was still above the UK average, the rise in just one year, as a result of the new law is remarkable.

For context, in England for the same period there were 5,567 patients on the active list, yet only 3,808 organ transplants took place.[4] That is 68%.

Although numbers of donors naturally fluctuate year on year, the Welsh Government says it is confident that earlier hopes of a 25% increase in the number of donors will be reached in future. According to the Welsh Government, only 6% have ‘opted out’ since the changes in the law took effect.

What does your religion say on the subject of organ donation?

Religion

In favour/Against

Buddhism

In favour

Christianity

in favour

Hinduism

in favour

Islam

Views both for and against

Judaism

In favour

Sikhism

In favour

The links above provide information from sources within all of the worlds’ six major religions. Making a donation is an individual’s choice. But it can be seen differently even in the same religious groups. If you have any doubt, get guidance from a senior teacher in your community.

The proposed soft opt out system would not be contradictory to religion or individual choice, as the system allows you to opt out without giving a reason. Your individual and religious freedoms are protected by your personal ability to opt out of the system.

The real difference to everyday life

Cabinet Secretary for Health in the Welsh Government has said "There's a much greater awareness of organ donation itself. More people are having those conversations with their loved ones about whether they want to opt in or to simply leave it as a point of deemed consent. It makes a real difference then to have that conversation at that point in time when it becomes a possibility and makes it much easier for health staff too."

Consultant Dr Chris Hingston, clinical lead for organ donation at University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, said:

"We've seen a big impact at the bedside in terms of families approaching us to ask about organ donation, but equally families when we asked them if their loved ones wished to become a donor actually know the wishes. Even if that's not to become a donor, so they're refusing, but they're confident that that's the right decision for their loved ones. As a clinician that's all I ever wanted - that there wasn't a grey area where there's indecision and difficulty for families."

Real life change

Bill, 67, was admitted to the critical care unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff after suffering a stroke and a fall. His daughter Karen said: "Dad had talked about organ donation.

"It's the last serious conversation that we'd had, not knowing that in a few weeks time, that was going to have to happen. It was his decision and I wasn't going to challenge it because it was his decision. I think I would have coped with it a lot worse if I hadn't have had the transplant to focus on. It's like he still had a job to do, even though he couldn't do anything, he was still doing something. He was looking after those organs before they could be given to somebody else. It's made losing him easier because it's like something good has come out of it, and I can't think of any other circumstance when someone dies that something good comes out of it. It's quite a negative final thing, whereas, for dad, it still doesn't feel final because parts of him are living on in someone else. Nothing's going to make up for losing my dad. But it makes it a little bit easier to swallow knowing that he's gone on to help other people. He's always been my hero, even more so now."

The kidney donations helped transform the lives of two people.

Other real stories about organ donation in Wales are available here.

[1] http://ift.tt/1XDhIo5

[2] http://ift.tt/2jgg69X

[3] http://ift.tt/2jrTelp

[4] http://ift.tt/2jgaaOn

automatically copied from Paul Flynn - Read My Day http://ift.tt/2js1Ys2 (hopefully before Mr Flynn has revised it).

#imports

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