On today’s Irish Times website there’s an article saying that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) has suggested that children who develop swine flu symptoms should be given a face mask by their parents to help prevent them spreading the virus to other family members.

The chief executive of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), Tom Boland, has said that the recent controversy about the HPAT (Health Professions Admissions Test) exam showed ‘a surprising unwillingness to contemplate any other form of assessment of achievement other than the Leaving Certificate’ and has suggested that similar tests be used to assess candidates for other third-level courses.

The Government has failed to honour a pledge to merge a number of bodies into the HSE, Fine Gael has claimed.

Research funding of €20.

A major international conference to be held in St Vincent’s University Hospital next month will focus on colorectal cancer, the costs of associated treatments and maximising funding.

Legislation banning the use of sunbeds for people under 18 is long overdue, and Taoiseach Brian Cowen could have done something about it as Minister for Health, according to Alan Shatter TD, FG Spokesperson on Children.

Terence Cosgrave writes that Ireland faces an obesity crisis in the coming years and that we are unlikely to see any initiatives to deal with the problem at official level until it’s too late {openx:269} The recent Irish Medical Times survey of GPs provided some very interesting answers.

Niamh Mullen examines the results of the latest IMT survey of GPs on issues such as the legalisation of cannabis {openx:269} The Irish Medical Times GP survey (the results of which were published in last week’s issue) provides a ‘snapshot in time’ of the views of Irish general practitioners on a range of issues, often with surprising results.

In the second part of a major investigation, Dara Gantly examines the options available to detect and filter out variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease from blood donations.

Diabetes was cured or significantly improved in more than 80 per cent of patients who underwent obesity surgery, an Irish/British study has found.