Psychiatry professor is being investigated: Kings College in London has set up a review after two medical journals retracted articles by psychiatrist Raj Persaud. Professor Persaud has stood down from his position as the director of the Centre for Public Engagement in Mental Health Sciences at the college's Institute of Psychiatry pending the investigation. He is employed by the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.
Deaths from heart disease in England and Wales fall: Deaths from coronary heart disease in England and Wales fell by 8% between 2003 and 2004, from 1204 per million population in 2003 to 1104 in 2004, according to the Office for National Statistics (www.statistics.gov.uk).
Woman challenges refusal to treatment with Herceptin in court: A woman with breast cancer has won the right to challenge in the UK high court a decision by her local NHS trust to refuse her treatment with the drug trastuzumab (Herceptin). A judge has ordered Swindon primary care trust to fund the treatment for 53 year old Ann Marie Rogers until a full court hearing.
Third person dies of avian flu in China: The Ministry of Health in China has confirmed its seventh human case of H5N1 avian influenza. The case is the country's third death from bird flu and one of 71 deaths from the disease in Asia since 2004.
Libya lifts death sentences on jailed health workers: Libya's supreme court has overturned death sentences on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of deliberately infecting almost 400 Libyan children with HIV. The six, who denied the charges and claimed that they were tortured to extract confessions, were jailed in 1999.
Mental health services need radical changes: A report from the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health has called for an overhaul of mental health services in England. It also says that teaching children about mental health should be part of the school curriculum by 2015.