As White House takes aim at medical missions, SVG says it gave US proof that workers aren’t human-trafficking victims

The prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) said his government has provided evidence to the US that Cuban health workers in the country are not victims of human trafficking, as the Trump administration takes aim at the medical missions.

Speaking in advance of US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s visit to the Caribbean on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said he was confident that the information he provided would settle US concerns about the deal under which Cuban medical professionals work in SVG.

Mumsnet says guidance seems ‘wildly optimistic’ and NCT says parents could come to harm following it

Childbirth groups have reacted angrily to advice that new mothers should take two hours of exercise a week and avoid using screens before bedtime in the three months after their baby’s birth.

Mumsnet, the social network, said that the recommendations – which also include daily pelvic-floor exercises – “seem wildly optimistic about what looking after a newborn entails”.

Do at least two hours of moderate to vigorous exercise a week, such as cycling, brisk walking or muscle-strengthening exercises, spread over four or more days.

Do daily pelvic-floor muscle training.

Avoid screen time and “maintain a dark, quiet environment before bed” to help ensure they sleep better.

Expeditions may be more challenging than previously thought due to presence of toxic particles

From a distance Mars looks beautiful, but sending astronauts to explore the planet might be more challenging than first thought, due to the presence of toxic dust. A new study identifies some of the health hazards and discusses the kind of personal protective equipment that astronauts might need.

During Apollo missions to the moon, astronauts suffered from exposure to lunar dust. It clung to spacesuits and seeped into the lunar landers, causing coughing, runny eyes and irritated throats. Studies showed that chronic health effects would result from prolonged exposure. Martian dust isn’t as sharp and abrasive as lunar dust, but it does have the same tendency to stick to everything, and the fine particles (about 4% the width of a human hair) can penetrate deep into lungs and enter the bloodstream. Toxic substances in the dust include silica, gypsum and various metals.

Resentment is natural when you’ve been wronged, but over time it can become bitter and self-defeating. Psychologists explain how to move on

At some point in the late 70s, during a Brownies meeting, something happened to Deborah that she has never been able to forget. Well, she can’t actually remember exactly what the incident was, but she knows the perpetrator – another girl, who still lives in her town. “I think she might have pushed me,” says Deborah. “I think she might have said something mean to me.” Whatever it was, she has held a “deep grudge against her for 46 years”.

It affected her deeply at the time. Deborah (not her real name) had been bullied at school, but says she doesn’t hold grudges against those people. Brownies was different – it was supposed to be a safe, happy place, and this girl ruined it for her. It hasn’t had a huge impact on her life, but the grudge – and the negative association – seeps into her mind every time she spots the woman. “It happens quite a lot.” She might bump into her in a shop or drive past her. “She’s always been a shadow in my life.”

Regulator finds people spending money on acupuncture and drugs when undergoing IVF or donor insemination

Almost three-quarters of people undergoing fertility treatment in the UK are using “unproven extras” to increase their chances of having a baby, despite little evidence that they work.

The findings, from the UK’s fertility watchdog, mean that about 40,000 people a year wanting to conceive are spending money on acupuncture, supplements and drugs, even though they are largely unproven.

Some patients are facing increasingly long waits for care, of up to two years, especially for NHS fertility treatment.

51% of patients who used donor sperm got it from abroad, where rules on the maximum number of families that can be created by one donor are looser than in the UK.

While 73% of patients are satisfied with their fertility treatment, Asian and black patients are less likely to be satisfied.

At Guardian Live event, health secretary says Israel’s decision to break Gaza ceasefire is ‘soul-destroying’ and ‘cannot be justified’

Israel’s attacks on Gaza are “unjustifiable” and “intolerable”, Wes Streeting has said, as the health secretary expressed discomfort at images of bombs shattering the region that has been under threat by the Israelis “for many years”.

Streeting said he found Israel’s decision to break the Gaza ceasefire “soul-destroying”, and insisted the attacks do not “serve in Israel’s self-interest and cannot be justified as self-defence”, adding: “It has got to stop.”

Experts said my headaches and vertigo were just anxiety. Then one neurologist helped me feel hopeful again

Soon after my first child was born in 2012, I woke up every morning with a pulsating pain in my head and a disorienting feeling, like the floor was shifting beneath my feet. I’d stumble to the bathroom, popping Tylenol and Tums, but they only offered temporary relief. As a new mom, I struggled to care for myself while also looking after a tiny human. At first, I thought my frequent throbbing headaches, relentless nausea and debilitating vertigo were normal for postpartum life.

Then, everything became a trigger. At live concerts, loud music made my ears ring, my neck tighten and the room spin. So I stopped going. At playgrounds, seesaws and merry-go-rounds made me queasy. At happy hours with other moms, my hands went numb, fearing alcohol would set off an episode, leaving me unable to drive home. So I avoided those places, too.

UK Health Security Agency’s tool highlights viruses and bacteria, many not yet seen in the country, that could pose biosecurity risk

Deadly disease-causing organisms from pathogen families that include bird flu, plague and Ebola pose a threat to health in the UK and should be prioritised for research, government experts have said.

The first tool of its kind from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) lists 24 types of viruses and bacteria where a lack of vaccines, tests and treatment, changes due to the climate crisis or growing drug resistance pose a biosecurity risk.

What is life like with – and after – long Covid? Helen Pidd reports

“I think he actually got it while he was climbing on a climbing trip. And it was bad, but it wasn’t awful.”

James first caught Covid-19 in April 2022 and as his partner Emma explains to Helen Pidd, it was not until months later that the severity of his infection became apparent. He became unable to get up and walk and was hypersensitive to noise and light.

The Nidus haemodialysis device has undergone a successful clinical trial, but there is a lack of funding to get it through regulatory approval, write Dr Heather Lambert and Dr Malcolm Coulthard

We too found the “outside the box” thinking in Alexander Masters’ long read (Many life-saving drugs fail for lack of funding. But there’s a solution: desperate rich people, 11 March) interesting. And we concur with Prof Roger Bayston’s views on the problems getting innovative devices into commercial production, through regulatory hurdles, and into clinical use (Letters, 17 March).

These problems are compounded when the novel device is aimed at treatment for a rare disease or a small subsection of a more common problem, in our case the development of a haemodialysis device for treating small babies. This device, the Newcastle infant dialysis and ultrafiltration system (Nidus), was invented in response to parent pressure to “do something” when newborn babies undergoing major surgery (often for congenital abnormalities like abdominal or heart conditions) went into kidney failure and needed haemodialysis to keep them alive and allow time for their own kidneys to recover.

Approach could herald new way of delivering drugs, beyond birth control, over long periods of time

Researchers are developing an injection that creates a contraceptive implant in the body using an approach that could herald a new way of delivering drugs over long periods of time.

Current contraceptive implants last for years, meaning women do not have to take a pill every day, but the devices must be fitted by a trained professional via a small surgical procedure. Contraceptive injections are already available but they have limitations, including that they last for only three months.

My father, David Williams, who has died aged 98, served as general secretary of the Confederation of Health Service Employees (Cohse, now part of Unison) trade union from 1983 until 1987.

He was a staunch defender of the NHS and a passionate member of the Labour party, and was honoured to serve on the party’s national executive committee from 1981 to 1983; he had many roles during his career, including being a special adviser for the World Health Organization. His tenure in the top post of Cohse was during the turbulent years of the Thatcher government, and he never avoided crossing swords with people when it was crucial to do so.

Health officials love whole grains. But are they really superior to refined-grain foods like white rice, bread and pasta?

• How much do you spend on health and wellness a month?

Health officials love whole grains. In the US, dietary guidelines recommend that at least half of a person’s total grain intake be whole grains, and to “limit the intake of refined grains”. In the UK, the National Health Service says that starches should account for about a third of a person’s food intake, and that a person “choose high fiber or whole grain varieties”.

But are whole grains really superior to refined grain products like white rice, bread and pasta?

The biggest area of risk – in terms of lives lost and cost – involves NHS maternity units. Organisation upheaval must not distract us from what matters most

I was the health secretary when NHS England was set up. Although there are advantages to depoliticising operational decisions, it has led to massive and counterproductive overcentralisation. The NHS has become the most micromanaged healthcare system in the world. Hospital chief executives are frequently working to more than 100 operational targets, making innovation and longer-term change impossible. GPs have about 80 of them. So as long as scrapping NHS England does not mean replacing bureaucratic overcentralisation with political overcentralisation, Wes Streeting is on the right track.

But I am worried about something else being missed. In the huge blizzard of organisational change, there is a risk of eyes going off the ball when it comes to broader patient safety risks. In December, the charity I set up, Patient Safety Watch, published a report put together by a team of people at Imperial College London led by Prof Ara Darzi. It suggested that if our standards were as high as the top 10% of OECD countries, every year fewer patients would die. Twelve out of 22 patient safety metrics have been going in the wrong direction in the past two years. It is a wake-up call about the tragedy of avoidable death, highlighted magnificently by Merope Mills in her successful campaign for Martha’s rule after the tragic loss of her daughter.

H5N1 virus found in single animal in Yorkshire but risk to general public is very low, say experts

Bird flu has been detected in sheep for the first time in the world, UK experts have announced, although they stress the risk to livestock and the general public is low.

The H5N1 virus was detected in a single animal in Yorkshire, England, after routine testing that was carried out because the flock was kept on a site where avian influenza had previously been found in birds. No other sheep in the flock was found to be infected.

Families are taking out lines of credit, working second jobs, commuting for hours and forgoing careers. It doesn’t need to be this way, experts say

• Here’s how much I pay for childcare – and what I’d do instead if it were free

Almost 20 years ago, Danielle Atkinson was invited to interview for a job on a national political campaign. It was a dream role, and although it would mean leaving Michigan, Atkinson felt the opportunity was worth it.

Then, she learned she was pregnant. It was a surprise – she and her husband had planned to focus on their careers before starting their family – but one that was welcome and exciting. But once she learned how expensive it would be to enroll her baby in full-time care, Atkinson made a difficult decision. “I was like: ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to be near a support system,’” she said, recalling her decision to decline the interview and remain in Michigan, where her extended family could help with care. “I had to take a step back from my career to have the baby.”

We all have a tendency to get caught in an emotional web of our own making. When we recognise and accept that, we can learn to fly

During lockdown, I was sitting on my balcony in the sunshine one morning when I witnessed a brutal killing. I heard a loud, mechanical-sounding buzz behind me and went to investigate. I found a fly caught in a web, buzzing and shaking, fighting to escape. I watched as a spider darted from one side of its prey to the other and back again, using its legs to wrap its silk round and round the fly. At first, the fly seemed to buzz more and more loudly and shake more and more vigorously. The spider, undeterred, efficiently and precisely tightened its prison. I watched in disturbed fascination as the buzzing grew quieter and the movements weaker, until the fly fell still and silent. The spider’s work was done.

This memory resurfaces more often than I would like it to. I think it has stuck so powerfully because I recognise within myself the prey and its predator: the lively emotions that want to fight and fly; and the part that seeks to extinguish them, instinctively, silently and with no mercy.

As measles sickens hundreds and health secretary RFK Jr spreads dubious information, experts sound the alarm

As vaccine hesitancy increases in the US, isolated, tight-knit and religious communities have frequently been at the center of high-profile outbreaks.

Such is the case in west Texas, where a rural community is the center of an expanding measles outbreak that has already claimed the lives of two Americans – the first deaths from the disease in nearly a decade.

Neurosafe procedure allows doctors to remove prostate while preserving as much nerve tissue around it as possible

A more precise form of prostate cancer surgery nearly doubles the chances of men retaining erectile function afterwards compared with standard surgery, according to the first comprehensive trial of the procedure.

Doctors in five UK hospitals assessed the surgical approach that aims to preserve crucial nerves that run through the outer layer of the prostate and are thought to be responsible for producing erections.

Participants in pain management programme said singing and breathing exercises eased their symptoms

Wales is famed as the land of song, the music of the valleys and mountains providing a source of pride, joy and a sense of belonging.

But a pioneering project led by Welsh National Opera has suggested music can also help people suffering with persistent pain.