Police chiefs issue drugs warning

22 July 2011 Last updated at 23:12 GMT PMMA is a stimulant, similar in its effect to ecstasy A highly-toxic class-A drug is being sold in Scotland, according to senior police officers.

ParaMethoxyMethylAmphetamine (PMMA) has been found in tablets which look like ecstasy.

The substance has also been found in drugs being sold as "legal highs" in Scotland.

The Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland said it had recovered quantities of PMMA after a series of raids.

It has been produced in pink tablets with a Rolex crown logo, and in white tablets with a four-leaf clover logo.

PMMA has also been recovered in powder form and police said it may also be present in other products and tablets.

Det Insp Tommy Crombie, of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "PMMA is a stimulant similar to ecstasy but it is not as potent.

"Users... may be tempted to take more tablets to achieve the desired effect, increasing the risk of a potentially fatal overdose.

"I would strongly advise drug users to avoid such products and follow harm reduction advice where necessary."

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Warning over child liver disease

3 July 2011 Last updated at 08:32 GMT By Dominic Hughes Health correspondent, BBC News Fatty Liver Disease can lead to problems like heart attack, stroke, diabetes and even cirrhosis Some 500,000 children in England may be at risk of developing life-threatening liver disease because they are overweight, a health adviser has said.

Professor Martin Lombard, England's National Clinical Director for Liver Disease, says the four to 14-year-olds could develop "fatty liver disease".

Too much fat in liver cells stops the liver from working properly, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

It can also lead to diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver later in life.

Cirrhosis - scarring of the liver - is commonly associated with alcohol abuse, but it can also be caused by obesity.

Professor Lombard bases his projections on figures from the National Child Measurement Programme.

He warns that up to 60,000 10 year olds "could be at risk" of having excessive fat in the liver while they are children, leading to serious health problems when they get older.

When looking at a broader age range, children aged four to 14, the figures are even more stark, with Professor Lombard estimating that 500,000 are potentially at risk.

'Silent killer'

While the rate of increase in childhood obesity seems to be flattening out, the total number of overweight children is still very high.

Government figures for child obesity in England in the school year 2009/10 showed that nearly a fifth of children in reception class (aged four) were obese or overweight.

Professor Martin Lombard: "The biggest risk factor is being overweight"

Among Year 6 children (10 to 11-year-olds) the figure was one in three.

Professor Lombard warns that "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease" could be a silent killer among this generation of children.

"The unfortunate problem with liver disease is you don't get any symptoms at all until it's at an advanced stage. So you get cirrhosis and then you have complications that arise from that cirrhosis which can be very serious.

"So it's not until that late stage that you get any symptoms at all.

"Parents should be concerned about children who are overweight as they will be at risk of developing fatty liver.

"If they don't become more active and lose the weight as they go on, then they become overweight adults and have a range of other risk factors as well."

Sarah Matthews, spokesperson of the British Liver Trust, said: "Children's livers are being cultivated for disease by a poor diet and lack of exercise.

"Even though alcohol is regarded as the key cause of liver disease in the UK, weight-related liver damage is set to become a huge public health problem where, if the projections hold true, obesity could overtake alcohol as the biggest single driver of cirrhosis in the future.

"Too much alcohol and fatty foods, coupled with a lack of symptoms, means that liver disease is becoming difficult to ignore and is already costing the NHS millions each year.

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Children's livers are being cultivated for disease by a poor diet and lack of exercise.”

End Quote Sarah Matthews British Liver Trust "The number of people affected by liver disease and the health costs are set to soar, particularly with the growing number of young people who are overweight and obese."

Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum, said concern about obesity had to focus more on its internal consequences.

"One of the real terrible things about this particular condition [liver disease] - and other conditions which are internal - is that you can see obesity from the outside but you can't see it from the inside," she said.

"What you have to understand is that the fat that you're ingesting not only clogs around the arteries and the organs but also infiltrates them as well. And that is the killer."

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Bomb warning received in London

16 May 2011 Last updated at 18:51 GMT Streets around the Mall were shut for five hours on Monday morning A bomb threat for London has been issued by Irish dissidents in the first coded warning outside Northern Ireland in 10 years, officials say.

Whitehall officials said the call with the coded warning came from a number in the Irish Republic on Sunday evening.

The threat level for Northern Ireland-related terrorism, which stands at severe, has not been changed.

Streets around the Mall were closed on Monday morning in a security alert which police said was unrelated.

The warning comes ahead of the Queen's historic visit to the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday, amid a massive security operation.

Vigilance urged

The Metropolitan Police said the threat was not specific regarding location or time.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said in a statement: "All officers have been advised to be highly vigilant to ensure the safety of London."

The public were urged to go about their normal business but to look out for "unusual activity or behaviour".

Earlier on Monday, The Mall and Carlton House Terrace were closed after a security alert was sparked by a break-in at Carlton Gardens.

The break-in is thought to have taken place at 2 Carlton Gardens, which houses the Institute for Government think tank.

That is adjacent to the foreign secretary's residence, where William Hague is believed to have been at the time.

'Within the know'

Pictures from the scene showed a van of search dogs, and the Met's underwater and confined spaces search team.

Roads around Northumberland Avenue were also closed while a bag was destroyed in a controlled explosion. The roads have now re-opened.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said that the call with the coded bomb threat "was not directly related to the break-in near the foreign secretary's house in Carlton Gardens or the abandoned suitcase near Trafalgar Square, but both were taken very seriously in the light of the bomb threat."

BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the level of security in the Republic of Ireland would make it difficult for dissidents to disrupt the Queen's trip there.

"There was always a concern that timed with the visit there was the possibility of something happening in Northern Ireland, or perhaps in Britain," he said.

'Real, serious threat'

The former security minister, Lord West, said that if a coded message was being used, then it would have come from someone "within the know, within the circle".

He added: "We know very well that this very, very tiny number of dissidents who can cause mayhem way beyond the scale of the numbers there, are absolutely set on trying to revert to the bloodshed, mayhem and bloody massacres of the past."

A Home Office spokesman said the UK faced a "real and serious threat from terrorism".

"The threat level to Great Britain from Northern Irish-related terrorism remains at substantial, which means that an attack is a strong possibility.

"There is a continuing need for vigilance and the public should report any suspicious activity to the police."

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