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A memorial concert will be held later in London to celebrate the life of Boyzone
singer Stephen Gately.
Some 1,000 friends, family and fans will attend the event at the Palace Theatre,
which has been organised by Gately’s partner Andrew Cowles.
Singers including Beverley Knight are expected to perform and actor Sir Ian
McKellen will read a poem.
The Irish star, 33, died of natural causes on 10 October at his holiday home on
the island of Majorca.
More than 3,000 people gathered outside St Laurence O’Toole’s church in Dublin
last month to pay their respects at the singer’s funeral.
Gately’s parents Martin and Margaret and siblings Michelle, Mark, Alan and Tony
are expected to attend the private concert on Sunday night.
It will be hosted by actor and entertainer Christopher Biggins and will feature a
musical tribute from the remaining members of Boyzone – Ronan Keating, Mikey
Graham, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch.
Other singers including Liz McClarnon, Lee Ryan and Chesney Hawkes will also take
to the stage, along with the cast of West End musical Joseph, in which Gately
starred.
Tributes are also expected from Cherie Blair, and comedians Paul O’Grady, Matt
Lucas, Graham Norton and Alan Carr.

US scientists are testing a radical new theory that multiple sclerosis (MS) is
caused by blockages in the veins that drain the brain.
The University of Buffalo team were intrigued by the work of Italian researcher Dr
Paolo Zamboni who claims 90% of MS is caused by narrowed veins.
He says the restricted drainage, visible on scans, injures the brain leading to
MS.
He has already widened the blockages in a handful of patients.
The US team want to replicate his earlier work before treating patients.
Experts welcomed the research saying it was important to confirm the basic science
before evaluating any therapy.
MS is a long-term inflammatory condition of the central nervous system which
affects the transfer of messages from the nervous system to the rest of the body.
The Buffalo team, led by Dr Robert Zivadinov, plan to recruit 1,100 patients with
MS and 600 other volunteers as controls who are either healthy or have
neurological diseases other than MS.
Using Doppler ultrasound, they will scan the patients to see if they can find any
blockages within the veins of the neck and brain.
If they can prove Dr Zamboni’s theory of “chronic cerebrospinal venous
insufficiency”, they say it will change our understanding of MS.
Margaret Paroski, who is chief medical officer at Kaleida Health, where the
Buffalo researchers are based, said the work could overturn prevailing wisdom that
the damage in MS is predominantly the result of abnormal immune responses.

The global number of swine flu deaths has jumped by more than 1,000 in a week,
latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show.
At least 7,826 people are now known to have died following infection with the H1N1
virus since it first emerged in Mexico in April.
Europe saw an 85% increase in the week, with the total number of deaths rising
from at least 350 to at least 650.
However, in most cases the virus continues to produce mild symptoms.
An overwhelming majority of patients usually recover, even without medical
treatment, within a week.
The biggest rise in deaths was recorded in the Americas, where the death toll rose
to 5,360 – a rise of 554 cases in one week.
Health authorities in Norway and France have each recorded two fatalities from a
mutated strain of H1N1.
China, Japan, Norway, Ukraine and the US have also recorded cases of people being
infected with a mutated strain.
French health officials confirmed that two patients infected by a mutation that
was also recently detected in Norway had died in two different cities in France.
“This mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory
tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue,” said a statement from the
government’s Health Surveillance Institute.

New discoveries into how the body clock works could provide clues to help combat
jet lag, research suggests.
A University of Manchester team studied special cells which they say play an
important role in regulating a person’s body clock.
The cells had been thought to be inactive during the day – but their research
found the opposite is true.
It is hoped the findings may also pave the way to combating sleep disorders
triggered by body clock malfunctions.
Professor Hugh Piggins, an expert in neuroscience at the university, said the
research will allow a new approach to being able to tune our daily clock.
The Manchester research turns on its head the idea that the brain keeps the body
clock on track by firing more cells during daylight and very few during the night.
“The traditional model said the clock and the brain communicated to the rest of
the brain via the number of electrical impulses that the brain cells were
producing,” Prof Piggins told the BBC World Service’s Health Check programme.
“These impulses would travel around the brain, telling it what time of day it is.
“What we’ve found is in fact that there are at least two types of cells in this
part of the brain.”
These brain cells behave unlike any other cell seen so far, and contain a key gene
- per1 – which allows them to sustain unusually high levels of “excitability”.
The cells becoming so “excited” that they seem quiet or even dead; but then later
they calm down, recover and become normally active again.
It is this activity which tells the human body when to be awake.
Prof Piggins added: “There’s a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry,
obviously, to try to develop chemical treatments to reset your daily clock to help
counteract things like jetlag.
“Or, perhaps more importantly, different kind of sleep disorders for which
dysfunctions in this clock are often involved.”
This study marks the first time these “quiet” cells have been studied.
“This may mean that elsewhere in the brain there are cells like this that can also
survive these very unusual conditions.”

Twelve NHS hospital trusts in England are “significantly underperforming”, a
report has said, despite eight recently having been rated as good or excellent.
The report by monitoring body Dr Foster also said 27 trusts had unusually high
death rates.
But the Care Quality Commission, which has issued its official ratings within the
past month, said it saw no need to intervene to make improvements.
Its chairwoman said Dr Foster’s report was part legitimate, part alarmist.
On Thursday, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) sent a task force into Basildon and
Thurrock NHS Trust in Essex after it uncovered major lapses in hygiene and
unusually high death rates.
Just 24 hours later, the chairman of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation
Trust was sacked after inspectors found it had consistently failed to improve
waiting times and had death rates 12% higher than expected.
The part-private, part-NHS Dr Foster Hospital Guide rates hospital trusts from one
to five based on analysis of a range of “safety indicators”, including errors in
surgery, deaths, infection rates and staffing levels.
In this year’s report 12 received the lowest score
They include University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire; Weston Area Health
Trust; South London Healthcare Trust; Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust;
University Hospital of South Manchester and St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals
Trust.
Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust; Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Hospitals Foundation
Trust; and Hereford Hospitals Trust are also among the 12, which are completed by
Basildon and Thurrock; Lewisham; and Scarborough and North East Yorkshire.

An implant placed under the skin can instruct the immune system to attack and kill
cancer cells, at least in mice, say researchers.
It is the first “cancer vaccine” delivered in the form of a plastic implant that
can destroy tumours, say the Harvard University team.
It works by attracting certain immune cells and showing them what the tumour in
question looks like.
Cancer Research UK said that vaccine research was showing “real promise”.
Cancer cells are good at evading the immune system because the body does not
recognise them as “foreign”.
The idea of a vaccine to create an immune attack against a tumour is not a new one
and there are versions currently in clinical trials.
But most other studies have looked at removing immune cells from the body,
reprogramming them to recognise the individual’s cancer and then returning them.
In the latest study, researchers developed an 8mm plastic disc that releases
chemicals that attract a specific type of immune cell called a dendritic cell.
Immune cells can access the disc, which is implanted just under the skin. Once
inside, they are exposed to proteins found on the surface of the cancer cells to
be targeted.
With this information, the dendritic cells move on to the lymph nodes where they
tell another type of immune cell, known as T cells, to hunt down and kill the
cancer cells.
In mice with skin cancer, the implant was shown to successfully eliminate the
tumours, the journal Science Translational Medicine reported.
The researchers believe such implants could one day be used alongside chemotherapy
and surgery to treat cancer.
In theory, the fact the immune system only targets the specific cancer cells
avoids causing damage to healthy tissue and it is hoped the technique might
produce long-term resistance reducing the chance of relapse.

A patient with rectal cancer has become the first to have part of their tumour
destroyed by ultrasound, say UK doctors.
A team of radiologists, surgeons and oncologists at Hammersmith Hospital in London
used high intensity ultrasound to heat up and kill the cancer.
They say the technique will allow faster and more accurate targeting of tumours
than conventional treatments.
Hammersmith Hospital will offer the treatment to advanced stage patients.
High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is carried out under general anaesthetic.
The device can treat tumours up to about 40cc volume and can heat the tissue up to
90 degrees centigrade.
The first patient to have the procedure has requested anonymity.
The patient was given a low dose of heat at 70 degrees.
Doctors say they are planning to treat 50 more patients and they will closely
monitor them to discover the most effective temperature at which to perform the
procedure.
Unlike radiotherapy, HIFU, can be given to a patient a number of times with
minimal risk of toxicity.
The study leader, Professor Paul Abel, from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust,
said: “There is no incision made during the procedure, it’s completely non-
invasive, so recovery time will be quicker too.
“As this is the first time this procedure has ever been performed for rectal
cancer, we need to study a wider group of patients to assess how effective the
treatment is and whether it has the potential to be curative or to lengthen a
patient’s life.”
A spokesman for the charity Beating Bowel Cancer said it welcomes “advances to
improve the quality of patients’ lives and relieve symptoms”.
“As this is a world first, we look forward to further studies and results with
more patients over a longer period.”

An expert taskforce is being sent into a hospital trust in south-west Essex amid
concerns about standards of care.
The independent regulator highlighted higher-than-expected death rates among
patients, and poor standards of hygiene, including blood-spattered kit.
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has two hospitals
serving about 300,000 people.
The trust said it was “not complacent”, and “confident” the concerns were not
indicative of wider problems.
Chairman Michael Large said: “It is an extremely serious matter and we do not seek
to underestimate its gravity.
“I want to reassure our local community that the safety and well-being of our
patients is our highest priority.”
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated the trust as “good” overall in October.
But a new report from an unannounced inspection team carried out by the CQC found
evidence of sub-standard care.
The inspectors saw:
? Floors and curtains stained with blood
? Blood-splattered on trays used to carry equipment
? Badly soiled mattresses in the A&E department with stains soaked through to the
foam filling
? Items that should only be used once still in use
? Equipment in the resuscitation room that was past the use-by date
? A children’s blood pressure cuff heavily stained with blood
? Suction machines contaminated with fluid inside and out with what looked like
mould growing on the equipment
The inspectors criticised a poor care environment in A&E, in particular a lack of
privacy for patients.
They also highlighted inadequate arrangements to treat children, with few
specialist paediatric staff.
The CQC has asked the regulator of foundation trusts, Monitor, to take action.
An expert taskforce will be sent into the trust with a remit to drive rapid
improvements in patient care.
Monitor chairman Dr William Moyes said: “We will be reviewing the trust’s
performance regularly and in detail – if we don’t see measurable results quickly,
we’ll take further action.”
Most of the inpatient care at the trust is provided at Basildon University
Hospital, which has 777 beds.
Outpatient care is provided at Orsett hospital in Grays.
The trust was one of the first in England to be granted foundation trust status in
2004. That gives the trust greater freedom to manage its finances.
The independent hospital analysis website Dr Foster has found the Essex trust to
have a hospital standardised mortality ratio of 136.
This means the rate of death among patients at the trust is a third higher than
would be expected by looking at national figures, after adjusting for patients’
age and the severity of their illness.
This is likely to prompt comparisons with Stafford Hospital where similar concerns
were raised about a higher than expected mortality rate.
After internal investigations at Stafford failed to find a problem, an independent
inspection found serious failings in emergency care.
Cynthia Bower, CQC chief executive, said swift action was needed to “nip problems
in the bud”.

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon faces being tried in the US after requests to block
his extradition were refused, the Home Office has confirmed.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson told Mr McKinnon’s family he could not block the move
on medical grounds.
Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon, 43, who has Asperger’s syndrome, is accused of breaking
into US military computers. He says he was seeking UFO evidence.
Now of Wood Green, north London, he faces 60 years in prison if convicted.
Mr Johnson said he had carefully considered the representations but had concluded
that sending Mr McKinnon to the US would not breach his human rights.
As such, he had no discretion to block the extradition.
“Due to legitimate concerns over Mr McKinnon’s health, we have sought and received
assurances from the United States authorities that his needs will be met,” he
said.
Mr McKinnon admits hacking into 97 US government computers, including Nasa’s and
Pentagon’s, during 2001 and 2002.
He has told the BBC he was on a “moral crusade” to prove US intelligence had found
an alien craft run on clean fuel.
His mother Janis Sharp told the BBC she was “devastated” by the news and that her
son had reacted “very badly”.
“It’s a disgusting decision. Gary has been in a heightened state of terror for
almost eight years.
“To force a peaceful, vulnerable, misguided UFO fanatic like Gary thousands of
miles away from his much-needed support network is barbaric,” she said.
She said she was not comforted by the home secretary’s advice that her son would
not be held in a “supermax” jail, which hold the highest-security prisoners.
Their solicitor Karen Todner said they had seven days to put a case for judicial
review and that she hoped that would be heard before Christmas.
If that failed, they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights,
she added.
Mr Johnson had last month agreed to study new medical evidence before deciding on
the extradition. The High Court had previously refused permission to appeal to the
Supreme Court.
Mr McKinnon has been the focus of a campaign to prevent his removal to the US.
Earlier this month, the Commons’ Home Affairs Committee said the move should be
halted owing to his “precarious state of mental health”.
They concluded there was a “serious lack of equality” in the way the extradition
treaty deals with UK citizens compared with US citizens.

Tony Blair’s view on regime change in Iraq “tightened” after a private meeting
with President Bush in 2002, the UK’s former US ambassador has said.
Sir Christopher Meyer said no officials were at the Bush family ranch talks – but
the next day Mr Blair mentioned regime change for the first time.
The ex-diplomat also said officials had been left “scrabbling” for evidence of WMD
as US troops prepared for invasion.
He was giving evidence to the inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Its remit is to look into UK involvement in Iraq between 2001 and 2009, with the
first few weeks focusing on policy in the build-up to the 2003 US-led invasion.
On the third day of public hearings, Sir Christopher said he supported the removal
of Saddam because of the threat he posed and his flouting of international law but
expressed reservations about the diplomatic process leading up to the invasion.
He attacked the UK-backed process of weapons inspections in the run-up to the war,
saying officials had been forced to scramble for a “smoking gun” while US troops
gathered.
“The key problem was to let the military strategy wag the diplomatic and political
strategy. It should have been the other way round,” he said.
Most attention during the session focused on when the former ambassador believed
the decision to go to war had become inevitable.
Sir Christopher said the UK believed it was “pointless” to resist US plans for
regime change in Iraq a full year before the invasion and speculated that the path
to war was set at a meeting between the two leaders at President Bush’s Texas
ranch in April 2002.
Critics of the war maintain this was the moment that the prime minister pledged
his support for toppling Saddam Hussein.
Sir Christopher said no advisers were present for much of the meeting and
therefore he could not be “entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you
like, signed in blood”.
But he said there were “clues” in a speech given by Mr Blair the next day when he
mentioned the possibility of regime change for the first time.
“When I heard that speech, I thought that this represents a tightening of the UK-
US alliance and a degree of convergence on the danger that Saddam Hussein
presented,” he told the inquiry.
Sir Christopher, who left Washington in 2003, said Mr Blair was a “true believer
in the wickedness of Saddam Hussein”, his views pre-dating the election of the
Bush administration.
Before 9/11 the US viewed Iraq as “a grumbling appendix”, he said, but that policy
was focused on supporting dissident groups and toughening sanctions rather than on
military action.