Headlines

Hospital to act against violent patients: Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham is to take out private prosecutions against the growing number of patients who assault, threaten, or verbally abuse its doctors and nurses. Warning signs have been put up in the accident and emergency department after 80 incidents of verbal and physical abuse in July and August this year.

NAHAT complains of growth money shortfall: Lionel Joyce, chairman of the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts (NAHAT), says that growth money for hospitals and community health services, originally estimated to be 1.1%, has been eaten into by higher than expected expenditure to the extent of £;178m. In a letter to health secretary Stephen Dorrell, he expresses concern that the department's reviewed figures show the real increase in growth money will be just 0.3%.

Disagreement over proposed academy of medicine: Michael Atiyah, chairman of the working group looking at the proposal says that it has received 400 responses to its consultation paper. There is substantial support for the idea of an academy but significant opposition from those who think there are already too many medical bodies, as well as concern about the academy's relationship to other bodies, particularly the new Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Three in four of American parents are disgusted by media violence: The American Medical Association has produced guidelines for doctors about the harmful effects of media violence after its survey of 800 adults. The survey results found that 68% of people wanted a stronger more effective system to rate films, and roughly three quarters wanted a similar system for television, computers, and music.

Hopes for malaria vaccine are dashed: Research published in this week's Lancet shows that the malaria vaccine SPf66 does not provide any protection against the disease. The two year trial involved over 1300 children.

Call for age of consent to be 10: The director of Zimbabwe's national family planning council wants the country's age of consent to be lowered to 10 years old. Buhle Ncube said the present minimum age of 16 was too high as many children below that age were sexually active.