A look through the papers

Families living in poverty have been hit hardest by rising prices. A study showed their day-to-day living costs have risen 50% faster than richer households since the recession struck. The poorest fifth of households have seen the cost of the goods and services they use rise by 4.3% a year between 2008 and 2010, compared to a 2.7% annual inflation rate for the richest fifth in the same period, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Pensioners and people dependent on state benefits have been hit particularly hard by rises to the cost of living as they spend proportionately more of their income on food and fuel while they are less likely to have benefited from low interest rates.

John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group, said "Soaring food prices and massive hikes in energy bills are hitting families just as jobs are being lost, wages frozen and family benefits slashed. It is too often children who will suffer as parents across Scotland face brutal choices between buying decent food, heating their homes, or racking up debt."

Jim Boyle, Oxfam Scotland’s UK poverty programme co-ordinator, said: “There are people who really do have to make the choice at times between heating and eating."

The poorest fifth of households spend about 9.4% of their budget on energy, compared with 4.4% for the richest fifth. Food-price hikes of 41% during the past decade have also hit poorest families hardest, as they spend a fifth of their budget on food, nearly double the 10.1% richer households spend. At the other end of the scale, only 1.7% of a poorer household’s budget is spent on mortgage interest, currently at an historic low, compared with 8.7% for richer households.

Many middle-income parents can no longer afford to send their children to university, with one in three saying it was not worth the investment, another report has suggested.
A survey of over 500 parents with a household income of between £15,000 and £40,000 showed that most believed a university education was less valuable than a decade ago. Half of those questioned by independent education foundation Edge said degrees no longer offered a head start in life, while almost two out five admitted they had changed their mind about wanting their children to go on to further education.

Homeless people are six times more likely to die earlier than the general population, according to yet another piece of research. A 11-year study into 32,711 people on the Danish homeless register revealed that males die 22 years earlier than average, with the lifespan of young females shortened by 17 years. One of the most alarming statistics was the level of mental-health disorders, which suggested that substance abuse was associated with a 40 per cent increased risk of death among men and 70 per cent among women. Suicide, violence and accidental injury accounted for more than 30 per cent of the 4,000 deaths recorded over the course of the research.


More than a quarter of the European Union population suffers from one or more neurological disorders every year which is a huge burden on health services and economies as people stay away from work. Their report says that throughout Europe, brain diseases are responsible for the loss of 23% of years of healthy life and 50% of years of disability.

Neuroscientists including David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London warns that "Despite the public health imperative...big pharma is increasingly coming to see research into better neuropsychiatric drug targets as economically non-viable,"

Companies such as UK-based GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca that they no longer intend to research new antidepressant drugs GlaxoSmithKline's CEO Andrew Witty has said treatments for brain disorders are some of the most expensive drugs to research. If the industry is not researching the causes of depression or schizophrenia in order to find new drugs, scientists will not be able to advance their knowledge. The scientists hope they can persuade drug companies to share the information they already have, and that by putting details of their research and unused potential drug discoveries into a "medicines chest", scientists will be able to investigate and learn from.

There are a number of reasons why companies are leaving the field, according to the report. Medicines for brain disorders take longer to develop than for other conditions – on average, 13 years – and there is a high failure rate. Only one anti-depressant, Agomelatine, has been licensed in the last 10 years, compared with 10 new drugs for epilepsy. Companies are also increasingly fearful of lawsuits, as patients pursue them through the courts over the adverse effects of medicines. In advanced cancers, trials leading to a licence for a new medicine can be run in a few hundred patients. Trials for new drugs for brain disorders have to involve thousands to ensure safety and efficacy in people who may be prescribed them by their GP.