Daill Mail - 08.08.2019

Daily Mail, Thursday, August 8, 2019 Page 21

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Banks drag

feet on vow

to refund

scam victims

ALMOST half the UK’s leading banks

and building societies have still not

signed up to a new code that promises

refunds to victims of payment scams.

Consumer group Which? says 12 out of 27

organisations, including Clydesdale Bank,

Yorkshire Bank, Tesco Bank and Monzo

are yet to join the voluntary scheme.

Under the code, members pledge to

refund customers who fall victim to push

payment fraud and are manipulated into

transferring money out of their own

accounts by conmen.

Last year a total of £354million – nearly

£1million every day – was stolen through

this type of fraud.

The code was launched in May after

Money Mail campaigned for banks to do

more to protect blameless customers.

Previously, banks and building societies

were not obliged to refund victims of this

type of scam. But customers of organisa-

tions that have signed up are now entitled

to refunds as long as they have done eve-

rything they can to protect themselves.

Banks may still refuse to reimburse cus-

tomers who ignore scam warnings. Which?

Wanted: A new

opera boss... who

likes Love Island

IT may be seen as one of the most high-

brow cultural activities, but opera needs

a boss who watches reality TV.

So says the man who runs the The Eng-

lish National Opera, who is on the hunt for

an artistic director who appreciates that

productions are similar to Love Island.

ENO chief Stuart Murphy said he wants

applicants who can make opera as pop-

ular as hit BBC comedy Fleabag – and

who watch as much I’m A Celebrity as

Sky Arts. Writing in the Evening Stand-

ard, he said ‘broadening’ opera’s appeal

to people of different ages and back-

grounds is ‘essential’ to its survival.

Mr Murphy also urged fans of Love

Island to see a stage production, as

they would recognise the same ‘pas-

sion, lust, betrayal, glamour, love,

friendship [and] silliness’.

‘Opera has that in spades, just with

the world’s most beautiful music

throughout. The only thing missing is a

vote-off,’ he added.

‘Incredibly

concerning’

found that brands including Bank of Ire-

land, Citibank, Clydesdale Bank, Monzo,

Post Office Money, Tesco Bank, Co-op

Bank, Virgin Money, and Yorkshire Bank

were yet to sign up.

A Monzo spokesman said it adheres to

the spirit of the code and is in the process

of signing up. Danske Bank, First Trust

Bank and N26 confirmed they were assess-

ing what signing up to the code involves.

Major providers including Barclays,

HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest

and RBS, Santander UK and Nationwide

have already joined.

In April, TSB launched its own guaran-

tee to refund fraud victims.

Which? money editor Jenny Ross said:

‘People’s lives are being derailed every day

as life-changing sums of money are lost to

bank transfer fraud, so it’s incredibly con-

cerning to see so many banks not yet

signed up to this vital code.’

Trade body UK Finance said: ‘The pay-

ment service providers which have signed

up represent over 85 per cent of author-

ised push payments. The Lending Stand-

ards Board is working with others in prep-

aration for them to join.’

‘Why do they all say power’s gone to your head?’

By Fiona Parker

Money Mail Reporter

CANCER

BREAKTHROUGH 1

CANCER

BREAKTHROUGH 2

Prostate pill

that can ‘halt

tumours in

their tracks’

THOUSANDS of men with

advanced prostate cancer could

soon benefit from the first gene-

targeted drug for the disease.

Drugs bosses yesterday announced

they have proved that olaparib – a

daily pill which uses a man’s genetic

make-up to undermine a tumour’s

defences – freezes aggressive pros-

tate cancer in its tracks.

British pharmaceutical firm Astra-

Zeneca and its US partner MSD

announced that a major phase three

trial, carried out on 387 men around

the world, had demonstrated the drug

stops the spread of invasive prostate

cancer for longer than existing drugs.

Full details of the trial results will not

be revealed until later this year, but the

fact that it successfully met its ‘end

point’ – a key marker of success – paves

the way for the firms to apply for a

medical licence.

If it is approved, it will be the first

personalised, or ‘precision’, medicine to

be made available for prostate cancer.

By Ben Spencer

Medical Correspondent

AN ULTRA-SENSITIVE blood test could spare

women with early-stage breast cancer from

unnecessary surgery.

The targeted digital sequencing (TARDIS)

test is said to be 100 times more sensitive than

previous blood tests for breast cancer.

Dr Muhammed Murtaza, of the Translational

Genomics Research Institute in Arizona,

where the test was developed, said it can

detect ‘extremely low concentrations’ of

tumour DNA in the bloodstream at an earlier

stage than existing blood tests.

It could also prevent women from having

unnecessary surgery to remove tumour res-

idue after chemotherapy, with lower con-

centrations in the blood suggesting treat-

ment has already been successful. The results

of the research on 33 women with early-

stage breast cancer were published in the

journal Science Translational Medicine.

Professor Carlos Caldas at the Cancer Research

UK Cambridge Centre, which contributed to the

study, called the test a ‘game-changer’.

Newsreader’s cancer battle – Page 32

cancer – could benefit up to

4,000 British men every year,

delaying the moment when the

disease becomes deadly. Future

results are expected to show

that it will also extend lives.

Olaparib, developed in Lon-

don, Cambridge and Sheffield

over 20 years, is the first in a

wave of drugs called PARP-

inhibitors, which exploit a weak-

ness in cancer cells’ defences to

kill a tumour without harming

healthy tissue.

It is particularly powerful in

men who carry a mutated BRCA

gene – carried by Angelina Jolie,

increasing the star’s risk of

ovarian and breast cancer. But

the drug also works for men

with other DNA mutations.

Overall, about a third of men

with aggressive prostate cancer

are thought to respond to the

treatment. The Daily Mail is

campaigning for an urgent

improvement in prostate can-

cer treatments and diagnosis.

Despite rapid advances in

tackling other cancer types, the

number of men who die from

prostate cancer is still going up,

with 11,800 men in Britain lost

each year to the disease.

Personalised medicine break-

throughs have shaken the world

of treating breast cancer and

ovarian cancer in recent years.

But this would be the first

treatment to bring this cancer

revolution to men with prostate

cancer. Study leader Professor

Johann de Bono of the Institute

of Cancer Research in London,

said: ‘These results showed that

olaparib... improved the out-

come for men with the most

deadly form of the disease.

‘We’re now eagerly awaiting

the final analysis of the trial. If

the results look as good as these

initial data suggest, men with

advanced prostate cancer who

have BRCA mutations should

be able to benefit from olaparib

in the next couple of years.’

An earlier ‘phase two’ study,

carried out on 100 men, sug-

gested that olaparib could delay

progression of prostate cancer

for an average of 8.3 months.

Experts believe the drug,

which costs roughly £3,500 a

month, could be approved for

NHS use within two years.

Blood test may help avoid ops

These enable doctors to accu-

rately target cancer according

to the patient’s genetic make-

up, rather than the ‘one-size-

fits-all’ approach provided by

chemotherapy and hormone

therapy.

Experts believe the treatment

• already available for ovarian

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