8 ***^ Wednesday 7 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
Drugs kill more
men in middle
age than suicide
By Gabriella Swerling
SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR
and Josh Wilson DATA JOURNALIST
SUICIDE is no longer the biggest killer
of middle-aged men, data has revealed,
as deaths caused by drug overdoses
have overtaken them for the first time.
Of the 1,336 deaths of men aged be-
tween 35 and 49 in 2018, one in eight
were attributed to accidental poison-
ings last year, figures published yester-
day by the Office for National Statistics
(ONS) show, up to 12.5 per cent from
10.9 per cent in 2017.
The figure for men in the same age
group who took their own lives was
1,249, or 11.7 per cent.
It comes as public health experts
warn of a looming opiate crisis.
Accidental poisoning rates were
much lower for women in this age
group, with just 451 deaths in 2018.
The leading cause of death for mid-
dle-aged women was breast cancer,
which claimed 839 lives (12.6 per cent).
The ONS analysis of deaths in Eng-
land and Wales found that in 2018,
there were 541,589 registered in total.
Deaths due to dementia and Alzhei-
mer’s disease continued to rise and
remained the leading cause of death
overall, accounting for 12.8 per cent of
all deaths registered.
Men were three times as likely to
take their own lives than women.
The ONS defines “accidental poison-
ing” as an accidental overdose of drugs
or the wrong drugs being given and
taken in error.
It also includes surgical procedures
and when it is not specified whether
the death was accidental or with intent
to harm.
Prof Jim McManus, a public health
specialist, told The Daily Telegraph:
“Older opiate users are overdosing
because of changes in their immune
system as they age because it breaks
down. This is combined with changes
in the purity of the drugs used.
“I think these figures are maybe part
of the existing ageing cohort of opiate
users dying.”Moss piglets in space
and ‘alive’ on Moon
By Sarah Knapton
SCIENCE EDITORTHE toughest animals on
Earth may be alive on the
Moon after surviving an Is-
raeli spacecraft crash earlier
this year, scientists suspect.
A payload of several thou-
sand hardy tardigrades were
on board the Beresheet
probe when it suffered a cat-
astrophic failure during its
final descent on April 11.
Although the lander
smashed into the ground at
high speed, the Arch Mis-
sion Foundation, which sent
up the creatures, believes
their cargo may have lived.
The tiny creatures, which
are also known as water
bears or moss piglets, can
live for up to 60 years, and
grow to a maximum size of0.5mm. They are the world’s
most indestructible species,
with Oxford University esti-
mating they will survive on
Earth until the Sun dies,
some 10 billion years from
now, after everything else
has died out.
They are able to survive
for up to 30 years without
food or water and endure
temperature extremes of up
to 284F (150C), the deep icy
waters of Antarctica and the
frozen vacuum of space.
The Arch Mission Foun-
dation’s aim is to create a
“backup” Earth so the space-
craft was carrying a nickel
disk with 30 million pages of
human knowledge and hu-
man DNA samples. The tar-
digrades were attached by
tape or sealed in the resin
layers of the disk.News
£40m heroin
haul hidden in
towel shipment
By Martin Evans
CRIME CORRESPONDENTINVESTIGATORS have
made one of the biggest ever
seizures of heroin in the UK
after discovering £40 mil-
lion worth of the drug hid-
den among a consignment of
towels and robes on board a
ship from the Middle East.
The drugs, which weighed
almost 400 kilograms, were
thought to be destined for
British streets and are likely
to have been sold by county
lines gangs.
The haul came when offic-
ers from Border Force and
the National Crime Agency
identified a suspicious con-
tainer on board a ship
docked at Felixstowe, Suf-
folk, on its way to Belgium.
Inside they discovered a
huge quantity of the drug
packed into boxes and hid-
den under towels.
After removing the her-
oin, the container was
loaded back onto the ship
and was allowed to continue
on its voyage under covert
police surveillance.
The container was un-
loaded in the port of Ant-werp, before being taken by
lorry to Rotterdam.
When suspects began to
unload the container, Dutch
police swooped and arrested
two men.
At around the same time,
officers from the National
Crime Agency arrested a
man in the Bromsgrove area
of Worcestershire in con-
nection with the operation.
The consignment is esti-
mated to have a street value
in excess of £40 million and
is one of the largest ever
seized in the UK.
Colin Williams, of the
NCA, said: “It is almost cer-
tain that some of these drugs
would have been sold in the
UK, fuelling violence and ex-
ploitation including in
county lines offending.”The consignment was found
hidden among towels and robesBird dogs Maremma sheepdog puppies Nala and Lula have been recruited by Somerset farmer Ollie White, of Farm2Fork
in Ilminster, to guard his geese and chickens from badgers and foxes. The poultry were previously guarded by two alpacas.APEXРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS