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BUSINESS LIVE: Cost-of-living crisis drives record Aldi UK sales

By Live Commentary

Updated: 03:25 EDT, 25 September 2023

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A record number of doctors applied to be certified to treat obesity this year amid the soaring popularity of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Nearly 1,900 doctors signed up for the annual exam this October, the medical board behind the test said, which was a 50 percent increase compared to the previous year.

Passing the exam distinguishes doctors as competent in treating obese patients and could set them on A path to rake in higher salaries.

It comes after official data showed a record 40 percent of adults are now obese in three states — West Virginia, Louisiana and Oklahoma — while every state had seen a rise in rates compared to just a decade ago.

Weight loss drug prescriptions have surged in the US with five million written last year, up 2,000 percent in 2019. 

Analysts suggest this market will be worth $56billion by 2030, with doctors who have specialized in obesity medicine likely able to charge more to patients. 

Data from the American Board of Obesity Medicine revealed a record number of doctors had signed up to take the exam this year.

Back in 2012 — when the accreditation scheme was set up — barely 200 doctors applied.

Healthcare workers do not need the obesity certificate in order to treat obese patients, but it can make them more competent in caring for the patients. 

It can also serve as a stepping stone to doctors signing up for further training as bariatric surgeons — or a doctor who has specialized in performing weight loss surgeries such as a gastric bypass.

This would require another one to two years of training on top of the initial four required to become a doctor plus the three-to-seven-year residency.

Bariatric doctors earn about $450,000 per year on average, statistics suggest, compared to $412,000 for general surgeons. In some cases, they can be paid upward of $700,000.

The ABOM says doctors are expected to become certified by them in order to become a bariatric surgeon. 

Modules taught to doctors in the course look at the causes of the disease and how to help patients lose weight through diet changes and exercise.

They may also be taught about ‘pharmacotherapy’ for helping patients reduce their waistlines, which may include being taught about popular weight-loss drugs.

Dr Kimberly Gudzune, the medical director for the ABOM, told Insider: ‘As there’s more awareness of both obesity as a chronic disease and all of the effective treatment options, patients are coming into their physicians and saying: “I want to be treated”.

‘And I think that that is oftentimes the trigger for a lot of busy practitioners to say, “I really need to know how to do this”.’

She added: ‘We’re working to address that gap [on obesity knowledge among doctors].

‘But it does take time, and I think that the growth does speak to us working in that direction.’

There are more than one million doctors in the US, of which nearly 7,000 — or 0.007 percent — have the board certification to treat obesity.

The specialization is not needed in order to be allowed to treat obese patients, but it will give doctors advanced knowledge.

As well as their busy schedules, doctors will also need to complete at least 30 hours of lectures and another 30 of studying before taking the exam.

A gold rush is currently on among pharmaceutical giants to tap into the nascent weight-loss medications market.

Novo Nordisk — which is behind semaglutide used in Wegovy and Ozempic — raked in a record $5.5billion last year after investing in factories to manufacture the drug in the United States.

It is also behind a number of drugs for diabetes patients and some medicines for hemophilia patients.

Eli Lilly has also cashed in on the market with its obesity treatment tirzepatide, projected to make $48billion once approved.

Pfizer — which made billions with its Covid vaccine — is also developing its own class of weight-loss drugs in order to access the market.

By Britney Nguyen For Dailymail.Com

Published: 14:13 EDT, 21 September 2023 | Updated: 14:19 EDT, 21 September 2023

Cosmetics firm Warpaint London reveals record sales and profits in half year results

• Group sales increased 46% to £36.7m for the six months to 30 June
• UK revenues increased 28% to £13.3m over the same time period

By Daniel Fessahaye

Updated: 06:15 EDT, 20 September 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

It has been two months since Mark Zuckerberg launched his so-called ‘Twitter-killer’ app Threads — which saw more than 100million users join in less than five days before plummeting in popularity.

But it now appears another rival app, Bluesky, could be the one to watch for X owner Elon Musk, after the platform amassed a record-breaking wave of signups in the wake of the billionaire’s threat to start charging users of his own social media site.

The figures, gathered by BlueskyStats, suggest that more than 53,500 users flocked to its app during the past 24 hours — roughly 40,000 above average.

However, the site’s total users – estimated to be around 1.1 million – still pale in comparison to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Musk revealed that his social media giant currently has around 550 million monthly users despite undergoing a series of drastic changes since his takeover last year, including the monetization of its blue tick verification system. 

There was further controversy and uproar yesterday, when the tech billionaire revealed he was considering charging all users to access the platform in a bid to ward off bots, or automated accounts. 

Jake Moore, a cybersecurity expert at ESET, told MailOnline that the increased popularity of Bluesky was both ‘inevitable’ and ‘predictable’.

‘Since it has arisen that users could be charged to use [X], the inevitable and rather predictable has happened with record sign ups to the Twitter/X alternative,’ he said.

‘The battle of the next Twitter has already commenced with a few in the ring such as Threads and Mastadon, too. 

‘However, the real test of time will be to see which platform wins the majority sway of users to take on the next generation of social networkers.’

Bluesky, which launched on both Android and iOS earlier this year, is backed by Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO Jake Dorsey.

It is a rare example of an invite-only social media app, with pre-existing users able to hand out invite codes to anyone interested in joining.

A waiting list is also available to those who don’t know anyone on Bluesky, with generated codes sent by email. 

Moore added: ‘Bluesky offers a sign up process to anyone with an invite code generated by those already on the platform.

‘This little feature cleverly keeps bots at bay as they struggle to automate mass signups which can cause security and misinformation issues.’

The invite-only component also sets Bluesky apart from X, as fake information and bots have been a major concern for Musk over the last few months.

It was revealed yesterday in a conversation with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as the tech entrepreneur announced his plans for future charges.

‘I’d say the single most important reason we’re moving towards having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is that it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,’ Musk said.

‘A bot costs a fraction of a penny, but if somebody has to pay a few dollars or something… you have to get a new payment method every time you have a new bot.

‘Prioritizing posts that are written by X premium subscribers, we’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be a small amount of money.

‘It’s a longer discussion, but in my view this is the only defense against vast armies of bots. As the AI gets really good it’s getting better at passing the captcha tests than humans.’

While Bluesky users can share images and follow accounts, they cannot send direct messages or post videos like X users. 

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is looking to introduce direct messaging to Threads in the not-so-distant future.

Threads’ popularity also rocketed following its launch on July 6, amassing more than 100million users by day five.

But data from last month suggests this initial popularity has since waned somewhat, with analysts at Global Wireless Solutions (GWS) claiming that daily users fell to just 430,000 in the UK.

However, following Musk’s latest comments on charging X users, Mr Moore believes that Threads could make a big comeback.  

‘Bots have been an issue on the platform since the beginning but when Musk laid off mass numbers of employees including security staff, the issue rose to rather uncontrollable lengths,’ he added. 

‘Requesting payment from all users could potentially mitigate this problem but he could have a bigger problem in his hands with a mass exodus of users.

‘With many similar alternatives already set up such as Threads and Mastadon, this could be the final push for some users to crossover to the competition.’

MailOnline has approached X for comment. 

NHS waiting lists have soared to another record high, grim data revealed today.

Around 7.68million patients in England — or one in seven people — were in the queue in July for procedures such hip and knee replacements, official figures show. 

This includes almost 390,000 patients who have waited at least one year for treatment, often in pain.

NHS bosses blamed medic strikes for heaping extra pressure onto already struggling hospitals — with 400,000 appointments rescheduled this summer due to walkouts.

Health leaders warned that the service is ‘heading for even more extremely troubled times’ as winter approaches. 

NHS England monthly performance data released today that the waiting list grew by more than 100,000 between June and July. 

The 7.68million toll marks the highest figures logged since NHS records began in August 2007 and a rise of nearly three quarters of a million (742,000) on July 2022. 

For comparison, around 4.4million were stuck in the system when the pandemic reached the UK. 

Rishi Sunak made cutting waiting lists one of his 2023 priorities, pledging in January that ‘lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly’.

However, he claimed that strikes across the health service were making the task ‘more challenging’.

And the NHS said today that industrial action had piled pressure on the health service, with around 900,000 appointments cancelled since strikes began in December. 

It said the true impact of walkouts is much higher, as many hospitals avoid scheduling operations for strike dates.

Junior doctors have already staged 19 days of action since March and will undertake four days of joint strike action this autumn with coordinated walkouts in England over separate days next week and into October. 

Radiographers will walk out for 24 hours from 8am on October 3, joining medics on the picket lines. The strike days also coincide with Rishi Sunak’s first Tory party conference as leader and prime minister.

Emergency care – through A&E departments and 999 – is still available but patients have been told to contact NHS 111 or their local pharmacy for minor health worries. 

Professor Julian Redhead, NHS England’s national clinical director for urgent and emergency care, said: ‘Today’s figures show that despite ongoing pressures across the NHS, including record demand for emergency care this summer, and an increase in Covid cases during July and August, NHS staff are continuing to deliver for patients.’

He added: ‘But even as we talk about a summer of record demand we have already been preparing for winter, and the improvements seen in today’s data show the hard work of staff is already paying off.

‘Alongside expanding the use of out-of-hospital care – such as more virtual ward beds – and the rollout of our winter vaccination programme, we are doing all we can to prepare ahead of what has the potential to be another challenging winter with Covid and flu.

‘As ever, the public can also play their part by getting your winter vaccines when invited and use services in the usual way – 999 in an emergency and NHS111 online for other health conditions.’

Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said: ‘Challenges including severe staff shortages, capacity constraints – including of beds and equipment – and ongoing strikes are hindering vital progress on performance targets.’

She added: ‘With more strikes on the horizon, including coordinated action between junior doctors and consultants for the first time, even greater disruption looms.’

Summer months usually offer hospitals a break ahead of the usual busy spell, when seasonal pressures like flu and norovirus typically kick in. But NHS England said this summer is ‘on trajectory to be the busiest in NHS history’. 

Separate data for A&E shows that patient care plummeted in August as emergency departments faced their busiest summer yet. 

Just under three-quarters of emergency department attendees (73 per cent) were seen within four hours in August, down from 74 per cent in July. 

NHS standards set out 95 per cent should be admitted, transferred or discharged within the four-hour window.

Meanwhile, 28,859 patients who sought help in emergency departments were forced to wait more than 12 hours, up from 23,934 in July.

There were more than 6.5million attendances in A&Es across June, July and August — 20,000 more than the previous record in 2019. 

Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the figures show that there is ”a trajectory towards a winter equally as bad as last year’s ‘worst ever’.’

He said: ‘A small wave only is needed to deepen the crisis in urgent and emergency care; well-illustrated by the hot weather last week which caused many hospitals great challenges.’

Dr Cooksley pointed to the case of a 90-year-old Harold Pedley in Blackpool, who died waiting to be seen by a doctor in a chair in an overcrowded emergency unit.

He said: ‘His case not isolated and many more will sadly have similar experiences over the next few months.

‘There is a tacit acceptance and almost normalisation of poor urgent and emergency care heading in to this winter.

‘Corridor care, overcrowded and understaffed emergency departments and acute medical units, ongoing industrial action and a target that only one in four people wait more four hours. 

‘This is an environment perfectly designed to ensure there are more patients like Mr Pedley this winter.’

He warned the NHS was ‘inevitably’ heading for ‘more extremely troubled times’, but said ‘mitigation is possible’.

He added: ‘Resolving industrial action, a stronger commitment to funding the workforce plan and a significant emergency package to support social care are essential – but the window of opportunity to do so is getting increasingly narrow.’

Separate NHS data on ambulance figures for August however show response times improved — but patients were still left waiting too long.

Heart attack and stroke patients in England, known as category two callers, had to wait an average of 31 minutes and 30 seconds for paramedics to arrive, shaving 20 seconds off the previous month. 

However, this is still nearly double the NHS 18-minute target.

Ambulances took an average of eight minutes and 17 seconds to attend the most life-threatening category one calls, such as cardiac arrests. The NHS target stands at seven minutes.

Separate data shows 2.2million tests and checks were delivered in August, contributing to the busiest summer ever for diagnostics — a total 6.6million across June, July and August.

However, NHS figures on cancer waiting times showed that just six in ten cancer patients (62.6 per cent) were seen within the two-month target in July. 

NHS guidelines state 85 per cent of cancer patients should be seen within this time-frame. However, this target has not been met nationally since December 2015. 

Meanwhile, almost a quarter (74.1 per cent) of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer were diagnosed or had cancer ruled out within 28 days, up from 73.5 per cent the previous month. The target is 75 per cent.

The proportion of cancer patients who saw a specialist within two weeks of being referred urgently by their GP fell from 80.5 per cent in June to 77.5 per cent in July, missing the 93 per cent target.

The figure is one of several cancer targets that are being discontinued from October, after the NHS vowed last month to diagnose and treat cancer patients quicker, with  ministers accepting its request to streamline performance targets.

The controversial reforms will see the number of cancer waiting time indicators that hospitals are measured against slashed from ten to three.

Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, Michelle Mitchell, said: ‘Today’s data is yet another snapshot of the challenges facing England’s cancer services and a message to the UK Government that things need to change. 

‘These figures are amongst the worst on record and represent anxious delays faced by patients and the immense pressure on NHS staff.

‘People affected by cancer deserve more. With strong leadership and proper funding, the UK Government has the power to put an end to these unacceptable delays for tests and treatment in England.’

It comes as data published on Tuesday also showed the number of Brits paying for private medical treatment has now hit a record high. 

Around 227,000 people in the UK sought private treatment in the first three months of 2023. 

It marks a four per cent jump on the previous record of 219,000 set in the final quarter of 2022. 

The rise in demand for paid-for care is being driven by continuing growth in insured treatments — 156,000, up from 149,000 in the fourth quarter of 2022 — as more businesses and households turn to private healthcare plans to safeguard the health of employees due to the growing difficulties in getting treatment on the NHS. 

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BUSINESS LIVE: UK wage growth maintains record pace

By Live Commentary

Updated: 11:56 EDT, 12 September 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

America has already set a record for ‘billion-dollar’ disasters in a given year – even with three months to go and the peak of hurricane season still remaining. 

According to NOAA, which has been tracking billion-dollar weather disasters in the US since 1980 and adjusting costs for inflation, this year’s storms have already cost more than $57.6billion and claimed at least 253 lives.

The disasters include the Maui wildfires, Hurricane Idalia in Florida and flooding in the Northeast. 

There have been 23 billion-dollar storms this year, beating the previous record of 22 in 2020, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA applied climatologist Adam Smith, who tracks the billion-dollar weather events, said Monday he does ‘not expect things to slow down anytime soon.’

‘We’re seeing the fingerprints of climate change all over our nation,’ he said. 

The organization listed an August 11 Minnesota hailstorm and severe storms in early August and mid-July across the Midwest and parts of the South among the 23 costly weather events.

The organization has not yet taken into account the damage brought on by Tropical Storm Hilary, which walloped California along the coast, as well as parts of Nevada and Washington.

Droughts in the South and Midwest have also yet to be added to the count, as costs are still being totaled.

Each of the weather events listed have cost at least $1billion in damage.  

Smith said the shockingly high number of costly weather events is both due to a rise in the number of disasters, and because more areas are being built in risk-prone locations.

‘Exposure plus vulnerability plus climate change is supercharging more of these into billion-dollar disasters,’ Smith said.

‘This year, a lot of the action has been across the center states, north central, south and southeastern states.’

He added he thought the record established in 2020 would last for many years because the 22 billion-dollar disasters that year far surpassed the previous record of 16.

After this year’s partial results, however, he no longer believes new records will hold for very long. 

Weather experts say the country needs to become more adaptable to weather events, because there are only more each year.

‘The climate has already changed and neither the built environment nor the response systems are keeping up with the change,’ Former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Craig Fugate said.

University of Arizona climate scientist Katharine Jacobs said ‘adding more energy to the atmosphere and the oceans will increase intensity and frequency of extreme events.’

‘Many of this year’s events are very unusual and in some cases unprecedented.’ 

Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field called the rise of billion-dollar disasters ‘very troubling.’

‘But there are things we can do to reverse the trend,’ he added. ‘If we want to reduce the damages from severe weather, we need to accelerate progress on both stopping climate change and building resilience.’ 

• 85,000 patients call 111 each month with dental issues, 42 per cent up from 2018

By Ethan Ennals

Published: 18:25 EDT, 9 September 2023 | Updated: 18:30 EDT, 9 September 2023

Warner Music has signed the first ever record deal with a virtual pop star in what is a potentially seismic moment in the industry — but is facing a backlash online for ‘sexualising a child-like body’ in the avatar’s ‘creepy’ debut music video.

Noonoouri was created in 2018 as an 18-year-old metaverse avatar, before going on to star in fashion campaigns for Dior, Balenciaga and Valentino.

The digital influencer has so far amassed more than 400,000 followers on Instagram and is now set to release her first single Dominoes, which has already had more than 60,000 views on YouTube.

It did not hit the right note with most pop fans, however, as they took to social media to slam Warner’s ‘disgusting’ decision to create ‘pedo clickbait’ with a music video that features Noonoouri wearing Kim Kardashian‘s shapewear brand Skims.

One X user wrote ‘Why….is it a child?’, while another said: ‘Just when I thought they couldn’t sink lower.’

Others said Noonoouri had the body of a ’12 year old’ and was ‘so disgusting’, while X user Lachlan Blackmore added: ‘Is this the look Warner want to be associated with?’ 

It is not the first time parents have expressed concern about metaverse characters being ‘hypersexualised’, in particular in relation to the game Avakin Life, where virtual pop star Polar regularly performs to crowds of teenagers. 

‘My daughter has been on this app around three months. She is 15. The app alleges safe to play for over 13s. She has met children younger than that, parading their avakin dolls in skimpy underwear, looking for relationships, mentioning sex,’ one parent wrote in a review of the game.

‘What is unclear is how many of these kids are actually kids and not adults looking for kids.’

Avakin Life said at the time that it took teen safety ‘very seriously’, and highlighted that it had a reporting system.

A spokesperson for Warner Music Central Europe said: ‘Noonoouri is a long-standing digital character who we’ve signed to a record deal.

‘She’s not AI generated, though AI assisted tech was used to help create her singing voice.

‘Talented songwriters and musicians wrote and recorded her debut track Dominoes, and we can’t wait for fans to discover it.’

The company has not revealed how much its record deal with Noonoouri is worth but every singer, songwriter and musician who contributed to the debut track will receive royalties and publishing splits, as is the case with traditional music production.  

Noonoouri’s voice has a raspiness to it after being created using generative AI, a technology that takes existing data and transforms it into something entirely new.

It involved taking the recording of a real human singer and modifying it to give the pop star her unique vocal identity.  

The character’s debut single features 38-year-old German DJ and music producer Alle Farben, whose real name is Frans Zimmer. 

In an Instagram post, Noonoouri wrote: ‘Music plays a big role in my life since the beginnings.

‘It sets me into the mood and nourishes my visions and ideas to bring them to life as a driving force inside of me. 

‘Warner Music is the home of a lot of my fave music artists. 

‘I cannot be more thankful and honoured to join such a wonderful family, where music tunes are the beat of life.’

Noonoouri was created by 43-year-old graphic designer Joerg Zuber, from Munich. 

Commenting on her debut music video on Instagram, he said: ‘After two years working so hard on this music project, we finally can share this incredible teamwork with world — thank you @warnermusic.de for believing in us #TheBeginning.’

Warner Music’s announcement comes just a month after it emerged that rival Universal Music was in talks with Google to license artists’ voices and melodies so they can be used for songs generated by AI. 

Discussions are at a very early stage and no product launch is imminent, but the aim is to come to an agreement whereby more software can be developed that allows fans to create AI songs and pay the owners of the copyright.

Artists would be given the choice of opting in or out of the venture.

It is a similar situation to the one the music business found itself in with the rise of YouTube, where people began using hit songs as soundtracks to videos they had created.

This led to years of legal wrangling over copyright infringement until an agreement was reached that sees the music industry paid about $2 billion (£1.5 billion) a year for user-generated clips.

MailOnline has contacted Warner Music for comment on the concerns that Noonoouri resembles a child.