I spent far too many years lonely and angry, thanks to schoolmates who called me ‘weird’ and bosses who dismissed me as ‘hysterical’. But was it my sexuality that put their backs up – or the autism I am still coming to terms with?

My earliest memory is of feeling different. I’m gay, and grew up in the 1980s, in a tough, working-class town in the north of England at the height of the Aids crisis. My gayness was obvious in the way I walked and talked. I was bullied at school, called a “poof”, “pansy” and “fairy”; other children did impressions of me with their wrists limp. I experienced physical violence, too. I was shoved, kicked, my head was slammed against the wall. I was punched in the face more than once.

But it wasn’t just my sexuality that set me apart. I was “weird”. I had a rigid attachment to routine and was terribly shy, sometimes freezing in social situations. I needed to be on my own for long periods; not easy when you’re in a family of five and share a bedroom with your brother. I was obsessive, channelling this at first into the Star Wars films, then the Narnia novels and, as I got older, Madonna. Lots of kids have short-lived interests but mine were intense: I’d collect facts and statistics about Madonna, memorise the chart positions of her singles, then reel them off to anyone who would listen. If anyone criticised her, I took it as a personal attack and would be distraught.

UK watchdog has had 40 reports relating to pregnancies in people using drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro

Women using weight-loss drugs have been urged to use effective contraception after dozens have reported becoming pregnant while taking the medication.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued its first alert to the UK public regarding contraception and weight-loss medications after it received 40 reports relating to pregnancies while using drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.

Royal College of Radiologists warns of long delays to have surgery or treatment, raising chances of disease spreading

People with cancer face a “ticking timebomb” of delays in getting diagnosed and treated because the NHS is too short-staffed to provide prompt care, senior doctors have warned.

An NHS-wide shortage of radiologists and oncologists means patients are enduring long waits to have surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy and have a consultant review their care.

“Our waiting times for breast radiotherapy are now the worst I have ever known in 20 years.”

“Current wait for head and neck cancers [is] six weeks, meaning possible progression before radiotherapy.”

“A multiple week wait for palliative treatment has sometimes led to deterioration to the point is no longer possible.”

Research shows disparity in care after detection of aortic stenosis, also affecting those living in deprived areas

Women, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, and those living in the most deprived areas of England are less likely to receive treatment after a diagnosis of a deadly heart disease, according to one of the largest studies of its kind.

Researchers at the University of Leicester analysed data from almost 155,000 people diagnosed with aortic stenosis – a narrowing of the valve between the heart’s main pumping chamber and the main artery – between 2000 and 2022 across England, from a database of anonymised GP records.

Inquiry focuses on TAVI procedures carried out on elderly and frail people at Castle Hill hospital near Hull

Police have launched an investigation into the deaths of heart surgery patients at an East Yorkshire hospital.

The investigation is focusing on transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) procedures carried out on elderly and frail patients at Castle Hill hospital, near Hull.

Williams Farms Repack tomatoes recalled in Georgia and Carolinas, although no cases of illness have been reported

The Food and Drug Administration has upgraded a tomato recall in three states to its most severe warning due to a potential salmonella contamination.

Three weeks ago the agency announced a voluntary recall by Williams Farms Repack LLC of its tomatoes across Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Last week, the FDA upgraded the recall to Class 1, indicating a reasonable probability that the product could “cause serious adverse health consequences or death”.

Exclusive: Government-ordered review concludes term in NHS should be changed because of risks to patients’ safety

Physician associates in the NHS will be renamed to stop patients mistaking them for doctors after a review found that their title caused widespread confusion.

Thousands of physician associates who work in hospitals and GP surgeries across the UK take medical histories, examine patients and diagnose illnesses but are not doctors.

Abortion rights supporters say scaling back Biden officials’ Emtala guidance will endanger pregnant patients’ lives

The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded Biden-era guidance clarifying that hospitals in states with abortion bans cannot turn away pregnant patients who are in the midst of medical emergencies – a move that comes amid multiple red-state court battles over the guidance.

The guidance deals with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala), which requires hospitals to stabilize patients facing medical emergencies. States such as Idaho and Texas have argued that the Biden administration’s guidance, which it issued in the wake of the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade, interpreted Emtala incorrectly.

Half of those diagnosed will now survive for 10 years or more after advances in diagnosis and treatment

The proportion of people surviving cancer in the UK has doubled since the 1970s amid a “golden age” of progress in diagnosis and treatment, a report says.

Half of those diagnosed will now survive for 10 years or more, up from 24%, according to the first study of 50 years of data on cancer mortality and cases. The rate of people dying from cancer has fallen by 23% since the 1970s, from 328 in every 100,000 people to 252.

Boiled eggs? Tofu? Avocado? Are these high-protein, low-sugar alternative mousse recipes the new way to make the chocolate dessert? TikTok certainly seems to think so. Guardian Australia staff put them through a taste test so you can decide if you should try making these at home – or give them a miss and keep scrolling instead

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• Curd surge: TikTok recipes drive a national cottage cheese shortage

• ‘My face is leaking’: taste testing the spicy ramen deemed too dangerous for Denmark

Oncologists say patients rejecting proven treatments are dying needlessly because of increase in online ‘cures’

Cancer patients are snubbing proven treatments in favour of quackery such as coffee enemas and raw juice diets amid an “alarming” increase in misinformation on the web, doctors have said.

Some were dying needlessly or seeing tumours spread as a result, oncologists said. They raised their concerns at the world’s largest cancer conference in Chicago, the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco).

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Inquiry into Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust follows deaths and serious injuries related to maternity care

An NHS trust is being investigated on suspicion of corporate manslaughter after the deaths and severe harm of potentially more than 2,000 babies and women in Nottinghamshire.

Police are reviewing more than 200 alleged failures of maternity care at Nottingham university hospitals (NUH) NHS trust but this figure could rise to about 2,500.

Researchers say people born more recently, particularly women, have lower risk at same age as their grandparents

People born more recently are less likely to have dementia at any given age than earlier generations, research suggests, with the trend more pronounced in women.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2021 there were 57 million people worldwide living with dementia, with women disproportionately affected. However, while the risk of dementia increases with age, experts have long stressed it is not not an inevitability of getting older.

The reproductive health giant is navigating a loss of federal funding and fresh threats from multiple directions

At least 20 Planned Parenthood clinics across seven states have shuttered since the start of 2025 or have announced plans to close soon – closures that come amid immense financial and political turbulence for the reproductive health giant as the United States continues to grapple with the fallout from the end of Roe v Wade.

The Planned Parenthood network, which operates nearly 600 clinics through a web of independent regional affiliates and is overseen by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is facing a number of threats from the Trump administration. A Guardian analysis has found that Planned Parenthood closures have occurred or are in the works across six affiliates that maintain clinics in Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Utah and Vermont.

One pharmacist described scarcity of life-saving Creon as ‘worst stock shortage’ they have dealt with

People with pancreatic cancer are eating only one meal a day because of an acute shortage of a drug that helps them digest their food.

Patients with cystic fibrosis and pancreatitis are also affected by the widespread scarcity of Creon, a form of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT).

Frustration and anger mount as Trump administration contemplates new trials and restrictions for Covid vaccines

As the Trump administration contemplates new clinical trials for Covid boosters and moves to restrict Covid vaccines for children and others, parents whose children participated in the clinical trials expressed anger and dismay.

“It’s really devastating to see this evidence base officially ignored and discarded,” said Sophia Bessias, a parent in North Carolina whose two- and four-year-old kids were part of the Pfizer pediatric vaccine trial.

What we want is quick, clever fixes. What we need is quite different: the ability to tolerate intolerable feelings, to sustainably change and grow

When people seek therapy – and I know this, because I too was once a person seeking therapy – we often want strategies, techniques and tools for our toolboxes. We want to be asked questions and to know the answers; we want to ask questions and to be given answers. We believe that these are the things we need to build a better life.

Now that I am a patient in psychoanalysis, and I am a psychodynamic psychotherapist treating patients, I can see why my therapist needed to frustrate this desire, and offer me the opposite. What I wanted was to manage myself out of my emotions rather than feel them, to hack my life rather than live it – and that makes for a shallower existence, not a better one.

Exclusive: Cost-saving for 2024-25 follows pledge by Wes Streeting to cut the amount going to agencies by 30%

Spending on agency staff across the NHS in England dropped by almost £1bn in the last financial year, ministers have said, after a pledge by Wes Streeting to cut the amount going to agencies by 30%.

According to the Department of Health and Social Care, the total spent by trusts on agency staff during 2024-25 was nearly £1bn lower than the previous year.

Sadiq Khan seeking ‘urgent review’ of decision to ban adverts from British Pregnancy Advisory Service

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has stepped in to reverse a ban on adverts on the London transport network calling for abortion to be decriminalised.

It is understood that the mayor is seeking an “urgent review” of a Transport for London (TfL) decision to ban the adverts from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) charity on the grounds they may bring the Metropolitan police into disrepute.