""An email widely circulated among US voters, of uncertain origin, claims that anyone over 59 in Britain is ineligible for treatment for heart disease.""

Really strange that one.

In October 2005 I was diagnosed with Aeschemic Heart Disease. By Jan 16th 2006, I'd had all the necessary tests, followed by an Angioplasty performed at St. Thomas' Hospital in London (one of the finest in the World), and was into the first week of a five month course of Cardiac Rehabilitation.

I was 65 years old in Feb 2006.

My father had his first hip replacement at the age of 65, and being a very keen and active golfer, needed a second replacement, which he received at the age of 84.

My mother was treated for Pancreatic Cancer at the age of 87. She died age 88, and my father went into a care home after treatment, at age 88 for an Oesophagal Cancer, where he was looked after until his death last July at the age of 89.

Not one of these treatments involved money changing hands, and the care was as good as any in the World, and better than most.

One last point. N.I.C.E. do not refuse drugs which offer a realistic chance of a cure, no matter what the cost. Where they draw the line, is at the point of spending many thousands of pounds on a drug which may possibly extend the life of some terminally ill persons by two or three months, or may have no effect whatever. This makes sense to most reasonably intelligent people, though of course it is very hard on the patient and his/her family.

Don T.