Around four years ago, now 77-year-old John Gormly went for what was supposed to be a routine blood test. But the results were life-changing.

The test suggested Gormly had colon cancer, which a colonoscopy later confirmed was Stage 2, meaning the cancer had spread through the wall of the colon but not to his lymph nodes.

A dominant theme in addiction studies is how addicted individuals become stigmatised, excluded and marginalised as a result of their drug addiction - and the often dysfunctional and anti-social behaviour that follows. Max Dennehy and Thaddeus Müller report (in: Stigma and drug use: Research perspectives from Europe),"often, the experiences of exclusion and stigmatisation start well before the ´addicts´ have ever picked up a drug. Our research conveys the reality that many of our most excluded, marginalised, and stigmatised people who use drugs have a chronic history of stigmatisation and exclusion that dates back to early childhood. Often, addiction is a symptom of exclusion, not the cause."

A rare parasitic twin protruding from the chest of a 17-year-old boy has been removed by surgeons in Delhi, India.