Up to 400 offences were reported to police in the six months to April.<\/p>\n
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In response to the wave of attacks, professionals from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) and Barts Health NHS Trust have issued advice for bystanders.<\/p>\n Witnesses can play a vital role in minimizing the effects of scarring and the need for surgical reconstruction with immediate first aid treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cAlready 2017 has seen a big increase in acid attacks in the UK, relative to 2016,\u201d the trio of medics wrote in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhereas in the past most of the attacks were related to robberies, corrosive substances now seem to be a replacement for carrying knives.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSimilarly, ambulance service responders and health professionals in emergency departments must have clear guidance on immediate steps to minimize secondary harm and training on how to deal with these devastating, life changing attacks,\u201d<\/em> they added.<\/p>\n They stressed the importance of removing the victim from exposure to the chemical as soon as possible using vast amounts of water, which is \u201cvital\u201d to clear the acid.<\/p>\n Johann Grundlingh, an emergency consultant at Barts who co-authored the report, however, warned that using only a small amount of water could prove ineffective.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s an inheren<\/em>t reaction to when you see someone with a burn to put water on it, or something cold on it least.<\/em><\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely the people I\u2019ve encountered on the street who have been attacked want to wash off what they\u2019ve been attacked with,\u201d<\/em> he told Sky News.<\/p>\n \u201cBut a small 350ml bottle of water is not going to help. It\u2019s the volume of water that is necessary and that people don\u2019t know about and we encourage people to use liters and liters of water.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The advice comes amid calls for new legislation that would see acid attacks treated in the same way as knife crime.<\/p>\n Home Secretary Amber Rudd recently said perpetrators could be handed life sentences.<\/p>\n \u201cI am clear that life sentences must not be reserved for acid attack survivors,\u201d she wrote in the Sunday Times last month.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThere is something particularly troubling about these kinds of attacks,\u201d she said.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOur faces tell our stories. To burn and to disfigure [a face] is the most grotesque and vicious act of identity destruction.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Up to 300,000 people have also signed a petition to make it unlawful to buy acid without a license.<\/p>\n Sarmad Ismail, who started the petition, said it is extremely easy it is to buy acid online.<\/p>\n \u201cYou put sulphuric [sulfuric] acid into Google and the results that come up are \u2018Concentrated acid neutraliser\u2019, \u20182.5l or Sulphuric acid 96 percent\u2019, which is \u00a311.95 [US$15.75] and will be delivered to your door.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAnd what comes to your door can completely destroy a life,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere should be checks in place, especially on these websites. There should be licensing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Doctors have issued advice for witnesses of acid attacks, which can play a crucial role in saving victims\u2019 lives or limiting the extent of their injuries. Up to 400 offences were reported to police in the six months to April. Read more In response to the wave of attacks, professionals from the Royal College of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-320072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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