Disease

It’s the stuff of an edge-of-your-seat thriller: Scientists develop a fatal flu virus, one that could decimate humanity. What happens next?

Well, the fatal virus, a mutated strain of bird flu that can pass between other animals, is here. Scientists have created it in a lab - and it’s not clear what will happen next. Some scientists want to stop all the details of the research from being published for fear of bioterrorism, while others say ‘censorship’ will obstruct the search for a vaccine.

The very existence of the fatal virus, though, is a dramatic development. It echoes the plot of myriad horror flicks where the heroes battle an invisible villain amid gruesome illness and an increasing body count.

Continue reading "Creating death in a test tube" »

When I told my Australian friends that I was moving to Kenya to work as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development many of them told me not to have sex while I was here because of the country’s high HIV prevalence. Some 280 people are infected with HIV every day in Kenya.

The theme for this year’s World AIDS Day is getting to zero, but getting to zero doesn’t mean zero sex.  Along with zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths it also means zero unprotected sex with someone whose HIV status you don’t know.

Knowing your HIV status is the first step in prevention; if you are negative then you can take measures to ensure that you stay negative and if you are positive then you can access treatment, care and support services.

Continue reading "A HIV test, like sex, is best enjoyed with your partner" »

For three months Australia’s world-class health system refused to treat Thornlands’ Della Johnson who has a rare vascular disease of the brain called moyamoya. The reason: she’s a Queenslander. More precisely, she lives on the Southside of Brisbane, sees doctors on the north and needs an operation interstate.

If she lived in New South Wales, she would now be cured; months post-operation and free of her horrible symptoms. But she comes from a smaller Australian state which lacks a surgeon trained in this ‘one in a million’ procedure.

Her battle for life-saving treatment captured media attention nationwide because it exposed a flaw in our world-class federated health system. Australians are divided into eight public hospital systems and scores of hospital regions. Those boundaries can mean delayed health care and unquantifiable mental anguish for those trapped in unfortunate postcodes.

Continue reading "Cross border health issues must be resolved" »

In recent months a glance upward at dusk has revealed the chaos of a giant flock of bats blackening the sky. Over the summer the bat population in Geelong’s Eastern Park has skyrocketed.

They swoop low with intense chirps and descend on whatever trees are offering their fruits. At the peak of its bounty our neighbour’s apple tree would accommodate forty at a time. Offending apple cores littering the garden attested to a busy night of consumption.

The streets of East Geelong have been dotted with the macabre site of errant dead bats hanging from above: the victims of an encounter with power lines.

Continue reading "Release the bats! Standing between us and an outbreak" »

Lost in the aftershocks of the home insulation scandal is a story with deadly implications for beef farming in Australia.

A Senate inquiry is underway into a decision to lift the ban on importing beef from countries tainted by mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

From next Monday, beef from countries like the US, Canada, Britain and other European nations will enter Australia, without being subject to the usual import risk assessments.

Continue reading "The threat to Aussie steak" »

Whenever I read the word ‘contagious’ I think of chicken pox and the summer I spent scratching myself stupid as an eight year old.

My younger sister caught it from a school friend the week before and I remember my mum telling us to keep close to each other in a bid to hit all thee kids at once.

And it worked. Before you knew it I was covered in Pinetarsol and ensconced in the shade of the back yard with a pile of books.

Continue reading "Chicken pox and loneliness" »

As a politician one of my roles is to attend official openings. Like all of my colleagues I’ve opened schools, sporting facilities, roads, bridges and buildings complete with photos in a hardhat and safety vest. It is a part of the job and one that I quite enjoy.

It is fair to say that in my twenty-two years in Parliament I have attended hundreds of these ceremonies. Out of all of them, there is one which sticks in my mind as both the strangest and also among the most important.

In 2008, in the tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati, I formally opened a girl’s toilet at a school.

Continue reading "And a very happy World Toilet Day to you all" »

The propensity for us ascribe days to inanimate objects seems endless. Some of the more obscure that we’ve encountered recently include ‘Picnic Day’, ‘World TV Day’ (which coincidentally shares a day with ‘World Hello Day’, one promoting socialising and one well…not), ‘Lefthanders Day’ and everybody’s favourite, ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’.

So it would not be out of the question to, upon hearing the words ‘World Toilet Day’, shake your head, perhaps laugh, and turn the page, or click the link for Laser Hair Solutions in the right side panel (because this site appreciates the plight of the left hander when designing web content).

All jokes aside, World Toilet Day is an internationally recognised and significant promoting a critical issue for 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty. It is the lack of safe toilets. We know the solution and we have the technology to simply, effectively and practically make a difference, all we need is the will.

Continue reading "Do you give a crap about World Toilet Day?" »

The strange thing about having swine flu is that it is more like meeting a pop culture icon than being told you’re sick.

After being examined by two doctors yesterday (the intern called for backup) I was told that I had the best accessory in the Winter 2009 collection – the H1N1 virus.

This terminology was obviously preferred by doctors who refuse to engage in the more tabloid pig or swine flu. It also would have sounded alarmist when paired with their sage advice which was basically “go back to bed and you’ll be right, young bloke like yourself” etc.

Continue reading "Swine flu review: good show, but wouldn’t buy the album" »