The Covid-19 vaccination program is becoming an ethical discussion of the difference between national vs global, private vs public, and whether to co-operate or to compete. It is also about who pays and who benefits.
(more…)
Category: Health
-
Covid-19 Vaccines: Australia on the side of wealthy countries and Big Pharma
-
Capitalism, COVID, and Climate
The pandemic alliance between Big Pharma and governments foreshadows how the market-based capitalist system will fail to address global warming. Just finding low emissions technology is not an answer.
-
Perspectives from the floor of a medically supervised injecting centre
I have worked at New South Wales’ only Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (Uniting MSIC) for more than seven years and have been giving care to people who inject drugs for over a decade.
-
Why won’t Morrison accept his responsibility for quarantine?
WA State Premier McGowan has again called on the Commonwealth to accept its responsibility to develop national dedicated quarantine facilities as Australia has had for much of its past. But there appears to be little to no chance of that happening. (more…)
-
There is a conspiracy about the origins of COVID-19. But it has nothing to do with China’s secrecy
The WHO report into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, released on March 30, supported what the scientists have long known: that the SARS-CoV2 virus most likely originated in an animal reservoir and, after a process of mutations, in complex settings of environmental and ecological change, eventually found its way into human populations. It also raised a curious question: why, if it is clear that the origin of COVID-19 is no different to other zoonoses to have emerged in the last century, are the public debates focusing on quite different issues? (more…)
-
To hell in a trolley-car with a motley crew: utilitarians, “triage” urgers and Neo-Aztecs
And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. (John, 11:49-50 KJV).
Covid-era debates over the intrinsic value of human life have trundled the Trolley Problem (broadly, one person killed to save five), into the public arena. The general concept is not new. (more…)
-
Who is Australia’s worst Health Minister? How does Greg Hunt rate?
In the past 50 years, Australia has had 23 health ministers. But who is the worst? (more…)
-
COVID-19 Vaccines: Risks, Benefits, and Indemnity
The Morrison government has provided Indemnity for vaccine manufacturers but not Australians at risk of the exceedingly rare, but sometimes fatal, blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. (more…)
-
Explaining the AstraZeneca blood clots: what are our risks and how do we proceed?
Australian governments are advising people under the age of 50 not to pursue vaccination with the now locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine. Given Australia’s control over community transmission, any risk posed by the AZ vaccine is unacceptable, particularly, for not at-risk populations.
-
Children’s Hospital tragedy casts a shadow over Perth
The death of a seven-year-old girl in the emergency department of Perth Children’s Hospital hangs like a cloud over the city and is bringing forth an outpouring both of grief and of questions about Western Australia’s health services. (more…)
-
Are we more depressed or more diagnosed?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), which finds widespread use in Australia and across the world, by physicians, researchers, courts, and schools, lists more than 300 criteria for depression, which makes the meaning of a diagnosis so vague it can potentially cover every one of us. So, are we more depressed or more diagnosed?
-
I’ll have what Scott’s having, thanks!
It is important that all Australians be vaccinated against Covid-19, but they deserve to be able to choose the vaccine that best suits them. As the federal government’s rollout plan implodes, the good news is that it now seems likely that all Australians who want it will be able to have the higher efficacy Pfizer vaccine which the PM received last month. (more…)
-
Australian Medical Association’s aged care money grab
The Australian Medical Association, a lobby group and peak body for doctors, has offered up a thinly disguised money-grab in the form of expert recommendations in response to the Aged Care Royal Commission.
-
Lobby Land. The power of the health lobby. Health ministers may be in office but they are not in power. An update.
The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers- the health lobby. A succession of Australian health ministers Liberal and Labor for three decades have failed in any serious health reform. We have been going around in circles. It is very depressing. The new shadow minister Mark Butler could succeed as Minister if he can find a way to manage and neutralise the provider/lobbyists. But not otherwise. And don’t look the the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing for much help. It was State Premiers, State Health Ministers and State Health officials who drove the fight against the pandemic, not the Commonwealth and its agencies.
(more…) -
Australia assists Big Pharma to stall vaccine roll out.
As the Australian vaccine rollout languishes the Australian Government appears to value pharma profits over protecting people from Covid. (more…)
-
The unfolding Covid disaster in PNG
Helping New Guinea with its disastrous Covid outbreak is not pure altruism on our part. The unbridled, indeed raging pandemic, known to have infected 100,000 already and likely to have infected a million more within a week or so, provides a perfect ‘incubator’ for wild type more infectious variants of the Covid to develop. We need to help our close neighbour in a way that prevents transmission of the New Guinea variant spilling into Australia.
(more…) -
Experts warn failure to rapidly ‘Vaccinate the World’ creates dangerous opening for Covid-19 mutations
Epidemiologists from dozens of countries around the world issued a loud warning Tuesday that failure to ensure global administration of Covid-19 vaccines within the next year—at the very latest—could allow vaccine-resistant variants to spread among unprotected populations to such an extent that current shots are rendered ineffective. (more…)
-
The ‘ecology of attention’ in health and social care
Every single transaction expends precious time of attention; time which is even more precious amidst the escalating claims on our attention. Those needing support and treatment are hoping to have their circumstances and problems understood, they seek attention, attention to the way their lives have been affected. (more…)
-
The unfortunate reality for private health insurance premiums
On 21 December last year, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced “the lowest annual average [private health insurance] premium change for consumers since 2001”. However, the affordability of private health insurance for many consumers continues to decline and is likely to get worse. -
WHO Chief blasts ‘Grotesque’ vaccine inequality as rich nations block speedy end of global pandemic
As rich nations like the United States and pharmaceutical companies face sustained calls to share Covid-19 vaccine knowledge, the head of the World Health Organization on Monday decried the “grotesque” global inequality of vaccine distribution. “We have the means to avert this failure but it’s shocking how little has been done to avert it”, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (more…)
-
Vaccine rollout hindered by lack of recognition for nurse practitioners
A general practitioner will be required to supervise nurse practitioners as they administer the COVID-19 vaccine, a decision that was made without concerns of health and safety. This means under-resourced and at-risk communities will be slower to gain access to the vaccine,
-
More talk, no action: Australia’s approach to trade rules restraining vaccine production
Papua New Guinea’s COVID-19 outbreak is a portent of the “catastrophic moral failure” the head of the World Health Organization warned of in January due to poor countries being pushed to the back of the vaccine queue.
-
Do we still burn witches? The petition to pardon Kathleen Folbigg over the death of her four children
The recent petition to the NSW Governor to pardon Mrs Kathleen Folbigg led me to read the 557 page report of the inquiry conducted into her case in 2019. What I read made me feel uncomfortable and raises a number of questions for the legal system and for all of us who are subject to it. (more…)
-
Vaccine misinformation on social media is out of control, but we should expect better from the mainstream media
I am surely not alone in being angry that The Australian would accept Clive Palmer’s money and let him publish dangerous, inaccurate claims about our Covid vaccination program.
-
How effective are the Covid vaccines for our global immunisation efforts?
While there are more than 200 vaccines against Covid-19 being developed, there are now seven vaccines being widely distributed and used around the world. Do they all work? That depends on how you judge “works” often described in terms of “efficacy” in achieving desired goals.
(more…) -
Developing a systems approach to enable patient navigation: A path to achieving patient empowerment?
The CSIRO Future of Health Report cites the importance of patient-centred healthcare but the current state is that the Australian healthcare system is cited both nationally and globally as too complex to navigate. Finding the consumer in the current system is likened to a game of Where’s Wally. In the 1990s, patient activism in HIV/AIDS was a driving force of change and political voice in the sector. The pervading mantra was “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”. (more…)
-
Vaccine Diplomacy Is Paying Off for China
Beijing Hasn’t Won the Soft-Power Stakes, but It Has an Early Lead.
-
QUAD: A public relations exercise to disguise Big Pharma’s obstruction and to combat Chinese vaccine successes
QUAD (US, Japan, India and Australia) was regarded as a strategic bloc to contain China. However, the recent virtual meeting between President Biden and Prime Ministers Suga, Modhi and Morrison ,whilst highlighting the provision vaccines to the region was really about curbing Chinese vaccine successes- an expression of soft power. (more…)
-
The long Chinese march into Indonesia with vaccines
Chinese officials in Australia rarely miss an opportunity to chill relations by turning down the thermostat on our democratic values and way of seeing the world. Meanwhile, the Middle Kingdom’s men in Jakarta are playing a long and warming game.So far about four million have had their first vaccine shot and around 1.5 million needle two. (more…)
