I Suspect This Blog Will Only Be Of Interest To About Half My Readers!

This appeared last week:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/health/relationships/oh-just-one-more-thing-doctor-the-latest-on-dealing-with-erectile-dysfunction/news-story/4be35822e1e0ac84cf4e6ef5bd6c162f

‘Oh, just one more thing doctor’: The latest on dealing with erectile dysfunction

Whether you need a little bit of help or a lot, there’s likely a solution out there for those with erectile dysfunction. We give you the latest.

Stephen Lunn

Updated 11:10 AM April 19, 2025

“Oh and there’s just one more thing, doctor …”

This offhand comment at the end of a visit to the GP is often the start of the journey for men dealing with erectile dysfunction.

The topic of ED can be discomfiting, or downright embarrassing, but it’s vital for men to know that it is not only a common condition, but also a treatable one in most cases.

So what is ED exactly? What causes it? How common is it? Who should you talk to about your concerns? And what can you do about it?

Answering these questions can be more than informative, they can be transformative for men worried their days of having sex are over forever.

What is erectile dysfunction?

Writing about this topic will require some bluntness, but in the interests of clarity it is preferable to be straightforward than to deal in euphemisms.

ED is the inability of a man to have an erection firm enough, or for a long enough period of time, to engage in penetrative sexual intercourse. The penis won’t get hard, or it won’t stay hard.

For those wondering if this is the same as impotence, the answer is yes. But impotence is a word no longer in common medical use due to the stigma of inadequacy with which it became associated.

The biomechanics of an erection are complex. It starts in the brain, where the desire to have sex manifests. That message is transported along the spinal cord into the pelvis, opening arteries in the penis and allowing blood to fill two sponge-like chambers that run along its shaft.

By enlarging the penis, the veins are closed off, so the blood is trapped.

This process of filling, or trapping, the blood may fail for a number of reasons, either physical or psychological.

The impact can be acute. It means not having sex in the way you want to, if at all. It can be devastating for men, who may feel a loss of masculinity, with all the flow-on emotions that entails.

It can put a huge strain on couples, the loss of physical intimacy sometimes spelling the end of a relationship. And for men looking for a new partner, it can feel like a huge hurdle at the starting gate.

What causes it?

Melbourne urological surgeon Christopher Love says the days of thinking that ED is primarily a psychological issue are long gone, though for some, around one in 10 cases, it is still the primary cause.

“We now know that about 90 per cent of chronic ED cases are related to physical or medical factors. We’re talking about smoking, being overweight, having high cholesterol or high blood pressure,” Dr Love says.

“There is one factor you can’t change, which is ageing. ED is more common the older you get. Your arteries tend to harden, restricting blood flow.”

Dr Love also notes that surgery or cancer treatment that affect the pelvic area, such as prostate cancer treatment, can be a common cause of ED.

How common is it?

There are conflicting statistics on ED prevalence in Australia. The federal Department of Health and Aged Care in its examination of the link between smoking and ED notes that “one in five men over the age of 40 have some problem with erections and one in 10 men over 40 are unable to get an erection”.

Yet that page links to a government-sponsored health advice page, healthdirect, which reports that erectile dysfunction affects up to two in three males aged over 45.

Another research paper, published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2013, examined ED across a cohort of more than 108,000 men in the 45 and Up Study.

It found the overall prevalence of ED was 61 per cent for over-45s. This figure was broken down into 25 per cent who reported mild erectile dysfunction (experienced ED “sometimes”), 19 per cent with moderate ED (“usually”) and 17 per cent had complete erectile dysfunction.

“Overall, the risk of moderate/complete ED was higher among men with low socio-economic status, high body mass index, those who were sedentary, current smokers, and those with diseases including diabetes, heart disease, and depression/anxiety, compared with men without these risk factors,” the study says.

“Almost all men aged 75 or older reported moderate/severe ED; however, increased physical activity was associated with lower odds of ED in this group.”

That finding was closer to a US study cited by the Cleveland Clinic that finds ED affected around 40 per cent of men at age 40 and nearly 70 per cent at age 70. Complete ED increased from 5 per cent at age 40 to 15 per cent at age 70.

Smoking is a significant risk factor. The Health Department’s information says that for every 100 non-smokers aged over 40 with ED there are between 130 and 150 smokers.

Melbourne urologist Gideon Blecher describes his typical ED patient. “They’re average guys, some are a little overweight but not drastically so. They’ll have busy lives and jobs. They’ll say that in the last few years their erection is not as strong or they’re not lasting as long.

“They’ll have been burying their heads in the sand for years, so it is often huge for them to seek treatment. It can be really emotional,” Dr Blecher says.

Who should you talk to?

The first port of call can be your GP, or you may seek more anonymous advice from an online health service.

“Some men take a deep breath and just come out with it,” Melbourne GP David Fox says.

“But I’d say most spend a lot of time talking about other things, then right at the end of the appointment it will come as a ‘By the way’, or ‘There’s just one other thing,” he says.

“I understand that for men this is very uncomfortable and difficult to talk about, especially the first time. I’m likely to be the first person apart from their intimate partner who they’ve spoken to about it.

“So it’s important to give that more time, even though it might delay the timely start of the next patient’s appointment.

“I ask how long it has been an issue, what is the impact on him and on his partner, what level of ED we are talking about, and has he tried anything in terms of treatment,” Dr Fox says.

For those who don’t want to face their GP, or another doctor face-to-face, the other option is to seek advice online, not from Dr Google, but from a health practitioner operating remotely.

Dr Love, a penile implant surgeon, is also a medical adviser to men’s online health service MOSH, which offers consultation with health practitioners and treatment options without a face-to-face consultation.

“These online platforms do address issues such as a patient being too embarrassed to talk face-to-face, and GPs being time poor,” he says.

Dr Fox is concerned that online clinics may be too focused on the one issue without looking at broader health factors that may be relevant.

“This is important because ED can be an indicator of other issues such as cardiovascular disease.”

But Dr Love says the online consultations, done correctly, will cover this off.

“It’s not like you get a prescription without being asked broader questions about your general health,” he says.

Tests to examine the cause of ED range from simple blood tests to a full psychological examination, to a penile duplex ultrasound that checks blood flow into and out of the penis.

But most of the time ED and its causes can be established without invasive testing.

What are the treatment options?

The experts will all tell you that in the majority of cases there is a successful treatment option available for ED.

Oral medications

The first and most obvious, and most successful, option is an oral medication. Sildenafil, known by its commercial name Viagra, boosts chemicals in the body that open up the blood vessels to get more blood to the penis.

Similar drugs are available, with different strengths, including Vardenafil, Tadalafil and Avanafil. Tadalafil is unique in that it can be taken in a very low dose daily to provide for more spontaneous sexual activity.

Because it is no longer under patent, Viagra costs around $2.50 per tablet. It does require planning, as it needs to be taken an hour before sex.

Dr Fox says these drugs work for around 70-80 per cent of the patients he prescribes them to without any further concerns. But some have side effects like headache or facial flushing.

“And other patients will say it doesn’t work fully or at all, so we can try different oral medications for those for whom the first-line drug is not working or is giving them side effects.

“If they still aren’t working, at that point I’d refer them to a urologist,” Dr Fox says.

It can’t be forgotten that over the past few decades these tablets have been a game changer for many men.

“The tablets are great,” Dr Blecher says. “The vast majority of guys will respond to most forms of tablet, which successfully open up their blood vessels. The men will have penises that are harder, and last longer.”

If oral medications aren’t working, this is not the end of the road. Men have other options, including new ones coming onto the market. But some aren’t for the squeamish.

Self-injection therapy

“It sounds awful at first. I see guys wince when I suggest it in our appointments,” Dr Blecher says.

“But it’s only a small needle, and is really the next option for those not responding to tablets.”

The patient, or his partner, injects medication directly into the side of the penis in order to generate an erection about five to 15 minutes later. The small needle distributes a small amount of the drug, and according to the urologists the patients quickly get used to doing the injections.

“It’s like a superstrong version of Viagra going directly into the penis,” Dr Love says, with an erection usually lasting anywhere between 30 and 90 minutes.

He says about three in four men who try it are satisfied with the therapy as an option for them, though again this treatment involves pre-planning for sex.

But like any injection-based treatment, there is the risk of bruising and bleeding. And for this particular treatment there is also the risk of a prolonged erection, up to four hours, which may require medical intervention.

Vacuum devices

These devices basically do what you’d expect, how you’d expect.

A small vacuum tube is placed over the penis and pressed against the abdomen to create a seal. Then the air is sucked out of the device with a handheld pump, drawing blood into the penis. It is trapped there by placing a rubber ring at the base of the penis.

“The penis is basically sucked up into an erection,” Dr Love says.

He says this is a useful option for those who can achieve a partial erection through foreplay, and has the advantage of being non-invasive.

“But while it can be quite effective for patients who get used to using it, it doesn’t really create a rock-hard erection, so it’s not ideal for young to middle-aged patients,” he says.

Dr Blecher says about 10 to 15 per cent of his patients are using the vacuum technique.

“It can be cumbersome to use and is not very sexy. But some guys are in long-term, great relationships wanting to enjoy their sex lives, and they’re very happy with this as an option for them,” he says.

Shockwave therapy

This treatment for ED, which has been in use for about a decade, sounds shocking but is completely painless.

The doctor will run a low intensity shockwave machine, which looks like a large pencil, along the side of the penis, the idea being that it will promote blood flow in the area and improve erections. It requires weekly treatments for about six weeks.

“This is for a guy who’s erections aren’t quite there, but who wants to move off the tablets or achieve a better response to them,” Dr Blecher said. “They like it because there is no side-effect profile, but the improvement is mild to moderate at best.”

Dr Love said a newer treatment along similar lines is gaining momentum, which involves a machine delivering radiofrequency energy to the penis. But he says that as yet there is not strong evidence of its effectiveness.

“The idea is that it makes the tissue heat up and that makes the body produce more collagen, which is important for the structural requirements of an erection. It may play more of a role in future treatments.”

Inflatable penile implants

This is the most complex and invasive of the treatments, but is also the most reliable in terms of guaranteeing an erection.

The surgical procedure has been around for 50 years, and has been taken up by hundreds of thousands of men worldwide, with high satisfaction rates.

Dr Love says they offer the most reliable, spontaneous answer to ED, and with a low risk of any side effects.

There are a number of different types, and the mechanics are intricate. The simplest description is that they are inflatable tubes replacing the natural tubes inside the penis, implanted through surgery.

When the man wants an erection, he can fill the tubes with a salt water solution from a reservoir that has been permanently inserted into his abdomen. The pumping mechanism is inside the scrotum.

The result is immediate, and the penis can be inflated to the desired firmness, within 30 seconds. After sex, the man can reverse the process, pumping the solution back into the reservoir.

“We see men who have been struggling for years, they’ve tried everything else, and are embarrassed and frustrated that nothing works. By the time we see them their relationship has taken a hit,” Dr Blecher says.

“But this procedure is low risk, and they get a reliable erection and enjoy it.”

Dr Love agrees. “It’s a great treatment because it will work no matter how bad the erectile problem is. All other aspects of sex are the same, touch, feel, ejaculation, it’s all the same.”

There are downsides though, including that once an implant has been inserted the man will no longer be able to have a natural erection. This is why it is for the most difficult cases.

A final word

Dr Love says having an enjoyable sex life is an important part of life, and men should be willing to explore their options.

“Oral medication works for most, but if they don’t there are other good treatments, so don’t stop just because the tablets aren’t doing the trick,” he says.

Dr Blecher says men of all ages who continue to be interested in having sex should check what’s available.

“In our practice we see quite a lot of men in their mid to late 80s who still enjoy a healthy sex life and want to maintain it.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/health/relationships/oh-just-one-more-thing-doctor-the-latest-on-dealing-with-erectile-dysfunction/news-story/4be35822e1e0ac84cf4e6ef5bd6c162f

This is a pretty sound article which covers the issue pretty well!

The main point is that there are a lot of decent solutions to erectile dysfunction and man should not be worried about seeking help for this problem. Help can transform your life if you have problems – so chat to your GP and get help. You and your partner will both be happier I suspect!!!

David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 797 – Results – 08 June 2025.

Here are the results of the recent poll.

Are You Concerned The US Is Suggesting China Appears To Be Planning To Invade Taiwan Reasonably Soon?

Yes                                                                       8 (36%)

No                                                                       14 (64%)

I Have No Idea                                                    0 (03%)

Total No. Of Votes: 22

Clearly a majority do not think an invasion is likely soon!

Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!

Pathetic voter turnout – answer must have been too easy. 

0 of 22 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!

Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted! 

David.

It Seems We Are Gradually Making Progress In Reading These Ancient Scrolls!

This appeared last week:

Digital archaeology

The decoding of ancient Roman scrolls is speeding up

More data, and a more powerful particle accelerator, should pay dividends

May 28th 2025|Herculaneum

IF YOU WANTED to read an ancient Roman scroll, you might reach for a dictionary, and perhaps a magnifying glass. You would probably not think of using a particle accelerator. But that is what is required to unravel the papyrus scrolls found in Herculaneum, a Roman town buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. Even then, success is far from guaranteed: since 2023 researchers attempting to unravel the scrolls have been stuck on the first few. Now, armed with more data and a more powerful particle accelerator, they expect to make more rapid headway.

The scrolls in question, stored in a library in a Roman villa that is thought to have belonged to the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, were carbonised by scorching gases that engulfed the town during the volcanic eruption that also buried the nearby town of Pompeii. All attempts to unroll them physically, starting in the 18th century, caused them to disintegrate. So instead researchers have been unrolling them virtually, through computer analysis of high-resolution 3d X-ray scans—which is where the particle accelerator comes in.

Such virtual unrolling is a two-stage process pioneered by W. Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky. The first stage, called segmentation, involves tracing the edges of the rolled-up papyrus sheet inside the 3D scan, and then extracting 2D images of the scroll’s surface. The second stage, ink detection, analyses the resulting images to distinguish the ink of the scroll’s text from the papyrus background. This is particularly tricky for the Herculaneum scrolls, which were written in carbon-based ink, so there is very little contrast against the background of carbonised papyrus.

Dr Seales thought artificial-intelligence techniques might be able to help. In 2023 he launched a contest, called the Vesuvius Challenge, along with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, two technology entrepreneurs who provided backing. A few X-ray scans were made available online, and a community of thousands of enthusiasts has subsequently developed a range of software tools to speed up the fiddly processes of segmentation and ink detection. In late 2023 the project achieved a breakthrough when the first passages of text, in Greek, were extracted from scans of a scroll called “Banana Boy”. Three computer-science students shared a $700,000 reward for doing so. (The scroll’s nickname refers to its banana-like shape rather than its content, which appears to be a previously unknown philosophical work.)

At the time, Mr Friedman predicted that entire scrolls would be decoded by the end of 2024. But progress has been significantly slower than anticipated. “I think I entered 2024 a little cocky,” he admits. One problem was that improving the segmentation software turned out to be unexpectedly difficult. But Mr Friedman now thinks the main obstacle was the quality of the original X-ray scans.

Banana Boy, which belongs to a Parisian museum, was one of four scrolls that had been scanned at the Diamond Light Source (DLS), a particle accelerator in Oxfordshire. A so-called synchrotron light source, it accelerates electrons to almost the speed of light in a storage ring 562 metres in circumference. As the electrons are steered around the ring, they emit electromagnetic radiation, the frequency of which can be carefully tuned, so as to produce X-rays. The resulting powerful beams are then used for various scientific purposes—such as scanning ancient texts.

Of the four originally scanned scrolls, however, Banana Boy is the only one in which ink has been detected. The scan of a second scroll was not as good, Mr Friedman says. Two other, smaller scrolls also seemed to contain very little ink. One possibility is that they were unfinished works, and so were mostly blank. But it is also possible, says Dr Seales, that chemical treatment of those scrolls in the 1980s, during efforts to unwrap them physically, could have affected the ink. Having found text only in Banana Boy, says Mr Friedman, “We were banging our heads against the other three scrolls.”

Then the winds changed. During 2024 the team secured permission to scan a fifth scroll, kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, at the DLS. For the first time, individual letters were directly visible in the scans after the segmentation step, probably because this scroll was written with a different type of ink. Finding ink in another scroll was heartening, Mr Friedman says.

This month two volunteer researchers were awarded a $60,000 prize for detecting the scroll’s title—the first time the specific work on a Herculaneum scroll has been identified. It turned out to be “On Vices” by Philodemus, a philosopher who lived in the town (and the likely author of Banana Boy, too). Mr Friedman says longer fragments of text are now being found within the scroll. In April the team scanned another 20 scrolls at the DLS, flown by private jet from the Victor Emmanuel III National Library in Naples. This deluge of new data will help make the segmentation and ink-detection algorithms much better.

At the same time the team has secured a boost in scanning power. This month they undertook a further six-day scanning campaign using the Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS) at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, the world’s brightest synchrotron. The EBS can produce X-rays 10trn times brighter than those used in medical imaging—and with twice the maximum energy of the DLS, the EBS can perform scans more quickly. To determine how best to use this more powerful machine, the researchers spent the first three days trying out different scanning parameters, akin to adjusting the settings on a photo scanner to get the best results.

Increasing the incident energy of the individual X-rays in the beam (measured in kiloelectron volts, or keV) produces sharper images, but too much energy reduces the contrast and makes features harder to distinguish, says Dr Seales. Adjusting the so-called propagation distance between the item being scanned and the detector, can also affect sharpness and contrast. A third parameter is the spatial resolution, defined as the width of each volumetric pixel in the scan, measured in microns (millionths of a metre). Scanning at two-micron resolution produces far more detail than at eight microns, but the resulting digital files are 64 times larger.

Over a series of scans, all these parameters were varied in turn. The conclusion, says Dr Seales, was to use X-rays with an incident energy of 110keV (higher than the 53keV used at the DLS); a propagation distance of one metre (a longer distance made the contrast worse); and to scan at four microns and then downsample to eight microns, to get good sharpness at a smaller file size. Having established these settings, the team spent three days scanning a further 20 scrolls. The resulting scans, says Mr Friedman, are easily the best so far. “It’s a step change for us—we think it’s a game changer,” he says.

In particular, there is fine detail even in compressed regions, where layers of papyrus are very close together. This should help make the segmentation process easier and more accurate. Mr Friedman thinks reading entire scrolls by the end of this year is now feasible. “Nothing is going to stop me—we are going to solve this,” he insists. The next step is to “triage” the new scans to find the scrolls that can be read most easily, says Dr Seales. Further improvements are no doubt possible in the scanning process, he suggests: in future it may make sense to do a high-resolution scan that is optimised for segmentation, and then a lower-resolution one with more contrast for ink detection.

Eventually, the team aims to scan all 300 surviving unwrapped scrolls. The ultimate hope is that extracting text from the scrolls, and revealing previously unknown books from antiquity, will provide the justification for a full excavation of the villa in Herculaneum, which may contain thousands more scrolls. Gaining access to a lost library of that size “would be the largest discovery in human history”, says Dr Seales. For now, the villa remains under wraps in a quiet hollow next to the ancient town. But elsewhere, vast energies are being unleashed to uncover its secrets.

Here is the link:

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/05/28/the-decoding-of-ancient-roman-scrolls-is-speeding-up

What fantastic news!!! I hope I am around to know what some of them say that is interesting!

David.

 

This Has To Be Really Good News for Some Patients!

These are really nasty cancers – if there is such a thing!

Cancer

‘Gift of life’: experts hail neck and head cancer breakthrough

Global trial shows immunotherapy drug significantly lowers chance of cancer spreading or returning

Andrew Gregory Health editor in Chicago

Sat 31 May 2025 09.00 AEST

An immunotherapy drug can ward off head and neck cancers for twice as long as the standard treatment, in the biggest breakthrough in two decades.

Pembrolizumab stimulates the immune system to fight cancer, targeting a specific protein that enables the drug to wipe out cancer cells.

The drug kept cancer at bay in some patients for an average of five years, compared with 30 months when added to standard of care, a clinical trial found.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world’s largest cancer conference.

The trial, which involved more than 700 patients across 192 sites in 24 countries, was led by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine. Dr Douglas Adkins, the study’s co-principal investigator and a professor of oncology, said the results were significant and notable because it was the first time such a drug had generated this effect.

Researchers around the world tested the drug in patients with newly diagnosed locally advanced head and neck cancers. Hundreds of thousands of patients are diagnosed with these cancers globally each year.

Of 714 patients in the trial, 363 received pembrolizumab followed by standard of care, and 351 received only the current standard of care – surgery to remove their tumour followed by radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy.

Standard of care has not changed for these patients in more than 20 years, and more than half are unlikely to survive for five years.

The immunotherapy worked particularly well for those with high levels of the immune marker PD-L1, but it increased dramatically the likelihood of patients with all types of head and neck cancers remaining well, without the disease progressing or returning.

Kevin Harrington, a professor of biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, led a UK team involved in the trial, which was funded by the pharmaceutical company MSD.

“For patients with newly diagnosed, locally advanced head and neck cancer, treatments haven’t changed in over two decades,” he said. “Immunotherapy has been amazingly beneficial for patients with cancer that has come back or spread around the body but, until now, it hasn’t been as successful for those presenting for the first time with disease which has spread to nearby areas.

“This research shows that immunotherapy could change the world for these patients – it significantly decreases the chance of cancer spreading around the body, at which point it is incredibly difficult to treat.

“The results of this trial show that pembrolizumab dramatically increases the duration of disease remission for years longer than the current standard treatments. It works particularly well for those with high levels of immune markers, but it’s really exciting to see that the treatment improves outcomes for all head and neck cancer patients, regardless of these levels.”

Laura Marston, 45, from Derbyshire, joined the trial after she was diagnosed with stage 4 tongue cancer in 2019. “I am amazed I am still here six years later,” she said. “This treatment has given me the gift of life.”

Prof Kristian Helin, the chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, said: “Immunotherapy continues to deliver … To learn that patients with immunotherapy added to their treatment plan had, on average, double the length of time free from evidence of disease compared to those without it – with some patients still yet to see their cancer return – is wonderful.”

Here is the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/31/neck-and-head-cancer-breakthrough-drug-immunotherapy

The good thing about this is that we are now seeing some immune therapies really make a big difference in the clinic.

Can I say not before time! Way back when I researched immune therapies on poor unfortunate mice (early 1970’s), we reckoned it would not be long till great benefit was seen. We were wrong as only now are some occasionally good results flowing from immunotherapy 50 years later.

Oh well, at least I am alive to see some successes!

David.

Surely China Is Not Going To Blow Up The World Order And Invade Taiwan?

This appeared lst week:

How the US plans to fight off Chinese invasion of Taiwan

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that any attempt by China to conquer Taiwan “would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world”.

Memphis Barker and Julian Simmonds

Updated Jun 1, 2025 – 8.50am, first published at 8.29am

A soldier careens into the briefing tent of Cross Functional Team (CFT) Taiwan, barely able to catch his breath.

“Attention on the floor!” he shouts. “Sorry to barge in, sir, but you’ll want to hear this.”

Chinese ships have begun to cross the Taiwan Strait “with full intention to invade”.

Chaos breaks out in the command centre, where specialists have been outlining recent operations. Sirens blare, soldiers pick up rucksacks, plastic chairs are pushed aside.

Over the tree line, hostile drones whirr into view. As troops hustle a visiting congressional delegation to an evacuation point, they swoop overhead and drop munitions. Ear-splitting explosions send plumes of smoke into the air. People fall by the side of the road, screaming.

So begins the long-feared war between the world’s two largest militaries – or at least, a drill simulating the event at the 25th capability exercise of the US Special Forces at Fort Bragg army base.

A hint of slapstick lingers in the air. Called upon to help the wounded, visitors fiddle with their lanyards, while fake blood soaks the clothes of gurgling actors.

The scenario, however, is head-poundingly serious.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, has ordered his military to be ready to “reunify” the self-governing island of Taiwan with the mainland by 2027.

An extraordinary build-up is under way. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now boasts 1 million troops more than the US, as well as the world’s largest navy, vast supplies of ground-based long-range missiles and a galloping nuclear arsenal set to hit 1000 warheads by 2030.

In satellite imagery, a mock-up of central Taipei, including the president’s office, can be seen near a desert PLA base.

Beijing also has home advantage: its resources are all closer to Taiwan than the US bases in the Philippines, Japan and Guam. Any movement of US forces would immediately be spotted by China’s extensive sensor network.

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, warned on Saturday that the threat from China was real and a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be imminent. He added that any attempt by China to conquer Taiwan “would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world”.

“Beijing is credibly preparing potentially to use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,” Hegseth said in a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence forum, in Singapore.

In March, Hegseth issued a classified memo that prioritised efforts to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, leaving Europe to “assume risk” in facing down Russia.

“China is the Department’s sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan – while simultaneously defending the US homeland is the Department’s sole pacing scenario,” he wrote.

The memo lifted sections almost word-for-word from a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think tank.

“If I had to bet they are laying the groundwork now to begin large swings of forces out of lesser-priority theatres to the Indo-Pacific in around six months,” says Rob Peters, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who co-authored the report.

In Fort Bragg headquarters, a briefing video opens with the sound of a clock ticking ominously. Chinese lettering fills the screen.

Three red stars mark the years 2014 (Russia’s seizure of Ukraine), 2022 (the invasion of Ukraine) and 2027 – the year China could strike Taiwan.

The impact of a Chinese invasion on the lives of ordinary people would make that of the COVID-19 pandemic “pale in comparison”, says Lieutenant General Jonathan Braga, the commander of the US Army Special Operations Command.

It would disrupt the supply of the microchips that power crucial technologies, “from I can’t buy a car, a refrigerator, a cell phone… all that stuff”.

“We need people … to think about this because it is by exponential means the greatest threat we have,” Lieutenant General Braga says.

Battles will be fought in the skies and at sea

What role ground troops would play is open to question. About 500 US military trainers are currently based in Taiwan, teaching the local forces how to operate advanced weaponry. The first test with the long-range HIMARS was carried out last month.

Special forces would likely enter Taiwan surreptitiously in the weeks before an invasion; army units might join, but public deployments could inflame the situation.

The defenders’ goal would be to “turn the Taiwan beaches into the beaches of Normandy”, says Peters. Failing that: “box them in like Anzio”.

But the fiercest battles will be fought in the skies and at sea. The US is preparing a “hellscape” of drones, mines and unmanned ships to slow down China’s crossing of the 160-kilometre Taiwan Strait.

The PLA Navy will form a blockade around the eastern flank of the island, preventing the US from reaching or resupplying the Taiwanese.

Spectacular dogfights would erupt: US F-35s, bombers and stealth B-21 raiders attempting to sink the warships, as China’s 3000 aircraft fight back.

To stand a chance, the US will need “a metric s--- ton” of long-range anti-ship missiles, in particular the new Tomahawk, which has a range of 1500 miles, says Peters. “I cannot stress this enough,” he says, the arsenal is currently “way, way [too] low”.

One goal of the special forces – however many they number – would be to try to open up air corridors onto the island.

Out on a Fort Bragg training range, a dozen camouflaged soldiers creep through the trees towards a Russian-made Scud missile and nearby command-and-control centre, which form part of China’s Integrated Air Defence System (IADS).

To the south of their position, a drone operator, robot dog and two armoured vehicles mounted with M240b machine guns wait for the signal. Snipers watch from behind camouflage.

“Open fire,” the commander orders over the radio. A drone whizzes overhead, dropping a bomb near the Scud. The M240b gunners spray the guards, providing cover for the soldiers to race out of the trees and eliminate those left alive.

The Scud is disabled with a flamethrower (its unique fuel makes explosive detonation tricky).

Then comes the most novel element of the exercise: as Chinese drones launch a counter-attack, an Anduril electronic warfare system breaks the link between the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and their pilots. The special forces team survives and a “temporary air corridor” is opened.

Whether Beijing’s real drones would be so simply overcome is another question.

“There is an assumption that China has been observing [the war in Ukraine, where Chinese drones have been used en masse] and that their ability to ramp up capacity now appears to be better than the US and Nato’s ability to produce these systems,” says Colin Smith, a Rand Corporation researcher and Marine veteran.

It can be difficult even to train with the systems on US soil. Electronic warfare systems interfere with nearby residents’ garages. On Camp Pendleton, in California, Smith’s team was unable to practise with the jammers they used in Afghanistan “because of the electromagnetic spectrum limitations”.

“Those are things that the Department of Defence is trying to work through on certain bases,” he says.

Golden dome

Homeland defence is the most pressing problem. China’s intercontinental ballistic missiles can now strike the US mainland. In May, US Air Force Brigadier General Dough Wickert warned locals around Edwards Air Force Base that a Pearl Harbour-like scenario could hit their Californian homes.

Donald Trump’s solution is the Golden Dome, a network of space-based interceptors he claims – unrealistically – could be finished within three years for a cost of “just” $US175 billion ($272 billion).

In war games on Taiwan, China does often hit the US mainland, says Smith. “What if they want to hit the West Coast and get the American population thinking, ‘why are we doing this again’?”

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior advisor at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), ran a 2023 war game on an amphibious invasion. Over 24 run-throughs, the US managed to prevent China capturing the island most times, but at the cost of dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of service members.

The US still needs to decide its position on how and when ground troops will enter the fray, Cancian says. “When you talk to the services, to the Marine corps, they say ‘well of course we’re going to be on Taiwan when the war begins’. But the state department says ‘there’s no f---ing way’, as that will precipitate the conflict we’re trying to avoid.”

In one round of the war game, a player tried to fly a US brigade into Taiwan. But they turned back after they lost a battalion to air defences. “After four, five weeks of combat, when the Chinese fleet has been chewed up, [perhaps] then you can start doing things,” he says. Sometimes, nuclear war erupts.

Such hypotheticals are above the pay grade of the soldiers who will be called upon to fight in Taiwan’s jungles, cities and beaches should war break out.

On an urban training village in Fort Bragg, two Chinook MH47 helicopters fly a platoon of elite Rangers into battle. The soldiers rappel down ropes onto the roofs, while the helicopters rattle out machine gun rounds.

Doors are stormed through, flash-bang grenades thrown as the unit rapidly clears the buildings.

High above their heads, a single Himars missile streaks through the sky. Here, it will land safely on a patch of Fort Bragg, guided to within one metre of the intended target.

The US hopes it will never come to war with China. Xi may well think twice, wary of a long and costly conflict.

If he does gamble, however, the Green Berets will no longer be practising on the fields of North Carolina – and those HIMARS missiles will be raining down on an army tasting its first real combat.

The Telegraph London

Here is the link:

https://www.afr.com/world/asia/how-the-us-plans-to-fight-off-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan-20250601-p5m3v4

Can I say I really don’t think the Chinese have an invasion of Taiwan on their list! I am probably naïve but it would be such a horrible and violent war that it is had to imaging any winners of any sort from it!

If China wants Taiwan (without awful bloodshed) it will have to earn it by becoming a free and non-repressive  country Taiwan’s people would like to join up with. It would be awful to see 25 million or so people just forced into a merger that do not want!

Anything other than a peaceful merger is really too awful to contemplate, but I do fear China may become impatient!

What do others think?

David.

The Old Adage Of Being Forced To Repeat Forgotten History Seems Pretty Prescient Just Now!

This appeared last week and is worth a careful read!

Australia’s safety in the 1930s depended on the global project. It’s no different now

Once war breaks out, the adversary is in the open; until then, hopes, fears and hesitations blur the sight, cloud the understanding, muddy and obfuscate the debate. That is the situation today.

Henry Ergas and Alex McDermott

12:00 AM May 31, 2025.

The 80th anniversary of Allied victory in Europe has recently passed with much commemoration. Less discussed was the decade that led up to World War II – the years WH Auden memorably described as a “low dishonest decade” when “Waves of anger and fear/Circulate over the bright/And darkened lands of the earth”.

Fraught with uncertainties, overshadowed by the seemingly inexorable rise of aggressive, brutally authoritarian regimes, that decade forced the democracies to confront entirely new problems. Their successes were paltry, their failures many. But what is striking is the force with which the dilemmas they faced resonate today.

The difficulties Australian governments grappled with were no exception. At their heart lay the fracturing of the British imperial system.

Whatever the gains from having an empire might have been for Britain, tight integration into “Greater Britain” provided Australia with far-reaching benefits. The country had long relied on free markets for key export industries and ready access to capital from the world’s biggest financial centre. The confusion and rockiness of Britain in the years after the Great War, its shift away from the gold standard in 1931, and the waning of its expansive, free-trade outlook, couldn’t help but impact Australia.

The 1932 Ottawa Agreement had introduced “Imperial Preference”, giving the dominions privileged access to the British market; but it had become increasingly clear that growth opportunities in Britain were extremely limited.

Japan, Australia’s second largest trading partner in the first half of the 1930s, therefore assumed growing importance – raising mounting strategic concerns.

Compounding those issues, Australia’s access to international capital had dwindled. That was not simply because of the global financial crisis; its reputation as a trustworthy borrower had been pummelled. Australian governments, federal but especially state, amassed huge long-term debts during the 20s.

In 1930, as the global crisis was taking its toll, Jim Scullin’s ALP government briefly flirted with delaying debt repayment; soon after, NSW ALP premier Jack Lang announced that interest payments to British bondholders would be suspended. Although the resulting crisis led to Lang’s dismissal by NSW governor Sir Philip Game, Australian governments’ ability to raise new loans virtually disappeared.

Australia’s position would have been even worse had it not been for Labor renegade Joe Lyons who, filling in as ALP prime minister during Scullin’s absence in late 1930, defied caucus’s demand to effectively repudiate the federal loan repayment. Instead, he led a public campaign to raise the funds by subscription.

Lyons subsequently left the government and the ALP, and formed a new party, the United Australia Party, at the head of the enormous grassroots campaigns that had sprung up in response to Lyons’s privileging of the national interest over party loyalty.

“Honest Joe” deployed his reputation for absolute probity and everyday decency to restore, as best he could, Australia’s creditworthiness, in an ever more fearful, ever more inward-looking world.

But Lyons was particularly ill-equipped to deal with the dangers of a disintegrating world order where predatory authoritarian powers (Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany) sought to completely reconstitute the global system. He exhibited in advanced degree both the horror of war that all his generation shared and the pacificism born from the two anti-conscription campaigns.

The mass war graves on the Western Front – which Lyons repeatedly visited on successive trips to Britain – dominated, indeed haunted, his imagination.

He wasn’t alone. Anti-conscription’s legacy of pacificism and antimilitarism permeated the ALP. For the bulk of the interwar period the party opposed close links to Britain for defence.

It also opposed the development of any weapons with offensive capabilities (such as cruisers), insisting that only short-range defence capacity – such as submarines and air force – be developed.

The contradictions at the heart of this attitude were apparent at the time. The ALP’s approach mingled vehement hostility to Britain, the capitalist imperial hegemon, with a naive assumption that Britain’s navy would always ensure that the sea routes on which Australia depended would remain secure. Australia would be protected from invasion by focusing almost entirely on aircraft.

Yet even this policy could be articulated only from opposition. Had the ALP been in government, any increase in defence expenditure would undoubtedly have precipitated a backbench revolt.

It is, as a result, ironic that the nation’s work in rebuilding its defences through the 1930s was driven by two Labor renegades, George Pearce and Billy Hughes, who had left the ALP during the 1916 conscription crisis. While Lyons’s pacifist, anti-militarist instincts ran deep, Pearce and Hughes were hard-headed geo-strategic realists.

Pearce and Hughes were crucial in driving the Lyons government’s commitment to begin rearming, as it did in its 1933-34 estimates. That was before any substantial economic recovery and before Britain belatedly began lifting its defence spending in March 1935. By then, Australian defence expenditure was approaching pre-Depression levels and by 1936 it represented a higher percentage of national income and of federal outlays than in the pre-Depression decade.

Senator Pearce, a carpenter from Western Australia who left school aged 11, served as defence minister under practically every prime minister from Andrew Fisher in 1908 to Lyons in the 1930s. Described by high Tory British prime minister Arthur Balfour as “the greatest natural statesman” he had ever met, Pearce oversaw every major initiative of those decades: establishing Australia’s navy, implementing mass citizen military training before World War I, the Great War itself, the ambitious post-conflict demobilisation scheme in co-ordination with General John Monash, designing the nation’s post-war defence scheme in the 20s and then engineering defence renewal in the 30s.

As for Hughes, Australia’s pocket rocket prime minister in the Great War, the role he played in the period was similar to Winston Churchill’s: completely immune to the allure of disarmament that gripped the political classes and general population, he repeatedly warned of the rapidly worsening military risks. Claims that he was a warmonger past his use-by-date did nothing to deter him from what he saw as his duty.

Hughes, Pearce and (after the latter’s 1934 political exit) his replacement as defence minister, Archdale Parkhill, were continuing a basic geostrategic awareness that traced back to the global strategic vision of Alfred Deakin.

Deakin returned from the first Imperial Conference in 1887, which had focused largely on defence and Pacific security questions, describing the “armed camps” that European nations had become. Faced with the threats that posed, he argued that school students should be given compulsory military training – a measure introduced shortly after Federation.

It was Deakin, too, who initiated the Royal Australian Navy as an independent national fleet. In 1907 he made the fundamental observation that still captures the totality of Australia’s strategic existence: “Shut off access by sea to Australia and the whole nation stops.”

Pearce echoed this in 1933 when he pointed out: “If Australian markets were closed and her imports and exports stopped by enemy action, she could be forced to sue for peace without a single enemy soldier coming within sight of her shores.”

What Deakin, Pearce and Parkhill understood was that Australia’s safety and independence depended on the success of a wider global project: a globalism, built out of free passage across the open seas of the world, which Australia had enjoyed for the entirety of its post-1788 existence thanks solely to the Pax Britannica.

The sense of vulnerability that dependence created took on new focus when Japan invaded Chinese Manchuria in 1931. Despite crippling fiscal constraints, Japan’s renewed aggressiveness helped convince the Lyons government to seriously shift the dial on defence spending so far in advance of Britain itself. As for the Admiralty’s assurances about the solidity of the new Singapore fortress that the British had built slowly and reluctantly, they didn’t persuade successive Australian leaders.

At the 1937 Imperial Conference Australia was the only dominion to actively probe the question of imperial defence systems and insist on more detailed planning. But the irreducible problem remained. Although Britain still had the largest and most powerful navy in the world in every class of ship, the days when it could comfortably outmatch the next two largest navies in the world combined had gone forever.

Rather, Britain’s one great fleet now had a two-ocean dilemma. As the First Sea Lord had warned in April 1931: “The number of (our) capital ships is so reduced that should the protection of our interests render it necessary to move our Fleet to the East, insufficient vessels of this type could be left in Home waters to insure the security of our trade and territory in the event of any dispute arising with a European Power.”

The security predicament was exacerbated by a dilemma with which today’s readers will be all too familiar. Britain, the country’s security guarantor, was increasingly estranged from Australia’s second largest (and still growing) trading partner, Japan – which was also our greatest military threat in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Lyons government’s Trade Diversion Policy of 1936, which sought to redirect trade elsewhere, prioritised security over immediate economic gain; but it was loudly criticised by the Australian stakeholders most directly affected, notably the graziers, and in any event seemed ineffective.

In short, Australian governments faced a perfect storm. The global system from which Australia had derived such immense benefits was visibly collapsing. Taking its place was a fragmented world in which the ability of our most powerful friend to protect this country’s vital interests was being seriously challenged. And a terrible choice had to be made between trade and security, between immediate and deeply unpopular economic pain on the one hand and strengthening Australia’s most formidable adversary on the other.

All this was entirely novel, depriving the nation’s leaders of any usable past on which to draw. As Churchill described it when reflecting on the dilemmas with which Britain was then grappling: “The compass has been damaged; the charts are out of date.”

An important part of the answer was thought to lie in appeasement, which was not yet a pejorative term. It was, on the contrary, well within what we could now call the playbook of the Anglosphere’s elites: since at least the middle of the 19th century, British leaders had relied on coming to terms with adversaries they could not afford to fight.

As Paul Kennedy concluded in his study of British foreign policy, those elites had a long-established preference for “settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise”. They had, for example, neutralised threats from France and Russia before World War I by making deals over colonial territory. Now they were trying to apply the same conciliatory approach to Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

In the lead-up to the 1937 Imperial Conference Australia was therefore cabling Britain urging more be done to better relations with Japan, perhaps along the lines of the recent Anglo-Italian Pact. The nearly 20 papers issued to Australian conference participants by External Affairs, recently established as a stand-alone department, described the public campaign in Japan for a “southward advance” policy of imperial expansion, with all the dangers that created for Australia. But mindful of the fiscal constraints on Australian rearmament and noting that the US remained “at heart isolationist”, the department advocated rapprochement with Japan, if only to buy time before a seemingly inevitable conflict.

That was paralleled by an effort to extend Australia’s alliances. The dispatch in 1939 by the new Menzies government of Richard Casey to represent for the first time distinctively Australian interests in Washington was especially important. Accompanying it was a broad range of initiatives aimed at eliciting a firm American commitment to Asia-Pacific security.

Those initiatives bore fruit at the end of November 1941 when the Roosevelt administration indicated it would commit armed forces to defend the Asia-Pacific beyond its own immediate territorial interests. Franklin Roosevelt’s chief foreign policy adviser, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, confided to Casey that “we cannot allow ourselves to be cut off from essential defence needs”, nor could the US let itself be reduced to “the position of asking Japanese permission to trade in the Pacific”.

The significance of this commitment didn’t take long to become apparent – a few days later, Japan launched the Pacific War, pre-emptively attacking, among other strategic positions, Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

That hard-won American pledge is the essential context for understanding John Curtin’s actions as prime minister. Despite his own claims and Labor’s never-ending hagiography, the reality is that Curtin benefited enormously from the fact his party had been nowhere near power nor forced to take the critical decisions in the lead-up to war. Crucial heavy lifting on Australia’s war-waging capacity and global alliance-building was done by his predecessors; largely eliminated from subsequent political narratives, they provided the basis for what Curtin achieved.

Honae Cuffe is therefore right to conclude, in her impressive study of the formation of Australia’s Asia-Pacific policy, that as the global outlook darkened, trade, diplomacy and defence were all pursued in an attempt to secure and maintain Australia’s sovereignty.

Yes, there were errors of appreciation, including Robert Menzies’ excessive faith in what appeasing Germany might achieve – though Menzies was immeasurably more cautious in that respect than the leadership of the ALP. But despite those shortcomings (which were hardly Australia’s alone), the period saw, as Cuffe writes, “the emergence of a lucid and opportunistic foreign policy in which policymakers carefully assessed international developments, the strategies of the great powers and the opportunities available to project the national interest”.

All that was preparatory to an existential confrontation with the real choices of national existence, choices we had largely managed to avoid before the full onset of the Pacific War. It was this conflict, Paul Hasluck wrote in the war’s immediate aftermath, that signalled the moment Australia “came to understand in more brutal terms what its claim to nationhood meant and to meet the stark and single issue of survival”.

The bedrock problem in meeting that challenge was this: Australia did not just have to depend on its allies for their military strength. However clear-sighted or misty-eyed our perceptions of the situation might be, we were also dependent on the acuity and coherence of our allies’ strategic vision.

British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s weaknesses in that respect are well-known, as are those of his closest advisers. Historians’ recent attempts to cast him more favourably than did the post-war consensus are not entirely groundless. But they cannot erase the fact he continued to believe, even when every illusion should have been shattered, that Hitler “was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word”.

Concessions, Chamberlain thought, would strengthen the hands of “political moderates” in Germany. Indeed, Eric Phipps, Britain’s ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1936, suggested that Hitler was one of them, while his successor, Nevile Henderson, was convinced Hermann Goering’s passion for hunting and fishing, which gave him some kinship with the English aristocracy, meant he would naturally tone down Hitler’s aggressiveness.

That belief, that even brutally authoritarian regimes could be tempered by “moderates”, was one of the period’s most disastrous convictions. Cabinet discussions were replete with fatuous comparisons to Louis XIV or Napoleon. Faced time and again with those claims, Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London, could hardly be blamed for concluding that “English gentlemen” (meaning Chamberlain and his coterie) suffered from a “complete failure to grasp the psychology of such men as Hitler and Mussolini” – and even more so to grasp what was new and terrifying about them.

No matter how ill-judged Chamberlain’s views may have been, they resonated with a public that dreaded nothing more than another war. In 1933, a Labour candidate won a by-election for the eminently safe Conservative seat of Fulham East by campaigning entirely on a pacifist platform.

Four years later Chamberlain’s predecessor as British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, who considered that defeat a political earthquake, still felt “a stronger pacifist feeling running through this country than at any time since the War” – making far-reaching rearmament politically impossible.

Roosevelt’s vision was much clearer than Chamberlain’s. He was, however, far more tightly hemmed in.

“The epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading,” he warned in 1937. Americans should not imagine that “this Western Hemisphere will not be attacked and that it will continue tranquilly and peacefully to carry on the ethics and the arts of civilisation”.

However, a Gallup poll gauging the public reaction to his speech found that 60 per cent of voters wanted congress to pass even more stringent measures barring US involvement in a new war.

Stung by the resulting congressional blowback, Roosevelt bitterly complained to his speechwriter: “It’s a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead – and find no one there.”

Of course, none of that stopped Roosevelt, who redoubled his efforts after Munich: “There can be no peace,” he said, in a radio address immediately after Hitler got his way, “if the reign of law is replaced by a recurrent sanctification of sheer force.”

Equally, Hughes warned a uniformly hostile House of Representatives that Chamberlain’s Munich deal, which had been met in Australia, as elsewhere, with unanimous jubilation, actually changed nothing: “The danger is still there. In a little while the clouds will gather again.”

And more than anyone else Churchill remorselessly continued the fight against the defeatists, eventually toppling Chamberlain.

Unfortunately, by the time Churchill and Roosevelt were firmly in control the opportunity to readily stem the dictators had been squandered – and millions of lives that could have been saved were gone with it.

It would be all too easy to draw from the 30s an isolationist conclusion. After all, it was obvious that Britain’s naval predominance was waning. Given that, shouldn’t Australia have built an infinitude of aircraft to defend the immediate shoreline? But as satisfying as it might feel, then as now, to focus solely on territorial defence, that is little better than an elaborate exercise in reality denial.

The real lesson, which Menzies, Hasluck and others showed in their subsequent decades’ overview of Australian defence, is that Australia’s defence inevitably lies in the world. As Australia can be cut off and defeated without an enemy touching the coastline, so too must the defence be forward. And that defence is only feasible if it is conducted in vigorous alliance with others.

To expect those alliances to be easy to maintain or always harmonious would be foolish. Allies’ interests – and, no less ominously, their perceptions – differ and we lack the sway to impose our own. Strategists talk of the “fog of war”; but few fogs are thicker than the fog of peace, when the shape of future conflicts is wrapped in the mists, creating uncertainties about when, where and how they will unfold. Once war breaks out, the adversary is in the open; until then, hopes, fears and hesitations blur the sight, cloud the understanding, muddy and obfuscate the debate.

That is the situation today. With a recently released report decrying our “paper ADF”, we seem to be witnessing, as Auden did so many years ago, “the clever hopes expire” midway through our own “low, dishonest decade”. Whether our leaders have the vision to recognise and the courage to confront that grim reality will determine our future.

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/australias-safety-in-the-1930s-depended-on-the-global-project-its-no-different-now/news-story/2a6de650c3d6429abe44bd00b193a568

I suspect it is much too long since Australia has faced a real strategic threat but I fear that time is returning and that we are really not prepared for the changing realities

My feeling is that we need a little more actual investment and preparation for a world that may very well turn overtly hostile in the next decade. We have had it too good for too long and I fear “the times are changing” and not for the better.

I wonder what others feel about the outlook over the next decade or so. I would be surely improving our domestic drug manufacture and supply capabilities to address our worrying weaknesses! For one suggestion!

The bottom line is I feel the world is becoming more dangerous and less secure in all sorts of ways and we need to step up, as a nation, to meet the emerging threat(s).

David.

It Is Really Difficult To Separate A Vaper And Their Addictive Vapes It Seems!

This appeared earlier today:

Vendors on food delivery app HungryPanda selling vapes

Paul Karp NSW political correspondent

Jun 1, 2025 – 12.53pm

Vendors on popular food delivery app HungryPanda appear to be selling vapes, with the illegal sale of nicotine products easily discoverable by changing the user language to Mandarin.

While the Albanese government has boasted that new penalties for supply of vapes has sent the price soaring and consumption down, illegal vapes are still readily available online.

Under the new laws that applied from October 2024, therapeutic vapes can only be legally sold at pharmacies to adults for smoking cessation or the management of nicotine dependence.

A tip independently confirmed by The Australian Financial Review shows that vapes are being sold by vendors listed on the HungryPanda app, which expanded to 3.5 million Australian customers, 60,000 merchants and about 40,000 drivers/riders after the purchase of Melbourne-based app Easi.

In one example sighted on the app, a GFel vape with 6000 puffs retailed for $36 – less than the $50 to $60 now typical in retail settings.

The Financial Review is not suggesting that HungryPanda condones the sale of vapes or other illegal products on the app. Some vendors displayed a QR code to open a WeChat conversation, allowing buyers to contact sellers on a separate app.

Rohan Pike, a consultant and former Australian Federal Police officer who created and led the Australian Border Force’s tobacco strike force, said it was clear that vapes were “readily available” in online apps and forums, including HungryPanda and WeChat.

“It raises a number of concerns about the fact that criminals are anticipating enforcement and changing their methodology to suit,” he said.

“Legislation has been enhanced, but the focus has been on the retail environment of high street stores. This is an embarrassment to law enforcement, because it is still so easy to get product to market,” Pike said.

“This would seem to be an escalation from opportunism to sale online, a more organised criminal behaviour. The move online should have been anticipated.”

“For children it would be just as easy to buy a vape as to get sweet and sour pork on HungryPanda.”

Since new laws that applied from July 2024, authorities have seized 8 million illegal vapes at the border. The federal government claims the crackdown is working, citing new data in the Cancer Council’s vape report finding the rate of vaping among 18- to 24-year-olds has halved to 18 per cent from 2023 to the latest quarter.

A spokesman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said it was unlawful to advertise vaping goods to the public, and is punishable by penalties of up to seven years’ jail for a criminal penalty or up to $23.10 million for a civil penalty.

“The TGA is aware of vaping goods being illegally promoted for sale through different online forums and works closely with online platforms to deter and address alleged unlawful advertising,” the spokesman said.

“We also use powers under the Telecommunications Act that require internet service providers to block access to certain websites, including those that illegally advertise and supply vaping goods, if they are in breach of the act.”

From January 2024 to May 2025, the TGA has requested the removal of more than 8400 unlawful ads for vaping goods from digital platforms.

“We do not comment on individual matters including whether they may be subject to investigation or compliance and enforcement activity, or the status of any investigation.”

A spokeswoman for NSW Health said it “is concerned about the harmful health effects associated with vapes and reminds the community of the dangers associated with vaping”.

With the exception of pharmacies “the sale of all vaping goods with or without nicotine is illegal” in NSW, the spokeswoman said.

“This also includes online sales. Retailers can be penalised under both commonwealth and state legislation.”

The Financial Review contacted HungryPanda for comment.

Here is the link:

https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/vendors-on-food-delivery-app-hungrypanda-selling-vapes-20250527-p5m2if

Interesting to see how creative both the sellers and users of vapes are to get hold of their fix. Honestly we all know there is really no chance of putting in place an effective ban so sensible control measures are what is needed IMVHO.

If people do not want to stop using nicotine there is zilch you can do!. Not many stop really willingly despite all the warnings!

Having given up smoking some 50 years ago now, I can still remember just how powerful the addiction was and how bloody hard it was to stop! (Took me 5-6 attempts at least  before beating it! – they won’t let you smoke in operating theatres where I worked so there was little choice in the end!)

Sadly smoking is highly addictive and not all that harmful short term – so the incentive to stop is hard to reach once you are addicted – which takes but a few days of use!!!

People I respect tell me the addiction is as powerful as heroin and I can believe it!

Best plan is to never start – if you are smart enough to do just that!

Oddly I have had all sorts of narcotics (morphine, pethidine, oxycodone et least) for operations etc. and have never found them enjoyable in the least. I wonder why?

Nicotine, on the other hand, I did enjoy, a lot. and it took a while to get off it!

We are all different I guess!

David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 796 – Results – 01 June 2025.

Here are the results of the recent poll.

Is PM Anthony Albanese Wrong To Offer Any Real Respect Or Support To Donald Trump?

Yes                                                                     12 (38%)

No                                                                      19 (59%)

I Have No Idea                                                    1 (3%)

Total No. Of Votes: 32

Clearly majority think we should be reasonably respectful to Trump!.

Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!

OK voter turnout – answer pretty clear. 

1 of 32 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!

Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted! 

David.