Here are the results of the poll.
Yes 17 (57%)
No 4 (13%)
I Have No Idea 9 (30%)
Total No. Of Votes: 30
A pretty clear vote with an amazingly high "no-idea" response. I wonder why that was?
Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!
Good voting turnout.
9 of 30 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!
Again, many, many special thanks to all those who voted!
David.
This appeared last week:
By Joe Pinkstone
Updated November 2, 2024 — 2.25pmfirst published at 11.50am
Dyson engineers have invented a four-legged robodog that can vacuum carpets, mow the lawn and water plants.
The company has been granted a patent for a housekeeping robot that can be used to clean a home or a commercial environment such as a hotel.
Small and flat “biscuit tin” robotic vacuum cleaners are becoming increasingly popular, but the new invention is more versatile and complicated.
The new patent, which was granted in October, is for a four-legged machine that resembles the robotic attack hounds that featured in the television show Black Mirror.
In 2016, Boston Dynamics, a US company, unveiled Spot, a four-legged dog-like machine that sells for about $US75,000 ($114,000). It is now being used to inspect nuclear fusion reactors, to deliver parcels and as potential weapons of war.
But engineers at Dyson hope their version will be used to help people combat their never-ending list of household chores.
The patent describes a rechargeable four-legged robot with an extendable “housekeeping module” fastened underneath the main body of the machine, to help it access spots that are tricky to reach.
A nozzle will protrude under the “head” of the machine, which is intended for use inside and outside, according to the patent filing. It is imagined that the unnamed machine will be able to tackle tasks such as vacuuming, mopping, watering the grass, mowing the lawn and blowing away leaves.
It is designed to be able to move around under its own power and then to sit down when finished so the cleaning module can be removed, either to be recharged, maintained or switched out for another module, such as replacing a lawn mowing module with one for mopping.
“With a housekeeping module attached, the robot may be able to clean under and between more obstacles, increasing the coverage,” Dyson writes in its patent.
“The robot does not need to navigate into tight gaps. The user is able to easily insert or remove a module without having to reach underneath the robot.
“The robot can be in a stable, unpowered state during user module exchange, which may decrease the risk of injury.”
It says the machine is designed to have four legs, each with a knee-like joint, and pads on its feet, but these could also be replaced with wheels if needed.
While the robot visually resembles the Boston Dynamics four-legged machines, there are differences, such as the back legs facing backwards on the Dyson dog. There was no mention of how the machine would navigate its environment.
Dyson, famed for its vacuum cleaners and its innovative fans and hair tools, is the second most prolific filer of patents in Britain. There is no guarantee the invention will ever become a product, if it will ever be brought to market, or how much it would cost.
David Shrier, professor of practice, AI and innovation at Imperial College London, said we would see more automated helpers in our everyday lives as robots improved and integrated AI.
“People are probably familiar with the Roomba and similar robotic cleaning systems; they have been tremendous labour-saving devices, which expand on the capability of the humble vacuum cleaner,” he said.
“Envisioned versions of the future in sci-fi like William Gibson’s gardening ‘crabs’ and Minority Report’s intelligence spiders are now turning into engineering reality, and I’m delighted to see my colleagues at Dyson pursuing practical, helpful applications of this technology.”
Professor Adrian Hopgood, an independent consultant in AI and emeritus professor of intelligent systems at Portsmouth University, said the robodog patent brought together existing technologies into one invention to maximise benefit, much like Apple did with the first iPhone in 2007.
“The patent brings together existing technologies like those behind the Boston Dynamics dog, robotic vacuum cleaners and visual recognition systems,” he said.
“Some of the most impactful inventions comprise existing inventions repackaged. The most famous example is probably the smartphone, and the iPhone specifically, and in that respect Dyson is following a similar path.”
The Telegraph, London
Here is the link:
The Jetsons are coming at us a high speed!
Amazing stuff. Now to wonder about the price!
David.
This appeared last week and provided our good news for the week!
Richard Scolyer was one of the world’s leading melanoma researchers when he was struck with a brain tumour. Facing likely death, his team made him a guinea pig for his own medicine
Sun 3 Nov 2024 06.00 AEDT
Richard Scolyer was fully engaged in
the business of living when he suddenly received a death sentence. A person
more alive would be hard to find. As an endurance athlete competing across the
globe, he was in peak physical condition. As one of the world’s leading
pathologists on melanoma whose pioneering research has saved thousands of
lives, he was in demand. At 56, Prof Richard Scolyer was flying along. His
life, he says, was “rich”. And then, on the morning of 20 May 2023, he found
himself losing consciousness and convulsing on the floor in a hotel room in
Poland, panicking and scared.
After this grand mal seizure, he went for an MRI scan at University hospital in
Krakow. It found a mass in his temporal lobe. Scolyer knew immediately it had
delivered very bad news.
Having diagnosed other people with cancer many times, he knew exactly what the finding could mean. Most likely brain cancer. He knew the outcome for a high-grade glioma was “shockingly bad”. That a brain tumour is incurable, and he would have an “horrific last few months”. He descended into black despair; devastated, anxious, terrified. He cried and cried, weeping when he rang his children.
A biopsy operation performed in Sydney 12 days later would confirm the “worst of the worst”. It was an aggressive grade 4 IDH-wildtype glioblastoma – a terminal diagnosis.
“I didn’t want to die. I loved my life,” writes this year’s co-Australian of the Year in his new memoir Brainstorm. Only three weeks before the seizure he had represented Australia at the World Triathlon Multisport Championships in Ibiza. Now the certainties had been ripped away. Now his life was measured in months and weeks. Since that Saturday morning in Krakow he has been in unchartered waters.
Scolyer is remarkably optimistic for a man who did not expect to be alive when his book came out last month. But he is. “And kicking.” If somewhat cautiously. When you are attempting to revolutionise brain cancer treatment with a one-man clinical trial you can’t take anything for granted.
There is a notable absence of gravitas and ego in Scolyer. He seems humble, vulnerable. He has a way of making it feel like this conversation is the most important thing he has to do today. Which it most certainly is not.
Scolyer is the most published melanoma pathologist in the world, sent thousands of the most difficult cases each year. Soon after his own diagnosis, he decided to go public with his diagnosis as a way of keeping friends and colleagues informed, but mainly as a memory for his three kids. The news was greeted with an avalanche of messages. And now we all know what the inside of his skull looks like because his brain scans are on his social media.
For years before his brain tumour felled him on his Polish hotel room floor, Scolyer’s medical co-director at the Melanoma Institute Australia, Georgina Long (and his co-Australian of the Year), had led trials using a new class of immunotherapy drugs that had had spectacular results on patients with melanoma. “Basically what it’s doing is stimulating your body’s own immune system to recognise cancer cells and to kill them off,” Scolyer explains. They had learned the drugs were more effective if given before the tumour is taken out. In 15 years, the five-year survival rate for advanced melanoma had gone from 5% to 55%.
But while advances had been made in melanoma survival rates, the treatment for Scolyer’s aggressive glioblastoma had not changed in 20 years.
“Basically this sort of tumour spreads like tree roots that run through your brain. If you look down a microscope you can’t see where it ends,” says Scolyer. “So you can never cure it with surgery or radiation therapy. If you tried to cut the whole tumour out you wouldn’t have much brain left.”
Therapy usually focused on prolonging life with chemotherapy and radiation until palliative care and death.
From the moment she received the MRI scans from Poland, Long had been in action, consulting the Melanoma Institute’s world-leading experts and those around the world. Long had pioneered the successful use of immunotherapy for melanoma patients whose cancer had spread to the brain.
Facing up to emotional issues has turned out to be the hardest part of having cancer. Everyone around you suffers
Richard Scolyer
She and the team had been developing a plan for a radical treatment for her friend and colleague of 20 years. They would take what they had learned from immunotherapy and apply it to his cancer. It had never been tried before anywhere, was seriously risky and the stakes could not be higher – there was a 60% chance the side effects could kill him. If it caused major swelling in the brain, it could kill him within days.
They estimated there might be a 5% chance of saving his life; it might be less than 1%. To Scolyer, “it seemed worth it to give it a crack”.
Hoping the tumour did not grow bigger, he would delay the debulking surgery for as long as possible to give the drugs a chance to work. He would have a combination of three immunotherapy drugs intravenously. Fifteen days after the seizure, the first four-hour infusion began at the Mater hospital in Sydney. The second dose was delayed because of side-effects, including high temperatures, a rash and high enzymes in his liver. “I had a lot of [infusions] really close together every two weeks at the start.”
Through it all he kept running and cycling.
Twenty-eight days after Krakow, craniotomy neurosurgeon Brindha Shivalingam removed pieces of the tumour in a six-hour operation. She later admitted it had been emotional for her operating on a friend. She was careful not to take “the Richard out of Richard”.
Pathology results showed his immune cells were activated and hopefully attacking the tumour cells. “It was a phenomenal result,” Scolyer says. A possible new frontier for brain cancer.
Working on the book, written by journalist Garry Maddox, was “more joyful than I expected”, he says. His was a quintessentially Australian childhood, if unremarkable, in Launceston. Sport, camping, outdoors.
What is clear in the book is what an emotional journey the past 18 months have been for Scolyer.
“Facing up to emotional issues has turned out to be the hardest part of having cancer. Everyone around you suffers.”
He still cries a lot. He has cried on television. There have been setbacks, side-effects and “scanxiety” waiting for results of scans. No one, he says, who hasn’t experienced the shock and grief of having to say goodbye to yourself can hope to understand. “It drills down deep into your core and affects almost every minute of your day,” he explains.
The experience prompted a re-evaluation of his previous life and priorities. Driven, ambitious, working too hard, he was hurtling through life, travelling overseas 10 to 12 times a year to speak at conferences. “You get caught up in everyday life and you don’t necessarily think about the big-picture things. That’s changed.”
Now he knows love is what really matters: “The one thing that has really turned around is spending time with my family and valuing them. It has made me prioritise my family.”
He has received accolades and attention. But he says he would give it all back in a heartbeat to have his old life back.
It is too early to say if his world-first treatment is a success.
Every cell in his body is being studied. “Ultimately you have to do clinical trials to prove whether something works or not. We won’t know definitively until a trial has been done. The great thing though is that we’re able to generate some science by comparing my brain before the immunotherapy and afterwards. It gives some scientific hope that this is worth exploring.”
After nine infusions of the vaccine, with one more to go next month, Long has made a decision to stop the immunotherapy. At the time of writing there has been no sign of recurrence. But that doesn’t mean there wont be. “It is just waiting and watching and seeing if there is a recurrence. We will manage that if and when it happens.”
For the moment though, “I feel very delighted that this is the path we went down.”
Brainstorm by Richard Scolyer with Gary Maddox is out now ($34.99, Allen & Unwin)
Here is the link:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/03/brainstorm-richard-scolyer-book-interview-brain-cancer
One can only hope the good fortune continues and he remains well for many years to come – to make the story more inspirational given he has important work still to do!
David.
This appeared last week:
2 November, 2024
Prince of Wales Private Hospital maternity ward in Sydney is one of the private wards that has experienced declining births and revenue.
A host of regional private hospitals, maternity services and psychiatric wards are under threat of closure as a federal government review of the viability of the sector reveals the extent of declining patient numbers and massive hits to profits.
A summary of the recent Private Hospital Sector Financial HealthCheck conducted by the government showed expenditure of private hospitals increased 4.1 per cent between 2018-19 and 2021-22, but revenue only went up 2.9 per cent on average across the sector.
The report showed private hospitals were operating in 2022-23 at Earnings Before Interest, Tax and Depreciation of 4.4 per cent, down from 8.7 per cent in 2018-19.
“This is significantly below the 5 per cent threshold that represents the required free cash to reinvest in hospital services,” said Australian Private Hospitals Association CEO Brett Heffernan.
However, in the latest available financial data, the EBITDA margins of private hospitals increased in 2022-23 to an estimated figure of between 7 and 8 per cent. The government said there were positive signs of growth in admissions, and more recently indications that a number of private health insurers have offered additional funding to some private hospitals. But the review led by health department secretary Blair Comley concluded it was unable to say if private hospitals would be likely to improve profitability.
The private hospitals peak body hit out at the report, which was not published in full but only as a brief summary, as providing no way forward.
The government has established the Private Health CEO Forum to bring together leaders from private hospitals, insurers, medical groups and independent experts to develop short-term options for government consideration and to commence work on long-term reforms to strengthen the sector’s financial viability.
“We’ve all been waiting a very long time for this report only to find out what we already know,” said Mr Heffernan. “We recognise that long-term systemic reforms will be needed, but there is no escaping immediate action is essential to prevent more private hospitals from going to the wall.
“We weren’t anticipating that this report would provide a panacea, but all this suggests is continuing a conversation. We are long past the need for answers, not more discussion.”
The financial health check was called following a number of high-profit disputes between private hospitals and insurers amid disquiet in the sector that while the health insurance industry had come out of the pandemic with record profits, many hospitals were on the edge of survival and struggling to negotiate agreements with insurers that would cover rising costs. Hospitals were hit by a double whammy in recent years of declining admissions as a result of mass elective surgery cancellations, workforce shortages and very high health inflation.
Regional hospitals remain in a perilous situation, said Catholic Health Australia’s director of health policy Katharine Bassett.
“The viability of private hospitals in regional areas are of particular concern,” Dr Bassett said. “We have already witnessed the closure of many services in our regions and, without immediate intervention, more will follow. In many cases, private hospitals are the only providers of hospital care, and so their viability is crucial for the health and wellbeing of these communities.”
The HealthCheck also identified private obstetrics and in-hospital psychiatry as services of particular concern. Births in public and private hospitals declined 5.9 per cent and 4.7 per cent respectively from 2018 to 2022-23, with an average $2615 in out-of-pocket costs. Between 2015–16 and 2022–23, 9 private hospitals closed their maternity wards, and two hospitals with maternity services ceased operating.
The number of mental health services delivered by private hospitals declined about 15 per cent from 2018-19 to 2021-22. “The sector expressed concern about access to private hospital psychiatric services noting the difficulty in attracting and retaining psychiatrists prepared to work in a hospital setting,” the report said.
Private Healthcare Australia, the peak body representing health insurers, responded to the report saying it was intent on helping private hospitals survive in a way that does not push up premiums for consumers.
“It is notable (HealthCheck) found private hospitals experienced healthy profit margins in 2022-23, and that health insurance premium increases closely matched rising health fund payments to hospitals,” said PHA CEO Rachel David, who said the extent of private hospital closures had been exaggerated.
“This shows that what Australians pay for health insurance typically goes straight back out to hospitals to cover the cost of their care. This is backed by the latest data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority showing health funds return 88 cents to consumers from every dollar spent on premiums – the highest return of any type of insurance.”
Here is the link:
While this is not news to many, it is vitally important for many who live outside the capitals – and a lot of work is needed to ensure we have health equity across the “wide brown land”!
There is clearly s place for technology to help in this quest and continuing research is needed on the best ways to deploy it…
We all need to keep a watching brief on progress!
David.
It seems the Government is getting frustrated we have not all fallen in love with their myHR – and are wanting to introduce a level of compulsion to its use!
The poll below says it all – in the sense that the myHR remains plain user hostile an simply a burden for most to use!
Lynnette Hoffman
Managing Editor
Pathology and radiology companies will soon be mandated to upload all tests and scans to My Health Record – or lose out on MBS Payments, Health Minister Mark Butler told attendees at a recent digital health convention in Melbourne, promising to introduce the legislation soon.
In a Healthed poll this week, 65% of GPs expressed support for the move – but of those, 46% caveated that the government should improve the usability of My Health Record first.
What’s being proposed?
Minister Butler said all tests and scans would have to be “shared by default” in “near real time.”
“The ‘sharing by default’ framework will ensure that pathology and diagnostic imaging companies that do not upload the results of a test or scan will not get a Medicare benefit for that test or scan,” he said.
“Withhold a patient’s results and we will withhold the Medicare payment. It’s as simple as that.”
“To enable faster access, I am looking to remove the 7-day delay that prevents patients from seeing their results sooner,” Minister Butler said.
“While near real-time access will be the new standard, in some cases a clinically appropriate delay may remain if appropriate,” he added.
Widespread frustrations over My Health Record
Seventy percent of GPs in a Healthed survey last month said My Health Record was failing to achieve its objectives, with more than a third never using it to access or upload patient information at all, and many more only using it once or twice a week.
Hundreds of GPs in both Healthed surveys commented on the difficulties of searching and navigating in My Health Record, calling it clunky, slow, cumbersome and painstaking – to name a few.
Minister Butler acknowledged the woes of the system, but promised significant investment to change that, noting that “a few weeks ago, the Digital Health Agency put out a large tender to do just that: to fundamentally transform the interoperability capability of My Health Record.”
What your colleagues are saying
I support the proposal:
“This will ensure that patients’ results are readily available and prevents duplication of tests.”
“It will improve continuity of care and reduce costs of unnecessary testing.”
“So often the patient says they’ve had XYZ tests done but you cannot find them – particularly out of hours.”
“That way it’s easy for GPs to access results for new patients.”
“A good way to save time, better assist the patient and not repeat tests unnecessarily.”
“I also think that the usability of my health record should be improved, but I’m happy that the results are being uploaded because it makes them a lot easier to find than ringing several different pathology companies and then having them not give you all the results anyway.”
“It is the patients right to have access to their own health information and empowers them to make informed decisions.”
I do support the proposal, but the government should improve the useability of My Health Record first:
“MHR is a colossal time waster and needs to be scrapped or dramatically improved. Very user unfriendly.”
“Often unable to access when it is known an upload attempt has been made by the pathologist.”
“Patient confidentiality is a factor.”
“Data security in My Health Record is not proven to be comprehensive.”
“Simplifying access to results is helpful but the useability of My Health Record needs considerable improvement before it can perform this function.”
“It would improve patient care and take the onus away from the pathology company to fear litigation where there is breach of confidentiality as it would be mandated.”
I do not support the proposal:
“I do not use My Health Record for my own records and the format it uses is not very user friendly to obtain records from my patients’ hospital visits.”
“Too much Government interference.”
“There are patients who consult doctors other than their usual doctors just because they do not want them to know.”
“I do not have the confidence to know this can be done by pathology providers without significant extra administrative burden and cost.”
“I still have concerns about the confidentiality.”
“I do not find My Health Record useful, so there would be no benefit to my patients from MBS payments to pathology companies being withheld when they don’t upload results.”
“I find the idea of uploading pathology results on My Health Record absurd as patients have access to them and it increases their risk of misinterpreting results and worrying unnecessarily as they cannot understand medical jargon.”
“Pathology companies should have patient wellbeing and privacy in their best interests and shouldn’t be beholden to the government to release this information to patients in order to allow patients a rebate.”
“My Health Record is a 2 billion dollar lemon.”
“The pathology companies are already under stress to continue bulk billing for pathology services. This proposal would ultimately lead to patients being charged for the services.”
“This will increase costs to the patient who then may defer or decide against having recommended costs.”
“Many patients have opted out of My Health Record for privacy reasons. They do not want to be on a centralized database, potentially accessible by pretty much anyone and hackers!”
“Punitive measures don’t work as effective tools.”
Here is the link:
The views expressed above really only go to confirm what I have been saying since 2012! The myHR is about as useful as a “barnacle on a battleship” right now and needs a fundamental review as to where it may, if ever, be of use. We have a stupid situation now where the damn thing exists so we are all meant to use it – just why being totally unclear!
If there was a sensible, practical, meaningful use-case I am sure it would get used so it is really up to Government to provide that use case. Right now it just means extra work for no apparent benefit for most!
David.
This appeared last week
By Wendy Tuohy
November 3, 2024 — 5.00am
Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas is warning doctors to brace themselves for the results of Australia’s first inquiry into women’s pain, saying it revealed “a misogynist view that pain is part of women’s burden”.
Thomas said she was shocked to learn what more than 13,000 women and girls who shared stories with the inquiry experienced, and that many had serious pain dismissed or were “gaslit” by being told they had mental health issues.
Women testified saying things such as, “I just want to get off the merry-go-round of antidepressants and iron infusions” prescribed for pain.
It’s prompted Thomas to warn that the findings will make difficult reading for the medical profession.
“Brace yourself for what the report is going to say about women’s experience with their primary healthcare practitioners,” Thomas said she had told the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
“I don’t want to blame them, but it goes to the Medicare rebates, it goes to what they’re taught and what they know and both conscious and unconscious bias that exists within the health profession.”
Thomas said some women felt they were treated as drug addicts when they asked for relief. She was challenged by researchers for suggesting misogyny may be a factor the gender-pain gap.
“‘It’s natural. Therefore, we shouldn’t do anything about it’ – that was presented back to me. I thought, ‘That’s really something’ – because cancer is also ‘natural’.”
In its submission to the 11-month inquiry, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation included incidents of health workers having their own pain treated dismissively and witnessing women receiving gender-biased treatment.
It received more than 800 responses in four days to a member survey on women’s pain.
Of 89 per cent of nurses and midwives who had experienced acute pain, two-thirds felt “dismissed by health professionals”, and 53 per cent said the response was negative.
A nurse on a mixed specialty surgical ward said gynaecology patients who describe “10/10 pain” were given paracetamol as a first-line treatment to “wait and see if it helps”, while other surgical patients “are given two to three lines of analgesia charted immediately at any instance of pain”.
Another told of “multiple colleagues judging young female patients’ subjective pain scores, calling them ‘precious’, ‘princess’ or ‘overreacting’.”
Men were believed and treated sooner and often given more options. One nurse “watched a man with a carpal tunnel be written up for 20 mg of IV [intravenous] morphine, but a woman with a full reproductive system removal gets written up for only a max of 10 mg of IV morphine.
“Women are seen as if they can’t tolerate pain, or they’re weak or as, ‘You bear children, you can deal with great amounts of pain’.”
Sue Matthews, chief executive Royal Women’s Hospital and National Women’s Health Advisory Commitee
“We are treated differently and are often labelled as emotive or anxious,” she said.
The federation’s Madeline Harradence, a member of the Victorian Women’s Health Advisory Council, said nurses and midwives reported a delay in women getting care for chronic pain and getting appropriate care or treatment for very acute conditions.
“A woman who turns up in the emergency department is not believed, they’re having trouble getting in the door,” she said. “[Nurses] are constantly having to advocate for women against those gendered structures.”
Professor Sue Matthews, the Royal Women’s Hospital chief executive and inquiry co-chair, said it was heart-wrenching to hear from women at community forums, focus groups and online.
“The number one issue for women has been they felt dismissed,” said Matthews, also a member of the National Women’s Health Advisory Committee.
“One of the biggest things we’re hearing is that their pain is attributed to mental health issues or lifestyle factors, when it isn’t [due to those].
“Women are seen as if they can’t tolerate pain, or they’re weak or as, ‘You bear children, you can deal with great amounts of pain’ … It’s the invisibility of those women that’s the problem.”
Australian is behind other nations in stratifying research data by gender and including women in trials, she said. More eduction was needed to increase understanding that women’s pain is not “normal”.
That medical knowledge “doubles every 73 days” means it is very difficult for healthcare practitioners to keep up, Matthews said, and the inquiry would make recommendations about how to support them to do this.
RACGP Victorian Council chair Anita Munoz acknowledged that in parts of the medical system, “there are women who have had bad experiences of not being believed about their pain”, but said inquiries often captured historical as well as contemporary experiences.
Poor understanding of women’s pain was not just a general practice issue, but GPs faced particular challenges because patients often have multiple co-existing problems to be addressed in standard 15-minute appointments.
“GPs and patients bear the brunt of this: we have a more than 40-year-old funding system that financially punishes good GPs for spending in-depth time with patients. The patho-physiology of gynaecological issues and chronic pain is very difficult to do … in the that amount of time,” Munoz said.
‘If it achieves parity with MBS funding that would be good ... the rebate for scanning a scrotum is more than for scanning a female pelvis.’
Marilla Druitt, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
“The Medicare funding system sets up GPs to fail.”
Dr Marilla Druitt, a councillor of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and president of Pelvic Pain Victoria, said she was not at all surprised by what women told the inquiry.
The college’s submission noted “research shows that chronic pain affects a higher proportion of women and girls than men, yet women are far less likely to receive treatment”.
Druitt said it was hard to judge if the use of the term “medical misogyny” by some regarding responses to women’s pain was justified, but if it helped change longstanding women’s health funding problems it might be.
“If it achieves parity with Medicare Benefit Schedule funding that would be good. [For example] the rebate for scanning a scrotum is more than for scanning a female pelvis,” she said.
“I desperately hope that some of what we recommended is accepted.”
The inquiry is due to hand its recommendations to the Victorian Women’s Health Advisory Council by December and will be released in early 2025.
Here is the link:
What is your theory as to why women’s pain is often minimised?
I have a feeling it is a historical carry-over from the days when men dominated the profession. Hopefully things are correcting over time (quickly).!
All suggestions contemplated!
David.
Here are the results of the poll.
Are You Expecting All Sorts Of Unexpected Problems As The 3G Telecommunications Network Is Shut Down On 28th October?
Yes 14 (38%)
No 22 (59%)
I Have No Idea 1 (3%)
Total No. Of Votes: 37
A split vote, with the feeling being that we are going to handle the switch off well – as we did!
Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!
Good voting turnout.
1 of 37 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!
Again, many, many special thanks to all those who voted!
David.
This appeared last week:
‘Surprising’ finding by Australian-led study is first recorded instance of one antibiotic causing resistance to another in a different class
Thu 24 Oct 2024 07.30 AEDT
The rise of an almost untreatable superbug has been linked to a common antibiotic, an Australian-led study has found.
The study – published in Nature – found that rifaximin, an antibiotic used to treat liver disease, causes resistance to another antibiotic, daptomycin.
Daptomycin is one of the few drugs that is effective against vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE), a contagious bacterial infection that can cause serious reactions in hospitalised patients.
Dr Adrianna Turner, the study’s lead author, said the “really surprising” finding was the first recorded instance of an antibiotic causing resistance to one in a different class. It was previously thought that the risk of antibiotic resistance only applied to the one antibiotic.
Superbugs explained: what they are and what a post-antibiotic future could look like – video
The findings also overturned the widely held idea that rifaximin was a low-risk antibiotic.
Last month international leaders committed to decisive action on antimicrobial resistance – the development of bacteria to resist treatment. This included the aim of reducing the estimated global 4.95m deaths associated with antimicrobial resistance annually by 10 percentage points by 2030.
Turner said when bacteria became resistant to an antibiotic, “it’s a bit like gaining a new ability in a video game”.
“But when exposed to rifaximin, the VRE bacteria don’t just get one boost – they gain multiple abilities, like super-speed and super-strength, allowing them to easily defeat even the final boss, which in this case is the antibiotic daptomycin.”
Rifaximin use triggers changes in an enzyme within the bacteria, which then leads to changes in the VRE’s cell membrane, causing cross-resistance, researchers from the Doherty Institute and Austin Health found.
Turner did not rule out the possibility that other antibiotics could create resistance to antibiotics in different classes.
Researchers are now investigating whether daptomycin-resistant strains of VRE may be transmitted to other patients within the hospital.
The eight-year study involved genomic analyses of isolates from patients from Australia and Germany, and used animal models to support the hypotheses.
Turner said the findings highlighted the need for surveillance and investigation into how bacteria become antibiotic-resistant, allowing researchers to create diagnostic tests and genomic surveillance to understand the prevalence of such bacteria.
Prof Jason Kwong, from Austin Health, emphasised that rifaximin is still effective when used appropriately and those taking it to treat advanced liver disease should continue to do so.
“But we need to understand the implications going forward both when treating individual patients and from a public health perspective,” he said.
He advised clinicians treating patients with VRE who have taken rifaximin to confirm that daptomycin is working via a lab test, as its efficacy may be affected.
Kwong emphasised the importance of drug regulators considering whether the use of one drug makes another less effective when approving new drugs.
Prof Martina Sanderson-Smith, a molecular bacteriologist at the University of Wollongong, said the finding that antibiotic resistance can affect different types of antibiotics was “really concerning and interesting”.
She said the findings highlighted the difficulties in the responsible use and prescription of antibiotics, and the need to balance safety with clinical need.
“We need to better understand the possible sort of consequences of prescribing all classes of antibiotics on this idea of shared resistance across antibiotic classes, so that clinicians can make more informed decisions,” she said.
Here is the link:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/24/antibiotic-resistance-daptomycin-superbug-study
It is clear that some-time soon we are going to need better regulation and supervision of anti-biotic prescribing. Can’t happen soon enough I reckon!
David.
