Category Archives: Health

Florida closes in on six-week abortion ban while also allowing no-permit gun carry

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Abortion legislation needs to move through house before gaining DeSantis’s likely signature while gun-carry law enacted today

Florida took another step to the right on Monday when the state senate approved a bill to ban abortions after six weeks, a measure supported by Republican governor and expected presidential candidate Ron DeSantis – who on the same day signed into law a bill allowing the public to carry concealed guns without a permit.

The latest proposal to restrict reproductive rights must still be approved by the house in the state legislature before it reaches the governor’s desk. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

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‘The dominating issue’: judicial election will decide fate of abortion in Wisconsin

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Control of state’s supreme court will ultimately decide fate of 1849 abortion ban that was revived in June, after Roe was overturned

One weekend in late March, McKenzie Schroeder offered to drive her friend across the Wisconsin border into Illinois to get an abortion. Abortion has been illegal in Wisconsin since June, when the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, reviving the state’s 1849 near-total abortion ban.

“If you’ve never been in that situation, you can never understand how a woman feels if they’re pregnant and don’t know what to do,” said Schroeder, 30, who lives in Sun Prairie and works for a property management company and as a waitress. “I don’t think that any human being on the face of the earth should control what I do with my body.”

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Typhoid outbreak on refugee ship in Netherlands traced to raw sewage

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Report finds that 72 cases of the disease on the vessel, which was housing asylum seekers, were caused by a wastewater leak

A major outbreak of typhoid among asylum seekers living on a ship in the Netherlands has been traced to raw sewage which was allowed to mix with tanks of freshwater for drinking and cooking.

A total of 72 cases of the highly contagious disease were confirmed during the spring 2022 outbreak on the Liberty Ann, an old cruise ship which was being used as emergency accommodation in Haarlem.

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Labor claims Aston win, throwing Dutton’s Liberal leadership into question – as it happened

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Labor’s Mary Doyle has two-party preferred swing of at least 6% in the count on Saturday evening. This blog is now closed

Dutton says Labor’s road funding cuts in Aston ‘a disaster’

Out of hiding and into the open, opposition leader Peter Dutton has been seen on the campaign trail in Aston today.

[Labor] haven’t explained to the people of Aston why it is that they cut road funding as the first act in government, and it’s quite remarkable.

It’s a disaster for locals and people realise that the first act of the Albanese government was to cut road funding here in Aston … They’ve never apologised for it, they never explained why.

There are a lot of Australian families who have heard Anthony Albanese promise before the last election on 97 occasions that he would reduce your power to $275. That was a promise he made before the election, he’s never mentioned it since, not once.

So cost of living pressures are real for families and the opportunity in the election today is to send a very clear message to Labor that they shouldn’t be cutting local road funding, and they shouldn’t be abandoning this community.

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Laura Tingle becomes ABC staff-elected director – as it happened

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The 7.30 political correspondent will sit on the broadcaster’s board alongside chair Ita Buttrose. This blog is now closed

Report of new gas tax for Australia

The Australian Financial Review is this morning reporting that a new gas tax looms as the government tries to raise revenue to begin budget repair.

Major companies such as Woodside Energy, Santos and Shell and their tax advisers have signed confidentiality agreements with Treasury on the PRRT consultation.

Since Treasury resumed the stalled work for Labor late last year, it has cast the net wider to probe other PRRT areas, such as deductions, in an attempt to raise revenue sooner for the government from the profits-based tax.

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Government disposed of 3bn items of PPE bought in pandemic, data shows

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Department of Health and Social Care in England has removed 269,500 pallets of PPE from its stock

The government has disposed of more than 3bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) it bought during the pandemic, figures have revealed.

An estimated 3.14bn items have been shed through a mixture of recycling, energy from waste processes – including some incineration – donations and sales.

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Margaret Ferrier should be suspended for 30 days for Covid breach, says MPs’ watchdog

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Possible byelection looms for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after MP travelled back to Scotland on train after positive test in 2020

The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West Margaret Ferrier should be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the committee on standards has recommended.

Ferrier could face a byelection as the Commons watchdog recommended she should be suspended for 30 days for breaching Covid rules. She was found to have damaged the reputation of the Commons and put people at risk after taking part in a debate and travelling by train while suffering from Covid.

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Military sites to house asylum seekers to meet ‘essential living needs and nothing more’, says minister – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed, you can read more on this story here

Eagle how the pay settlement for health workers will be funded.

Hunt says, as with all pay settlements, departments fund them from the money they get in the spending review. But in exceptional circumstances they can speak to the Treasury about extra help.

But we make a commitment that there will not be a degredation of frontline services for the public.

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Covid inquiry under fire for giving Wales and Northern Ireland three weeks each

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Scheduling makes Wales hearing look like ‘poorer relative’, say unions, while NI families say at least six weeks is needed

Bereaved families have strongly criticised proposals by the UK Covid-19 inquiry to set aside only three weeks each for its public hearings on the responses to the pandemic in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru argued that the Labour-led Welsh government would escape proper scrutiny unless more time was allocated. Trade union leaders suggested there was a risk Wales could be seen as the “poorer relative” in the inquiry.

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Victory over big pharma opens door to cheaper tuberculosis drugs

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India’s patent office turns down bedaquiline extension to Johnson & Johnson, clearing the way for generic versions

People with drug-resistant tuberculosis in India could soon have access to critical medication at a far lower cost after the authorities rejected US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson’s application to extend a patent.

The firm wanted to extend its patent on bedaquiline, which expires in July, until 2027, which would have prevented cheaper generic versions reaching the market.

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Senate inquiry to investigate support for Australians with ADHD

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Greens senator Jordon Steele-John says people with condition struggle with ‘cost, wait time and stigma’

Assessment and support services for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder will be the subject of parliamentary scrutiny after the Australian Senate backed a Greens proposal for an inquiry on the issue.

The Senate community affairs references committee will examine barriers to “consistent, timely and best practice assessment” of ADHD and related services, including the adequacy of access to diagnosis and support, biases inherent in ADHD assessment and research, and the cost of medication.

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Charlie Teo accused of giving ‘opportunistically untruthful’ evidence

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Controversial neurosurgeon’s claim a patient’s husband was ‘hoodwinked’ into making a complaint against him showed ‘lack of empathy’, inquiry also told

The controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has been accused of giving “opportunistically untruthful” evidence to a medical disciplinary board as well as lacking empathy and insight.

Teo appeared before a Health Care Complaints Commission inquiry in Sydney on Tuesday to defend brain tumour surgeries he performed on two women, from which they never recovered and died soon after.

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Mindfulness better than CBT for treating depression, study finds

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Authors say supported mindfulness-based cognitive therapy also cheaper than treatment NHS usually offers

Practising mindfulness is much better than taking part in talking therapies at helping people recover from depression, a British study has found.

People who used a mindfulness self-help book for eight weeks and had six sessions with a counsellor experienced a 17.5% greater improvement in recovery from depressive symptoms than those who underwent cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) while being supported by a mental health practitioner.

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Australian youth vaping rates higher than previously thought, study suggests

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A third of people under 30 have used e-cigarettes while 14% say they currently vape, according to new research

National youth vaping rates are higher than previously thought and those with friends who vape are most susceptible, according to a study published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

A national sample of 1,006 people aged 15–30 years were surveyed about their use of tobacco and vaping products, motivations, how they obtained e-cigarettes, exposure to others’ vaping, exposure to e-cigarette advertising and perceptions of harms associated with e-cigarettes.

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Will Jeremy Hunt foot the bill for NHS staffing? The signs aren’t promising | Denis Campbell

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Unions, regulators and NHS England all say staff shortages are affecting health of medics and patients

“There’s a gap today that no locum filled, so I am carrying both bleeps and doing the work of two people.” That recent tweet, by a children’s doctor, is one of many examples posted on social media by medics illustrating how NHS staff shortages affect them, patients, the smooth running of important services – and, sometimes, the safety of those who are receiving care.

It is a concern shared by every organisation that represents frontline staff, by regulators such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and by NHS England, the body that oversees the service. Just as one example, in January the CQC reported that an inspection it had undertaken of Colchester hospital in Essex found patients were missing out on meals because there were too few staff on duty to feed them. Some patients were wearing dirty dressings, and others did not have their call bells answered promptly, for the same reason.

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NHS staff shortages in England could exceed 570,000 by 2036, leaked document warns

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Exclusive: workplace plan sent to ministers says deficit will rise rapidly from current 154,000 if current trends continue

The NHS in England needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis that could leave it short of 571,000 staff, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.

A long-awaited workforce plan produced by NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.

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Majority of Australians support banning gambling advertising on TV, study finds

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Concerns raised about links between ads, increased betting and risky behaviour, as well as prevalence of chances to gamble

Australians predominantly support greater restrictions and bans on gambling advertising, which a new study has found to have influenced young and vulnerable people to start betting, place “impulse” wagers or escalate their gambling behaviour.

The research, by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, found that 38% of the adult population gambled at least weekly. Three in four Australians gambled at least once during the past 12 months and, of those, almost half (46%) were classified as being at some risk of harm from wagering.

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Australian teenagers urge government to help them break vaping addiction

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Submissions to the TGA include comments from 13-19-year-olds who want restrictions in place to help them with nicotine addiction

Teenagers have urged the Australian government to help them break their nicotine addiction, submissions to a major consultation on vaping reforms reveal.

A submission to drug regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration from South Australia’s commissioner for children and young people, Helen Connolly, included comments from some of the 950 teenagers aged 13-to-19 surveyed by her office about vaping.

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Rise of slimming jabs could lead to overseas trips to remove excess skin, UK surgeons warn

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Exclusive: Surgeons raise concerns that people using jabs are unaware of risks of redundant skin

From unbearable side-effects to cravings curbed: readers on weight-loss jabs

A surge in the number of people using slimming jabs to lose weight could lead to a rise in patients travelling abroad for tummy tucks or other surgery to remove excess skin, surgeons have said.

Drugs such as liraglutide and semaglutide, which could help people reduce their weight by more than 10%, have been approved for use on the NHS for certain groups of people with obesity, although supplies of the latter under the brand name Wegovy have yet to arrive in the UK.

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Tobacco-linked organisations and executives fail to declare interests to TGA vaping inquiry

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Known links to tobacco multinationals and vaping lobby groups omitted in submissions to federal government consultation on reform

Organisations and executives with known links to big tobacco and vaping companies have failed to declare them in submissions to a major government consultation on vaping reforms aimed at protecting children from nicotine addiction.

The submission of the Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) chief executive, Theo Foukkare, to the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s vaping reforms consultation on behalf of the AACS states “no” in response to the question: “Have you or your organisation ever received services, assistance or support (whether monetary or non-monetary in nature) from the tobacco industry and/or e-cigarette industry?”

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