#health news queensland

[bradburydental]

World Oral Health Day: Promoting Healthy Smiles with Bradbury Dental Surgery

As we celebrate World Oral Health Day, it's important to recognize the significance of maintaining good dental hygiene practices for a lifetime of healthy smiles. This global initiative serves as a reminder of the importance of oral health and its impact on overall well-being.

One important quality of achieving best oral health is regular dental care, and establishments like Bradbury Dental Surgery play a vital role in this endeavor. With their commitment to excellence in dental services, Bradbury Dental Surgery stands as a guidance of oral health within our community.

At Bradbury Dental Surgery, patients receive more than just routine check-ups; they experience personalized care tailored to their unique needs. From preventative treatments to advanced restorative procedures, the skilled professionals and prioritize patient comfort and satisfaction.

In addition to offering top-notch dental services, Bradbury Dental Surgery is dedicated to patient education. They empower individuals with the knowledge and tools necessary to maintain healthy oral habits at home, ensuring long-term dental wellness beyond the confines of the clinic.

The importance of accessibility to quality dental care. Through community outreach programs and initiatives, they strive to make oral health services accessible to all, regardless of socioeconomic status.

On this World Oral Health Day, let us commend the efforts of establishments like Bradbury Dental Surgery in promoting oral health awareness and making strides towards healthier smiles worldwide. Together, with a commitment to regular dental care and education, we can ensure that everyone has the opportunity to smile confidently and live their best lives.

[porcelain-dollbones]

i don't know if this is being talked about outside of australia, but recently there was a mass stabbing event in my city. six people are dead and eight more badly injured.

the media coverage and public conversation around the stabbing has been really awful. it started with frenzied theorising- without any evidence- that the perpetrator was a muslim extremist, a palestinian hamas agent, including spreading false information about the victims to create a narrative of islamic violence. when it resulted that the perpetrator was a white man from queensland, the coverage instantly shifted- instead of a terror attack, it was now a lone wolf, a non-ideological result of an individual's mental health issues. this is typical of the framing when it comes to perpetrators: a white person is an individual, a brown person is a faceless member of an ideology. but, crucially, the attack was not non-ideological. the perpetrator specifically targeted women, specifically avoiding men except where they were preventing him from getting to women. six out of seven of the deceased victims were women, and in interviews with the perpetrators parents, they talked about his anger at not having a girlfriend. misogyny is ideological, and men are trained to harbour deep resentment towards women that regularly manifests in violence. this event was a targeted act of femicide. while it is unclear if the perpetrator was involved in any specific right-wing groups, that the attack was driven by hatred of women is not in doubt.

the new narrative is one of demonising mental illness, because the perpetrator was diagnosed with schizophrenia and there is no avenue to blame his race. there are now open calls in the media for stricter use of sectioning and more oppressive tracking, forced medication and indefinite institutionalisation of the mentally ill. it is the mentally ill who will suffer from this narrative, while the fostering of violent misogyny goes unchecked. this country never stops letting us down

[lotus-tower]

COVID-19's long-term effects on the body: an incomplete list

COVID’s effect on the immune system, specifically on lymphocytes:

NYT article from 2020 (Studies cited: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.18.101717v1, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.20.106401v1, https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/32405080/Decreased_T_cell_populations_contribute_to_the_increased_severity_of_COVID_19_, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.08.20125112v1)

 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.10.475725v1

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc8511 (Published in Science)

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9057012/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/04/14/sars-cov-2-actively-infects-and-kills-lymphoid-cells/

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/10/in-cleveland-and-beyond-researchers-begin-to-unravel-the-mystery-of-long-covid-19.html

SARS-CoV-2 infection weakens immune-cell response to vaccination: NIH-funded study suggests need to boost CD8+ T cell response after infection

https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/hematology-and-oncology/leukopenias/lymphocytopenia

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/11/07/COVID-Reinfections-And-Immunity/

Dendritic cell deficiencies persist seven months after SARS-CoV-2 infection

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.1034159/full

https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Lauterbach-warnt-vor-unheilbarer-Immunschwaeche-durch-Corona-article23860527.html (German Minister of Health)

Anecdotal evidence of COVID’s effects on white blood cells:

 https://twitter.com/DrJohnHhess/status/1661837956875956224

 https://x.com/TristanVeness/status/1661565201345564673

https://twitter.com/TristanVeness/status/1689996298408312832

Much more if you speak to Long Covid patients directly!

Related information of interest:

China approves Genuine Biotech's HIV drug for COVID patients

COVID as a “mass disabling event” and impact on the economy:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/report-says-long-covid-could-impact-economy-and-be-mass-disabling-event-in-canada-1.6306608

https://x.com/inkblue01/status/1742183209809453456?s=20

COVID’s impact on the heart:

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/deadly-virus-could-lead-heart-31751263 (Research from: Japan's Riken research institute)

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/unlike-flu-covid-19-attacks-dna-in-the-heart-new-research-20220929-p5bm10.html

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/12/1/186

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-mild-covid-effects-cardiovascular-health.html

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/covid-and-the-heart-it-spares-no-one

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/is-coronavirus-a-disease-of-the-blood-vessels (British Heart Foundation)

COVID’s effect on the brain and cognitive function:

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/article/brain-infection-by-sars-cov-2-lifelong-consequences/171391/

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-shows-covid-leaves-brain-injury-markers-blood

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/08/warning-of-serious-brain-disorders-in-people-with-mild-covid-symptoms

Cognitive post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) can occur after mild COVID-19 

Neurologic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Transmitted among Dogs

https://journals.lww.com/nsan/fulltext/2022/39030/neurological_manifestations_and_mortality_in.4.aspx

https://www.salon.com/2023/06/17/new-evidence-suggests-alters-the-brain--but-the-extent-of-changes-is-unclear/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-virus-may-tunnel-through-nanotubes-from-nose-to-brain/

https://neurosciencenews.com/post-covid-brain-21904/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(22)00260-7/fulltext

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08-covid-infection-crucial-brain-regions.html

https://news.ecu.edu/2022/08/04/covid-parkinsons-link/

Covid as a vascular/blood vessel disease:

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/01/coronavirus-is-a-blood-vessel-disease-study-says-and-its-mysteries-finally-make-sense/

https://www.salon.com/2023/12/27/brain-damage-caused-by-19-may-not-show-up-on-routine-tests-study-finds/

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/sars-cov-2-infects-coronary-arteries-increases-plaque-inflammation

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/12/6/2123

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211004104134.htm (microclots)

Long Covid:

Post-COVID-19 Condition in Canada: What we know, what we don’t know, and a framework for action

 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/more-than-two-years-of-long-covid-research-hasn-t-yielded-many-answers-scientific-review-1.6235227

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/cause-of-long-covid-symptoms-revealed-by-lung-imaging-research-at-western-university-1.6504318

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/long-covid-study-montreal-1.6521131

https://news.yale.edu/2023/12/19/study-helps-explain-post-covid-exercise-intolerance

Other:

- Viruses and mutation: https://typingmonkeys.substack.com/p/monkeys-on-typewriters

Measures taken by the rich and world leaders

Heightened risk of diabetes

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805461

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00912-y

Liver damage:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/46-of-covid-patients-have-liver-damage-study/articleshow/97809200.cms?from=mdr

tl;dr: covid is a vascular disease, not a respiratory illness. it can affect your blood and every organ in your body. every time you're reinfected, your chances of getting long covid increase.

avoid being infected. reduce the amount of viral load you're exposed to.

the gap between what the scientific community knows and ordinary people know is massive. collective action is needed.

[reasonsforhope]

"An international research team has found almost a million potential sources of antibiotics in the natural world.

Research published in the journal Cell by a team including Queensland University of Technology (QUT) computational biologist Associate Professor Luis Pedro Coelho has used machine learning to identify 863,498 promising antimicrobial peptides -- small molecules that can kill or inhibit the growth of infectious microbes.

The findings of the study come with a renewed global focus on combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as humanity contends with the growing number of superbugs resistant to current drugs.

"There is an urgent need for new methods for antibiotic discovery," Professor Coelho, a researcher at the QUT Centre for Microbiome Research, said. The centre studies the structure and function of microbial communities from around the globe.

"It is one of the top public health threats, killing 1.27 million people each year." ...

"Using artificial intelligence to understand and harness the power of the global microbiome will hopefully drive innovative research for better public health outcomes," he said.

The team verified the machine predictions by testing 100 laboratory-made peptides against clinically significant pathogens. They found 79 disrupted bacterial membranes and 63 specifically targeted antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.

"Moreover, some peptides helped to eliminate infections in mice; two in particular reduced bacteria by up to four orders of magnitude," Professor Coelho said.

In a preclinical model, tested on infected mice, treatment with these peptides produced results similar to the effects of polymyxin B -- a commercially available antibiotic which is used to treat meningitis, pneumonia, sepsis and urinary tract infections.

More than 60,000 metagenomes (a collection of genomes within a specific environment), which together contained the genetic makeup of over one million organisms, were analysed to get these results. They came from sources across the globe including marine and soil environments, and human and animal guts.

The resulting AMPSphere -- a comprehensive database comprising these novel peptides -- has been published as a publicly available, open-access resource for new antibiotic discovery.

[Note: !!! Love it. Open access research databases my beloved.]"

-via Science Daily, June 5, 2024

[leveragehunters]

I'm putting my response to this in it's own post. Nothing but respect for the rightful criticisms of the situation described in those articles. The problem is that the articles by Danielle Cahill are grossly, almost negligently, misleading.

I'm not your lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I am an autistic Queensland lawyer who's pretty ticked off at Cahill.

Cahill's articles:

Autistic drivers could find their licences in legal limbo depending on where they live after new standards introduced

New national Fitness to Drive standards are 'discriminatory' and 'humiliating' for autistic drivers, psychologists say

Short version:

If you're autistic you do not automatically have to obtain a medical clearance to hold a Queensland Drivers Licence and there is no 'list of reportable conditions', much less one that includes autism.

Long version with receipts:

The first article purportedly cites a Department of Transport and Main Roads (Transport) spokesperson who they claim said: "…all autistic drivers in Queensland have since 2012 been required to obtain a medical clearance from a doctor to show they are fit to drive." It also says: "In Queensland, the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) requires drivers to obtain a medical clearance form from a doctor confirming they are fit to drive despite being autistic."

The second article says: "According to the state's Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), autism was added to the list of reportable health conditions in 2012."  Oh, but wait, what's this from just a little further up in the same article? "A TMR spokesperson told ABC News that "there is no specific legislation that states that people with autism cannot drive".

Let's talk about that specific legislation

Despite what the spokesperson said, there was no change to the law in 2012. A new Transport Regulation, which contains the law about medical clearances for Queensland drivers licences, was, however, passed in 2021. (link to the Regulation)

Typo or ignorance? Why not both.

The 2021 Regulation did not substantively change the law. The new Regulation was a consolidation, modernisation, and streamline of multiple pieces of overlapping legislation. (Explanatory notes)

'Jet's Law', which sets the rules for driver medical clearances, was first introduced in 2008. (Ministerial Statement). It was moved from the old Regulation to the new 2021 one essentially unchanged.

Jet's Law in chapter 3, part 6, division 1 of the 2021 Regulation

Jet's Law as passed in the previous Regulation (scroll down to page 64)

The law in Queensland re: medical clearances is the same as it was in 2008. The only changes were to language, consistent with modern drafting standards, and the addition of a requirement to not drive until you've given notice if a condition develops or worsens.  

What does Jet's Law say?

Section 177 of the 2021 Regulation states:

A person who applies for the grant or renewal of a Queensland driver licence must, when making the application, give a notice to the chief executive about any mental or physical incapacity that is likely to adversely affect the person’s ability to drive safely.

Key words: any mental or physical incapacity that is likely to affect the person's ability to drive.

If you're autistic and your autism isn't likely to affect your ability to drive safely, Jet's Law doesn't require you to give notice to Transport.

But what about that list of reportable conditions the article claims exists?

It doesn't exist. There is no list of reportable conditions.

Transport DOES provide some examples of medical conditions that are likely to affect your ability to drive. You can see them here:

https://www.support.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/formsdat.nsf/forms/S5040/$file/S5040.pdf

https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/licensing/update/medical/fitness#medcond

Here's the licence application form: https://www.support.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/formsdat.nsf/forms/qf3000/$file/f3000_es.pdf. Question 7 states that you must report any medical conditions that may adversely affect your ability to drive and asks if you have any of the following conditions:

Vision or eye disorder (other than wearing glasses or contact lenses) that may adversely affect your driving

Diabetes that requires treatment by tablet, insulin or other medication

Been diagnosed with epilepsy, experienced a seizure; or been required to take anti-epileptic medication after the age of 11

Any other medical condition/s that is likely to adversely affect your ability to drive safely

You know what I don't see anywhere? Autism.

But what about the National Standards?

Cahill managed to get that part of the articles almost right.

All Queensland drivers, regardless of age, must meet the national standards to ensure their health or any physical disability does not increase the risk of a crash. (confirmed by Transport) And before you ask, the national standard is not a list of 'reportable conditions'. (Even if it was, the autism update happened in 2022, not 2012). But what is the national standard if it's not a list of reportable conditions?

The national driver medical standards Assessing Fitness to Drive set out the considerations and medical criteria for safe driving. They also guide the management of drivers with health conditions so that they may continue to drive for as long as it is safe to do so. The standards are used by health professionals to assess and manage patients with health conditions that may affect their ability to drive safely. These assessments and the standards themselves inform Driver Licensing Authority decisions about driver licensing.

The national standard does refer to "Other neurological conditions including autism spectrum disorder and other developmental and intellectual disabilities". Yes, it was updated in 2022, as indicated by a big red banner across the top of the page. The update notes state:

The review identified that information and guidance was required to enable assessment of persons with ASD. Specialist advice noted that the variability of ASD characteristics and the degree of severity were too diverse for a specific standard. General guidance is however provided in the text of the chapter.

Wait, the review? The changes were made because of a review? They weren't a secret sneaky change as Cahill alleged? There was a public review that called for submissions from stakeholders?  Yes there was.

The review concluded there was not enough evidence to determine the MVC (motor vehicle crash) risk associated with ASD, and "Specialist advice noted that the variability of ASD characteristics and the degree of severity were too diverse for a specific standard."

So what does the standard actually say about autism?

The impact of other neurological conditions including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental and intellectual disability should be assessed individually. A practical driver assessment may be required. If the degree of impairment is static, periodic review is not usually required. People with ASD can have differences in social communication and interaction, with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour, interest and activities. Although evidence from driving studies are limited, drivers with ASD may drive differently from people without ASD. Shortcomings in tactical driving skills have been observed, while rule-following aspects of driving are improved. There is considerable difference in the range and severity of ASD symptoms, so assessment should focus on these and the significance of likely functional effects, rather than an ASD diagnosis.

So what does that mean?

It means we're right back at Jet's Law, in section 177 of the 2021 Regulation.

If you have a mental or physical incapacity that is likely to affect your ability to drive you need to declare it.

Could this include autism? Yes.

Does it automatically include autism? Not according to any law or standard currently in force in Queensland.

If you're an autistic Queenslander, your obligations under Jet's Law and the update to the national standard mean it's important that you consider whether your autism is likely to affect your driving ability and, if so, declare it. If it's not, then don't.

[Reminder: I am not your lawyer and this is not legal advice]

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By John Mackay and Martin Scott

New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health data released last month under freedom of information laws reveal that 6,007 patients contracted COVID in the state’s public hospitals in 2023. This contributed to the death of 297 people, meaning that 14 percent of fatal COVID infections in the state were acquired in hospital.

The data, which also cover the first four months of this year, show that similar infection and death rates have continued, with 1,729 patients catching COVID in NSW hospitals and 86 dying, between the start of January and the end of April.

The NSW figures are in line with previously uncovered Victorian data, which showed that 6,212 patients contracted COVID in the state’s public hospitals and 586 died in 2022 and 2023.

This is a direct product of the conscious and planned abolition of virtually all public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID, including the removal of mask mandates in hospitals. These pro-business “forever COVID” policies, adopted by all governments worldwide, have in Australia been spearheaded by Labor at the state and federal level.

The NSW hospital infection figures were unearthed through a persistent 18-month campaign by lawyer Peter Vogel. His first Government Information Public Access application to the Ministry of Health was made in February 2023. This was rebuffed, with the Ministry claiming, according to Vogel, “It would take 140 hours to produce a report showing [the] number of hospital acquired COVID cases.”

After Vogel requested an internal review, the Ministry replied in July 2023 that it “does not hold complete and accurate records regarding nosocomial [hospital-acquired] infections.”

Only in June 2024, after multiple additional freedom of information requests to other agencies and repeated denials that any part of the NSW government or health bureaucracy had records of hospital-acquired infection, did the Ministry of Health admit that it held the information the lawyer sought. Even then, it claimed it would take 31 hours to produce a report, and Vogel would have to pay $930 for it. The data were finally provided to Vogel on September 17.

This is just one example of the extent to which serious illness and death from the ongoing COVID pandemic is being consciously covered up by the state and federal Labor governments. With the aid of the corporate media, virtually all reporting of the deadly virus has been suppressed, to provide phoney justification for the profit-driven and unscientific abolition of basic infection control measures.

The entire testing and reporting infrastructure has been eviscerated. Only two states, NSW and Western Australia (WA), continue to test wastewater samples for COVID, while hospitalisation figures in most jurisdictions are only reported intermittently.

Most strikingly, COVID deaths are no longer reported in NSW, Queensland, WA or the Northern Territory, except as part of overall mortality statistics, released months after the fact. The presentation of these national mortality figures, produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), has been modified to obfuscate the substantial increase in annual deaths, which is ongoing.

According to the outdated and incomplete official figures, COVID contributed significantly or was the main cause of more than 23,500 deaths between January 2022 and September 2024, around one-quarter of which occurred in residential aged care facilities.

In a grim refutation of the lie that the pandemic is over, COVID-contributed fatalities this year have occurred at a rate of 497.5 per month, barely lower than the 512 per month recorded in 2023.

The fact that so many fatal COVID infections have been contracted in health and aged care settings underscores that, in line with capitalist governments worldwide, Australia’s state and federal Labor governments are committing social murder, targeted at the most vulnerable people in society.

Dr Stéphane Bouchoucha, president of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control, told the ABC the NSW hospital infection data was “concerning and tragic.”

He said: “This is the core business of infection prevention and control… The premise that we can allow some deaths, to me, is wrong.

“We know how COVID is transmitted and we know how to prevent healthcare associated infections,” Bouchoucha stated, referring to the need to ensure good ventilation and air filtration, testing and contact tracing, isolating infected patients and requiring healthcare workers to wear masks.

Many of these measures were introduced in the early stages of the pandemic and had a significant impact in reducing the spread of infection within health facilities, but have since been abandoned.

This flies in the face of decades of medical advances and longstanding infection control measures in hospitals. For example, there are long-established protocols for identifying and preventing the spread of infections with “golden” staphylococcus, a hospital-acquired bacteria that can be resistant to antibiotics.

In NSW, the tearing down of COVID public health measures began under the Perrottet Liberal-National government, but has been completed under the Labor government led by Premier Chris Minns. This could not have been carried out without the assistance of the health unions, which have enforced every reckless and unscientific step of the process.

In 2022, Health Services Union (HSU) national president and NSW state secretary Gerard Hayes was at the forefront of demands for the scrapping of COVID isolation requirements for health staff, because of the supposed impact of such measures on “the economy.”

In August 2023, the HSU hailed the NSW Labor government’s scrapping of public hospital mask mandates as “a milestone in health.”

The HSU, along with the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, promote the lie that COVID is a thing of the past, entirely separate from workers’ disputes over pay and conditions in recent years. These struggles have included multiple mass strikes by more than 10,000 nurses and midwives, but year after year, the union leaders have pushed through sell-out deals, slashing real wages in line with government demands.

The reality is that the fight for decent working conditions in health is inseparable from the fight to end the COVID pandemic, which has massively exacerbated the dire state of the public hospital system, which faces a chronic shortage of staff and resources after decades of union-enforced government cuts.

To take this forward, health workers will have to take matters into their own hands. Rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, must be established in hospitals and health facilities and the fight for patient and staff safety linked with the struggle for real improvements to workers’ pay and conditions.

In the first instance, this must include the re-implementation of infection control measures, including masks and isolation, in all health workplaces. But as long as the virus is allowed to circulate unchecked among the broader population, protecting hospital patients and staff will be a constant battle.

A fight must be taken up, by health workers and the working class as a whole, for the elimination of COVID worldwide. This is possible, but not under the framework of the capitalist system, which rejects public health measures as unprofitable, and not within the borders of a single country.

Workers in Australia and worldwide confront the existential necessity of a struggle for a political alternative to the ruling class program of endless infection, illness and death. Only through the fight for a workers’ government to implement socialist policies, can society’s plentiful resources be stripped from the banks and corporations and turned towards ridding the world of COVID and making high-quality public healthcare freely available to all.

[f1ghtsoftly]

All The Women’s News You Missed Last Week

A Florida woman jailed for repeating the phrase “Delay, Deny, Depose” in a response to a health insurance claim denial. Australian Parliament passes a new “gag” rule on abortion debate. 3 new victims of P. Diddy come forward will allegations and more this week. 

Want this in your inbox instead? Subscribe here

LGBT: 

Syracuse judge who refused to marry same-sex couple will stop hearing criminal cases for now, officials say

Women’s Rights: 

Iran imposes strict hijab laws; approves death penalty for offenders

Texas sues New York doctor accused of posting abortion pills

Queensland parliament passes ‘unprecedented’ gag on abortion debate

Male Violence: 

Cult leader who claimed underage girls among his ‘wives’ jailed for 50 years

Hannah Kobayashi found safe after disappearance, family says 

Women cops forging ties for life with the sex trafficking victims they rescue 

The 50 men accused in mass rape of Gisèle Pelicot 

Rape inquiry linked by Swedish media to Mbappé closed 

New name, no photos: Gisèle Pelicot removes all trace of her husband 

Champion cyclist pleads guilty over Olympian wife's car death 

Yung Filly charged with reckless driving while on bail for rape charges 

Jay-Z asks court to dismiss rape lawsuit over inconsistencies 

Paula Abdul settles lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Nigel Lythgoe 

Three men accuse Diddy of rape and sexual assault in new lawsuits 

Rapper Slowthai breaks down as he is cleared of rape 

Calls for Archbishop of York to resign over Church failings in sex abuse case 

Abuse survivors 'still failed years after inquiry' 

Harshita Brella told family her husband would kill her, mother tells BBC 

Women in the News: 

Woman charged with threatening healthcare firm by using CEO killer's words 

Assad's police threatened to bury me and my reporting. Now I'm back, and free 

Relatives of missing Syrians 'suspended between hope and despair' 

The woman helping amputees rebuild their lives in war-torn Ukraine 

Family 'devastated' no prosecutions over Garda car death

Canada's finance minister quits over Trump tariff dispute with Trudeau 

Woman killed in London triple shooting named 

One in four babies in England born by Caesarean 

Arts and Culture: 

Influencer's brand faces backlash over bullying claims 

Quannah ChasingHorse: The Indigenous American supermodel on bringing change 

Meet Karol G, Colombia's Taylor Swift 

As always, this is global and domestic news from a US perspective covering feminist issues and women in the news more generally. As of right now, I do not cover Women’s Sports. Published each Monday afternoon.

[coochiequeens]

Finally a peice that talks about how 5 of the 6 in the people killed in the sydney stabbings were women. And yes he was mentally ill but he felt entitled to a girlfriend.

By Victoria Smith 16 April, 2024

Did Joel Cauchi, the man who killed six people in a Sydney shopping centre, do so because he was mentally ill? Or did he do it because he hated women?

Five out of six of Cauchi’s victims were women, which does seem targeted. Nonetheless, according to his family, Cauchi, 40, “battled with mental health issues since he was a teenager”. For this reason, some have found talk of misogyny unseemly, if not exploitative. To categorise Cauchi’s act as male violence against women, if not terrorism underpinned by misogynist ideology, can be appear dismissive of genuine sickness. Sometimes, bad things just happen because people are unwell. 

For women who live with men who have severe mental health diagnoses, there is little comfort in discussions such as these. On the one hand, there is an enormous amount of pressure to downplay the idea that mentally ill men are more likely to be violent than other men (they are, but to say so is viewed as contributing to stigma). On the other hand, is it fair for a man with severe mental illness to be judged by the same moral standards as other men? Shouldn’t we be recognising that they cannot control their perceptions and fears?

See rest of article

The Sydney attacker was desperate for a girlfriend, his family has revealed as police confirmed that he had targeted women.

Joel Cauchi killed five women and one man during a knife attack on the Bondi Junction Westfield shopping centre on Saturday.

Karen Webb, the New South Wales police commissioner, said: “The videos speak for themselves. It’s obvious the offender had focused on women and avoided the men.”

The majority of the 12 people Cauchi seriously wounded were female, including a baby girl.

Andrew Cauchi, his father, said on Monday he knew why his mentally unwell son had targeted women. The 76-year-old told reporters outside his home in Queensland: “Because he wanted a girlfriend and he’s got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain.”

Describing his son as “very sick”, he described trying to deal with the feelings of “loving a monster”.

A “heroic” policewoman who stopped a lone knifeman mid-rampage during a killing spree in a Sydney shopping centre has been named.

In one of several heroic attempts to disarm the attacker on Saturday, Amy Scott, a NSW Police Inspector, walked up calmly behind the attacker and ordered him to drop his weapon.

When he refused to do so and lunged at her with a knife, she shot him.

Six people were killed after the culprit – later identified by police as Queensland man Joel Cauchi – went on a stabbing spree in Westfield Bondi Junction, including a mother whose baby is reportedly now in a critical condition.

“She is certainly a hero. There is no doubt that she saved lives through her action,” Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said on Saturday.

[couldbegayer]

what a weird year for me. new year ramblings under the cut.

i started 2024 off depressed and anxious. i'm ending the year depressed and anxious but now i've seen dan and phil and taylor swift.

but in all seriousness. this year was probably the most meaningful of my life so far, the year that i will look back on as the start of my "real life". i'm proud of what i've done.

in january i was just putting one foot in front of the other. i was severely overworked. i was on call at a busy hospital so my sleep was shocking. the shift work killed me and i would come home and just sit on my phone in my bedroom, lights off and air con on freezing. i didn't have the energy to have any hobbies anymore. just dissociate and sleep until its the next day and time to do it all again. after spending my early twenties getting my mental and physical health back on track, it kind of went to shit again.

it wasn't all bad. at this job i met some of my best friends, lifelong friends. but i wasn't thriving. i felt completely suffocated in my work identity, playing a role that others needed me to be, and feeling like i didn't have anything to offer outside of my job. where i was physically living, in regional central queensland (for anyone outside of aus, its one of the most conservative places in the country), was suffocating me too. it wasn't a very good place for a closeted trans person to live.

i turned 30 and instead of experiencing the stereotypical wave of lost youth like i expected, i felt inspired to get the fuck out. this life isn't serving me, i'm not happy, so let's get on with it and do something about it. and so i did the scariest thing that i've ever done. i quit my job and moved to the city to start my transition.

don't get me wrong, it wasn't as easy as that. moving didn't solve all my problems. saying goodbye to some of the only proper friends i've ever made in my entire was the hardest thing i've ever done and i haven't really made any close friends here, aside from someone i used to work with who moved here a year ago too. my transition didn't magically start. getting out of the shithole didn't sort out all of my anxiety about my family or society in general. but i faced my fear and saw a therapist and a doctor who prescribed me T-gel. i haven't taken it yet. it is sitting in my cupboard waiting for me when i'm ready.

life isn't perfect, but its better. marginally better is still better.

i wanted to share some of my favourite moments from 2024.

i went to sydney for the first time to see taylor swift! also my first concert ever. i've been a fan of hers for so long (my youtube channel is filled with edits of her songs lmao) and it was such an amazing experience. got to see sabrina carpenter live before her espresso moment so that was pretty cool too! from these videos it might seem like im uninterested BUT these are the only ones i have without my horrible singing in the background! i promise i was excited!! (this day was also pretty crazy because i woke up at 4:30am for the we're all doomed premiere so needless to say i was fucking wrecked at the end of it, but worth it!).

2. while in sydney i went on a walking tour of oxford street. i don't have any photos of this but i was completely shook seeing the whole street decked out for mardi gras. it was a surreal moment from me, after coming from a town with literal cow statues everywhere, to seeing a rainbow pedestrian crossing that wasn't defaced but celebrated. it was so surreal.

3. i turned the big 30 and had an emo themed party. i got a custom black cake but it was so shit and made me sick! i did get a refund but what the fuck

4. i went to a gay club for the first time, on chappell roan night no less! this was within a week of me moving to the city. pink pony club was my anthem at this time, for obvious reasons, so to scream this with a bunch of queers after leaving my old life behind was so cathartic.

bonus, i really liked good luck babe, okay?

5. i went to terrible influence and saw dan and phil with my own two eyes. i saw dan at we're all doomed last year but it was surreal to see the both of them together. i know i mentioned this several times, but i will keep harping on about it. i used my question card at the pre-show to properly come out to my friend as a trans guy, after three years of 'not a woman'. as luck would have it, they pulled my card and read my coming out moment out loud (and insulted my handwriting... never beating the "healthcare workers have shit handwriting" allegations). having them directly involved in my coming out moment, reading my words aloud, and them saying on breakfast tv that they love their trans fans.. i feel like it has changed me as a person. top moment of the year for me.

my self-acceptance moment aside, i had so much fun. i just wish i bought m&g tickets, they were available when i was checking out but my friend who i was going with didn't want to. i get kinda sad when seeing other's m&g photos. (mild spoilers ahead) but as the closest millennial to the stage, dan looked right at me when i cheered during his millennial outburst, so i'll take that!

so in summary, what a weird, heartbreaking, fantastic year for me. i have never been this optimistic about the new year before. i can't wait to see what 2025 brings.

[beardedmrbean]

Although Iranian authorities have widely restricted access to abortion in an attempt to reverse demographic decline, more women are going outside the law to end unwanted pregnancies.

According to figures from the Iranian Ministry of Health reported by the Khabaronline news website in June 2024, over 600,000 illegal abortions are performed annually in Iran.

Experts say poverty, joblessness, and lack of social security are contributing factors forcing women to undergo an abortion despite serious risks.

In November 2021, Iranian lawmakers, under the auspices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei passed a law called the "rejuvenation of the population and support of the family."

The "population law," which is in effect for a 7-year trial period, quickly drew condemnation.

UN human rights experts issued a statement calling for the law to be repealed. They decried the legislation as a "direct violation of women's human rights under international law."

"This law violates the rights to life and health" by blocking access to a "range of reproductive health services" and information on reproductive rights, the UN activists.

Severe restrictions on reproductive health care

Under the population law, abortions in the case of a threat to life of the mother or fetus will only be allowed by the permission of a panel consisting of a judge, a court-appointed doctor and a forensic doctor.

Doctors or surgeons who perform abortions illegally risk the permanent loss of their license, prison sentences of two to five years, and heavy fines.

Contraceptives are also no longer provided free of charge in health centers or pharmacies. Additionally, the law criminalizes any form of sterilization, including procedures such as vasectomy and tubal ligation.

The Islamic penal code allows men to report their wives for having an abortion. In such cases, the women face fines, depending on the results of forensic investigations.

No more genetic testing before pregnancy

In October 2024, the head of the Center for Population Growth at Iran's Ministry of Health warned that center staff were actively identifying couples planning abortions in hospitals and doctor's offices to pressure and dissuade them from doing so.

The law also abolished the obligation to undergo genetic testing before pregnancy. Before its adoption, abortion was permitted if the fetus was proven to have severe disabilities by three doctors. This is expected to lead to a dramatic rise in birth defects.

According to the law, laboratories must register their patients' data online. This allows for pregnant women to be identified and punished if they later fail to give birth.

"Data clearly shows that criminalizing the termination of pregnancy does not reduce the number of women who resort to abortion," the UN experts said. "Instead, it forces women to risk their lives by undergoing clandestine and unsafe procedures."

Women turn to black market abortions

There are multiple indications that government restrictions have turned Iran into a booming black market for abortion drugs.

Dr. Parvin Delshad, a doctor and lecturer at the University of Queensland in Australia, told DW that these restrictive laws increase maternal mortality through "underground abortions."

"Regardless of whether the abortion is performed at home using medication to promote bleeding or by surgical intervention, it must be carried out under the supervision of a specialist. In both cases, it must be ensured that there is no danger to life," she said.

Delshad emphasized that doctors must ensure that women planning an abortion do not suffer from sexually transmitted diseases, as this increases the risk of pelvic infections and subsequent infertility.

According to the doctor, women who take illegal abortion drugs are often unaware of the health complications and put their lives at risk by having unsafe pregnancy terminations.

Data from the Iranian Ministry of Health indicates around 60% of abortions are carried out at home using abortion pills, 30% in doctors' clinics and 10% in "herbal stores" using herbal preparations.

Iran's population problem

In November 2024, Iran's deputy health minister, Alireza Raisi, warned that declining birth rates mean Iran's population could decrease by 50% before 2100.

Along with the strict restrictions on reproductive health, Iranian authorities are offering "incentives" under the population law to encourage families to have more children.

These include providing 200 square meters of land for a family with a third child, brand new vehicles for mothers having a second child, and full health insurance for unemployed mothers with three or more children.

However, a sociologist at the University of Tehran told DW that he doubts Iranian authorities can actually provide these incentives to families.

"Before discussing population growth, we should ask ourselves how many resources are actually available. Can these promises be fulfilled at all?" the expert said under the condition of anonymity. He adding that without the full acceptance of the Iranian public towards having more children, the laws will only have a superficial effect, even if they are imposed by oppressive measures.

"What about the quality of life and social well-being? Is there fair access to healthcare and education? And what is the capacity of the labor market?" he asked.

Even if the laws entice more people in economically depressed situations to have more children, the structural problems in Iran's economy and society will remain a challenge to growth in the future, according to the sociologist.

[estroniaid]

Australians can go to APAN, Australian Palestine Advocacy Network, which can help you send an email to your local representatives: here, remember you can personalise the email.

They also post about upcoming events and news around Australian Palestinian support. You can also volunteer and/or donate through them.

It's also a good idea to email our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong. Her fax and phone call details are here, you can also send a message through the site, or email her at senator.wong@aph.gov.au

There is also AFOPA, Australian Friends of Palestine Association, which is an Adelaide-based organisation. They have events and campaigns listed on their website.

APHEDA, Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad, is a non-government organisation of the Australian union movement. They are based in Sydney and do a lot of advocate work in Queensland.

AUSPalestine is an independent network of Australian trade unions and unionists who are in support of Palestine.

Do your part and don't allow the ausgov to simply give words of comfort, especially after abstaining from the humanitarian truce.

Free Palestine.

[leaves-lilies-and-esther]

Teaching primary school children about sexual abuse may help them to tell an adult if they have been abused themselves, according to the results of comprehensive new research. Using data from 24 separate trials involving almost 6,000 children around the world, researchers found that pupils who are taught at school about preventing sexual abuse through games, books and songs are more likely than others to report their own experiences of abuse.

The findings, which were published on Thursday, show that among children who did not receive any teaching about sexual abuse, four in 1,000 disclosed some form of sex abuse. Among those who were taught about it at school, the figure went up to 14 per 1,000.

Children who receive teaching on the subject also seem better equipped to deal with potentially dangerous situations, with those who participated in the education programmes more likely than other children to try to protect themselves in a simulated abuse scenario in which they were asked to leave school with a stranger.

Whether such school-based programmes actually reduce the incidence of abuse is still unclear, however, and the review’s authors have called for more research to build on their findings.

The report concludes: “Even if successful in only a small proportion of situations, given the prevalence of child sexual abuse, it is possible that the skills and knowledge learned in prevention programmes may be of assistance to a considerable number of children.”

The quality and availability of sex education in England’s schools has been under scrutiny in recent months, with a report by MPs on Westminster’s education committee calling for it to be mandatory to help safeguard young people from abuse. As this study shows, however, in certain countries primary-age children are already taught how to recognise, react to and report abuse situations through school-based programmes designed to prevent sexual abuse.

The findings are the result of a Cochrane review of data from trials of prevention programmes in the US, Canada, China, Germany, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey. Cochrane is a highly regarded, not-for-profit global network of researchers and professionals that carries out systematic reviews of the best available health research.

Schools used a variety of methods to educate children about sexual abuse, including films, plays, songs, puppets, books and games. The children, who were almost all of primary-school age, were taught about safety rules, body ownership and who to tell. The report’s authors said there was little evidence that children who took part were worried or in any way adversely affected.

In one American school, children took part in a one-hour Stop programme (stop, tell someone, own your body, protect yourself) taught through role-play; in Germany, children watched a live performance called (No) Child’s Play, and in Turkey there were four hour-long sessions based on a programme called Good Touch, Bad Touch.

Globally it is estimated that at least one in 10 girls and one in 20 boys experience some form of sexual abuse in childhood. Those who have been abused are more susceptible to depression, eating disorders, suicidal behaviour and drug and alcohol problems in later life.

“This review supports the need to inform and protect children against sexual abuse,” said the Cochrane report’s lead author, Kerryann Walsh, of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. “But ongoing research is needed to evaluate school-based prevention programmes, and to investigate the links between participation and the actual prevention of child sexual abuse. To really know whether these programmes are working, we need to see larger studies with follow-up all the way to adulthood.”

The study also indicated that the programmes were effective in increasing kids’ lasting knowledge of sexual abuse, with children remembering much of what they had been taught six months later. But the authors also said it was difficult to prove the children had learned the skills that would necessarily translate to a real-life future scenario involving abuse.

Walsh said: “Even if a child demonstrates that they know how to behave in a certain scenario, it doesn’t mean they will behave the same in a real situation where there is potential for abuse. Tests cannot mimic real abuse situations very well. For example, we know that most sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the child, whereas in the test situations, unfamiliar actors or research assistants were used.”

[mariacallous]

A child that faces a bedridden life. A girl with intellectual disabilities raped by a family member. Victims of domestic violence or reproductive coercion. There are a variety of distressing reasons women have later stage terminations.

There is no easy definition of when an abortion is considered “late” or “late-term”. It is generally considered anything after 20 weeks’ gestation, but the states and territories have a patchwork of legislation with various milestones.

What is clear is that later terminations are the new target of anti-abortion activists, now that abortion has been decriminalised across Australia.

On Wednesday South Australia’s upper house voted on legislation that would force women seeking an abortion after 27 weeks and six days – an extremely rare occurrence – to be induced, to deliver the child alive, and keep it or adopt it out.

It was narrowly defeated – nine were in favour and 10 opposed from the 22-person house. The president only casts a deciding vote, while a prominent Liberal critic of the bill, Michelle Lensink, is absent for cancer treatment.

The Liberal frontbencher Ben Hood, who introduced the bill, says the woman’s right to end a pregnancy is kept because the pregnancy ends when the baby is born.

“The innovation of this bill is that it allows a mother to end her pregnancy throughout all nine months and indeed right up to birth,” he says.

The Greens have a different label for it: “forced birth”.

About 1% of all terminations are carried out after 20 weeks.

According to SA Health data gathered in the 18 months after abortion reform in the state, fewer than five terminations were performed after 27 weeks.

Terminations at that point can only be done with the approval of two doctors, and only if it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant person or save another foetus, or poses significant risk of injury or mental health of the pregnant person, or if there is a significant risk of serious foetal anomalies.

Hood said in the upper house on Wednesday night that his bill did not “force birth”. He said any termination at 28 weeks already involved “birth” because women had no other option in how to remove the foetus from the body.

“The only difference is that the baby will have a chance to live,” he said.

He has previously said that, once born, if the baby “isn’t compatible with life”, it would then be given palliative care.

He said on Wednesday night the babies would be admitted to neonatal units, “receiving the best medical attention available if the mother does not wish to keep the baby”.

Adoption would be a compassionate alternative, he said.

Hood indicated on ABC radio that he was not abandoning his mission.

The attorney general, Kyam Maher, says the “Trumpian” bill would wind back abortion care and poses a “real and significant danger, not only to the physical health and safety of all women, but to women’s fundamental right to bodily autonomy”.

He also hit out at the vitriol, nastiness and inflammatory attacks deployed in the campaign.

“I’d encourage those who’ve been involved in this sort of debate to reflect on whether the hyper polarised US style of personal politics really reflects well on SA,” he says.

The bill bears similarities to so-called “born-alive” laws, which have percolated in the US for years. A federal “born alive” bill in Australia was found to have no legal, ethical or medical basis to support it.

The Katter’s Australian party leader, Robbie Katter, has proposed similar legislation in Queensland.

Both Katter and Hood have thanked the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe for her work on their legislation. Howe wants “an Australia where abortion is unthinkable”.

Hood thanked Howe on Wednesday and said the other people who informed the bill wanted to remain anonymous. Several earlier speakers noted that Hood’s bill was drafted by Howe and anonymous experts while the review that informed decriminalisation involved thousands of experts and many respected institutions who did not remain anonymous, and that it involved months of investigation and a 560-page report.

Abortion has also crept up as a serious issue in the lead-up to the Queensland election after Labor accused the Liberal National party of a “secret plan” to limit abortion rights and the LNP failed to quell the speculation.

The various campaigns have been accused of using misinformation in an attempt to limit access to terminations.

Reasons women might need a late termination include foetal abnormalities, life-threatening conditions, and psycho-social reasons such as the baby being the result of rape or incest.

‘We can’t do this to the baby’

Tiffany’s first baby had spina bifida.

Her baby would have been paralysed from the neck down. She chose a termination. Six years later, Tiffany* was pregnant again. At the 20-week scan, she was told this baby also had spina bifida, but it was not as bad.

“They said wait another two weeks, we’ll do another scan and we’ll go from there,” she says.

“You’re stressing, you’re freaking out. Two weeks felt like an eternity.”

After waiting two weeks and undergoing another scan, Tiffany was again told it didn’t look too bad and she should do another scan in two weeks.

“At 24 weeks, it got worse,” she says.

“He started developing fluid on the brain. It was affecting his nerves, down the spine. It went from numb toes to ‘he’s not going to be able to walk’.”

Another two weeks, another scan. “Everything was failing,” she says. “We did all these tests because I needed to make sure I was making the right decision … we sat down and said ‘we can’t do this to the baby’. He’d be bedridden, have surgery after surgery, a lifetime of hospital visits.”

At 28 weeks, she had the procedure.

An SA Law Reform Institute review of abortion law heard about a girl with an intellectual disability who had been sexually abused by a family member and did not realise she was pregnant until late in the pregnancy.

She made it clear she did not want the pregnancy to proceed. If she had not been able to have an abortion, if she had been forced to have the child, it would have had a “severe and adverse affect on her”, the institute said in its report.

Jacquie* and her husband had a two-year-old and another baby on the way.

They did the usual testing, including a 16-week scan and an amniocentesis. “We got the results back and they said everything was fine,” she says. “But I had a gut feeling and remember saying to my hubby that something was just off.”

At 24 weeks, they got a call. “They said they got the results wrong,” she says. “We thought, ‘shit’. So we were told at 24 weeks that our child did have Down syndrome and we had to make a choice within 24 hours.

“We just had to make the decision around our family and what was best for us. To this day we never say it was the right decision. It was the best choice for us at that time. We had to think about our little one.”

Jacob Mangelsdorf is a counsellor at Red Tree Foundation, an organisation which supports people grieving the loss of a child.

He says the parents that come to him are suffering an “incredibly complex grief”.

“We’re not talking about an easy choice. We’re not talking about something that’s without a high level of complexity,” he says.

“It’s not just losing that baby, it’s about processing that loss and the decision, [thinking] ‘in some ways I made that choice to end that baby’s life’.

“There’s always that little part of their brain grappling with that. It’s really important to acknowledge that the mum at that point has had 20-something weeks to bond with that baby.”

Tiffany says hospitals and health authorities need to do better in supporting women going through horrific experiences like hers. And people need to stop judging others, she says.

“Everyone has an opinion and their own beliefs.

“But if you’re not in my shoes, you don’t know.”

* Full names have not been used to maintain privacy of those interviewed

[warningsine]

Taipei/Sydney, Aug. 22 (CNA) The Australian Senate passed an "urgency motion" Wednesday in support of Taiwan's sovereignty and participation in international organizations.

Senators agreed by vote to move the motion: "That United Nations (U.N.) Resolution 2758 of 25th October 1971 does not establish the People's Republic of China's (PRC) sovereignty over Taiwan and does not determine the future status of Taiwan in the United Nations, nor Taiwanese participation in U.N. agencies or international organizations."

Supported by lawmakers from across the political spectrum, the motion was co-sponsored by Senators David Fawcett of South Australia and Deborah O'Neill of New South Wales, both of whom visited Taiwan last month to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China's (IPAC) annual conference.

Addressing Parliament House in Canberra, Fawcett, of the main opposition Liberal Party, said the motion was "urgent" because of the "growing risk to the security and stability in the Indo-Pacific."

"It's important not just for the human rights of the 23.5 million people in the democracy that is Taiwan," Fawcett said, "but for the impact that a decrease in security and a conflict there would have on the rules-based order that underpins peace and security around the world, as well as for the global economic impact, which Australia would not escape."

O'Neill followed Fawcett's remarks by saying that "the resolution does not mention Taiwan or address its political status."

"Despite this fact, there is an ongoing and egregious campaign currently underway from the PRC to reinterpret the resolution and misrepresent what the resolution actually does," she said, referring to China's attempts to minimize Taiwan's participation in the international community.

O'Neill, of the ruling Labor Party, said it was "not in the interest of the international community to have 24 million Taiwanese excluded" from critical bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and the World Health Organization.

Senator Jacqui Lambie of Tasmania said that "the people of Taiwan continuously reject reunification with the Chinese Communist Party, with less than 5 percent of support for the reunification in Taiwan."

"The Chinese Communist Party has no business in destroying democracy in Taiwan," she said. "Australia must stand up against the Chinese Communist Party and back the more than 22 million people of Taiwan who choose democracy and freedom over the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)," she added.

Senator Raff Ciccone of Victoria, who is also deputy government whip in the Senate, said that Australia's economic, trade and cultural interests with Taiwan "cannot be understated."

Pledging to continue energy cooperation and support Taiwan's transition to renewable energies, Ciccone told the house that Australia was currently Taiwan's largest energy supplier, contributing "around two-thirds of Taiwan's coal and almost half of its natural gas."

Senator Pauline Hanson of Queensland voiced her view that Australia and the rest of the world "should recognize Taiwan for the independent sovereign nation it has effectively been since the 1950s."

"[The CCP] regime's highest priority is to capture Taiwan -- most likely by force -- and turn that beautiful island nation of 24 million free people into another oppressed, polluted, communist hellhole," she added.

Rebuking former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, who recently said that the whole world agreed with Beijing's position on Taiwan, Chandler described his claim as "false."

"I think there are questions to be asked about why Australians should pay to support private office for a former official who consistently pushes a false narrative about Australia's policy, especially when that false narrative aligns with that being pushed by foreign regimes such as the CCP," Chandler said.

Finally, Senator Linda Reynolds of Western Australia said Beijing had been "gaslighting" Taiwan and warned that China had formed an "axis of dictatorship and authoritarianism" with Russia, Iran and North Korea.

On Thursday, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) welcomed the Australian senators' pro-Taiwan motion, describing it as "just."

"MOFA strongly affirms the Australian parliament's firm support for Taiwan's international participation and thanks Australia and IPAC for speaking out for Taiwan," the ministry told CNA.

"We also call on the international community to jointly counter China's misinterpretation of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2758 and China's attempts to make false connections between the resolution and the so-called 'One China' principle."

"We will continue to cooperate with partners like Australia and other countries to jointly defend the core values shared by the global democratic camp and maintain regional peace, stability and prosperity," the ministry added.

The PRC claims Taiwan as a part of its territory and has ramped up threats to use military force to annex the country in recent years. Since assuming China's seat in the U.N. following Resolution 2758 in 1971, the government in Beijing has continually pressured other countries to exclude Taiwan from international organizations.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Bernard Lane

Published: Dec 12, 2023

The gist

Analysis

An Australian health minister, Shannon Fentiman, who is responsible for the busy gender clinic of the Queensland Children’s Hospital, has acknowledged the lack of consensus on how to treat gender dysphoria.

Four words stood out in Ms Fentiman’s otherwise cagey, scripted response to a question in state parliament about the source of the evidence justifying the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones given to minors by the Brisbane-based clinic.

“Whilst acknowledging that best practices rely on some aspects of transgender health care and there is not consensus [Emphasis added], the work continues,” she said on November 30.

Child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer, who has been calling for an independent federal inquiry into the care of gender dysphoric youth, welcomed Ms Fentiman’s concession reflecting the state of medical opinion—a concession not forthcoming from Australia’s other health ministers.

“It is such a relief to have [Queensland’s] health minister finally acknowledge that there is not consensus regarding the best practices for transgender healthcare,” Dr Spencer told GCN.

Dr Spencer is a critic of the “gender-affirming” treatment approach followed by the Queensland gender clinic. Earlier this year she was suspended from clinical duties at the children’s hospital reportedly after a patient lodged a complaint of “transphobia”.

“The minister says that the work of the [clinic] continues despite the lack of consensus on best practice for transgender healthcare,” Dr Spencer said.

“Why is the work of the [clinic] continuing if there is no consensus? Shouldn’t we be more careful than that—especially when the health of children is at stake? Parents want cautious and evidence-based healthcare for their children.

“The children and parents of Queensland deserve to have paediatric gender services that are based on a systematic review of the research evidence similar to what is happening in the UK with the Cass Review.”

She challenged the advice given to Ms Fentiman that the work of the Queensland gender clinic represented “international best practice”.

“[It appears her advisers] have failed to let her know that, internationally, when [countries such as Finland, Sweden and the UK] have conducted independent, systematic reviews of the research literature, they have moved away from an affirmative approach to prioritise psychosocial interventions rather than puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones”.

“A new front in the struggle over transgender issues has opened up. Two [US] medical malpractice lawsuits, each levied by a plaintiff who regrets having undergone medication-based gender-transition treatment—one at age 14—have taken aim at the American medical establishment’s support for prescribing such drugs to minors.”—Journalist Benjamin Ryan, news report, New York Sun, 5 December 2023

---

The detail

Behind the scenes

Minister Fentiman’s remarked on the lack of medical consensus during her short November 30 reply to Robbie Katter MP, whose question was prompted by Ms Fentiman’s earlier reassurance that care at the gender clinic was “of very high quality and based on the best available evidence.”

The minister’s surprising concession to critics of the gender-affirming approach—the approach enforced at the gender clinic—chimes with the reference by Queensland’s chief psychiatrist, Dr John Reilly, to plans for an “independent review” of the clinic.

GCN has sought clarification on both points from the government; there was no reply.

Might Queensland be the first Australian jurisdiction to publicly acknowledge the force of the international debate about medicalised gender change for minors? Have there been frank discussions, even talk of doing something, in Ms Fentiman’s office or among her health and hospital officials?

The main focus now for Queensland’s governing Labor Party is re-election. In power since 2013, the party has shuffled its leadership as it prepares for the state poll scheduled for 26 October 2024.

It appears that Steven Miles, a former health minister, will succeed the long-serving Annastacia Palaszczuk as premier.

Ms Fentiman, a solicitor from the party’s left faction, was briefly in the running. Her narrative was change and renewal, a government with “the maturity to admit where we have fallen short.”

Does anyone think that concerns about gender medicine will have evaporated by next October?

--

Affirmed by guidelines

Minister Fentiman’s November 30 defence of the gender clinic boiled down to its “adherence to peer-reviewed national and internationally accepted published practice clinical guidelines”.

She cited the latest, 8th edition of standards of care issued last year by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which she said evinced “a rigorous and evidence-based approach”.

She also invoked the 2017 clinical guideline of the Endocrine Society, offering to get a copy for Mr Katter, who represents a minor party in the parliament.

And she cited a third document, the 2018 “Australian standards of care” issued by the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne.

Back in September, Ms Fentiman had said the gender medicine practised by the Queensland clinic was “an emerging field globally—no-one shies away from that—but the evidence base is sound.”

In fact, the evidence base for medicalised gender change for minors is very weak and uncertain, according to five independent systematic reviews since 2019 in Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom (one review each for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones) and the American state of Florida.

The founder of the Queensland gender clinic, Dr Stephen Stathis, recently conceded the complaint of sceptics that the evidence base for gender-affirming treatment is of low quality, although he argued this was not unusual in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Lack of solid evidence has led gender-affirming clinicians and activists to rely heavily on treatment guidelines and position statements from medical organisations when claiming that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery are “settled science”.

But systematic reviews are regarded as the highest form of evidence, while treatment guidelines and position statements—representing expert opinion or professional consensus—are the lowest.

And it’s arguable that gender-affirming treatment guidelines do not even reflect expert consensus, as Ms Fentiman’s arresting remark suggests.

The extent of health professional dissent from the gender-affirming model is masked because it is well known that critics will be smeared as “transphobic”, subjected to bad-faith complaints and have their careers put at risk.

If in truth there is no consensus, the treatment guidelines cited by Ms Fentiman are misleading and cannot justify the risky medical interventions given by the gender clinic.

It’s unclear how this contradiction in the minister’s November 30 statement arose. Does it reflect a confused briefing from her advisers and officials, or a belated awareness that gender-affirming medicine is hardly settled science?

--

Reviewphobia

In any case, the problem for Ms Fentiman is that her faith in those three treatment guidelines is misplaced.

The “rigorous” WPATH guideline process involved a chaotic last-minute abandonment of minimum ages for most hormonal and surgical interventions; the rationale appears to be to give clinicians better protection against malpractice suits.

Credible guidelines draw on a systematic review of the evidence. WPATH’s new chapter on adolescents—the group that is the focus of international concern—involved no such review. WPATH pleaded the scarcity of studies on early medical intervention.

And yet early medical intervention is what the guideline recommends. Perhaps WPATH was worried about the predictable output of a systematic review, not the meagre input.

Scarcity of studies did not prevent Sweden’s systematic review of the evidence. Its literature search began with almost 10,000 research abstracts and identified just 24 relevant studies for evaluation.

One of the experts involved, Professor Mikael Landén of the Karolinska Institute said—

“Against the background of almost non-existent long-term data, we conclude that [puberty blocker] treatment in children with gender dysphoria should be considered experimental treatment rather than standard procedure. This is to say that treatment should only be administered in the context of a clinical trial under informed consent.”

The gender clinic that Ms Fentiman celebrates for its “life-changing care” gives puberty blockers as routine treatment. And remember, Queensland’s parliament has been assured by the minister that “the evidence base is sound”.

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A matter of trust

Ms Fentiman also cited the 2018 “Australian standards of care” from the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne (RCH), noting its publication as a position statement in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA).

But that cut-down version of the guideline, shielded by the journal’s pay wall, contains an admission not found in the full guideline which is the document that is readily available on the hospital website and relied on by youth gender clinics across Australia.

The MJA version says: “The scarcity of high-quality published evidence on the topic prohibited the assessment of level (and quality) of evidence for these recommendations.”

Earlier this year, GCN put this claim to Professor Gordon Guyatt, a pioneer of evidence-based medicine and the GRADE system for rating evidence quality.

“[That claim] is enough for me to say this is not a trustworthy guideline”, Professor Guyatt said.

The RCH guideline was considered for inclusion in the National Health and Medical Research Council’s online portal Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines but did not qualify.

“At the screening stage it was determined that the guideline did not include a funding statement, an evidence base for the recommendations or information about conflict of interest, and that it would not meet the portal selection criteria, so a full assessment was not carried out,” a spokeswoman for the NHMRC said in 2021.

[ Screenshot: Advice from the 2018 RCH “Australian standards of care” document ]

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Divided opinion

Also in 2021, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), which had previously endorsed the RCH guideline, issued a new more cautious policy on gender dysphoria.

Its policy says that “evidence and professional opinion is divided as to whether an affirmative approach should be taken in relation to treatment of transgender children or whether other approaches are more appropriate.” (Note: After posting this article, I was alerted to an update of the RANZCP’s gender dysphoria policy, which I will report elsewhere.)

In its recently updated guide, the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists says “there is no consensus that medical treatments such as the use of puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones or sexual reassignment surgery lead to better future psycho-social adjustment.”

No consensus, but the Queensland Children’s Hospital requires health professions to follow the gender-affirming model rather than allowing a neutral therapeutic approach.

We know this because psychiatrist Dr Spencer has raised concerns—initially within the hospital, then publicly—about the potential harm done to minors by unthinking “affirmation”. She even wrote to the minister about this.

“I started testosterone five years ago today. After 4+ years of weekly injections to maintain such dangerously high hormone levels, I had elevated liver enzymes, heightened red blood cell counts, and regular heart palpitations. I am so grateful I stopped when I did.”—American detransitioner Morgan, tweet, 4 December 2023

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Low-quality advice

Ms Fentiman’s third guideline, from the Endocrine Society, has an important feature that her advisers appear to have overlooked.

Unlike the RCH document, the 2017 Endocrine Society guideline did rate the quality of evidence supporting their treatment recommendations.

Five of the society’s six recommendations on puberty blockers depend on evidence rated as “low quality”.

The sixth recommendation—for administering blockers in early puberty, as is done at Queensland’s gender clinic—rests on “very low-quality” evidence, the lowest possible rating. Awkward but important details, rarely mentioned.

Also unmentioned is the society’s careful disclaimer that its “guidelines cannot guarantee any specific outcome, nor do they establish a standard of care.” Not helpful for those demanding a monopoly for gender-affirming care.

In July this year, the society’s president, Dr Stephen R Hammes, made the claim that, “More than 2,000 studies published since 1975 form a clear picture: Gender-affirming care improves the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse people and reduces the risk of suicide.”

This, he said in a letter to The Wall Street Journal, was the evidence used by the society in its “rigorous process” to develop the 2017 treatment guideline.

He provoked a dramatic and humiliating response—a letter of sharp dissent signed by 21 clinicians and researchers from nine countries involved in the care of teenagers with gender distress.

Among them was Finland’s reformist pioneer of gender medicine, Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala, whistleblower clinicians from England’s Tavistock clinic Dr Anna Hutchinson and Dr Anastassis Spiliadis, and Belgian expert on evidence-based medicine Dr Patrik Vankrunkelsven.

All systematic reviews to date, the letter’s authors pointed out, had “found the evidence for mental-health benefits of hormonal interventions for minors to be of low or very low certainty.”

“Dr Hammes’s claim that gender transition reduces suicides is contradicted by every systematic review, including the review published by the Endocrine Society, which states, ‘We could not draw any conclusions about death by suicide.’ There is no reliable evidence to suggest that hormonal transition is an effective suicide-prevention measure.

“The politicization of transgender healthcare in the US is unfortunate. The way to combat it is for medical societies to align their recommendations with the best available evidence—rather than exaggerating the benefits and minimizing the risks.”

So, is Minister Fentiman confident that she had been given an apolitical and accurate summary of the benefits and risks of treatment at Queensland’s gender clinic?

“Opinion is divided about the certainty of the evidence base for gender-affirming medical interventions in youth. Proponents claim that these treatments are well supported, while critics claim the poor-quality evidence base warrants extreme caution. Psychotherapy is one of the only available alternatives to the gender-affirming approach. Discussion of the treatment of gender dysphoria in young people is generally framed in terms of two binary approaches: affirmation or conversion. Psychotherapy/exploratory therapy offers a treatment option that lies outside this binary, although it is mistakenly conflated with conversion therapies.”—Psychiatrist Dr��Roberto D’Angelo, article, Journal of Medical Ethics, 2023

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Just the one

Also, in the spirit of governments owning up to mistakes, Ms Fentiman might revisit something she said about Dr Spencer.

On September 14, Mr Katter raised the issue of the compulsion for doctors to use the gender-affirming model with dysphoric children, and asked, “Will the minister intervene to restore the ability of doctors—including Dr Jillian Spencer, who has been stood down—to use their professional medical discretion when treating gender dysphoric children?”

Ms Fentiman replied—

“I understand there have been a number of complaints made by patients in relation to Dr Spencer. These complaints are subject to a number of HR processes within Children’s Health [which runs the hospital] as well as referrals to [the health professions regulator] Ahpra and the Health Ombudsman.”

A possible implication of Ms Fentiman’s comment is that Dr Spencer had engaged in a pattern of conduct attracting multiple complaints from patients.

Last month, thanks to a right of reply mechanism, a correction from Dr Spencer was placed on the parliamentary record—

“The minister’s statement suggests that I am the subject of a number of patient complaints. That is incorrect. There is only one patient complaint lodged against me.”

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“After being expelled from my master’s degree for speaking out about the impact of gender ideology on child safeguarding, I am extremely pleased to announce that I have agreed a settlement with the UK Council for Psychotherapy. [The council] have published a formal statement protecting therapists who believe in biological reality and stand against irreversible medicalisation of children. They say training institutions should never discriminate against students on this basis.”—UK lawyer turned trainee therapist James Esses, tweet, 11 December 2023

GCN sought comment from Ms Fentiman and RCH

==

Australia lumbers drunkenly towards figuring out this is all a major medical disaster.

[musickickztoo]

CONTRA2024-13

06092024 (ALL NEW)

TRACKLIST:

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Pop Seeds Kim Deal - Crystal Breath The Courettes - Boom Boom Boom Hinds - On My Own Nix & The Nothings - I Try The Smile - Zero Sum Humdrum - There And Back Again Tape/Off - Paris, Texas, Queensland Gut Health - Stiletto Benny Trokan - Get It In The End Fleur - Nous Continuerons A Marcher Ensemble The Bug Club - Better Than Good The Courettes - Run Run Away (feat. La La Brooks) The Mellons - Please Baby Please Vincent Reese - Chips On Your Shoulder Kim Gordon & model home - Razzamatazz The Snares - What You Said!? Santo Blanco - Blade

The 13th playlist of the year!!

Listen: https://www.mixcloud.com/Contraflow/contra2024-13-06092024-all-new/