Monthly Archives: June 2011

Junk food advertising to kids: it’s time to call it a day

June 28, 2011 – 9:56 pm

Self-regulation by the food industry, when it comes to the promotion of junk food to kids, is a big fat flop, a fizzle and a failure. That seems to be the consensus amongst public health and medical organisations, and they are stepping up calls for an end to advertising of junk to children. A new [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in evidence-based issues, Food, health and medical research, obesity, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (18)

Climate change and health: an update on the RACP controversy, and other news

June 28, 2011 – 1:25 pm

As previously reported at Croakey, a recent media statement on climate change from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians generated some serious concerns amongst College Fellows and more widely. The RACP statement has been taken up by climate change sceptics, and features in the YouTube clip below attacking the recent campaign that starred Cate Blanchett [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in climate change, public health, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (9)

How to make best use of the plethora of health performance reporting agencies?

June 28, 2011 – 11:26 am

The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association held a “health reform simulation” in Canberra last week, with the aim of road-testing health reform plans and identifying some of the challenges around implementation. Following a preliminary Croakey report on the proceedings, we now have further analysis from one of the participants, Dr Sharon Willcox, a health policy [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in health financing and costs, health reform, Hospitals, mental health, primary health care, quality and safety of health care | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

The latest health and medical news from The Conversation

June 28, 2011 – 10:40 am

Continuing a series of regular updates of health and medical reading at The Conversation… Thanks to Reema Rattan for providing this summary. *** SensaSlim and me: how criticism of a weight-loss spray landed me in court By Ken Harvey, Adjunct Senior Lecturer of Public Health at La Trobe University On March 18, 2011, I submitted my first [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in complementary medicines, genetics, health & medical marketing, health ethics, Indigenous health, legal issues, obesity, public health, TGA, The Conversation, tobacco control | Comments (1)

Dodgy data enlisted in the propaganda war against plain packaging of cigarettes

June 28, 2011 – 10:25 am

Professor Simon Chapman writes: This week British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) launched its latest salvo in its propaganda war against plain packs. A new website allows visitors to click on any federal electorate (“Find your electorate”). Once inside a selected electorate we read the estimate of illegal tobacco sales, with tax foregone derived from data [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in evidence-based issues, legal issues, public health, tobacco control | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

The latest health and medical news: how does it rate?

June 27, 2011 – 6:41 pm

As recently mentioned, Croakey will feature regular updates from the team at Media Doctor Australia about their latest analyses of media coverage of new drugs and medical treatments. *** Some good news, and some that is not-so-good Amanda Wilson writes: Eight health stories have been reviewed on www.mediadoctor.org.au this month. Their subjects included milk allergy, [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in Cochrane Collaboration, diabetes, Media Doctor Australia, Media-related issues, tests | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

How one general practice is using Yammer

June 27, 2011 – 5:20 pm

Some staffers from the public health division of the WA Health Department wrote a post for Croakey late last year, describing how they have been using the micro-blogging tool Yammer for internal communications and more broadly. Below, Dr Edwin Kruys, a GP from Geraldton and a regular contributor on Twitter, reviews the experience of one [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in general practice, Media-related issues | Comments (1)

Online games: a useful tool for public health

June 27, 2011 – 12:13 pm

My colleague Margaret Simons wrote an interesting article recently asking whether online games could be a useful tool for public interest journalism. She noted that the sales figures for online games “are truly mind-boggling, outranking just about any other media content product you can think of”, and asked: “What if we bring the utility of [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in cancer, global health, health and medical education, health and medical research, public health, social determinants of health | Tagged , , | Comments (10)

Medicare Locals: are they facing death-by-contract?

June 24, 2011 – 12:07 pm

To be given the best chance of success, the new Medicare Locals need to have as much flexibility and autonomy as possible, and local decision making should be the underlying principle of health reform. These were some themes from a health reform workshop in Canberra this week, as reported in a recent Croakey post. That’s [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in general practice, health reform, Medicare Locals, primary health care, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Some recommended reading: on rural health and GP super clinics

June 24, 2011 – 10:23 am

Two items that may be of interest to Croakey readers: • Judith Brett has an article in the latest Quarterly Essay which I’m told is essential reading for those with an interest in rural and remote health. This is the recommendation from Professor John Wakerman, director of the Centre for Remote Health in Alice Springs: [...]

By Melissa Sweet | Posted in general practice, rural and remote health | Tagged , | Comments (0)