The latest articles profiled by the Primary Health Care Research & Information Service include: • A study suggesting that patients with chronic conditions value the sense of control they gain from using complementary and alternative medicines • Five suggestions for how primary health care researchers can boost global health. *** How patients use complementary and [...]

Below is a short summary of items related to tonight’s Federal Budget and health: what is promised/likely; what has been asked for; and what seems to be missing. What is promised/likely in the federal budget • Expansion of the national bowel cancer screening program (Some reaction to this will follow in the next post.) • [...]

The Therapeutic Goods Administration’s response to concerns about the marketing of a weight-loss pill, which lets you “have the cake without the calories”, suggests that the many reviews and promises of reform have not resulted in real change at the much-critiqued organisation, according to Dr Ken Harvey, Adjunct Assoc Prof of Public Health at La Trobe University. [...]

The fight over the teaching of complementary medicines by Australian universities has drawn international coverage, including this piece by the New York Times. In his latest column in this week’s BMJ, Australian journalist Ray Moynihan talks with some of the key protagonists. Ray Moynihan writes: The campaign by the Friends of Science in Medicine to shut down [...]

Thanks to Fron Jackson-Webb for providing this latest wrap of reading from The Conversation (http://theconversation.edu.au/). It includes articles about universities teaching complementary medicine, the Medicare Safety Net, new research on caesarean sections, e-prescriptions and hospital errors, and urban development. You can also read an article from The Conversation’s editor, Andrew Jaspan, on mining magnate Gina [...]

As previously mentioned, Croakey readers are welcome to sign up for (rather irregular) summaries of posts. If you’d like to join the mailing list, please send your email or leave it below. Here is the latest compilation, covering from 6 October – December 23, 2011. The latest readership figures are now also available, showing that [...]

Loretta Marron writes: Like to be a ‘doctor’? Interested in ‘new age’ medicine? Maybe you want to go to Uni but your entrance score is not up to scratch.  Don’t give up!  Why not check out your local college and see what’s on offer as there just may be a course tailor-made for you. Nearly [...]

Thanks to Australian Doctor for sharing a most informative Ministerial brief on the Government’s response to recent reviews recommending reforms of the TGA (it can be downloaded here, and is worth reading for many reasons, not least for the insights it gives into government processes and communications, as well as regulatory complexities and challenges). Over [...]

Continuing a series of regular updates of health and medical reading at The Conversation… Thanks to Reema Rattan for providing this summary, which covers articles about the safety of vitamin supplements, health financing, humane approaches to preventing crime, disability services, ghostwriting of research articles, patenting of stem cell inventions, and the latest legal developments in [...]