Author: James Morrison

Quite Little, Very Late – Govt response to Silent Disease Report

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The Federal Government’s response to the ‘Silent Disease’ inquiry into hepatitis C in Australia falls well short of what anyone living with hepatitis C could have hoped. Coming nearly 18 months after the report was submitted, the response fully accepted only three out of ten of the recommendations.

The Silent Disease Report was a comprehensive study from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, and can be read online here. It made 10 main recommendations about the way the Australian Government should respond to the ongoing epidemic.

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Helping People Adhere to Treatment Helps Treatment Succeed

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The development of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatments has revolutionised the treatment of hepatitis C in Australia. DAAs are effective and, when patients follow the medication regime, can cure more than 90% of those who take the treatment. But at the moment there are limited resources to inform and guide health professionals as they try to provide adherence support to those undergoing DAA treatment.

Medication adherence refers to the way an individual takes a medication, including the use of the correct medication, the correct dose and time, duration and timely refilling of repeat prescriptions.

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Heroes of Old Treatment

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As part of World Hepatitis Day, people all over the world were encouraged to investigate the new treatments now available for hepatitis C. These treatments are more effective, faster, easier to take and with much smaller side-effects than the treatments which were used up until early 2016.

However, all the excitement about the new treatments has obscured one thing: just how much hardship people had to go through before this year to treat their hepatitis C—hardship that quite frequently didn’t even end up in the virus being cleared.

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Hollywood Home Tattoos: The Dangers

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Commercially successful but critically despised superhero movie Suicide Squad has certainly been effective at generating publicity for itself (perhaps unsurprising in a film that was re-edited by a movie trailer company in a last-minute salvage attempt).

Among the many attempts to get people talking about it was a peculiar social media campaign in which several of the movie’s stars took up careers as amateur tattoo artists, branding each other and members of the crew with toe-faces or misspelled words so that they could always remember being involved in the making of a film that scored 26% at Rotten Tomatoes.

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You Can Save a Life for $25

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Wednesday, 31 August is International Overdose Awareness Day, and the timing is sadly relevant for South Australians.

The South Australian government has issued a public health warning following the tragic drug overdose deaths of 10 South Australians in recent weeks.

Eight of the deaths were due to heroin use, while the other two cases are linked to the use of fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic painkiller (which has recently been trialled by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital for use by women in labour). The recent overdose deaths involved people aged between 31 and 56 years old.

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