HTLV-1 Infection: “I suspect we would have dealt with the problem before now if it was in Sydney”

The Guardian, 24 April 2018:

Researchers say HTLV-1 is more widespread across central and northern Australia than previously thought. Dr Lloyd Einsiedel is an infectious diseases clinician with the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute based at Alice Springs hospital.

“We cover all the way out to the western desert and we have patients from northern South Australia, and it’s endemic throughout our entire catchment area of a million square kilometres,” Einsiedel says.

“So it’s very suggestive that we have a major problem and it really pays no attention to borders, these very artificial constructs of Europeans.”

Einsiedel worries there will be “significant mortality” over the next five to 10 years from HTLV-1 related bronchiectasis (lung disease). The region already has the highest reported prevalence of adult bronchiectasis in the world.

I suspect we would have dealt with the problem before now if it was in Sydney

Dr Lloyd Einsiedel

Einsiedel says testing and treatment are a priority. There also needs to be a public awareness campaign in Aboriginal languages, and all remote area health workers need to be educated too.

However, HTLV1 presents a unique set of problems.

First, the world doesn’t know enough about it. In the early 1980s, HTLV-1 and HIV were discovered around the same time but HIV was a major global emergency that rightly got attention. HTLV-1 was thought to be asymptomatic; people might carry it their whole lives and never show any adverse effects. Five to 10% of patients might develop fatal lung disease or leukaemia in later life but most would be fine. A map of the world’s HTLV-1 hotspots reveals another clue as to why it’s so neglected. [my yellow highlighting]

Guardian graphic | Source: ECDC

Read the full aticle here.

Turnbull Government has just placed a multinational corportion with an appalling human rights record at the first contact interface with the National Disability Insurance Scheme

“It has a history of problems, failures, fatal errors and overcharging”  [Senior Appleby compliance officer quoted in The Guardian on the subject of Serco, 7 June 2017]

If the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) didn't have enough internal structural problems to deal with along comes the UK-based multinational Serco Group.

A group implicated in: human rights abuses in prisons and immigration detention centres it has managed; poor to unsafe health service delivery including at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, overcharging for services rendered under government contracts, fraudulent record keeping and manipulating results when there was a failure to reach targets; mishandling of radioactive waste and labour rights abuses.

The Guardian, 23 Apri 2018:

Disability rights groups, Labor and the Greens have slammed a decision to hire the multinational outsourcing giant Serco in a key role administering the national disability insurance scheme.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) announced on Friday afternoon that Serco, a company with a chequered corporate history, would help run its contact centres under a two-year contract.

The decision would put the company at the frontline of the NDIS, interacting frequently with people with disability and service providers, many of whom are still grappling with a vast, complex and sometimes confusing scheme.

 “Sourcing our contact centre services from Serco will give ongoing flexibility, responsiveness and value for money,” the NDIA said in a statement.

But the decision has outraged disability rights campaigners, who say Serco’s poor history abroad and its lack of experience in disability should have precluded it from any role delivering the landmark scheme. 

People with Disability Australia co-chief executive, Matthew Bowden, said he was “gravely concerned” that Serco would, like other third-party providers, fail to uphold the values, objectives and principles underpinning the NDIS.

“We have no details on what expertise Serco have in providing communication services for people with disability, or why the NDIA has decided to outsource such a vital part of its services,” Bowden said.

“The NDIA needs to hire more staff and make their communication avenues with people with disability more transparent. Instead, they are offloading their responsibilities, and requirements, to deliver services to people with disability.”

Paralympian Kurt Fearnley was among those expressing concern at the decision, saying Serco would be “racking their brains on how they can bring lived experience of disabilities into their workplace”.

“The NDIS will be worthless if people with disabilities aren’t at its core!” he tweeted.

Just because it is beautiful.....(36)

Red-winged parrot

Aprosmictus erythropterus
Male

Native to northern Australia and New Guinea

The male is bright lime green with black back,deep blue rump & yellow tipped green tail

Female .has a smaller wing patch, dark green back and a paler rump

Photograph by David Marle

via @ParrotOfTheDay

Quotes of the Week

“He’s nothing but a pre-Fitzgerald corruption inquiry Queensland walloper”  [An anonymous Liberal MP speaking of Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton, quoted in The Saturday Paper by journalist Paul Bongiorno, 21 April 2018]

“The Liberals complaining that ASIC is sleep is rich considering who administered the fucking anaesthetic.”  [Journalist Richard Chirgwin, Twitter, 23 April 2018]

“At the same time, returns to the AEC show that these same corporations paid a total of $21,733,192 in political donations to political parties with Westpac standing out with donations totalling of nearly $12 million during the 2014-15 financial year alone.“  [Campaigner Rosie Williams, in “What can open data tell us about Australia’s major banks?”, 20 April 2018]

Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan jumps on the bandwagon now royal commission is revealing truths about Australian banking, finance and insurance sectors

There has been some 'emergency' repositioning occurring in Turnbull Government circles since Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry hearings began to reveal the extent of bad behaviour in the banking, finance and insurance sectors.

Former money market and bond trader with State Bank of NSW & Colonial State Bank,

former investment officer with the Australian Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund, former accountant and current Nationals MP for Page, Kevin Hogan, joined in on 20 April 2017.

Posting a video clip of what appears to be the one occasion he openly expressed disappointment with a bank during a committee hearing last year.

Note: For those interested in the exact wording of the exchange Hogan posted it on YouTube on 9 March 2017.

Even though Hogan was on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics when it conducted a 2016-17 inquiry into Australia’s four major banks and the Committee's recommendations clearly showed that the inquiry revealed serious deficiencies in bank practices, he has never been on his feet in the House of Representatives calling the banks out for unethical behaviour or supporting a call for a royal commission.

He certainly never voted for the creation of such a royal commission in October 2016 or June 2017.

Perhaps because the National Party of Australia has received over $1.15 million in political donation from the banking, finance and insurance sectors since the 2012-13 financial year - and MPs probably expect more donations ahead of the forthcoming federal election?

The second round of Royal Commission public hearings is currently considering the conduct of financial services entities that provide financial advice to consumers, including the treatment of consumers, compliance with the law and community standards and expectations,and the sufficiency of the current legal and regulatory structure.

Mr. Hogan might allow himself to become a little more animated in his disapproval given some of the evidence involves the actions of independent financial advisers such as the jaw dropping example set out below,

But maybe not. There might be a smidgen of fellow feeling there, because Kevin Hogan just like the hapless Sam Henderson was also an independent superannuation consultant and before that had a regular financial segment on Sky News.  

ABC News, 24 April 2018:

A public servant was impersonated while receiving financial advice from a high-profile financial planner, the banking royal commission has heard.

Donna McKenna, who is a Fair Work commissioner, told the inquiry she went to firm Henderson Maxwell after seeing its chief executive Sam Henderson in the media.

Ms McKenna said if she had followed the advice Mr Henderson gave her, she would have lost $500,000.

Mr Henderson followed Ms McKenna in the witness stand.

The financial planner is a regular media personality, with a show on Sky News Business channel and articles published in the Australian Financial Review and Money Magazine.

Mr Henderson's appearance before the commission did not get off to a good start, when it was revealed he does not have a Master of Commerce degree, as stated in a 2016 financial services guide from the firm.

The hearing was then played a damning recording of a Henderson Maxwell employee impersonating Ms McKenna in several phone calls to her super fund.

In the recordings, the employee can be heard giving Ms McKenna's membership number and the State Authorities Superannuation Scheme (SASS) representative refers to her as Donna….

he inquiry heard up to six phone calls were made to the SASS super fund by Henderson Maxwell's customer service officer.

Mr Henderson said the information his employee had provided him about Ms McKenna's account was inconsistent with the information given to him by Ms McKenna.

Mr Henderson refunded Ms McKenna the nearly $5,000 in upfront advice fees she had paid.

The customer service officer who impersonated Ms McKenna was not fired…..

Ms McKenna made a complaint to the Financial Planning Association (FPA) about the quality of the advice.

Despite complaining in March last year, the complaint is still not finalised.

The inquiry heard Mr Henderson responded to the complaint in a lengthy letter to the FPA, describing Ms McKenna as "nitpicky" and her complaint as a "barrage of aggressive and presumptive accusations".

In March this year, Mr Henderson proposed a deal with the FPA that would see him admit to multiple failings in the financial advice he provided to Ms McKenna and agree to implement a number of changes at the firm.

The deal would have also required the FPA to agree to not publish Mr Henderson's name in relation to the proceedings.

The FPA wanted an additional provision that would prevent Mr Henderson appearing in the media for a year.

That proposal was not acceptable to Mr Henderson and the complaint has not yet been formally resolved…..

President Donald J. Trump: We need to go after the reporters

"We need to go after the reporters.....They spend a couple of days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk"  [US President Donald, J. Trump, 14 February 2017]

Finally, an indication of the lengths to which US President Donald J. Trump would go in order to find whistleblowers or silence journalists.

Two excerpts from former FBI Director James Comey's confidential memos supplied to the US Congress last week by the Department of Justice:

Former US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey's Memos by clarencegirl on Scribd

BACKGROUND

The New York Times, 7 July 2005, Judy Miller Goes To Jail

Well hoorah, NBN Co is to roll out its inbuilt obsolescence across Yamba commencing in June 2018

It has been reported in local media that NBN Co will be commencing the Yamba rollout of its allegedly high speed broadband in June 2018, with Maclean and Grafton rollouts to commence in January 2019.

This news is quite frankly underwhelming.

Whatever information NBN Co was giving out obviously didn’t include the type of connection that was on offer, as this important point was not mentioned by journalists and there is contradictory information on the company's website.

These three urban areas in the Clarence Valley are yet to hear if households and businesses are being offered fibre-to-the-curb, fibre-to-the-node or fixed wireless.

Because it is certain that the best option fibre-to-the-premises isn’t on offer to regional second cousins of the big metropolitan areas.

Personally I will carefully refuse to look at any construction works taking place in Yamba come June, July and August.

The sight of all those water-filled trenches will be too depressing.

Who starts extensive in-ground construction in winter at the low-lying, high water table mouth of a floodplain, I ask you?

* Image from Hakuri Sad Party