In the news this week we’ve been reminded that so-called “superbugs” are going to kill millions of us, so I thought we should talk once more with infectious disease physician Dr Trent Yarwood.
In this episode we talk about antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, but also some interesting research relating to Alzheimer’s disease, the nature of research journalism, Victoria’s plans to put everyone’s health records in one big database and matters of medical privacy, the human genome project, and even a little xenodocheionology, the lore of hotels and inns.
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Trent Yarwood has been on the Edict three times before.
Episode Links
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Computer geek, infection / public health doc, steward, fencer. UQ & JCU. Fan of social justice. 'ninja old guy'. Doesn't pity the fool.
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[28 February 2023] Australia has the potential to be a strong global contributor in the development of technologies to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
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[28 February 2023] This report focuses on new and emerging technology-based solutions that could prevent the evolution and spread of antimicrobial resistance.
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[28 February 2023] National science agency warns of a ‘post-antibiotic world’ in 2050, marked by declines in lifespan, quality of life and livestock production
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[14 October 2019] This report aims to guide experts, communicators and practitioners to communicate with impact, so that the public understands and supports action on drug-resistant infections.
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[September 2021] A presentation to Antimicrobial Academy 2021.
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[9 January 2023] I'd love it if - just once - the journalists who write these articles would engage with the fact that a very large proportion of patients who "make do with inferior second line drugs" could in fact get by without actually taking antibiotics at all. The impact of the shortages would be substantially less if demand was somewhere closer to actual medical need.
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[27 February 2023] Right to Information documents obtained by the Tasmanian Inquirer suggest Tassal used over 600kgs of antibiotics to combat an outbreak of the bacterial vibrio disease at a lease near Coningham in January last year.
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Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (German: [???na?ts ?z?ml?va?s]; Hungarian: Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp [?s?mm?lv?js ?i?na?ts ?fyløp]; 1 July 1818 – 13 August 1865) was a Hungarian physician and scientist, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers", he discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") could be drastically reduced by requiring hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics.
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[23 June 2019] Professor Dame Sally Davies will become UK special envoy on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and details announced on funding UK’s work in global fight against AMR.
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[24 February 2023] Cambodian authorities test close-contacts for H5N1 after child's death. The possibility of human-to-human transmission has sparked alarm
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[19 February 2023] It seems every few months there is another virus people need to be aware of.
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Queenslander architecture is a modern term for a type of residential housing, widespread in Queensland, Australia. It is also found in the northern parts of the adjacent state of New South Wales, and shares many traits with architecture in other states of Australia, but is distinct and unique.
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The purported quote from Musk was featured in paid advertising on YouTube.
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[22 December 2022] Finally a rich, mainstream famous person having enough courage to speak out against this!? I'm not a fan of elon musk and think hes idiot using his money and power to escape earth instead of have more courage to stay here and help either correct all the upper-level corruption or provide an alternative society on earth instead of mars. Lots of people think he’s soo cool and thats why im helping share this clip cause people will listen to him about this topic 🙂 Full Babylon Bee interview here https://youtu.be/BaRKd4U6Ixg
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[22 February 2022] Imagine if "being woke" really was a virus. If you could just cough on someone and two days later they'd wake up like "I wonder if people slightly different to me *should* have rights after all?" Masking would be mandated instantly! #Masks #Woke #Virus
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[19 February 2023] Research into the disease has focused on plaques in the brain. But some scientists think viruses and bacteria play a role – and their work is gaining ground
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[29 January 2023] A study of around 500,000 medical records has suggested that severe viral infections like encephalitis and pneumonia increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Researchers found 22 connections between viral infections and neurodegenerative conditions in the study of around 450,000 people.
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The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint. It started in 1990 and was completed in 2003.
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Chinese whispers (some Commonwealth English) or telephone (American English and Canadian English) is an internationally popular children's game] It is also called transmission chain experiments in the context of cultural evolution research, and is primarily used to identify the type of information that is more easily passed on from one person to another.
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H. pylori was first discovered in the stomachs of patients with gastritis and ulcers in 1982 by Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia. At the time, the conventional thinking was that no bacterium could live in the acid environment of the human stomach. In recognition of their discovery, Marshall and Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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[16 February 2023] Victorian Liberal Democrat MP David Limbrick says people should be able to opt out of Victoria health’s centralised government data system as it’s a “breach of medical privacy”.
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[22 February 2023] The Andrews government says the legislation will allow Victorian hospitals to easily share patient information through a new, centralised electronic system, to help patients get the best possible care. But there is no opt-out provision in the bill — everyone is included automatically.
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[17 February 2023] The CEO of Western Health Russell Harrison has defended the Victorian Government's health information sharing legislation, saying it would allow services to treat patients "more efficiently and safely". The legislation came under fire from the Law Institute of Victoria this week, as it does not currently allow patients to opt-out of the scheme or allow for Freedom of Information requests for patients to see who has accessed the data, when, and for what purpose.
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[18 December 2017] University of Melbourne researchers have found that confidential patient data can be re-identified, without decryption, prompting calls for improved and strengthened algorithms for protecting individuals’ online privacy.
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With the aim of informing sound policy about data sharing and privacy, we describe successful re-identification of patients in an Australian de-identified open health dataset. As in prior studies of similar datasets, a few mundane facts often suffice to isolate an individual. Some people can be identified by name based on publicly available information. Decreasing the precision of the unit-record level data, or perturbing it statistically, makes re-identification gradually harder at a substantial cost to utility. We also examine the value of related datasets in improving the accuracy and confidence of re-identification. Our re-identifications were performed on a 10% sample dataset, but a related open Australian dataset allows us to infer with high confidence that some individuals in the sample have been correctly re-identified. Finally, we examine the combination of the open datasets with some commercial datasets that are known to exist but are not in our possession. We show that they would further increase the ease of re-identification.
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[11 February 2023] Health experts have urged high-risk Australians who are eligible for another COVID booster shot to get a fifth dose.
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[22 February 2023] If your last interaction with COVID-19 — either by vaccination or infection — feels like a distant memory, it might be time to book in for a booster shot.
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Series Credits
- The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian via The Freesound Project.
- Edict fanfare by neonaeon, via The Freesound Project.
- Elephant Stamp theme by Joshua Mehlman.