The Australian Medical Association released its public hospital analysis, revealing Queensland has 2.4 beds per 1000 people – lower than the national average of 2.6; 10,911 public hospital beds in 2009/10 – up 106 from the previous year; about a tenth of what doctors believed were needed.

Public hospitals’ performance in every state and territory was well below target for access to emergency departments and elective surgery set by the Council of Australian Governments, with the median Australian waiting time for elective surgery 35 days.

However, Queensland although stating it was 27 days, the real waiting time was far higher, but I guess that’s why they pay so much money to administration.

How this happens is, before people appear on a waiting list for elective surgery, they have to see a specialist and be booked in for surgery, so there is a big delay in waiting to see said specialist, which can in itself, take 6 months; but if you’re waiting for ear, nose and throat surgery in Queensland, it can be more than five years. A doctor suggested that because of the length of the wait, some people don’t make it to surgery.

‘Early stage testing in animals has shown that a Nanopatch delivered – flu vaccine – was effective at a lower dose and can combat needle phobia, needle injuries and cross contamination and it doesn’t need refrigeration, which makes transport to developing nations easier’. The Premier said the exciting new develop showed how the State Government’s investment in the Smart State Strategy was resulting in new and exciting commercial biotech ventures.

Anna Blight said ‘it used to be that after developing a concept here, Queensland innovators would need to go offshore to bring their project to fruition; now Queensland can be the true home of innovation and a new bio tech industry – our State can profit while doing good in the world’ and ‘the Government partner with US businessesHealth Care Ventures and Eli Lilly to establish a Bio Capital Fund and (sic) on its way to reaching $250 million for investment in biotechnology ventures and Queensland-based venture to be supported through this fund’.

Wow … how smart is that ?

On top of inhaling medicines (and other not so friendly chemicals) we can apply them via patches … just wait till the tobacco companies find out ….. what … they have?

Maybe that’s why Anna Bligh calls herself ‘the minister of reconstruction’ ….

The story translated from Russian (said to be based on autopsies) came to the ‘conclusion’ it’s not pneumonia, but cardiopulmonary insufficiency and cardiogenic shock; the virus enters directly into the lungs, there is bleeding. Antibiotics should not be used, only those with strong immune systems will survive, people with weak immune systems will succumb to the illness.

Face masks provide 30% extra protection and wearing glasses gives an additional 10% protection 40% said the head of the Chernivtsi, the regional forensic bureau, Professor Victor Bachinsky M.D.

His statement was that all the victims of the virus in Bukovina (22 persons aged 20 to 40 years) died not from bilateral (double) pneumonia, as previously thought, but as a result of viral distress syndrome, i.e. the total destruction of the lungs.

However, the latest reports of what is being called a deadly Swine Flu outbreak in Ukraine appears to be a little more than a political concoction by a threatened government to avoid election defeat and to possibly declare martial law.

The details indicate how convenient the current WHO “Swine Flu” H1N1 “pandemic” scare is used by regimes in trouble or wanting to distract the populace. America is one of the prime ‘civilised’ countries to use fear to control its people and John Howard also used the ploy.

And how is Swine Flu going in Australia? Well it’s difficult finding out up to date information on the ‘world’s greatest pandemic’, but less than 30 deaths have been attributed to this plague.

Meanwhile, drug companies are making a fortune.

We rarely get to see footage of absolutely destroyed natural areas, malnourished people and the terminal illnesses from contamination because corporations like Shell and BHP line the pockets of politicians, making it illegal to film at these places.

Corporate Government – the Specialists in Environmental Termination.

Last night on SBS there was a story on bees and how crucial they are to the world’s food supply; that a mite has attacked and decimated every bee population around the world apart from Australia and that we are not safe as Papua New Guinea has recently been found to be infected.

A bee ‘breeder’ in NSW sells bees into the USA at 3 cents a bee and the bees are leased out to farmers; the bees do their job of pollination, they ultimately are infected with the mites and die an agonising death.

There has to be a certain type of person who puts themselves above all others, who delights in exercising control.

The Tasmanian government is a perfect example of corporations making decisions on how to exploit the resources of an area and then have legislation enacted to hand over land that is owned by the people (not at the discretion of those elected to represent the people) to make a profit to the detriment of the region.

The Franklin hydro-electric idea was not about the need for energy, it wasn’t about jobs, it was about making money; the corporations involved in building the dam where there just to make money. The electricity authority acknowledged some 10 years later that the demand for energy anticipated was pretty much a fabrication.

In every State and Territory in Australia we have seen corporations – predominantly in the field of resources – move into otherwise pristine areas, agree to vegetation regeneration and rectification – and walk away after leaving the region desolate.

Its hard to say which is more important, but gold and uranium mining, coal and oil are the most damaging to our land and most importantly the over exploitation and contamination of water in what is the world’s driest country.

When it comes to the ETS, we all want change; we know that Rudd is a prissy mouthed media tart, yet he has been given the responsibility to do something. To the question are we becoming disillusioned with his posturing and going through the motions attitude and the answer is yes; did we respect Malcolm Turnball’s willingness to lose his job for the sake of the environment and again the answer is yes.

Does Tony Abbot instil any confidence or is he as he describes his job function, a person who takes and opposing position to the one being put forward by someone else ? Personally, I don’t believe he has any real goals, rather he sees himself as a person who takes on and fulfils other people’s goals.

This morning I heard some radio announcer Madonna (ABC 612) suggest she knew what most Queenslanders thought about the ETS and subscribed to the nut-bag Barnaby Joyce suggestion that it was just another tax.

She went on to suggest that most of the public had no idea of the composition of the ETS and nor did she, yet the media have made no attempt to find out and disseminate the information to the public.

And I noticed Channel 9 is trying to put a positive spin on Tony Abbot who is best described by his own daughter as a ‘gay lame churchie loser’. In an interview immediately after his election as Liberal Party leader, he was asked whether he believed in climate change and he replied he did; however, in an interview to the print media he said climate change is crap.

The reality is that most Australian’s want something productive done for the environment and are prepared to pay more to get it; however, the big problem is corporations want to know how it can make more money out of the public rather than doing the right thing and the politicians will do the bidding of their financial backers / masters.

So how goes it in other countries or more specifically the more affluent polluting countries, can Australia be really taken seriously with the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions directly and indirectly for the amount of coal and gas we sell to other polluting nations; the USA is another major polluter not just in the north America, but every country where they have a base, are engaged – on behalf of oil companies – in war on the people who own that resource or where they are ‘democratizing’ the people for their own good (countries that have resources or share common borders with countries that have resources).

And now Canada’s environmental image is in tatters from GATS agreements (where resources like fish and timber) to sand oil, where oil companies give the orders to politicians and a beautiful nation has turned into a corrupt petro state via the dirtiest energy source known to man.

In 2006 the new Canadian government announced it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol.

No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012, but instead they have already risen by 26% which is similar to Australia increase.

At the end of 2007, Canada a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations. After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country that had done most to disrupt the talks.

The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world’s 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th.

While Kevin Rudd made broad statements here and Penny Wong went her own way, the Canadian government was scheming to divide the Europeans; during the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it.

But such is the fragile nature of climate agreements that one rich nation – especially a member of the G8, the Commonwealth and the Kyoto group of industrialised countries – could scupper the treaty. Canada now threatens the wellbeing of the world. But why ?

Canada is developing the world’s second largest reserve of oil, but it’s actually a  mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals. The tar sands (most of which occur in Alberta), are being extracted by the biggest opencast mining operation on earth.

An area the size of England, comprising pristine forests and marshes, will be dug up (unless the Canadians stop the madness) and look like existing scenes of the end of the world, where strip-miners are creating a churned black hell on an unimaginable scale.

To extract the oil from these tar sands it needs to be heated and washed and it takes three barrels of water to process one barrel of oil; contaminated water is held in vast tailings ponds, some so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface and most are unlined and leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers. The First Nations native north Americans living downstream have developed a range of exotic cancers and auto-immune diseases.

The major concern – apart from the toxic procedures and contaminated land and water is the high embodied energy of tar sand oil, as it requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies extracting the oil burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes. The Alberta tar sands operation is the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions.

But the usual suspects have their dirty hands in the process, with the biggest leaseholder in the tar sands being Shell (that spent millions persuading the public that it respects the environment) and BP.  Corporate government in Canada has done to Canada’s image what whaling has done for Japan.

It is a dirty war on the environment to line the pockets of people who already have more money than they can possible spend reasonable and national pride plays a poor second.

Routine tests showed 55 employees from the plant in Kaiga in the state of Karnataka had increased levels of the radioactive element tritium, which is used in nuclear reactors.

B Bhattacharjee, a member of the National Disaster Management Authority, said someone had inserted contaminated water into a water cooler, according to the Press Trust of India.

The employees had not suffered any ill effects and had returned to work, plant officials told AFP. Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar, speaking on the Headlines Today television network, blamed the sabotage on “an insider who has played mischief”.

Mr Kakodkar said security was “foolproof” and there was no chance of an outsider gaining access to the station.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which operates the country’s civil nuclear facilities, said in a statement that preliminary enquiries revealed no radioactive leak or security breach.

State ministers assured local residents that their health was not at risk.

The Kaiga plant was shut down in October for annual maintenance and is due to reopen shortly.

Queensland has seen a spate of under-performers who obtained office (in State politics), continued their lack-lustre operand and subsequently had the ‘expertise’ to act as a go between for corporate and government ‘cohesivness’.

Recently NSW has likewise been been put under the light, seeing the rats scurrying about all awhile distancing themselves from the known crooks and yet to be proven crooks; the latest pilfering of public funds – which will probably be glossed over by various media types (who view their ‘results’ similar to Police who stick radar traps about, to keep the numbers up).

The St Vincent’s board has ‘lost $24m on junk bonds’ courtesy of former CEO Mary Foley and a former chairman Nick Curtis.

Who knows if we will ever find out what their kick-back was for almost $80 million (earmarked for new equipment, research projects, education and salaries), was used to buy high-risk bonds, the same kind responsible for triggering the global financial crisis last year in the United States.

Of course doctors are furious because research projects – some of which had already been granted funding – may now be cancelled and donors will be upset to learn their money – intended for good work – has been lost.

Although the National Health and Medical Research Council forbids its grants being used for any purpose other than the approved project and is demanding the funds be returned if the research is not carried out; its unlikely the hospital is in the position to and there are rumours that the hospital has been attempting to fill an $11 million hole in its budget.

Although the NSW Government should launch an investigation, its unlikely anything will come of it while certain sitting members protect their own backs and keep their snout in the trough.

There has to be auditors and the like who must have known about the misallocation of funds and strangely, the hospital apparently said it lost 32% of its ‘investments’ because it bought securities known as collaterised debt obligations, which are now worthless, but defended its right to use public money.

The question remains on how trust money – bequeathed or given to the hospital – was used to ‘invest.

Donors would be upset to lose their donated funds to financial mismanagement by the board and will badly damage the St Vincent’s Hospital name even though the hospital promised to underwrite any lost money allocated for research projects and said it had changed its investment strategies since the loss.

The board claims they ‘did not operate outside the law in the way the money was invested’, but the damage has been done and in a tighter economic market, it will be difficult to get ‘new’ investors and of course the real problem is if politicians again use public funds to bail out rather than prosecute.

It makes you wonder how much the public will stomach this lackadaisical management style synonymous with political manipulations and ‘jobs for the boys’.

“Australians are being left in the dark as government turns a blind eye to the rollout of harmful nano-products.

While democratic governments chant public engagement as the cornerstone of sound political decision-making, a mantra espoused in Western Australia last week by Senator Kim Carr to the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy.

In his speech, Carr described the Rudd Government’s commitment to social democratic processes and claimed this commitment to social democracy as a vital process for ensuring policy-making agendas move beyond economic priorities to consider a broader range of social, cultural and political issues.  Carr himself admitted that despite Federal Government commitment to these ideals, there is still “a long way to go” to realise these. Casting a critical eye over recent attempts at public engagement related to Australia’s emerging technologies indicates we are even further from technology democracy than Carr and his department would like to admit.

The Australian Government’s repeated commitment to technology democracy – including commitments to engage the public as part of the policymaking cycle – looks more like smoke and mirrors than real social democracy. Communities are being kept in the dark, they are being given little opportunity to have their say about highly controversial technologies, meanwhile industry continues to roll out new technologies – virtually unregulated, untested and unlabelled.

Consider the Federal Government’s recently announced National Enabling Technologies Strategy to explore the paradox between Carr’s promises and actual policymaking processes. The Federal Government has labelled biotechnologies and nanotechnologies as “enabling technologies”. Both these areas of science are highly controversial, raising multiple and diverse social, health, economic, ethical and environmental issues.

Given the highly controversial nature of biotechnology and nanotechnology, it is not surprising the National Enabling Technologies Strategy makes a stated commitment to engage the public as part of the policy process. However, in reality this public engagement is simply not happening. As a result, Australians will have little opportunity to contribute to the development of policy related to these new technologies -despite the profound impacts they are likely to present for all Australians.

I would like to turn to the specific impacts associated with nanotechnologies – or the “science of the small”. Nanoparticles and nano-processes are being widely incorporated across the health, energy, military, food and agriculture sectors, amongst others. Given the diversity of these applications Australians are already being exposed to nanotechnologies, with products derived from nanotechnology found in hundreds of sunscreens, cosmetics, clothes, paints, household appliances, building materials and other products many of us use every day.

These applications introduce new health and environment risks to which we all face exposure, with recent research demonstrating some nanomaterials present similar health risks to asbestos, even causing mesothelioma in test mice.

Despite persisting concerns about safety risks, there is still no nano-specific safety assessment in place for any of these products. In addition, most Australians have heard little to nothing about this new technology. Making things worse, nano-products are not labelled. This denies consumers the capacity to make an informed choice about whether they wish to buy nano-products, and denies workers the right to know whether they face occupational exposure. These circumstances also limit the extent to which Australians will be able to develop their “nano-literacy” – or diverse and critical understandings of nanotechnologies.

As a recent participant in the hastily organised “stakeholder” consultation for the National Enabling Technologies Strategy, it appears there is little interest in democratic processes. Rather, it appears government has been swept of its feet by the promises of these new technologies, and is reticent to let democratic processes stand in the way in their roll out. A couple of specific criticisms of this stakeholder process demonstrate this.

Firstly, the organisers of this event have refused to make public minutes from consultations, or submissions made to the consultation – as is standard practice in most inquiries. It is also revealing that in recent meetings held around Australia as part of this process, three times as many consultations have been organised for the nanotechnology and biotechnology industries compared to those for public interest groups.

At a time of unprecedented climate, food, financial, energy and ecological crises there is an obvious and even urgent need to embrace new approaches and technologies. However, the interests and values of the community, not simply those of industry and the research community, must inform decision-making about which technologies we support through investment and commercialisation.

The transformative power of the new nano- and biotechnologies, coupled with the scale of the challenges we face, require that we take the democratisation of science seriously. We need a new way of thinking about science and technology which allows those who are affected by the technology to have a say in its development.”

Some examples of knee-jerk responses are the fluoridation of drinking water, CFLs (containing mercury) and a wave of contaminated insulations arriving in addition to toxic foodstuffs from China.

Was the joint press release (Aug 13th) by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and Lindy Nelson-Carr saying ‘change a light bulb, save money and help save the Planet’ really about the environment or the Premier wishing to seen in a good light?

Launching the Change a Light Bulb Day initiative at the Brisbane Ekka, Peter Beattie called on Queenslanders to take the small step of changing just one light bulb to save money and help cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of Queensland Government’s ClimateSmart Living campaign.

But is Queensland’s EPA (or whomever is coming up with this knee jerk stuff) just part of government propaganda …. is there nothing sacred to corporate spin doctoring?

The suggestion that if every household in Queensland replaced just one 60 watt incandescent light bulb with an 11 watt compact fluorescent light / CFL, it would be like switching off the power in all homes in *Bundaberg’ could well be true.

Also, the suggestion that ‘if every one of Queensland’s 1.44 million households changed just one bulb, we would cut an estimated 154,525 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year; like taking some 42,000 cars off the road.’ *[All figures based on a light bulb in use for six hours per day and Bundaberg has 17,000 homes]

But is there a downside … a problem for future generations?

The answer is YES; instead of spending vast amounts of advertising money and paying some ‘celebrities’ to promote a product that many Queenslanders are already using, the government should be in the process of setting up disposal stations for worn out CFL bulbs.

WHY? Because Mercury will be our next asbestos contamination issue. Not only in mercury released in minute dust particles when coal is dug up and transported to power stations, but higher concentrations are released when the coal is fired (becoming part of greenhouse gasses) and high concentrations in the fly-ash, the coal’s waste powder, which is used in concrete.

So what is mercury and what effect does it have on life?

When burning coal, volatile elements including arsenic, lead, fluorine, selenium as well as mercury are released into the atmosphere; mercury can be inhaled or absorbed on crops and foods, taken up by livestock and or bio-accumulated in birds and fish. Because Australia is so flat, much of the ‘fall-out’ settles over wide distances and eventually finds its way into groundwater as well as leached by rainwater and washed into local water catchment areas.

Mercury is a known carcinogenic that causes cancer and neurological problems in all species and no life form has the ability to discharge build-up mercury; all along the food chain, this build up can be measured; sardines have small quantities, however, the likes of tuna and mackerel have high concentrations as they consume smaller fish and the mercury stays in them.

So what does this have to do with CFL lights?

CFL – Compact Fluorescent Lights contain a mercury ; if the average house has15 CFL lights, by 2010 there will be at least 1,500,000 households (just in Qld) dumping over 22 million CFL at best, every six years; that’s a lot of concentrated mercury poisoning.

Beattie’s press release suggested that CFL last from 6,000 to 15,000 hours, six to 15 times longer than incandescent light bulbs, however, a survey of people who started using CFL some years ago suggest that depends entirely on the quality of the CFL, with comments from people who have a lengthy experience of CFL’s stating a short life span from just 3 months (IKEA and Mirabella) to Phillips aged 10+ years and a Nelson which appears dimmer to the Phillips equivalent.

So what needs to be done? Just as there is a procedure for the disposal of car batteries and tyres so too should there be a disposal facility for CFL to be crushed in a negative-pressure container and disposed of in the regulated hazardous waste stream. In the US, manufacturers of the lamps have agreed to limit the amount of mercury to ‘only’ 5 mg per lamp, the implication being that Chinese CFLs contain much more than this, so perhaps ‘made in china’ is a red flag for CFL’s.

At the end of the day, which is best?

First and foremost is energy efficient home and building design, which reduces the need for artificial lighting; next is application of lighting, subdued lighting for safe walking around the home, lounge and kitchen, office etc and bright lighting where reading / study takes place; and most important, prudent disposal of old lights. The same way you buy any other product, on a value-for-money life-time calculation; quality usually pays for itself. [EROEI (energy return on energy invested) is a good way to calculate embodied energy]

The Premier’s statement ‘1.44 million households changed just one bulb, it would cut an estimated 154,525 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, and that’s like taking some 42,000 cars off the road’, is just wrong …. or they’re small cars taken off the road on Sunday only.

Qld emits some 150 million tonnes of CO2 a year; spending money on an advertising campaign to reduce emissions by a mere 0.1%’ is a bit rich, if the Premier was serious about reducing our greenhouse emissions, we would stop exporting aluminium to China and elsewhere and reduce emissions by up to 25% per annum.

Each new house built in Queensland emits at least 300 tonnes of CO2 each, that’s even before the new owners turn the lights on; there about 25,000 new homes a year built in Queensland alone.

Tamiflu was developed to protect people against bird flu.  The Australian Government says it’s ordered 10 million doses of a yet to be named – as it is yet to be discovered – Swine Flu protection.

And just like a shop-keeper changing the use-by-date of food, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has approved ‘an extension to the shelf life’ for Tamiflu (oseltamivir) from five to seven years, when stored below 25 C.

Influenza causes about 2, 500 deaths in Australia each year amongst at risk groups [ref]

The experts are now on record as saying that the virulence of swine flu is less than of ‘ordinary flu strains’ and its infectiousness is on a par with ordinary flu. So when they announce that a test result was not swine flu, instead of being relieved should we be more anxious?

The idea of trying to stop the spread of low virulence flu is madness. They turned a cruise ship around because they don’t want to bring flu to FNQ (far north Queensland), but Cairns Airport is still bringing in tourists from all around the world and adverts on TV say ‘take a holiday in FNQ’ and Dengue fever is a much worse threat for visitors in FNQ.

But don’t let Bird Flu, Swine Flu or even Dengue Fever stand in the way of war games in FNQ; the Federal Government is willing to risk Australian lives and health by allowing thousands of US military personnel into the country to take part in a massive military exercise in early July. Operation Talisman Sabre will see 15,000 US troops and 8,000 ADF personnel converging on the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in central Queensland from July 9-13.

Swine flu may be spreading rapidly between human beings and the United States is one of the points of contagion, yet they will be allowed to enter Australia.  Health Minister Nicola Roxon has pointed out that this disease is highly infectious and of concern with the Australian flu season approaching, yet the people of Rockhampton will be at special risk with so many of the US soldiers visiting the town.

Greens spokesperson (Tim Morris MP) said ‘it is a disgraceful day when the Health Minister stands up for those who have been concealing herbicide detections in Hobart’s drinking water, and queried why these detections are being hidden from the people consuming the water if, as the Minister asserts, the herbicide detections ‘present no risk to public health’.

Mr Morris also said when water contamination events occur, the contamination level of the water changes throughout the event and nobody can deduce the peak level of contamination from a single sample.

‘No person can say how much herbicide has been present in Hobart’s drinking water prior to these tests revealing contamination, because no-one knows whether the sample was taken at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the contamination event’ said Mr Morris. ‘how can our Health Minister say that there is no risk to human health when the authorities involved, including her colleague Water Minister David Llewellyn, appear to have actively concealed the contamination of Hobart’s water from the people of Hobart?

If it’s not a problem, why are they hiding it ?’

He went on to say ‘the Health Minister’s focus on cancer alone is also ridiculous and illogical; concerns have been raised about a wide range of adverse health effects other than cancer that are caused by exposure to Triazine chemicals, including disruption of the human endocrine system, damaging genetic changes in human cells, and the chemical castration of frogs; this event was only revealed because of questioning by the Tasmanian Greens in the Parliament, and we will continue to pursue the Bartlett Government on this matter until we see a ban on the Triazine group of herbicides’.