Health Report - Separate stories podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

US President Donald Trump  has flagged the possibility of imposing 200 per cent tariffs on pharmaceutical products coming into America. 

Last year Australia exported around $2.2 billion in pharmaceutical products to the US — however we imported around $4 billion. 

Guest/s

• Elizabeth de Somer, Chief Executive Officer of Medicines Australia

References

• Guidance on medicinal cannabis prescribing targets unsafe practice - AHPRA
• What's gone wrong with cannabis prescribing? - the Health Report

GLP-1 agonists, like Ozempic and Wegovy, have been heralded as miracle drugs.

They started out as diabetes drugs, but have shown benefits well beyond diabetes – including in weight loss and other metabolic conditions.

However these are new drugs, and as more and more people take them, researchers are keeping tabs on their effects.

While the risk is small, there are potential eye-related side effects. A new study has looked into macular degeneration in particular.

Guest/s

• Dr Marko Popovic, ophthalmologist and retina specialist at the University of Toronto

References

• GLP-1 Drugs Linked to Higher Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

There’s a gap in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are waitlisted for a kidney transplant.

A study has found while eight per cent of non-Indigenous dialysis patients were waitlisted, just two per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients were.

In most cases it was because of an incomplete work‐up, because they were awaiting transplant assessment or because their eligibility had not yet been assessed.

Guest/s

• Professor Jacqui Hughes, a kidney specialist at Flinders University and one of the leaders of the National Indigenous Kidney Transplantation Taskforce
• Professor Stephen McDonald, a specialist in the epidemiology of kidney disease at The University of Adelaide 

References

• Am I on the list? Clinician‐reported factors for kidney transplantation non‐waitlisting among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with kidney failure: a cross‐sectional study

The Human Exposome Project is a global effort underway to understand how the environment influences our health.

It includes exposures from our diets, our lifestyles and our behaviors.

It’s hoped that, like the Human Genome Project, it will help us prevent and treat things like heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

Guest/s

• Fenna Sillé, one of the coordinators of a proposed Human Exposome Project, and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

References

• The Human Exposome Project

A look at some of the Health Report correspondence this week.

You can email us at healthreport@abc.net.au

References

• Generation Cancer - 4Corners
• Mapping the chemical complexity of plastics - Nature

CAR T-cell therapy is an immunotherapy which can cure patients with aggressive blood cancers. 

However, until now, it hadn't been proven effective against solid tumours. 

Researchers have used gene editing techniques to arm CAR T-cells with extra proteins, to target these tumours. 

References

• Rewiring endogenous genes in CAR T cells for tumour-restricted payload delivery - Nature

We might need an update to first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes, according to some experts.

In Australia metformin is the first-line treatment, with drugs called SGLT2 inhibitors considered a second-line approach if needed.

They work by increasing glucose excretion in the urine.

In the United States it’s common to use them as first-line treatment alongside metformin. Is that the right approach?

Guest/s

• Dr Ted Wu, endocrinologist and director of the diabetes centre at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney

Years after pinpointing a faulty protein in the brains of patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, researchers have made another breakthrough.

The team at the University of Sydney was able to target this SOD1 protein with a drug treatment in mice. They observed a “dramatic” improvement in their motor skills.

Now comes the tricky task of figuring out how to target the SOD1 protein safely in humans, paving the way for a potential treatment to slow progression.

Guest/s

• Professor Kay Double, Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney

References

• Copper supplementation mitigates Parkinson-like wild-type SOD1 pathology and nigrostriatal degeneration in a novel mouse model

For close to 50 years, a type of immunotherapy called Bacillus Calmette–Guerin (BCG) therapy has been used to treat early-stage bladder cancer.

It’s still the regimen of choice, but a new study has indicated that combining BCG with a chemotherapy drug might be better for some.

It could also go some way to addressing a global shortage of BCG, because it requires fewer doses of the immunotherapy.

Guest/s

• Professor Dickon Hayne, head of urology at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth and leader of urological research at the University of Western Australia

References

• Mitomycin + BCG as Adjuvant Intravesical Therapy for High-Risk Non–muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer: A Randomized Phase 3 Trial

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is taking Atlus, Mamamia and Newscorp's News Life Media to court, accusing them of advertising medicinal cannabis. 

Also for the first time in a decade, guidelines for the screening and diagnosis of gestational diabetes have been updated. And more information revealed about the Monash IVF debacle. 

References

• Atlus, Mamamia and News Life Media face court for alleged unlawful advertising of medicinal cannabis
• Australasian Diabetes in Pregnancy Society (ADIPS) 2025 consensus recommendations for the screening, diagnosis and classification of gestational diabetes
• How the most human of errors led to a woman giving birth to a stranger's baby - the Age