Deborah Green, University of South Australia and Barbara Spears, University of South Australia

Bullying is one of the top concerns Australian parents have about their children’s health.

Unfortunately about one in four Australian students between Year 4 and Year 9 report being bullied at least every few weeks.

The federal government has recently set up a six month “rapid review” to look at what schools are doing and how best to address bullying.

But what can you do if your child is being bullied at school?

What is bullying?

Recognising a child is being bullied and knowing what to do about it can be difficult for parents.

It’s important to understand what is and isn’t bullying. Bullying is about deliberately using power and status to repeatedly cause distress to, or control another person.

It is not usually a “one off” (although cyberbullying can involve a single post/image, which may be viewed many times or reposted over a long period of time).

It can involve repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviours (on and offline) intended to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm.

Younger children tend to use more physical forms of bullying. Older children may use more subtle forms of covert and manipulative bullying, which harms social relationships. This can include excluding someone from a group and spreading rumours.

What are the signs a child is being bullied?

Look out for any unexplained changes in your child.

This may include physical injuries, a change in their participation in school or other activities or shifts in friendships. Your child may also be more anxious and nervous, withdrawn or angry.

You know your child best, but directly asking how their friendships are going, may be met with resistance. So if you want to talk about it, a more casual approach may be a better first step. This could include in the car after school/sport or walking together somewhere.

What if your child says they are being bullied?

Children may not want to tell anyone they are being bullied out of fear of things getting worse.

But if and when they do tell, it is often to a parent before friends or the teacher/school.

For parents, hearing your child is being bullied is confronting.
But try to stay calm and resist any urges to trivialise, ridicule, blame, get angry or downplay what is being reported. For example, don’t dismiss it as other kids “just being bitchy/nasty”.

Remember no one chooses to be victimised and it takes courage for a child to report and share what has happened. Listen for the emotion in their voice to know how to connect with them. Are they scared, nervous and/or angry?

Let your child know it’s not OK for this to happen, and that it is not their fault. This validates your child’s feelings. Let them know you support them and are going to help.

What can you do next?

Talk with your child about what to do next.

They may ask you not to go to the school because they are worried it will make things worse for them. Let them know you are taking responsibility for dealing with this now. This means letting the school know, so you can work together to address it.

Gather evidence demonstrating this may not be an isolated incident: what has happened, when, where and over how long. Keep a record of what your child has shared with you, especially images or posts if the bullying is happening online.

How to work with the school

Research shows it is crucial for parents and schools to work together to address all forms of bullying. This means both parties are taking responsibility and sharing all relevant information to stop the bullying and support the victimised child.

Before you formally notify the school, read the school’s anti-bullying policy, so you know what to expect the school to do.

When you come to report your concerns, clearly and calmly tell your child’s story of being bullied. Provide evidence and a timeline to the teacher in writing.

Ask when you can expect a response about what will be done. Check back in and ask for a progress report.

Schools should outline the steps they will take once it has been reported. This includes how long the investigation will take, when they will get back to you, and what they are putting in place to protect your child.

Keep trying

If you don’t find initial responses timely or transparent, you may choose to escalate the matter to the next level.

This could mean speaking to the school principal or a more senior teacher, or eventually contacting your state’s department of education or school’s government body (for non-government schools).

If you need more information, you and your child can get support from Kids Helpline and Youth Law Australia. The eSafety Commissioner also has specific advice about cyberbullying.

You can also find more tips on the federal government’s Bullying No Way Website and its Student Wellbeing Hub.

Deborah Green, Senior Lecturer, UniSA Education Futures, University of South Australia and Barbara Spears, Adjunct Professor of Education and Social Development, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Javier Leon, University of the Sunshine Coast

For many people, the most visible impact of Cyclone Alfred was the damage big waves and storm surge did to their local beaches.

Beaches in southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales are now scarred by dramatic sand cliffs, including the tourist drawcard of Surfers Paradise.

Sand islands off Brisbane – Bribie, Moreton and North Stradbroke – protected the city from the worst of the storm surge. But they took a hammering doing so, reducing their ability to protect the coastline.

The good news is, the sand isn’t gone forever. Most of it is now sitting on sandbars offshore. Over time, many beaches will naturally replenish. But sand dunes will take longer. And there are areas where the damage will linger.

Why did it do so much damage?

Cyclone Alfred travelled up and down the coast for a fortnight before crossing the mainland as a tropical low. On February 27, it reached Category 4 offshore from Mackay. From here on, the cyclone’s intense winds whipped up very large swells.

By the time the cyclone started heading towards the coast, many beaches had already been hit by erosion-causing waves. This meant they were more vulnerable to storm surge and further erosion.

As Alfred moved west to make landfall, it coincided with one of the the year’s highest tides. As a result, many beaches have been denuded of sand and coastal infrastructure weakened in some places.

Which beaches were hit hardest?

Areas south of the cyclone’s track have been hit hardest, from the Gold Coast to the Northern Rivers.

Some beaches and dunes have significantly eroded. Peregian Beach south of Noosa has lost up to 30 metres of width.

Erosion cliffs, or “scarps”, up to 3 metres high have appeared on the Gold Coast. It exposed sections of the last line of coastal defence – a buried seawall known as the A-line, constructed following large storms in the 1970s.

Up and down the Gold Coast, most dunes directly behind beaches (foredunes) have been affected by storm surge of up to 0.5 metres above the high tide mark and eroded. Even established dunes further inland have been eroded.

Where did the sand go?

In just a week, millions of tonnes of sand on our beaches seemingly disappeared. Where did it go?

Beaches change constantly and are very resilient. As these landforms constantly interact with waves and currents, they adapt by changing their shape.

When there’s a lot of energy in waves and currents, beaches become flatter and narrower. Sand is pulled off the beaches and dunes and washed off offshore, where it forms sandbars. These sandbars actually protect the remaining beach, as they make waves break further offshore.

Dunes form when sand is blown off the beach on very windy days and lands further inland. Over time, plants settle the dune. Their roots act to stabilise the sand.

Healthy dunes covered in vegetation are normally harder to erode. But as beaches are washed away during large storms and the water level rises, larger waves can directly attack dunes.

The tall erosion scarps have formed because dunes have been eaten away. In some areas, seawater has flooded inland, which may damage dune plants.

Most sand will return

As coastal conditions return to normal, much of this sand will naturally be transported back ashore. Our beaches will become steeper and wider again.

It won’t be immediate. It can take months for this to occur, and it’s not guaranteed – it depends on what wave conditions are like.

Some sand will have been washed into very deep water, or swept by currents away from the beaches. In these cases, sand will take longer to return or won’t return at all. Dunes recover more slowly than beaches. It may take years for them to recover.

Australia’s east coast has one of the longest longshore drift systems in the world, where sand is carried northward by currents to eventually join K'Gari/Fraser Island.

Can humans help?

Sand will naturally come back to most beaches. It’s usually best to let this natural process take place.

But if extreme erosion is threatening buildings or roads, beach nourishment might be necessary. Here, sand is added to eroded beaches to speed up the replenishment process.

Other options include building vertical seawalls or sloping revetment walls. These expensive methods of protection work very well to protect roads or buildings behind them. But these engineered structures often accelerate erosion of beaches and dunes.

We can help dunes by staying off them as much as possible. Plants colonising early dunes are very fragile and can be easily damaged. Temporary fencing can be used cheaply to trap sand and help dunes recover. Re-vegetating dunes is an efficient way of reducing future erosion.

How can we prepare for next time?

The uncertainty on Cyclone Alfred’s track, intensity and landfall location kept many people on edge, including at-risk communities and disaster responders. This uncertainty puts many scientists under enormous pressure. Decision-makers want fast and clear information, but it’s simply not possible.

In Australia, almost 90% of people live within 50km of the coast. In coming decades, the global coastal population will grow rapidly – even as sea level rise and more intense natural disasters put more people at risk.

As the climate crisis deepens, rebuilding in high-risk areas can create worse, more expensive problems.

Communities must begin talking seriously about managed retreat from some areas of the coast. This means not building on erosion-prone areas, choosing not to defend against sea incursion in some places and beginning to relocate houses and infrastructure to safer heights inland.

Decision-makers should also consider deploying nature-based solutions such as dunes, mangroves and oyster reefs to reduce the threat from the seas.

Technology has advanced rapidly since Cyclone Zoe made landfall in this region in 1974. We can track weather systems from satellites, get up-to-date weather and wave forecasts on our phones and use drones to see change on beaches and dunes.

But these technologies only work if we use them. The Gold Coast has the world’s largest coastal imaging program. But most other coastal regions don’t conduct long-term monitoring of dunes and beaches. Without it, we don’t have access to data vital to protecting our beaches and communities.

Javier Leon, Associate Professor in Physical Geography, University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tom Shand, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Late last year, a massive ocean swell caused by a low pressure system in the North Pacific generated waves up to 20 metres high, and damaged coastlines and property thousands of kilometres from its source.

Two years earlier, another storm system southeast of New Zealand also whipped up massive waves, with the swell reaching as far as Canada, battering Pacific island coasts along the way.

These storms, and the swells they create, are facts of nature. But while we understand a lot about the extraordinary forces at work, we can still do more to predict their impact and coordinate global warning systems.

How big waves are born

Waves are made by wind blowing over a water surface. The longer and stronger the wind blows, the more energy is transferred into those waves.

As well as an increase in wave height, sustained high wind speeds generate waves with a longer period – that is, the distance or time between successive wave crests. Oceanographers refer to the mix of wave heights and periods (and to some extent directions) as a “sea” state.

Once the wind stops blowing, or the sea moves away from the wind that is generating it, the waves become swell and start to separate. The longest-period waves move fastest and shorter-period waves more slowly.

Most waves resulting from a storm have periods of 12–16 seconds, with the individual waves travelling at speeds of 60–80km per hour.

But very large storms with high, sustained winds can generate waves with periods of more than 20 seconds. These waves travel much faster, over 100km per hour in the open ocean, and their energy (which travels more slowly than individual waves) can cover 1,500km in 24 hours.

Ocean waves, particularly long-period swells, lose very little energy as they travel. And unless they collide with an island and break, they are capable of travelling great distances.

By comparison, shorter period waves take much longer to travel and lose more energy. If they encounter a wind field moving in another direction, this also removes energy and reduces their height.

But sometimes, a particularly strong storm system can generate long-period waves with enough energy to travel across the Pacific, reaching shores thousands of kilometres away.

A unique characteristic of such long-range swells is that individual waves contain a lot more energy than shorter-period local waves. They grow to greater heights as they “shoal” in shallow water, and can hit shorelines and structures with greater force, causing more damage and danger.

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The ‘Code Red 2’ swell

The “Code Red 2” swell was a good example of this in action. It was generated by a massive storm system southeast of New Zealand in July 2022. The “significant wave height”, or average of the largest third of the system’s waves, reached 13 metres. Individual waves were up to twice this height.

The storm system was unusual due to very strong southerly winds blowing northweard from near Antarctica for over 2,000km. This resulted in long-period (20 second) swells moving north into the Pacific Ocean.

The swell first reached Tahiti, where waves closed most of the south-facing coast, prompting a Code Red warning. This was only the second such warning since 2011 (hence its name), and resulted in massive waves at the Teahupo'o surf break, location of the 2024 Olympic surfing event.

The swell also caused flooding along the south coast of Rarotonga and other Pacific Islands before continuing north across the equator to reach the south coast of Hawaii – 7,000km from where it was generated.

Due to their direction and very long period, large waves reached places they don’t usually affect, literally crashing weddings and breaking over houses. The swell then carried on to hit the Californian coast some 10,000km away, and eventually reaching Canada more than a week after it was initially generated.

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The ‘Eddie’ swell

More recently, the 2024 “Eddie” swell was generated from an extremely intense low pressure system in the North Pacific in December 2024. Waves near the centre of the storm reached heights of 20 metres, with a 22-second period.

The resulting swell hit Hawaii first, where waves were large enough to run the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational at Waimea Bay, a surfing event that requires such large waves it has only been run 11 times in its 40-year history (and which gave the swell its name).

This extreme swell then reached California 3,000km away, where it also generated giant surf, damaged boats in coastal marinas and caused part of the Santa Cruz wharf to collapse.

Due to its very long period, the swell was able to continue southward, still with a lot of energy. It reached the north coast of Ecuador and Peru, 8,500km from where it began, where it destroyed fishing boats. And it finally hit Chile, 11,000km from its source, where it closed ports and inundated coastal promenades.

These coasts typically receive large southwest swells. But this rare, long-period north swell was able to reach normally protected north-facing sections of coast, causing uncharacteristic damage.

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Predicting local impacts

It can be difficult to sound warnings for these types of long-period waves, as they are generated so far from the affected shorelines they are missed by local forecasters and emergency managers.

Global wave models such as those driven by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction are capable of predicting and tracking these swells but require a more nuanced approach to predicting local impacts.

New early warning systems are being developed that take global wave forecasts and downscale them to take into account the shape of the local coastline. The wave information is then combined with predictions of tide and storm surge to give warnings of when coastal impacts may occur.

These systems will give emergency managers, ports and coastal infrastructure operators – and the public – better information and more time to prepare for these damaging wave events.

Tom Shand, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Matthew Ryan, CSIRO and Gilly Hendrie, CSIRO

The age-old saying “you are what you eat” rings true – diet quality affects our health from the inside out. While a healthy diet can improve health and wellbeing, a poor diet increases the risk of chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

But Australians’ diets appear to be getting worse, not better. Our new modelling study suggests by 2030, our diets will comprise almost 10% less fruit, and around 18% more junk food. This puts us further away from national targets for healthy eating.

A public health priority

A healthy diet is a priority area of the National Preventive Health Strategy. This strategy sets clear goals to improve diet quality by 2030, including increasing fruit and vegetable intake, and reducing consumption of discretionary or “junk” food.

Junk foods (such as cakes, chips, chocolate, confectionery, certain takeaway foods and sugary drinks) are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar, and should only be consumed occasionally and in small amounts.

The preventive health strategy stipulates adults should be consuming two servings of fruit per day and five serves of vegetables, and should be reducing discretionary foods to less than 20% of total energy intake.

Currently, we’re sitting well short of these targets.

We wanted to know whether we might be able to achieve these goals by 2030. So we combined unique data on Australians’ diets with predictive models to map out how our diets are likely to change by 2030.

The CSIRO Healthy Diet Score survey has been running since 2015. This survey uses short questions to measure intake of the five healthy food groups, including fruit and vegetables, as well as discretionary foods. The questions ask about how often people eat certain foods, and how much they eat, to determine an individual’s average daily consumption.

We analysed data from more than 275,000 people who completed this survey between 2015 and 2023. We used predictive modelling techniques called generalised linear models to forecast future diet trends against the national targets. We also broke our findings down by sex and age.

What we found suggests we’re heading in the wrong direction.

Fruit intake down, junk food up

Overall, we found fruit consumption is declining. On average, Australians were eating 0.1 fewer serves of fruit in 2023 than they did in 2015. If this trend continues, we expect a further 9.7% decrease in the average serves of daily fruit to 1.3 serves per day by 2030, well below national targets.

While vegetable consumption appears steady at around 3.7 serves per day, this is well below the recommended daily intake of 5 serves per day.

Concerningly, we are also seeing an increase in consumption of discretionary foods. Average daily intake increased by 0.7 serves between 2015 and 2023, with a further 0.8 serve increase predicted by 2030 (an 18% rise). That’s a 1.5 serve (40%) increase in just 15 years.

We can’t put an exact figure on how junk food intake stacks up against the targets, because we looked at serves per day, while the targets are about the proportion of total energy. However, the figures we identified constitute significantly more than 20% of total energy intake.

Things look worse for women. By 2030, women are predicted to be eating 13.2% less fruit and 21.6% more discretionary foods compared to 2023. For men, our predictions suggest a 4.8% decrease in fruit intake and a 19.5% increase in junk foods.

Despite a greater change in women, men are still predicted to be eating more discretionary foods by 2030 (6.3 serves per day for men versus 4.6 for women).

For Australians aged 30 and above, both fruit and vegetable intake are declining. Adults aged 31–50 have the lowest reported fruit and vegetable intake, but the largest change is in adults 71 and older. For these older Australians, we estimate a 14.7% decrease in fruit consumption and a 6.9% decrease in vegetable consumption by 2030. That’s equivalent to a decrease of 0.5 serves of fruit and 0.2 serves of vegetables since 2015.

Discretionary food intake is on the rise in all age groups, but particularly in younger adults.

However, young Australians (18–30 years) may be eating more discretionary foods, but they’re also the only ones eating more healthy food as well. Both fruit and vegetable consumption are increasing for young Australians, with our modelling suggesting a 10.7% and 13.2% respective rise in average serves per day by 2030.

Although this is a positive sign, it’s not enough, as these projections still put young Australians below the recommended daily intake.

Some limitations

Our modelling helps us to understand diet trends over recent years and project these into the future.

However, the research doesn’t tell us what’s driving the worrying trends we’ve observed in Australian diet quality. There are likely to be a variety of factors at play.

For example, many Australians understand what a “healthy balanced diet” is, but what we eat could be affected by social and personal preferences.

It could also be related to cost of living and other pressures which can make fresh food harder to obtain. Also, the area where we live can influence how easy or hard it is to make healthy food choices.

Understanding the root causes behind these changes is a vital area of future research.

In terms of other limitations, our study only focused on the diet quality of Australian adults and didn’t investigate trends is children’s diets.

Also, we only looked at fruit, vegetables and junk food in this study. But we are currently studying changes in the whole diet, taking in other food groups as well.

What can we do?

Australian diets are going in the wrong direction, but it’s not too late to correct the path. We need to ensure all Australians understand what constitutes a healthy diet, and can afford to maintain one.

While no one person, sector or organisation can do this alone, by working together we can put a greater focus towards eating a healthy diet. This includes reviewing policy around the availability and price of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as looking at our own plates and swapping the junk food for healthier options.

Danielle Baird, a Team Leader in Nutrition and Behaviour at CSIRO, contributed to this article.

Matthew Ryan, Postdoctoral CERC Fellow, Human Health, CSIRO and Gilly Hendrie, Research Scientist, Human Health, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cameron Webb, University of Sydney

While some parts of southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales are still on alert for flooding, others are starting the difficult clean-up process as flood waters recede.

Stagnant water after floods provides the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. So as you clean up, remember to empty containers of water and other reservoirs around your house and yard such as water-filled boats, trailers and other large objects. Get rid of debris that may be collecting water too.

This year, mozzies are carrying the usual viruses we want to avoid, such as Ross River virus, but the potentially deadly Japanese encephalitis virus has also been detected in parts of New South Wales and Queensland.

Will more mozzies mean more disease?

In February 2020, floods in northern NSW boosted mosquito activity and increased cases of mosquito-borne diseases caused by Ross River and Barmah Forest viruses in subsequent months.

But while flood waters may boost mosquito numbers, outbreaks of disease don’t always follow. Hurricanes in North America have been associated with increased mosquito populations but few outbreaks of disease.

In Australia too, there are few examples of mosquito-borne disease outbreaks after cyclones – with a notable exception. After Tropical Cyclone Zoe made landfall in 1974, we had one of the one of the biggest outbreaks of Murray Valley encephalitis virus later in the year.

Warmer weather helps drive big mosquito populations, and the forecast predicts a warmer-than-normal autumn. So health authorities are on the lookout for outbreaks of disease.

Japanese encephalitis is already active

Somewhat dry conditions in the summer of 2024-25 have meant mosquito populations in many regions of eastern Australia have remained well below average.

But cases of Japanese encephalitis virus have been widely detected in Victoria, NSW and Queensland – in mosquitoes, piggeries and feral pigs.

Humans have also been infected. Cases are rare but the disease can be serious, with symptoms ranging from fever, headache, and vomiting through to disorientation, coma, seizure and brain swelling. One person has died of the virus this year.

Japanese encephalitis virus first arrived in southeastern Australia over the summer of 2021-2022. That followed extensive flooding across the Murray Darling Basin thanks to the arrival of La Niña. At the time, there were phenomenal numbers of mosquitoes that continued over subsequent years as the above average rainfall continued.

In the summer of 2022-23, a significant outbreak of Murray Valley encephalitis was also linked to ongoing flooding. This disease has similar symptoms to Japanese encephalitis and can also be fatal.

Mosquito numbers this summer have only been a fraction of what was recorded during those seasons influenced by La Niña. The activity of Japanese encephalitis in 2024-25 has scientists scratching their heads, as it goes against the commonly held theories that greater mosquito numbers combined with increased waterbird activity (typically following flooding) drive greater transmission of viruses such as Japanese and Murray Valley encephalitis.

Fortunately, there is no evidence of these viruses along the coast of southeast Queensland through to northern NSW.

But regions where the virus has already been active, such as Darling Downs in Queensland and Moree in NSW, may see substantial rainfall as a result of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

Predicting outbreaks is incredibly difficult and relies not just on mosquito activity but also on on the dynamics of the the wildlife hosts that carry these viruses

But unpredictable mosquito-borne disease combined with extreme weather is not a good mix.

Don’t forget about Ross River virus

While not life threatening, disease caused by Ross River virus can be severely debilitating with joint pain and fatigue lasting many weeks or months.

Thousands of cases of infection are reported across the country each year, including in urban areas of southeast Queensland and northern NSW.

Concerns about Ross River diseases were already raised with heavy rain and flooding in northern Australia this summer. Case numbers often peak at the end or summer and early autumn. So there is potential for greater activity in the coming months.

Other mosquito-borne pathogens, such as Barmah Forest virus, may also be circulating and may cause cases of mild disease but these occur far less commonly than those due to Ross River virus infection.

Protect yourself while cleaning up

If you’re out cleaning up after the storms, try to avoid mosquito bites.

Cover up with long-sleeved shirts, long pants and covered shoes for a physical barrier against mosquito bites.

Use topical insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus. Be sure to apply an even coat on all exposed areas of skin for the longest-lasting protection.

For those living or working in regions of Queensland, NSW and Victoria at risk of Japanese encephalitis, a safe and effective vaccine is available.

Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Liesel Spencer, Western Sydney University

Australia’s food security is on the political agenda, with Labor flagging a new national strategy if it is re-elected for a second term.

“Feeding Australia” would build-in ways to make the agricultural sector more resilient. This industry focus is important, but it is only part of what the plan needs to achieve. Food security is about more than just food production and supply chains.

We also need the strategy to deal with chronic long-term food insecurity, which is defined by the United Nations as a lack of consistent access to adequate, safe and nutritious food.

According to food relief charity Foodbank, too many Australians simply don’t have enough to eat because of ongoing poverty and the cost-of-living crisis.

An abundance of food, but not enough to eat

Genuine food security means all Australians have consistent access to healthy food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences.

This is not the same thing as our farmers producing enough to hypothetically feed the whole country. In fact, we already do that, and more, with food exports sustaining a further 60 million people overseas.

Despite this abundance, not everyone has access to a fair share of food. Foodbank’s 2024 Hunger Report found 48% of Australians earning less than A$30,000 a year are food insecure, up 5% from 2022. Overall, the charity estimates almost one in three Australian households are either moderately or severely food insecure.

We have to rely on survey data from charities and researchers to understand the extent of Australia’s food security problem because no government has formally measured food insecurity in Australia since 2011. Evidence-based policy needs reliable data, so the national strategy should include a commitment to regularly measure people’s access to food.

Vulnerable Australians

Some groups of Australians are more vulnerable to food insecurity. These include single parents, homeless and older people, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. University students are also at higher risk.

The impact of the pandemic, compounded by the cost-of-living crisis, is even causing problems for some two income households with mortgages. Some in this group are experiencing food insecurity for the first time according to Foodbank.

A 2023 federal parliamentary report on food security made 35 recommendations. They include specific measures to improve household food security, such as:

• investigating the feasibility of a school meals program

• developing basic cooking skills as part of school curriculum

• assisting community projects for local food systems

• improving food security in remote and First Nations communities.

However the Feeding Australia strategy announcement makes no mention of these.

Remote challenges

Food insecurity is more prevalent and severe in remote regions, especially in many Indigenous communities, where high grocery prices and a lack of fresh food make putting healthy produce on the table a daily challenge.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently announced a federal scheme to ensure the cost of 30 essential items in remote stores is on par with city prices for the same items. This is part of a just-released federal ten-year strategy to improve food security in First Nations communities.

While these measures are welcome, the Feeding Australia plan must heed the particular challenges faced by First Nations people when it comes to sustaining healthy diets.

No overarching strategy

It all comes back to a lack of coordinated approach to feeding the nation. Australia continues to lag the rest of the world in food security policy.

The Economist’s Global Food Security Index measures 113 countries across a range of indicators including affordability, availability and quality.

Australia scores a flat zero in the category of policy commitments to food security and access, compared with a global average of 47.1%. This rating was based on the lack of a national food security strategy and whether the government is responsible and can be held accountable for food security.

Food cuts across many government portfolios. Therefore, central responsibility for all aspects of national food security should rest with a Ministry of Food – which was recommended by the 2023 parliamentary inquiry.

This would bring all the threads together under one responsible department to lift our performance to an international standard.

Disasters and external threats

Shock-proofing the agriculture industry is another urgent objective of the Feeding Australia plan. Consistent and reliable supplies provided by farm production and transport networks are a critical part of national food security.

Crisis events that disrupt food supply, such as extreme weather events and global conflicts, also pose real threats to food security.

Australia needs a strategy that covers these risks and targets the entire supply chain from the farm gate to the dinner table.

Liesel Spencer, Associate Professor, School of Law, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Benjamin Tapon, Queen Mary University of London and Alex de Mendoza, Queen Mary University of London

US biotechnology company Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences has a radical proposal: it wants to resurrect the woolly mammoth from extinction. In a preprint paper published on March 4, scientists at Colossal report making a significant step towards this objective. They genetically modified the DNA of mice to give them mammoth-like traits in their hair shape, colour and length.

By testing out their methods in a familiar laboratory animal, the researchers can make sure they work before applying them to Asian elephants – the closest living relatives of the mammoth.

De-extinction is an idea which, if successfully implemented, would allow us to bring back any species from the dead. It means that no animal could go truly extinct as long as we can obtain its DNA.

However, mammoths were heavily adapted to a cold climate and a biome – an area with specific climate, vegetation and animal life – that no longer exists.

The Siberian habitats once roamed by the creatures – known as the mammoth steppe – are significantly warmer today. Many of the animals and plants they lived among have also disappeared, and the regions are now home to new ones that never lived alongside the mammoth.

Attempts to reintroduce woolly mammoths in our modern tundras could therefore prove difficult, and have untold repercussions on the current ecosystem. Against a background of climate change, these tundras are only going to get warmer and less suitable for an animal like the mammoth.

Nevertheless, Colossal is pushing ahead with efforts to recreate these striking creatures. Asian elephants diverged from mammoths around 6.7 million years ago and share over 95% of their DNA. Colossal plans to bridge this gap by transforming the genomes of Asian elephants to make them more like those of woolly mammoths.

Scientists have obtained high-quality woolly mammoth DNA sequences from carcasses preserved in Siberian permafrost. These genomes (the full complement of DNA in the cell) have allowed scientists to compare the genes that differ between the mammoth and the Asian elephant.

Multiplex editing

In order to generate their beauty prize-worthy mice, Colossal’s scientists used a range of highly advanced genome editing techniques to modify the sequence of DNA in the mouse. Regions of mouse DNA can be changed so they resemble genes in other organisms, such as a woolly mammoth.

These techniques are known collectively as multiplex editing and include the best known method, Crispr-Cas9. Multiplex genome editing gives scientists the ability to target and affect several genes at once (up to seven at a time in this case).

The scientists modified ten genes in total in their mice, in different combinations. Interestingly, only three were changed to resemble genes found in the woolly mammoth. The other seven had been previously identified to cause hair variation in mice, and produce traits somewhat similar to those found in mammoth hair. Although these are not mammoth gene variants, modifying them demonstrates the team’s ability to edit several genes at once through multiplex editing.

Two of the three mammoth-associated genes (Krt27 and Tgfa) have previously been linked to hair texture, based on comparisons with Asian elephants. Another gene, Fabp2, is thought to have facilitated efficient fat metabolism in mammoths – a presumed evolutionary adaptation to cold.

Modifying the Krt27 and Tgfa hair genes in mice led to a change in texture, making some hairs longer and rougher and others wavier and zigzaggy. The fact these gene modifications produced physical traits seen in mammoth hair provides a way of verifying the genes are indeed associated with changes in hair pattern, and therefore contribute to the mammoth’s distinctive woolliness. But editing the mice so they had the Fabp2 gene variant from mammoths led to no observable physical difference.

Of the seven mouse-identified genes modified by the researchers, one (a variant of the Mc1r gene) led to the shiny blond coat colour. At least one mammoth carcass dug up from the Siberian permafrost has a similar coat colour, so the change is certainly evocative of these ice age creatures.

A much bigger task

Although this is an exciting study into an area of research with incredible potential, there are a few limitations to keep in mind. While Asian elephants are the closest thing we currently have to mammoths, it would take a lot more than a few tweaks to hair length and squiggliness to meaningfully make a mammoth out of an elephant.

While George Church, the Harvard genetics professor who founded Colossal, claims that modifying 65 genes in Asian elephants will accomplish this goal, the reality is likely to be more complicated.

Indeed, the fact that editing the Fabp2 gene – associated with fat metabolism in mammoths – led to no observable difference in the mice is one example of the many gaps in our understanding of mammoth genetics. Put another way, this shows that we have some way to go to fully understand the causal relationship between genes and phenotype – the visible characteristics in a living organism.

Increasing the number of simultaneously targeted genes from seven to 65 could also introduce various unintended consequences, including accidentally modifying unintended DNA regions similar to the target sequence (known as the off-target effects of genome editing). It also remains difficult to achieve changes in all genes at once; here too, scaling up from seven to 65 will pose a noteworthy challenge.

On top of this, even if Colossal manages to make all 65 gene changes in their Asian elephants, there are likely to be many more differences between mammoth and elephant genomes that have not yet been identified. These include genes involved in behaviour, and in regions of the genome that dictate when genes are switched on or off. While mice are an extremely well studied experimental organism, elephants are less well characterised.

As a proof of concept, this research is fascinating, although it remains to be seen whether Colossal’s goal of creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid by 2028 is achievable. It would be more likely to generate a mammoth-like Asian elephant than something exactly like the ice age creature.

Finally, it is worth considering the end goal of this branch of research. Mammoths went extinct only 4,000 years ago, but at this point they had already been pushed into a fraction of their initial range – restricted to a tiny surviving population on Wrangel island in the Russian Arctic.

Another of Colossal’s objectives is to bring back the thylacine, a carnivore that once lived in Tasmania. Given it went extinct due to active hunting in the 20th century, the thylacine should at least still have suitable habitat.

However, if the goal is simply to counteract extinction, more sustainable efforts to avoid future extinctions might be better than expensive genetic engineering. De-extinction cannot replace efforts to preserve the one planet we have, and all the living organisms we share it with.

Benjamin Tapon, PhD student, Queen Mary University of London and Alex de Mendoza, Senior Lecturer In Bioinformatics, Queen Mary University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Craig Gwynne, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Even celebrities aren’t immune from foot-related issues such as the dreaded thickened toenail. Actor Danny DeVito, former basketball player Shaquille O'Neal and Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt have all posted photos of their poorly pinkies online over the past couple of years.

Thickened and discoloured toenails can be caused by a variety of issues, from ill-fitting shoes or trauma from stubbing your toe, to ageing and psoriasis (a chronic skin condition). Often, though, they’re caused by a fungal infection.

Fungal nail infections may seem embarrassing, but they’re actually very common. Also known by the scientific name onychomycosis, fungal nails affect around 10% of people worldwide, climbing to 50% in older adults.

These infections most often affect the toes, causing nails to thicken, crumble and become discoloured. The effect isn’t just cosmetic, though. Fungal nails can cause paronychia – pain and inflammation of the skin around the nail – making everyday activities more challenging.

Fungal nail infections are most often caused by dermatophytes – the fungi that feed on keratin, the protein that gives nails their strength. Yeasts and moulds can also cause the condition.

Sharing communal spaces like gyms, hot tubs, swimming pools and changing rooms increases your exposure to fungal spores. Then, tiny cracks or injuries from everyday wear or poor footcare can allow these organisms to invade the nail – typically through gaps between the hard nail plate and the underlying nail bed.

Older age, weakened immune systems, diabetes and poor circulation make nails more brittle and less resilient to infection. Closed shoes and sweaty feet create ideal growth conditions.

However, a few simple daily habits can help prevent fungal nail infections:

1) Dry your feet thoroughly after each shower or swim – this makes your toenails less inviting to fungi.

2) Choose shoes made from breathable materials and wear moisture-wicking socks to help keep your feet dry.

3) Ensure a good shoe fit and protect your nails during activities to maintain nail health.

4) Wear flip-flops in public areas like pools, gyms and communal showers to limit exposure to fungal spores.

But even if you follow all these measures, a fungal nail infection can still happen. If you develop a crumbly, discoloured nail, how should you treat it?

Home remedies and medication

Applying Vicks VapoRub to the affected nail is a popular home remedy. But while there may be lots of personal success stories on social media, there’s scant scientific evidence to support these claims.

As far as I can see, only two small clinical trials have tested the product’s effectiveness on fungal nails. One pilot study found that 83% of people showed some improvement, with nearly 28% achieving both a laboratory-confirmed cure and visibly clearer nails after 48 weeks. And another study in people living with HIV reported similar improvements after 24 weeks.

Vicks VapoRub contains ingredients with antifungal properties, including eucalyptus oil, camphor and menthol. The product may also oxidise when exposed to air and sunlight, producing a mild bleaching effect that brightens the nail.

However, it’s important to note this product is licensed as a cough suppressant and topical analgesic (a medication applied directly to the skin to relieve pain in muscles and joints), not as a treatment for fungal nail infections. So, while the research findings may sound promising, larger, more rigorous studies are needed to confirm its effectiveness as a standalone therapy.

Alternatively, oral medications are available by prescription and can clear the infection in 50–80% of cases over several months. But they require regular monitoring for side-effects and potential drug interactions, so may not be suitable for everyone.

Topical treatments like paint-on nail lacquers are another option for mild cases affecting one or two nails. These treatments tend to have fewer side effects compared with oral medications, but often struggle to penetrate the nail bed. As a result, it can take six-to-12 months to see improvement as the nail grows out.

Laser therapy is an emerging treatment that uses high-energy light to heat the nail and kill the fungus, while leaving surrounding tissue unharmed. Early studies suggest several laser therapy sessions may lead to clearer nails, but the long-term benefits remain uncertain – and this treatment can be costly due to the need for repeated sessions.

A combined approach that pairs oral medication with topical treatments and regular nail cutting tackles the problem from multiple angles. This method has shown promising results in clearing infections more effectively, particularly when several nails are affected.

Simple lifestyle changes

Fungal nail infections are a widespread condition, influenced by factors like moisture, age, immune status and nail trauma. Simple lifestyle changes can greatly reduce the risk. Advances in treatments, from oral and topical medications to laser and combined approaches, offer hope for healthier nails.

Bear in mind, though, it can be a challenge to tell the difference between thickened nails caused by trauma from footwear, and those caused by a fungal nail infection. So, someone with thick, discoloured nails might home-treat with topical products, mistakenly thinking they have a fungal toe infection. But in fact, they will only see improvement once they remove the cause of the trauma – a podiatrist can diagnose this condition accurately.

In all cases, if you continue to struggle with fungal nail infections, consider seeking medical advice from a specialist. This should ensure you can step confidently into each new day.

Craig Gwynne, Senior Lecturer in Podiatry, Cardiff Metropolitan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Stephen Gaunson, RMIT University

Some 50 years ago, on March 1 1975, Australian television stations officially moved to colour.

Networks celebrated the day, known as “C-Day”, with unique slogans such as “come to colour” (ABC TV), “Seven colours your world” (Seven Network), “living colour” (Nine Network) and “first in colour” (0-10 Network, which later became Network Ten). The ABC, Seven and Nine networks also updated their logos to incorporate colour.

For most viewers, however, nothing looked much different. The majority owned a black and white TV, while a coloured broadcast required a colour TV set.

Advertisers were initially reluctant to accept the change, which required them to re-shoot black and white commercials with colour stock at a significantly higher cost.

Many reasoned viewers were still watching the ads in black and white. And initially this assumption was correct. But by nine months later, 17% of Australian homes had a colour receiver. This rose to 31% by July 1976.

By 1978, 64% of Melbourne and 70% of Sydney households owned colour TV sets, making Australia one of the world’s fastest adopters of colour TV.

According to the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations (FACTS) annual report for 1975–76, colour TV increased overall viewership by 5%, with people watching for longer periods.

The 1976 Montreal Olympics also led to an increase in TV sales, with the colour broadcast shared between the ABC, Seven and Nine.

A late start

With the United States introducing colour TV from 1954, it’s peculiar that Australia took so long to make the transition – especially since conversations about this had been underway since the 1960s.

In 1965, a report outlining the process and economic considerations of transitioning to colour was tabled in parliament.

Feedback from the US highlighted problems around broader acceptance in the marketplace. Colour TV sets were expensive and most programs were still being shot in black and white, despite the availability of colour.

Networks were the most hesitant (even though they’d go on to become one of the most major benefactors). In 1969, it was estimated transitioning to colour would cost the ABC A$46 million (the equivalent of $265,709,944 today) over six years.

The federal government, led by then prime minister Robert Menzies, decided to take a cautious approach to the transition – allowing manufacturers, broadcasters and the public time to prepare.

The first colour “test” broadcast took place on June 15 1967, with live coverage of a Pakenham country horse racing event in Victoria (although few people would have had coloured TV sets at this point).

Other TV shows also tested broadcasting in colour between 1972 and 1974, with limited colour telecasts aired from mid-1974. It wasn’t until March 1975 that colour TV was being transmitted permanently.

The cinema industry panics

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War created further urgency to televise in colour. With the war ending in April 1975, Australians watched the last moments in colour.

Other significant events broadcast in colour that year included the December federal election, in which Malcolm Fraser defeated Gough Whitlam after the latter was dramatically dismissed as prime minister on November 11.

With the public’s growing interest in colour TV, local manufacturers began lobbying for higher tariffs on imports to encourage domestic colour TV production.

In the mid 1970s, a new colour set in Australia cost between $1,000 and $1,300, while the average full-time annual income was around $8,000. Still in the throes of a financial recession, customers began seeking out illegally-imported colour TV sets – which were appearing at car boot markets across the country.

The government also created an advertising campaign warning the public of scammers who would offer to convert black-and-white TVs to colour. These door-to-door “salesmen” claimed to have a special screen which, when placed over a TV, would magically turn it colourful.

By 1972, the estimated cost of upgrading broadcasting technology to colour had reached $116 million. The cinema industry, in a panic, even questioned whether colour TV could damage a viewer’s eyesight.

The industry had previously suffered huge losses in cinema attendance with the introduction of black-and-white TV from 1956. Cinemas had a monopoly on colour and were petrified over what the introduction of colour to television could do to their attendances.

Such fears were founded. In 1974 Australia had 68 million admissions to the cinema. By 1976, there were just 28.9 million admissions. Never again would yearly cinema admissions reach above 40 million.

But despite the complaints – from the cinema industry, advertisers, broadcasters and manufacturers – audiences were ready for colour. And any network that dared to program in black and white would subject itself to a barrage of annoyed viewers.

Colour TV was here to stay.

Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tim Johnson, Curtin University; Chris Kirkland, Curtin University, and Jonas Kaempf, Curtin University

We have discovered the oldest meteorite impact crater on Earth, in the very heart of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The crater formed more than 3.5 billion years ago, making it the oldest known by more than a billion years. Our discovery is published today in Nature Communications.

Curiously enough, the crater was exactly where we had hoped it would be, and its discovery supports a theory about the birth of Earth’s first continents.

The very first rocks

The oldest rocks on Earth formed more than 3 billion years ago, and are found in the cores of most modern continents. However, geologists still cannot agree how or why they formed.

Nonetheless, there is agreement that these early continents were critical for many chemical and biological processes on Earth.

Many geologists think these ancient rocks formed above hot plumes that rose from above Earth’s molten metallic core, rather like wax in a lava lamp. Others maintain they formed by plate tectonic processes similar to modern Earth, where rocks collide and push each other over and under.

Although these two scenarios are very different, both are driven by the loss of heat from within the interior of our planet.

We think rather differently.

A few years ago, we published a paper suggesting that the energy required to make continents in the Pilbara came from outside Earth, in the form of one or more collisions with meteorites many kilometres in diameter.

As the impacts blasted up enormous volumes of material and melted the rocks around them, the mantle below produced thick “blobs” of volcanic material that evolved into continental crust.

Our evidence then lay in the chemical composition of tiny crystals of the mineral zircon, about the size of sand grains. But to persuade other geologists, we needed more convincing evidence, preferably something people could see without needing a microscope.

So, in May 2021, we began the long drive north from Perth for two weeks of fieldwork in the Pilbara, where we would meet up with our partners from the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) to hunt for the crater. But where to start?

A serendipitous beginning

Our first target was an unusual layer of rocks known as the Antarctic Creek Member, which crops out on the flanks of a dome some 20 kilometres in diameter. The Antarctic Creek Member is only 20 metres or so in thickness, and mostly comprises sedimentary rocks that are sandwiched between several kilometres of dark, basaltic lava.

However, it also contains spherules – droplets formed from molten rock thrown up during an impact. But these drops could have travelled across the globe from a giant impact anywhere on Earth, most likely from a crater that has now been destroyed.

After consulting the GSWA maps and aerial photography, we located an area in the centre of the Pilbara along a dusty track to begin our search. We parked the offroad vehicles and headed our separate ways across the outcrops, more in hope than expectation, agreeing to meet an hour later to discuss what we’d found and grab a bite to eat.

Remarkably, when we returned to the vehicle, we all thought we’d found the same thing: shatter cones.

Shatter cones are beautiful, delicate branching structures, not dissimilar to a badminton shuttlecock. They are the only feature of shock visible to the naked eye, and in nature can only form following a meteorite impact.

Little more than an hour into our search, we had found precisely what we were looking for. We had literally opened the doors of our 4WDs and stepped onto the floor of a huge, ancient impact crater.

Frustratingly, after taking some photographs and grabbing a few samples, we had to move on to other sites, but we determined to return as soon as possible. Most importantly, we needed to know how old the shatter cones were. Had we discovered the oldest known crater on Earth?

It turned out that we had.

There and back again

With some laboratory research under our belts, we returned to the site in May 2024 to spend ten days examining the evidence in more detail.

Shatter cones were everywhere, developed throughout most of the Antarctic Creek Member, which we traced for several hundred metres into the rolling hills of the Pilbara.

Our observations showed that above the layer with the shatter cones was a thick layer of basalt with no evidence of impact shock. This meant the impact had to be the same age as the Antarctic Member rocks, which we know are 3.5 billion years old.

We had our age, and the record for the oldest impact crater on Earth. Perhaps our ideas regarding the ultimate origin of the continents were not so mad, as many told us.

Serendipity is a marvellous thing. As far as we knew, other than the Traditional Owners, the Nyamal people, no geologist had laid eyes on these stunning features since they formed.

Like some others before us, we had argued that meteorite impacts played a fundamental role in the geological history of our planet, as they clearly had on our cratered Moon and on other planets, moons and asteroids. Now we and others have the chance to test these ideas based on hard evidence.

Who knows how many ancient craters lay undiscovered in the ancient cores of other continents? Finding and studying them will transform our understanding of the early Earth and the role of giant impacts, not only in the formation of the landmasses on which we all live, but in the origins of life itself.

Tim Johnson, Professor, Geology, Curtin University; Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin University, and Jonas Kaempf, Research Associate, Geology, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Coral Gartner, The University of Queensland; Hollie Bendotti, The University of Queensland; Kylie Morphett, The University of Queensland, and Michaela Estelle Okninski, The University of Queensland

Dubbed “the tobacco wars”, the illegal trade in untaxed tobacco products is reportedly booming in Australia.

Some people see buying these cheap cigarettes as a way to save money. But as this week’s ABC Four Corners reported, it comes at great cost to the community, with fire-bombings, murder, serious crimes funded by illegal sales and a loss of crucial government funding for community services.

In all states and territories in Australia, retail outlets already or will soon need to have a licence to sell cigarettes.

But there aren’t restrictions on the number of licensed outlets.

And our new research shows the number of tobacconists, including those suspected of organised crime, is growing.

How many Australians smoke?

Australia has been a leader in tobacco control: introducing plain packaging, preventing most forms of tobacco advertising and promotion, and setting high tax rates to discourage people, especially youth, from buying tobacco.

These measures have helped reduce smoking to around one in ten people.

But tobacco use is still a leading cause of preventable disease in Australia.

Research suggests people who live in areas with a greater number of tobacco retailers are more likely to smoke. Having a greater number of tobacco retailers can reduce the price through competition and increase impulse buying, making it more difficult to quit smoking.

Disadvantaged areas of Australia have a higher number of tobacco retailers compared to wealthier areas.

Some tobacconists still target children

The Australian government recognises the need to reduce the availability of tobacco.

However, when we reviewed the tobacco control laws throughout Australia, we found there are no restrictions on the number of tobacco retailers or where they can operate. This increases the challenge of monitoring them.

There are also minimal restrictions on the types of retailers that can sell tobacco, or what other products specialist tobacconists can sell. People under 18 years are also allowed to enter specialist tobacconists without adult supervision.

This has led to examples such as toy stores selling tobacco, and tobacconists having window displays featuring toys and promoting confectionery. Some Australian tobacconists have even painted their shopfronts in children’s cartoon characters.

This makes tobacco easy to buy and makes it seem like a “normal” consumer product, rather than an addictive, deadly substance.

Retailers need licences – but these aren’t capped

Crimes related to selling untaxed tobacco illegally increased substantially from about 2018. There has also been an increase in the number of tobacconist stores. Between July 2022 and June 2023, we estimated the number of tobacconists in Queensland had risen by 18.5%.

Without tobacco retailer licensing, regulators do not have accurate records of who is selling tobacco, where it is being sold and they have fewer options for dealing with retailers who break the law.

The three most populated states (representing 77% of the Australian population) have not had a tobacco retailer licensing scheme until recently (Queensland, from September 2024) or are currently establishing a scheme (Victoria and New South Wales). All other states and territories had pre-existing licensing schemes.

But like all states and territories with current licence schemes, neither NSW or Victoria have capped the number of licences that will be issued.

Restrictions on the number and locations of tobacco licensees was recommended by the Victorian Public Accounts and Estimates Committee in response to an inquiry into vaping and tobacco controls, but this was not adopted.

Retailers need to adapt to low tobacco sales

Removing operators from the tobacco retailing sector who are illegally selling untaxed products is crucial to reducing the illicit tobacco trade and associated violence.

Some tobacconists have described a downturn in their business turnover as some customers switched to buying illegally supplied untaxed products. This has reduced their commercial viability.

However, tobacco sales have been in decline for many years also because adults are quitting smoking and fewer youth are starting. When the Australian government reaches its next target of less than 5% of the population smoking, tobacco retail sales will be even lower.

Retailers need to be prepared for a drop in their tobacco sales as fewer Australians smoke. They may also need government support to adapt their businesses. This could include advice on alternative products and services, or financial support to exit the industry, as was offered to tobacco growers in the 1990s.

A long-term alternative to tobacco retail

In the longer term, more reforms are needed to deal with the fundamental problems that arise from retail stores selling tobacco as a commercial product for profit.

One option is pharmaceutical-like regulation of tobacco. This would ensure everyone who buys it receives health education about the risks and advice on how to quit.

Another option is non-profit supply, such as has been used for supplying cannabis in other countries. This would see tobacco supplied through non-profit enterprises. Commercial tobacco companies would no longer be involved in marketing or promoting these products.

Expanding access to free help to quit smoking should also be a priority. More than 70% of smokers would like to quit within the next one to two years. They should be supported to do so.

Coral Gartner, Director, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, The University of Queensland; Hollie Bendotti, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Public Health and Thoracic Research Centre, The University of Queensland; Kylie Morphett, Research Fellow, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, and Michaela Estelle Okninski, Senior Principal Social Scientist - Law Research, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sharon Lewin, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Peter C. Doherty, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

On March 11 2020, as COVID continued to spread rapidly around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared a pandemic.

More than 7 million people have since died from COVID. The virus, and the public health measures enacted to control it, have had far-reaching effects on societies around the world.

Five years on, the virus continues to circulate. But, thanks to vaccines and immunity acquired from infections, hospitalisations and deaths due to COVID are vastly less frequent than in previous years.

Meanwhile, long COVID continues to have a major impact on people’s lives. Estimates suggest more than 400 million people around the world have had or are currently living with long COVID.

At this point, Australia and the world must take the lessons of COVID – in areas from surveillance, to outbreak response, to vaccines and therapeutics – to be better prepared for the next pandemic.

Some areas we went right – and wrong

Our diagnostic laboratories across Australia were well prepared. Laboratories at the Doherty Institute diagnosed the first case of COVID in Australia and were the first to isolate and share the virus globally in early 2020.

At the same time, a national public health response was quickly put in place. This involved measures such as closing borders, setting up testing centres, and limiting gatherings.

But there are several areas where we could have mobilised more effectively.

During the early stages of the pandemic, there were, at times, challenges with sharing data as well as biological samples and the ingredients for COVID tests between the different states and territories.

For example, there are currently restrictions in place that limit sharing of virus strains between states and territories. But when a new strain emerges, many laboratories need access to it to evaluate their testing capabilities.

One recommendation from an independent 2024 review of the federal government’s COVID response was an Australian Centre for Disease Control. An interim version was launched in early 2024 and the Australian government is investing A$251.7 million in this important initiative.

The goal for the new centre for disease control will be to provide independent technical advice on infectious diseases to government. It will also facilitate rapid integration of data from all states and territories leading to a more unified response.

At the start of a pandemic, we need to understand everything about the new virus and at great speed. This needs systems in place in “peace time”, ready to be mobilised in “war time”.

Back in 2020, we had protocols ready for hospitalised patients and intensive care units to collect specimens and also start new clinical trials. But we were not prepared on many other fronts, for example to collect samples or study how COVID was transmitted in the community or in different key groups.

Every day counts at the start of a pandemic.

Harnessing medical technologies

Relatively recent technological advances in both diagnostics (RAT tests) and vaccine development (the use of messenger RNA, which gives our body genetic instructions to fight COVID) have put us in a strong position to be at the cutting edge in any pandemic response.

Moderna, one of the two companies that pioneered the mRNA vaccines, has established its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Melbourne. CSL, which made the AstraZeneca COVID vaccines in Australia and manufactures several other vaccines, has now incorporated mRNA in its repertoire.

This capability means Australians could have immediate access to mRNA vaccines in the event of another pandemic. We could also potentially manufacture these vaccines for low- and middle-income countries in our region.

But what if we can’t make an effective vaccine to fight a future pandemic? This is a situation we must be prepared for, as we’ve seen with infections such as HIV, where after 40 years of trying and billions of dollars spent, we still don’t have a vaccine.

In such a situation, we will need to rely on antiviral drugs. The way we currently make antiviral drugs takes significantly longer to develop than vaccines. And although we have some broad spectrum antiviral drugs, the most potent antivirals are very specific – meaning one drug treats only one type of virus.

To be better prepared for future pandemics, many groups around the world are working on developing a library of drugs that work against whole families of viruses that could cause the next pandemic.

Another approach is to develop totally new technologies that are fully tested for one virus, but can be easily adapted to a new virus. This approach could allow more rapid deployment, as the details of safety and dosing would already be understood.

This is one of the major goals of the recently launched Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics based at the Doherty Institute.

These ambitious efforts will require global collaboration, sharing resources and engagement of the private sector.

Once we have a vaccine or drug that works, we need agreed systems in place to ensure widespread equitable access. We fell seriously short of this goal with COVID. Some low- and middle-income countries received vaccines months or years later than high income countries. For treatments, antivirals such as Paxlovid were never available in many countries.

This is one goal of an agreement led by the WHO, called the “pandemic accord”, to have member states agree on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. But after years of discussion, there remains no binding agreement.

Preparing for the next pandemic

As COVID was (partly due to advances in technology) the most intensively studied pandemic in human history, we have a unique resource in the record of what happened to inform our response to any future pandemic.

And this is likely a matter of when, not if. New infectious disease outbreaks have continued to emerge over the past five years, including mpox, which was declared a public health emergency of international concern in July 2022 and again in August 2024.

Right now, there’s an outbreak of a new viral disease in the Congo, the origins of which have still not been identified.

We know bats, thought to be the source of the coronavirus behind the COVID pandemic, carry an enormous spectrum of viruses that potentially threaten us. But new pandemics can also arise through mosquitoes and close contact with other animals.

Pandemics are global, not national, problems. We are at a pivotal time where countries including Australia must step up their commitments to this global effort. This will need politicians to rely on the evidence and lessons learned from COVID as well as private and public investment.

Unfortunately, five years down the track, we still have a long way to go to be prepared for the next pandemic.

Sharon Lewin, Melbourne Laureate Professor, University of Melbourne; Director, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Peter C. Doherty, Laureate Professor Emeritus, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.