Australian Bioscience News & Views

Lizard hunting

Even the indignities of the common cold can provide the occasional benefit. Trying not to feel too useless, I decided that mid morning might be the ideal moment to take out some rubbish, and feed the worm farm with the left overs of last night's salad. A patch of dappled sunlight, and a certain lack of energy, encouraged me to sit for while in our pleasant, sheltered courtyard.

Sitting quietly, I watched a little garden skink running across the paving, a flapping moth between its jaws. At a convenient shelter between fallen leaves, the lizard knocked the wings off the moth, and went further into the leaf litter to munch it down. Ants quickly came to pick up the wings. It would have been macabre but the sun was reflecting dazzlingly off the weedy leaves, the greying gum litter, quartz in the paving stones, and of course the energetic, irridescent little reptile.

It's not often one gets to see one of these cautious beasts have a meal. I was careful to stay still, and was rewarded by that hunt, but also the precise flight path of a small native bee, searching for some nectar.

Power to quality controllers

My regular reading on ProMedMail served as a stern reminder about the high value of basic quality control processes in any area of health care. It would appear that in West Bengal, India, hundreds of people may be at risk of infection from un-tested blood transfusions. It is not that the blood banks there totally lost the plot & failed to test, no it's more insidious and depressing than that.

It appears that a 'well connected' family business supplied absurdly cheap HIV, Hepatatis, and maybe other testing kits to the State's Health department. To quote at what would appear to be 50% to 10% of their competitor's prices, the company decided to supply expired kits. Being past their 'Use By' date, it has been found that many kits, if not all, were not functional, and showed a negative, or 'non-infected' outcome, when the blood being tested was not.

Neeldess to say, the brothers who managed this company have been charged with numerous things, including "Actions leading to the spread of epidemic disease" and an investigation has begun. The youngest brother is not yet detained, and while I wish him no ill-will specifically, I am sickened by what his company has done, presumably in the search for higher profit, and hope he makes himself available to answer police questions sooner rather than later.

There is another side to this tragedy though, and one that those who work in many parts of the health industry would find even more disturbing. After all, test kits, like anything made by human hands, are not always perfect. It is therefor incumbent on all of us to be sure that things such as quality control are not forgotten. If an expiry date is not visible, one does not assume the item is in date, and regular tests must be undertaken, with known positive & negative samples, to see if tests are providing expected results. Health departments should not only encourage, but support with information, and even money if necessary for these practices to become standard where ever life saving, or health protecting tests are undertaken.

Greedy business men are not the only guilty parties, if it is found that indeed infective blood was transfused.

Not the end of history

Historic Sydney Sketchbook is a rather charming 1970s book which was kindly lent by a friend. Its charm doesn't lie solely in the illustrations of the architectural remnants of Sydney’s convict, settler, mercantile and cultural past tucked in among giant towers. Since the time it was published, Sydney has changed further, and some of the ‘new’ uses for old structures mentioned with such pride in the text, are now the ‘old’ use.  More have simply disappeared.

Others have changed in surprising ways. St Mary’s catholic cathedral, for instance is no longer an ‘unfinished masterpiece’ with its spires finished in 2000, exactly as designed by Wardell in 1868. 

I see Clover Moore’s long standing proposal was finally voted into law 2 weeks last Thursday.  A rather unassuming name, “Freedom of Information (Open Government - Disclosure of Contracts Bill)”, this change means that all government contracts are to be made public in one way or another, depending on their value. There are some exclusions, it isn't perfect, but it's a good move towards better governance. I note that NSW Health has listed contracts already ...