Category: Uncategorized
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Despite industry objections, alcohol and pregnancy warnings will be mandatory in Australia and New Zealand
The food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has finalised the form of the alcohol and pregnancy warning label that will be mandatory on packaged alcohol sold in both countries. Assuming the States do not request a further review, the new warning will be added as an amendment to Standard 1.2.7 of the Food…
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Legal management of the novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Australia
On 31 January the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), following the advice of the Emergency Committee. (See here). Under the International Health Regulations, which govern global management of infectious disease outbreaks, a declaration that a PHEIC exists…
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Australia and the language of fire
There are currently 100 fires burning across New South Wales. Fifty of them are uncontained, as the weather swings between baking hot, and blustery southerlies. Here in Sydney, the sky looks yellow. Soot is washing up on Sydney beaches, and clouds of dust are turning New Zealand glaciers pink. According to the Bureau of Meteorology…
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International Guidelines on Human Rights, Healthy Diets and Sustainable Food Systems: could they make a difference?
The BMJ has published an Opinion calling on the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr Michelle Bachelet, to jointly initiate a process to develop International Guidelines on Human Rights, Healthy Diets, and Sustainable Food Systems. 180 signatories from 38 countries have supported…
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Smoke-free streets and lanes: a growing headache for big tobacco?
Smoke-free Melbourne? One of Melbourne’s quintessential experiences is to stroll its laneways, many lined with restaurants. Smoking here would spoil things for everyone. In 2014, Causeway Lane, a small restaurant strip running between Bourke Street Mall and Little Collins Street, went smokefree. You can read reactions to this smoke-free pilot here. Three more laneways were…
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Breastfeeding rooms in US federal buildings: who would have thought?!
Last year the US watered down a resolution of the World Health Assembly that would have called on States to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”, and to provide technical support to “halt inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children”. A step too far, apparently, given the economic interests of US-domiciled formula companies. See…
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Abortion law reform and conscientious objectors in NSW
New South Wales is on the cusp of reforming its decades-old abortion laws. Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 which passed the State’s Legislative Assembly last week abolishes the triumvirate of criminal offences for abortion in the Crimes Act 1900 (ss 82-84), together with any residual common law liability for performing an abortion. It creates…
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Infrastructure…non-communicable diseases: Australia’s pivot to the Pacific islands an opportunity to take Pacific health priorities seriously
Barely 100 metres from Australia’s High Commission in Nukoalofa, Tonga, lies this plaque – erected by the People’s Republic of China. In 2012, China upgraded a small section of road in the Tongan capital, installing drains beside the sidewalk in a town prone to flooding. Close by, in other parts of the town, rain collects…
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Medical treatment in the best interests of the child: onshore, and offshore
There are troubling disparities between the medical treatment that children receive, depending on whether they live onshore – in Australia, or offshore – in immigration detention in places like Nauru. But do these disparities have a legal basis? Medical treatment and the best interests of the child: onshore Exercising their parens patriae jurisdiction, Australian Supreme…
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The World Health Organisation, the International Health Regulations, ebola and other pandemics: seminar announcement
The International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) are the primary global instrument for responding to, and seeking to prevent and limit the impact of public health emergencies of international concern, including communicable diseases with pandemic potential. The International Health Regulations are legally binding on all World Health Organization (WHO) Member States, including Australia. The IHR were…
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The people’s award for undermining taxpayer-funded health promotion messages goes to…
(drum roll) The people’s award for undermining taxpayer-funded health promotion messages goes to… Mars Wrigley Confectionary, makes of Maltesers, a confectionary multinational who have just launched this Maltesers-inspired chocolate bar into Australia. You’ll want to sit down for this, it urges in billboard advertising. Clearly something momentous. A new chocolate bar. With Maltesers. Call…
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The ten secrets to surviving Law School REVEALED
I originally wrote this post in 2017, but I’m reposting it this week to share with my new students. Good luck with law school! OK, that title was complete clickbait. And usually this is a blog about health law. But we run a Master of Health Law program, as well as doing research, so I…
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Verifying IVF births involving donated sperm, eggs or embryos: changes to the law in New South Wales
A previous post discussed the case of Natalie Parker, an Australian mother of two young boys who, following the conclusion of IVF treatment, donated three spare embryos to a woman she met on the Embryo Donation Network, a place where donors and recipients can advertise and make contact. Parker was prepared to donate the embryos,…
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Why the media gets it wrong on obesity
“I’m not overweight”, writes columnist Katrina Grace Kelly in The Australian. “I’m just the helpless pawn of a vicious corporate conspiracy”. Amusing read, but it also illustrates why public health researchers are failing to cut-through with governments and the broader community on obesity. “The ‘obesogenic environment’ is the culprit here, apparently”, Kelly writes, referring to…
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Beyond the “hot tub”: Australia’s runaway obesity epidemic
How sure are you that you won’t lose your feet or toes to diabetes? According to a new report by the Obesity Collective, based at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney, obesity in Australia is getting much, much worse. Between 2014-15 and 2017-18, the obesity rate in Australian adults rose from 27.9%…
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Put another Winfield on the Barbie
Having actor Paul Hogan headline Cure Cancer’s “Barbecure” makes no sense to me. Put another shrimp on the barbie, I get it. But so what? Hogan may regret the staggeringly successful “Anyhow, have a Winfield” advertising campaign he headed in the 1970s, but his presence in a cure cancer campaign is inept. It muddies the…
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Manslaughter by gross negligence, or systemic failure? Implications of the Dr Hadiza Bawa-Barba case for Australia
Sydney Law School and the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney are co-hosting an evening seminar entitled “Manslaughter by gross negligence, or systemic failure? Implications of the Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba case for Australia”. This event will be held at the Law School on Thurs 8 November, 6.00-7.30pm. You can register here.…
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Update and summary guide to the WHO report: Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law
In September 2018 the World Health Organisation published an Update and Summary Guide to the report Advancing the Right to Health: the Vital Role of Law. [See here for a previous post on the full report]. The summary Guide, like the full report, was a collaboration between the World Health Organisation, International Development Law Organisation,…
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First, protect the child, then worry about the penitent sinner: South Australia’s new mandatory reporting legislation
South Australia is on a collision course with the Catholic Church hierarchy following passage of the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017. Chapter 5, Part 1 (ss 30-31), deals with reporting of suspicion that a child or young person may be at risk. These sections come into effect on 22 October 2018, and impose…
Sydney Health Law 