The Health News Australia April 3 2018

• There are calls to regulate the placenta encapsulation industry in Australia after a newborn baby in the United States contracted a deadly blood infection linked to its mother taking the pills last year. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States issued a warning to parents after the infant contracted potentially fatal late-onset sepsis, caused by the bacteria Group B Streptococcus agalactiae. That bacteria was found in placenta capsules consumed by the infant’s mother, and were therefore identified as a potential source of the infection. The TGA states that there was no evidence to support the claims of health benefits associated with consuming human placenta.
• Australian researchers will lead a world-first trial of a potential new treatment for pancreatic cancer, offering a glimmer of hope to patients and their families. Pancreatic cancer is too often fatal and claimed the lives of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and actor Patrick Swayze. In Australia, around 3,300 people are diagnosed with the disease every year. Of those less than 10% will survive longer than 5 years or longer. Of the 90% of patients to succumb to pancreatic cancer, the majority will die within the first year due to the fact it is caught late.
• A Sydney psychiatrist who told an alleged child sex offender that his behaviour was “OK” and “should be allowed” has been banned from practising for two years. Dr. Ian Morris de Saxe had been suspended from practicing since September, after the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found he had engaged in professional misconduct in relation to three patients. The tribunal found that Doctor de Saxe was not currently fit to practice “and that he may remain so for some time”. The Health Care Complaints Commission had been seeking to ban his registration for 10 years.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 3rd of April 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-29/placenta-pills-harmless-fad-or-potentially-dangerous/9531764

There are calls to regulate the placenta encapsulation industry in Australia after a newborn baby in the United States contracted a deadly blood infection linked to its mother taking the pills last year. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States issued a warning to parents after the infant contracted potentially fatal late-onset sepsis, caused by the bacteria Group B Streptococcus agalactiae. That bacteria was found in placenta capsules consumed by the infant’s mother, and were therefore identified as a potential source of the infection. Cindy Hobbs, a placenta encapsulation specialist, believes the case highlights the need for regulation.
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Miss Hobbs first got into the practice when she had her own placenta encapsulated after the birth of her second child. She said she experienced the proposed benefits like improved mood and increased breast milk production, but the pills also made her sick.
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That inspired Miss Hobbs to undergo training to be able to offer the service herself. She now has a range of food handling and safety qualifications, but the same cannot be said for every operator. There has been a boom in placenta encapsulation after a number of high profile celebrity endorsements, including from reality TV stars Kim and Kourtney Kardashian and actress January Jones. The Placenta Encapsulation Association does not keep statistics but says it would be safe to say thousands of women consume their placentas in Australia each year. It estimates there has been about a four-fold increase in the practice over the past five years.
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The Therapeutic Goods Administration or TGA also recently issued a warning to expectant mothers to be aware of the potential risks associated with placenta consumption. It said: “Human placenta is a biological material and is capable of containing and transmitting infectious agents, including bacteria and viruses.”
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The TGA advice also said there was no evidence to support the claims of health benefits associated with consuming human placenta.

https://healthtimes.com.au/hub/oncology/4/news/aap/funding-boost-for-australianfirst-trial-of-a-potential-new-treatment-for-pancreatic-cancer/3259/

Australian researchers will lead a world-first trial of a potential new treatment for pancreatic cancer, offering a glimmer of hope to patients and their families. Pancreatic cancer is too often fatal and claimed the lives of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and actor Patrick Swayze. In Australia, around three thousand three hundred people are diagnosed with the disease every year. Of those less than ten percent will survive longer than five years or longer. Of the ninety percent of patients to succumb to pancreatic cancer, the majority will die within the first year due to the fact it is caught late, says Professor John Rasko at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He added: “The worst part of the story is that pancreatic cancer has seen little progress compared to a number of other cancers over the last twenty years.” But there is reason to hope. Professor Rasko will lead an international consortium of experts to trial CAR T-cell immunotherapy on pancreatic cancer.
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The therapy involves taking a patient’s own immune cells and reprogramming them to attack the cancer cells. Once infused back into the patient’s body the CAR T-cells are designed to seek out pancreatic cancer cells and multiply to destroy them using the body’s own immune system.
The breakthrough immunotherapy has already shown success in patients with an advanced form of blood cancer, known as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Trials have resulted in disease remission for about eighty percent of patients after a single injection of the reprogrammed cells.
Professor Rasko’s project was awarded a two million dollar funding grant from Cancer Council New South Wales on Tuesday night and will be the first in Australia to test this treatment approach on a solid tumour.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-27/psychiatrist-banned-after-sexual-misconduct-with-patients/9594336

A Sydney psychiatrist who told an alleged child sex offender that his behaviour was “OK” and “should be allowed” has been banned from practising for two years. Doctor Ian Morris de Saxe had been suspended from practicing since September, after the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal found he had engaged in professional misconduct in relation to three patients. The tribunal found that Doctor de Saxe was not currently fit to practice “and that he may remain so for some time.”
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Doctor de Saxe told one patient — a thirty six-year-old man who was alleged to have had sexual contact with children — that he did not agree with the law and that “it was alright to do this”, saying “in other countries it is legal” and “back in Greek times it was OK.” He was also found to have offered to lie for the patient, whom he was treating at Mosman Private Hospital in August and September two thousand ten, by providing false or misleading information to be used in the patient’s defence in court. The tribunal found that he had looked into the patient’s eyes while the man was talking about his sexuality, and invited the patient to engage in a sexual act with him. However, Doctor de Saxe claimed to have no recollection of this. Doctor de Saxe was also found to have engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with another patient that he was treating for substance abuse, anxiety, depression and symptoms of psychosis.
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Since being suspended from practising medicine, he had started a course to teach English as a second language and told the tribunal he thought it would “be helpful to be able to test his boundaries around students”, despite acknowledging that being around young men was a “potential risk”. The Health Care Complaints Commission had been seeking to ban his registration for ten years.