The Health News Australia August 12 2017
Overview
- The veterinary industry has a high suicide rate compared to the national average. According to a survey that included 3,100 Australians age 18-89, it found that 39% percent had signs of depression and 37% had symptoms anxiety disorders.
- According to a landmark Australian study, simply taking vitamin B3 supplements can significantly prevent miscarriages and birth defects. Scientists say women should take the recommended daily amount of B3 for pregnancy, which is 18 milligrams per day.
- British anti-vaccination campaigner, Polly Tommey who believes the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused her son’s autism has been banned from returning to Australia for three years. She is the producer of the controversial documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe. Hours after being banned from the country, Miss Tommey took to social media to condemn the federal government.
News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 12th of August 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News
Perth veterinarian Paul Davey is no stranger to the mental health problems that plague his profession. The industry has a high suicide rate compared with the national average, and he remembers a colleague who took his own life the day before he was due to start work with Mister Davey. The co-owner of five clinics in Western Australia has dedicated the past twenty years to improving veterinarian mental health and ran a graduate mentoring scheme for the Australian Veterinary Association. Mister Davey said that “members of our profession are being increasingly subjected to the pressures of time and client expectations and our suicide rate is four times higher than the national average due to the long hours and emotional trauma associated with the nature of our work.
The forty six-year-old credits a mental health check-in for helping him stay on top of his own well being. Known as Australia’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in, the survey of three thousand one hundred Australians aged eighteen to eighty nine— almost half of them from WA — involved participants wearing Medibio devices that could objectively track their levels of depression and stress. It found thirty nine percent had signs of depression and thirty seven percent had symptoms of anxiety disorders. Those aged eighteen to twenty four had the highest rates, while participants aged forty five to fifty four had the lowest.
Simply taking vitamin B three supplements can significantly prevent miscarriages and birth defects, a landmark Australian study has found. Australian researchers say many miscarriages and birth defects are caused by a lack of molecule NAD. Women advised to take supplement before getting pregnant but after consulting their doctor. Scientists from the Victor Chang Institute in Sydney investigated why some women have multiple miscarriages and why some babies are born with heart, kidney and spinal defects.They found a major cause was a deficiency of a vital molecule known as Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or NAD, which is important for normal development of organs.
Lead researcher Professor Sally Dunwoodie said it was the first time NAD been associated with miscarriages and birth defects. She said that we have discovered a whole new cause of birth defects and a way to treat it as well and the promise is that this could significantly reduce the number of miscarriages and babies born with defects. NAD is usually formed in the body as part of a healthy diet that includes eggs, cheese, salmon, turkey, nuts and seeds.
Studies from the United States have shown up to a third of women have low levels of NAD in their blood and aren’t getting enough B three vitamin in their pregnancy supplements.
Scientists say women should take the recommended daily amount of B three for pregnancy, which is eighteen milligrams per day.
The producer behind a controversial anti-vaccination film which has been touring Australia has been banned from returning to the country for three years, she claims. British anti-vaccination campaigner, Polly Tommey, who believes the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused her son’s autism, sparked outrage when she told audiences around Australia that ‘doctors were murderers’. Miss Tommey spearheaded a sold-out national roadshow of the documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe organised by the Australian Vaccinations-Skeptics Network. Directed by Andrew Wakefield — a former doctor whose debunked study played a key role in the anti-vaccination movement — the film reignites false claims about a link between the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine and autism.
Hours after being banned from the country, Miss Tommey took to social media to condemn the federal government. In a video, posted to Youtube on Tuesday, Miss Tommey claimed authorities seized her phone and copied her emails as she left Australian soil to continue the New Zealand leg of the film tour. “Australia to me is literally the worst country I’ve visited,” she said. “Not the people, the government.” Miss Tommey said she was interrogated about her involvement in the documentary and banned for three years, although admitted she does not yet have any documents to confirm this.
She was banned from the country over alleged visa breaches, she said.
“The Australian Border Force told me I was banned from Australia for three years and that I would be getting a letter to confirm this,” Miss Toomey said.Medical experts and political leaders discredited the documentary as anti-vaccination propaganda and a “public health risk”.
A number of secret screenings of the documentary and Q and A sessions were hosted in Australia, including one last week at Village’s Crown casino cinemas in Southbank and another in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Earlier this month, the Australian National University’s science department was also condemned for unwittingly screening the film. The Australian Vaccinations-Skeptics Network later uploaded videos of the event to social media showing some of those involved claiming the event was implicitly endorsed by the university, when it was not.