Published1 hour agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Tim Bauer PhotoBy Tiffanie TurnbullBBC News, SydneyOn opposite sides of the world, Richard Scolyer and Georgina Long each took one look at a scan and their hearts sank.In front of them was, to the untrained eye, an innocuous-looking brain.But these long-time friends – both leading skin cancer doctors – feared it held a ticking time bomb. Nestled in the top right corner of Prof Scolyer’s skull was a section of matter lighter and cloudier than the rest.”I’m no expert in radiology, but… in my heart I knew it was a tumour,” he tells the BBC.Neurosurgeons soon confirmed it wasn’t just any brain tumour, but “the worst of the worst” – a subtype of glioblastoma so aggressive most patients survive less than a year.Devastated but determined, he and Dr Long set out to do the impossible: to save his life by finding a cure.And it may sound crazy, but the Australian researchers have done it before, with melanoma.”It didn’t sit right with me… to just accept certain death without trying something,” Prof Scolyer says.”It’s an incurable cancer? Well bugger that!” National treasuresThirty years ago, when Prof Scolyer and Dr Long met as bright, young doctors, advanced melanoma was a death sentence.But that’s exactly what drew them to it.Australia has long had the highest rate of the skin cancer on the planet and where many saw a daunting challenge, they saw potential.”[Back] when I was doing the cancer block the most challenging patients to see were the ones with advanced melanoma. It was heartbreaking,” Dr Long says.”I wanted to make a difference.”Today, it’s near impossible to overstate their impact on the field. Anyone who gets a diagnosis or treatment for melanoma worldwide does so because of the work pioneered by the Melanoma Institute that they now lead.Image source, NADC/Salty DingoOver the past decade, their team’s research on immunotherapy, which uses the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells, has dramatically improved outcomes for advanced melanoma patients around the world. Half are now essentially cured, up from less than 10%.That breakthrough – or as Dr Long calls it, “penicillin moment” – is now being applied to many other cancers, saving even more lives.It has made the duo national treasures. Almost every Australian would know someone impacted by their work and this year they’ve been jointly named as the Australians of the Year.But as they were transforming the field, they were also leaving their mark on each other.They bonded over frustration at the cases they couldn’t crack, the highs of life-changing discoveries, a love of exercise, and a lofty ambition of reaching zero melanoma deaths in Australia.”We’re very different but very similar in that sort of… roll up your sleeves, get things done way,” Dr Long says.Image source, Melanoma Institute AustraliaEyes shining, the medical oncologist rattles off a list of qualities – brave, honest, upbeat, driven – which make Prof Scolyer the dream colleague and friend.”He’s a delight,” she surmises. And so, after she received that fateful call from Poland last June – where Prof Scolyer was on holiday when a seizure triggered his diagnosis – she spent the night crying. “I’m grieving… I’m thinking my friend is going to be gone in 12 months.”But then she spent the morning plotting – poring over textbooks, researching clinical trials, and firing off emails to colleagues globally.Glioblastomas, found in the brain’s connective tissue, are notoriously aggressive and the general protocol for treating them – immediate excision then radiotherapy and chemotherapy – has changed little in two decades.Survival rates have fared similarly. Still, only 5% of all patients live beyond five years.Desperate, Dr Long formulated a radical plan to treat Prof Scolyer based on what had worked in melanoma, but which had never been tested in brain cancer.Risk vs rewardIn melanoma, Dr Long and her team discovered that immunotherapy works better when a combination of drugs are used, and when they are administered before any surgery to remove a tumour.It’s like training a sniffer dog, she explains: you give it a smell of the contraband, in this analogy the cancer cells, for it to be able to hunt them down later.Prof Scolyer jokes that trying the treatment was a “no brainer”.But it comes with huge risks.Some oncologists were sceptical that the drugs would reach his brain at all, and even if they did, that his immune system would respond.And they worried the experiment could kill him faster.Many brain cancers grow so rapidly that even a two-week delay to surgery could mean it’s too late to operate, they said. Immunotherapy drugs are quite toxic, especially when mixed, so he could be poisoned. And if either of those things caused the brain to swell, he could die instantly.At home colleagues quietly shared fears Dr Long’s emotional ties were clouding her judgement.”They were saying… ‘Just let the neuro-oncology experts do their thing and be his friend’,” she says.”[But] he needs us… We have all this depth of knowledge, it’s our duty.”Image source, Melanoma Institute AustraliaAnd so, under the care of Dr Long and a team of experts, Prof Scolyer became the first brain cancer patient to ever have combination, pre-surgery immunotherapy. He is also the first to be administered a vaccine personalised to his tumour markers, which boosts the cancer-detecting powers of the drugs.’A glimmer of hope’Weeks after that initial scan sent their lives into a tailspin, Prof Scolyer and Dr Long looked at another test result.It was an analysis of the tumour that had been carefully plucked from Prof Scolyer’s skull.”I was blown away. In a millisecond,” he says.”It was bloody obvious that it is doing something.”Not only were there traces of the drugs in the tumour – proving the medication had reached his brain – there was an explosion of immune cells. And they were “activated”, giving the team hope they would be attacking his cancers cells at that very moment.The average time for a glioblastoma cancer to return is six months post-surgery. But eight months on, after continued immunotherapy, Prof Scolyer is showing no signs of active cancer.Just last week, another scan came back clean and Dr Long says his brain is “normalising”.The results so far have generated huge excitement.There’s creeping hope that this could prolong Prof Scolyer’s life. But there’s also optimism that the duo may be on the cusp of a discovery which could help the 300,000 people diagnosed with brain cancer globally each year.This kind of research would usually take years – even decades – but what Prof Scolyer and Dr Long have achieved in mere months has already attracted interest from pharmaceutical companies and generated talk of clinical trials.Image source, Melanoma Institute AustraliaRoger Stupp, though, is more tempered.The doctor – after whom the current protocol for treating glioblastomas is named – says Prof Scolyer’s prognosis is “grim”, and that it’s too early to tell if this treatment is working.”Promising is a difficult word… Encouraging, I would call it,” he tells the BBC from Chicago.”It’s not a revolution, but it is still a step forward.”He wants to see Prof Scolyer reach 12 months, even 18, without recurrence before he’ll be persuaded.But Dr Stupp says he is “absolutely” confident that immunotherapy can change the treatment of brain cancer – the science just hasn’t been cracked yet.”We need to get out of our silos and look at what worked in other tumour types,” he says.Prof Scolyer and Dr Long are also trying to resist being swept up in the buzz.The best-case scenario is that Prof Scolyer is cured, but they call the odds of that “miniscule”.”A miracle could happen,” Prof Scolyer says.As for the worst-case scenario, he tells the BBC he’s already beaten it: “I would have died before now.”Instead, he celebrated his 57th birthday in December, and another Christmas with his family – wife Katie, and his teenage children Emily, Matthew, and Lucy.Image source, Melanoma Institute AustraliaBut with the gratitude for each additional milestone, every clear scan, is the fear it’s his last.”It’s tough,” Dr Long says of treating her friend. They’ve had discussions about death and funerals. “He’s extraordinarily resilient,” she adds.But sitting in his office – surrounded by pictures of his children, tasks scribbled on a whiteboard and shelves filled with framed accolades – Prof Scolyer tears up.For all his outward positivity, he admits he’s also scared and soul-crushingly sad.”I love my family. I love my wife… I like my work,” he says with a grimace.”I’m pissed off. I’m devastated… I don’t want to die.”But giving him comfort is the idea that this research could bring meaning, some purpose, to his diagnosis.”The data that we’ve generated – I know it’s changing the field, and if I die tomorrow with that, I’m very proud.”More on this storyBiggest cervical cancer advance in 20 years hailedPublished23 October 2023Hugh Jackman has new skin cancer scarePublished4 April 2023Olivia Newton-John’s cancer-research legacyPublished9 August 2022

Published8 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, SuppliedBy Tiffanie TurnbullBBC News, SydneyFor the past two weeks, a small courthouse tucked away in a lush corner of eastern Australia has heard confronting and unusual evidence about the sudden deaths of two locals.Natasha Lechner died from a suspected cardiac event, while authorities believe Jarrad Antonovich died after injuries from severe vomiting.Both incidents happened shortly after they used kambo – poisonous frog mucus – in an ancient Amazonian ritual.And both took place in the northern New South Wales region – an area famous for its beautiful rainforests and stunning beaches, but also for its alternative therapy scene.A coroner is now investigating what went wrong and if anything could have been done to save the pair.What is a kambo ceremony?Kambo – also known as sapo – is a waxy substance harvested by scraping the skin of a live giant monkey frog.The frog, found throughout the Amazon, secretes the substance as a defence mechanism – to kill or warn off animals that try to eat it. But in a kambo ceremony, humans use it to trigger an intense so-called detoxification process.After participants drink over a litre of water, small burns are created on their skin and the substance is applied to the open wounds.It causes blood pressure to rise, the heart to race and the body to purge by vomiting or defecating – often both. Symptoms range in severity, and typically last up to half an hour.Indigenous people in South America have used kambo for centuries, believing it wards off bad luck and improves hunting skills.Image source, Getty ImagesThese days, it is a shamanic ritual which proponents assert rids the body of toxins, brings mental clarity and treats various illnesses.But there is no research proving its supposed health benefits – and it is banned by Australian health regulators.Kambo has been linked to deaths, seizures, liver failure, and heart attacks.Families call for answersOn 8 March 2019, Natasha Lechner set up a kambo ceremony at her house in Mullumbimby – 20 minutes from the coastal town of Byron Bay.She was morbidly obese and had turned to alternative medicines to manage chronic back pain.But on that day, within seconds of applying kambo to five small burns on her chest and arm, she passed out. Minutes later, she was dead.The 39-year-old had trained as a kambo practitioner just a couple of months before her death, but a court heard that she was not warned of the risk of sudden death that using kambo posed.Despite being with another kambo practitioner, who started CPR, no ambulance was called for Ms Lechner until her housemate came home 10 minutes later, finding her friend “foaming” at the mouth. She is believed to have died of an “acute cardiac event”.Jarrad Antonovich’s death on 16 October 2021 was more prolonged.He was attending a six-day retreat in Kyogle, an hour inland from Byron Bay, when he took kambo. He too had chronic conditions – a brain injury acquired in a car accident two decades earlier, which left him with speech and movement difficulties.An inquest this week heard the 46-year-old had looked unwell early on the day he died, and by nine or 10 hours later he was unable to walk unassisted and his face and neck were incredibly swollen.At some point during the evening, he is believed to have also consumed ayahuasca – another drug, which along with triggering hallucinations, often induces severe vomiting.By 23:30 he’d passed out, finally prompting someone to call an ambulance.Paramedics later recalled some sort of “ceremony” continuing after they arrived, and being shooed away from Mr Antonovich by a woman who accused them of interfering with his “aura”, the inquest in the NSW Coroner’s Court heard.No-one told the paramedics Mr Antonovich had consumed either kambo or ayahuasca. Instead, it was suggested to them that he was suffering from an asthma attack. In reality, his oesophagus had ruptured.Both Ms Lechner and Mr Antonovich had turned to alternative therapies to fill a gap they felt had been left by traditional health care. Now both of their families want answers. They accept their children took the substance voluntarily, but they question whether there was an unnecessary or unexplained level of risk.Glen Antonovich, Jarrad’s father, said “something didn’t add up” and it “still doesn’t”.”There was no medical staff, no risk mitigation,” he told the inquest.What happens next? The state coroner will make findings and recommendations in relation to the two deaths.The inquests have heard that identifying ways to prevent similar deaths in the future is a priority for Magistrate Teresa O’Sullivan – were there “opportunities missed” to help Ms Lechner and Mr Antonovich, or “safeguards” that should have been in place?When Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) made kambo illegal in 2021, it listed it as a schedule 10 poison, the highest possible danger classification for medicines and chemicals.”They’re deemed to be of such great danger to human safety that you can’t even use it in research,” says Daniel Perkins, who heads a psychedelics research institute in Melbourne.Image source, Getty ImagesBut people who feel let down by traditional medicine are increasingly looking for alternative therapies.”There’s this growing proportion of people who have tried Western treatments – for primarily mental health conditions – and found that these just hadn’t been successful,” Dr Perkins says.While some of these are risky, there is also debate over whether banning alternative therapies or drugs actually increases safety, he says. Though substances like ayahuasca have long been illegal, “if there’s a demand for it, then people still use it… and you don’t have any visibility about what is happening – either the benefits or harms that are going on.”When a medicine is decriminalised or regulated, authorities can ensure minimum safety standards – including training requirements, and product quality standards.Dr Perkins points to the TGA’s recent decision to allow the use of psilocybin – or magic mushrooms – and MDMA in limited medical circumstances. It made Australia the first country in the world to officially recognise psychedelics as medicines.”You can provide a bit more guidance and a bit more surety to people who are doing that,” he says.”It may not work, but at least the experience they have will have to meet some sort of minimum safety standards.”More on this storyCould psychedelic drug ayahuasca have health benefits?Published29 September 2017The big business of Indian medicinePublished17 September 2015

Published1 hour agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Tiffanie TurnbullBBC News, SydneyRecreational vaping will be banned in Australia, as part of a major crackdown amid what experts say is an “epidemic”.Minimum quality standards will also be introduced, and the sale of vapes restricted to pharmacies.Nicotine vapes already require a prescription in Australia, but the industry is poorly regulated and a black market is thriving.Health Minister Mark Butler says the products are creating a new generation of nicotine addicts in Australia.Also known as e-cigarettes, vapes heat a liquid – usually containing nicotine – turning it into a vapour that users inhale. They are widely seen as a product to help smokers quit.But in Australia, vapes have exploded in popularity as a recreational product, particularly among young people in cities.”Just like they did with smoking… ‘Big Tobacco’ has taken another addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging and added sweet flavours to create a new generation of nicotine addicts,” Mr Butler said in a speech announcing reforms on Tuesday.”We have been duped.”Vapes are considered safer than normal cigarettes because they do not contain harmful tobacco – the UK government is even handing them to some smokers for free in its “swap to stop” program.But health experts advise that vapes are not risk-free – they can often contain chemicals – and the long-term implications of using them are not yet clear. Vaping – is it a risk-free option?Young non-smokers told not to take up vapingThe Australian government argues they are a public health threat, disproportionately affecting young people, many of whom haven’t smoked before. Research suggests one in six Australians aged 14-17 years old has vaped, and one in four people aged 18-24.”Only 1 in 70 people my age has vaped,” said Mr Butler, who is 52.He said the products are being deliberately targeted at kids and are readily available “alongside lollies and chocolate bars” in retail stores. He added that vaping had become the “number one behavioural issue” in high schools. Some have begun installing vape detectors in bathrooms, Australian media has reported.Reforms toughen already strict rulesAustralia already has some of the strongest anti-smoking laws in the world. Mr Butler on Tuesday compared the new vape reforms to those used to reduce cigarette smoking in Australia to one of the lowest levels among advanced countries.How Australia is stubbing out smokingThe reforms include a ban on all disposable vapes and a crackdown on the import of non-prescription products.Scripts will be necessary for the vaping products that remain legal, and they will be required to have pharmaceutical-like packaging. Restrictions on flavours, colours, nicotine concentrations and other ingredients will also be introduced.”No more bubble-gum flavours, pink unicorns or vapes disguised as highlighter pens for kids to hide them in their pencil cases,” Mr Butler said.However he said the government will also make it easier for people to get a prescription for “legitimate therapeutic use”.A timeline for implementation will be announced at a later date.A handful of other countries, like Singapore and Thailand, have also banned vaping and Australia’s medicines regulator – the Therapeutic Goods Administration – has been recommending reform.The Cancer Council said the changes could “reverse the e-cigarette epidemic and prevent history repeating itself for a new generation of Australians”.But some politicians, industry bodies and health professionals say Australia should be relaxing its laws.National Party leader David Littleproud has previously argued the country should emulate New Zealand’s approach and regulate nicotine vapes much like cigarettes. Others have expressed concern harsher restrictions could see more people turn to the unregulated illegal market.

Published15 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingBy Tiffanie TurnbullBBC News, SydneyAt the lowest point of her addiction, Kate Seselja sat in front of an electronic gambling machine for hours, crying as she stared at the glowing nil balance.Her phone buzzed on an intermittent loop – her worried husband calling “a hundred times”, and increasingly desperate to find her.Overcome with feelings of dread and shame, she thought about ending her life – but didn’t because she was pregnant with her sixth child.”I was so mentally, physically, [and] emotionally done with this existence, this addiction” she tells the BBC. “But I couldn’t figure out how to take my life and not hers.”After 12 years of destructive gambling, she had lost about A$500,000 (£273,000; $336,000).Ms Seselja’s story, while shocking, is familiar to many Australians – about one in 100 have a gambling problem.If gambling losses were averaged over Australia’s entire adult population, each person would lose about A$1,200 a year, according to H2 Gambling Capital. This is significantly more than for other nations.Driving this are electronic poker machines, or slot machines – known colloquially here as the pokies. Critics liken them to “electronic heroin”.But Australia could be on the cusp of the biggest reform to the industry since the machines were first legalised in 1956.World’s pokies hotspotAustralia has just 0.33% of the world’s population, but a fifth of its pokies. Rows of machines fill not just casinos but thousands of pubs, clubs and hotels too. Each year they rake in about $13bn – more than casinos, lotteries and sports betting combined.Image source, ReutersRecent inquiries have found the machines are being used to launder money in Australia. But this is nothing compared to their personal cost, opponents say.Often concentrated in areas of socio-economic disadvantage, the machines contribute to suicides, financial offences, domestic violence, family breakdowns and poverty, research has shown.”You’re taught about smoking and drinking alcohol, but nobody warned me about pokies,” Ms Seselja says.And so, at the age of 18, she slipped a $20 note into a machine one night at her boyfriend’s urging. She instantly won hundreds.As the lights flashed and the machine sung out, Ms Seselja remembers her heart pounding in reply. “It made me feel like I was lucky or clever.””Every time you’d go out with friends, there was pokies available,” she says. “It wasn’t like I left the house thinking yes, I’m going to go gamble tonight.”But before long, Ms Seselja was feeding all her earnings into the machines. She began lying to loved ones, taking money from her family business, and maxing out credit card after credit card.”I quickly became somebody I didn’t recognise,” she says, crying. “But I now hold compassion for her, because the reality is I was so unprotected, as a consumer, against addiction by design.”Researchers like Charles Livingstone say electronic gaming machines (EGMs) are designed to deliver the brain’s happy chemical – dopamine – “in spades”, even when players are losing money, which makes them highly addictive. “If you wanted to look at the worst example of exploitation of a vulnerable community by a legal product that is poorly regulated, it will be hard to find a better example than the [pokies] industry in Australia,” Dr Livingstone, from Monash University, tells the BBC. The man who pioneered the use of pokies in Australia – Len Ainsworth – has previously rejected the notion they’re addictive, calling it “nonsense”.”I mean, if you like something you’ll continue to do it… it’s like kissing girls,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2017.Image source, Getty ImagesAustralia’s Gaming Technologies Association also defends the machines, saying they are made according to regulations which prioritise “fairness, probity, and harm minimisation” as “paramount objectives”.It also points to a failed lawsuit against a pokies manufacturer in 2018. A Federal Court judge found the applicant had not provided enough evidence that features of the machines were addictive and deceptive.”Playing EGMs is a legitimate recreational activity that millions of Australians enjoy safely,” a spokeswoman said.Ms Seselja finds that argument ridiculous. “If it’s able to take $10 from you every three seconds, that does not equal harmless entertainment,” she says.Hurdles to reformThere has been growing appetite for change in Australia – and an election on Saturday in New South Wales (NSW) could bring it.Advocates say NSW, with half of Australia’s pokies, is “the beating heart” of gambling in the nation.The state government and opposition have committed to policies which target problem gamblers. Premier Dominic Perrottet’s government has also promised – if re-elected – to require all players to set spending limits and to make all machines cash-free within five years.The government could not continue to “profit off people’s misery”, according to Mr Perrottet. In 2020-21, it received almost $2bn in pokies tax revenue. Similar strategies in Norway – and closer to home in Tasmania – have proven effective at dramatically slashing problem gambling.”If the reforms were in place when I was 18, there’s no way my life would have taken that 12-year trajectory,” Ms Seselja says.But parts of the premier’s proposal have drawn staunch opposition. “Rather than banning cash, we support banning criminals and problem gamblers from club gaming rooms,” said George Peponis, the chairman of lobby group ClubsNSW, in January.Such opposition could make things difficult. Andrew Wilkie, an independent federal MP, knows this all too well.In 2010, he negotiated similar gambling reforms with the federal government – but the deal quickly came under great pressure. Governments were reluctant to forgo huge sources of tax income. Mr Wilkie says he found himself fighting a powerful lobby consortium led by ClubsNSW – which he argues is “akin to the National Rifle Association in the United States”.Image source, Getty ImagesGroups such as ClubsNSW have long been huge political and community donors in Australia, and they lobbied against the changes – arguing they jeopardised the livelihoods of clubs.There was a wide-ranging ad campaign and lobbying of MPs. Mr Wilkie even claims his effigy was burned at one pro-gambling rally in NSW.”They went ballistic. And they won,” Mr Wilkie says. “Basically the government chickened out and pulled out of the deal.”A former NSW government minister, Victor Dominello, last week alleged similar treatment.In response, ClubsNSW said it worked hard to represent the interests of NSW clubs and the communities they serve – in the same way that “hundreds of peak bodies and businesses [do] on a daily basis”.”Our expectation is that these activities are undertaken in an appropriate manner, and where they are not appropriate action is taken,” a spokesperson said.Reform hopeMr Wilkie says if Mr Perrottet’s government in NSW is returned to power, it could be a “watershed moment”.”You get reform in NSW, and you’ve cracked the nut – you get reform across half the country’s poker machines.””And the dam wall will have broken – it’ll be impossible for other states not to follow suit eventually.”Ms Seselja – who is now a gambling reform advocate – is less excited. Polling has not indicated the government will be returned to power, and she has too often felt let down by politicians anyway.But she believes community sentiment is turning and that is encouraging.”There’s a time and a place for personal responsibility, but there hasn’t been a time and a place for open and honest discussion about this addiction in this country,” she says.”We’re the number one gambling nation in the world, experiencing the most harm. There’s something profoundly wrong there, and maybe it’s not [me].”If you are feeling emotionally distressed and would like details of organisations in the UK which offer advice and support, go to bbc.co.uk/actionline.If you are in Australia, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or the Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858.

Published4 hours agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesAustralia has said it will end mandatory Covid isolation requirements from next month.Currently anyone who tests positive to the virus must isolate for five days, but that will end from 14 October.At times nicknamed “Fortress Australia”, the country has had some of the strictest restrictions in the world since the pandemic began. Australia’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, said the “emergency phase” of its response was probably over. But Prof Kelly said the decision “does not in any way suggest that the pandemic is finished”.Mandatory isolation had been one of the few restrictions remaining. Australia continues to record about 5,500 virus cases each day, official figures show. It is one of the world’s most vaccinated countries.Prof Kelly said the country would see “future peaks” of the virus, but it currently had “very low” numbers of hospital admissions and aged-care outbreaks.The Australian Medical Association opposes the change, saying those who pushed for it are not “scientifically literate” and are putting lives at risk.About 15,000 people have died with the virus in Australia – fewer than many nations. The vast majority have happened this year after the country opened up. Australia had closed international borders for around two years and imposed strict limits on movement around the country.Australia revisited – a country changed by CovidIs Australia still a Covid success story? Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said most existing governments payments for people who have to miss work because of Covid would also be scrapped.”It was always envisaged that these measures were emergency measures,” he said.Casual workers and those in high-risk areas like aged care or health will still be able to get financial support.More on this storyIs Australia still a Covid success story?13 MayAustralia revisited – a country changed by Covid3 February

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesAn Australian rule banning many former UK residents from giving blood over fears they could spread Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has been scrapped.For two decades anyone who lived in the UK during its “mad cow disease” crisis has been barred from donating.In rare cases, the fatal illness has been spread through blood transfusions. But citing a review of epidemiological data and expert advice, Australia’s health regulator said the cohort would no longer be excluded.People who lived in the UK between 1980 and 1996 will soon be able to roll up their sleeves to give blood or plasma.Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is estimated to affected 180,000 cattle during the outbreak. Its human form – vCJD – has been attributed to 178 deaths. It’s thought that one in 2,000 people in the UK is a carrier of the disease. But it appears that relatively few who catch the infectious agent that causes the disease then go on to develop symptoms.’Mad cow disease’: What is BSE?Australia’s blood donation service, called Lifeblood, hopes the long-awaited move will unlock new donors at a time when high demand is straining stocks.”It’s the number one query that we’ve had for change in Australia over the last few years and certainly, anecdotally, lots and lots of people are telling us that this change will enable them to donate,” executive director Cath Stone said.”We are optimistic that we’ll see tens of thousands of new people.”Lifeblood is working to update their screening processes to accommodate the change, but those who want to donate will be able to by the end of the year.With a weekly need for 33,000 donations, the organisation is hoping barriers to donation for men who have sex with men will also soon be removed.Australia was not alone in banning donations from former UK residents – others included France, the US and Canada. But other countries have begun to lift or relax the restrictions, after Ireland lifted its ban in 2019.You may also be interested in:This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.