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Health & Education

This Month

Trump’s tariff war has smashed the market for two days straight, with no end in sight.

Trump dump a stiff examination of investment strategies

The complacent who have clipped the ticket during the good times will be exposed during the bad times at great cost to their customers and members.

Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler has warned that Australian pharmaceutical companies could be US targets.

Butler expects tariff pain on medicines and healthcare giants

The Health Minister says briefings from US officials suggest foreign pharmaceuticals could soon be targeted by a separate US trade investigation.

Health Minister Mark Butler at the Financial Review Health Summit. He said earnings at insurers had risen compared to private hospitals.

Labor’s hospital funding push to cost health funds $1b a year

The health minister said there had been a “shift up in profitability and management expenses of insurers” as he urged them to negotiate with care providers.

 GP bulk-billing is merely a small, even insignificant, part of a chaotically complex Australian healthcare system

Defending private hospitals is essential to ‘saving Medicare’

At Monday’s Financial Review Healthcare Summit, Mark Butler and Anne Ruston should rule in urgent reform that better balances needs of hospital operators and insurers.

Katharina Ruckstuhl.

Trump crackdown forces academics to cancel US trips

University researchers are rewriting their travel plans over arrests and rejections at the US border.

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March

Watching online porn has become most adolescents’ first sexual experience.

What happens when men prefer porn?

The heterosexual man can now have what many see as a rich sex life without ever needing to deal with an actual woman.

Gen Z’s babytalk slang isn’t just childish, it’s dangerous

Childish internet slang is undermining the increasing political and social upheaval of our time.

Dr. David Fajgenbaum, left, with Joseph Coates, after finding a lifesaving drug regimen for Coates that an artificial intelligence model suggested

Doctors told him he was going to die. Then AI saved his life

In labs around the world, scientists are using AI to search among existing medicines for treatments that work for rare diseases.

St Ives North Public School year 3 students during class.

Labor’s education report card is one step forward, two steps back

Efforts to put strict conditions on additional school funding to the states to improve outcomes have already been undercut by creating an alibi for failure.

Trump could target our healthcare system next. We don’t need to panic

If there are retaliatory tariffs because of standing up for our PBS jewel, so be it. That would be unfortunate and unfair, but Australia can weather it.

Do viruses trigger Alzheimer’s?

A growing group of scientists think so, and are asking whether antivirals could treat the disease

The NDIS’s cost troubles trace back to 2013, when Labor debated the NDIS Bill in Parliament amid leadership turmoil, and provided inaccurate figures for the costs.

I’m an NDIS participant. Here’s what I’ve uncovered about this chaotic system

Missteps, miscalculations, lies and missed opportunities on the NDIS should alarm anyone who values sound economic governance.

Trump has unleashed a barrage of tariffs already and plans more on April 2.

Read the questionnaire Trump has sent to Australian unis

A questionnaire sent to Australian universities by the Trump administration has sparked alarm among academics. You can read it here.

Premier Daniel Andrews and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton:  the Victorian experience where curfews and distance limits were imposed without clear medical advice has done deep damage to public trust.

How to undo the damage Victoria’s COVID response did to public trust

Federal and state governments should adopt a uniform code for pandemic management mandating medical advice be signed and published for any restrictive measures.

Mark Butler announced the 3.73 per cent increase in February.

Health insurance fees to rise more than Labor says

Health Minister Mark Butler has been called out for understating the size of the increase in health insurance premiums this year.

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Do we age steadily or in bursts?

New technologies are giving scientists a better understanding of how the process of ageing actually works.

February

Randa Abdel-Fattah at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2023.

Research funding body suspends grant to pro-Palestinian academic

Controversial academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has said Zionists “have no claim or right to cultural safety”, has had her $870,000 research grant suspended.

Former Labor leader and new University of Canberra vice chancellor Bill Shorten has urged his new peers to do a better job of being relevant to everyday Australians.

People are not stupid or bogans ... it’s us, Shorten tells unis

Bill Shorten and Catherine Livingstone have come to similar conclusions as to why universities are out of favour with the community.

Dr James Dunn’s research is using the human experience of remembering faces to train AI.

Australia should punt on bold, unproven ideas: Shergold

The Australian Research Council chairman says this country needs to get behind young researchers whose work takes greater risks but offers larger rewards.

In the medical business the unfair term ‘frequent flyers’ is used to describe patients who through no fault of their own can only find the care they need in public hospitals

My patient Shirley would benefit from more bulk billing. Here’s why she won’t

Labor is shining an 8.5 billion-watt spotlight on general practices to divert attention from the elephant in the room that everyone in Australia has seen.

University of Canberra VC Bill Shorten and chancellor Lisa Paul at his installation last week.

Shorten blames federal policies for his uni’s financial woes, job cuts

The University of Canberra’s new vice chancellor says 191 jobs will be cut this year after student numbers fell.

Tom Snow, Kelly Blanch and Jonathan Crowston in the University of Sydney’s ophthalmology lab.

$50m donation aims to foil ‘sneak thief of sight’

The University of Sydney has received its second major donation in just two weeks – this time to change the trajectory of 80 million glaucoma sufferers.

Single this Valentine’s Day? You’re not alone

The central demographic story of modern times is rising rates of singledom; the data suggests there’s a global relationship recession among young adults.

Self care Barbie, playing the wellness game.

Do we really need ‘teenage wellness’?

Is the profusion of adolescent spa packages and mindfulness apps simply contributing to the pressures that young people face?

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education