Norman Swan

Is the system working against you here for a very important problem that people have that they don't realize how serious it is?

But the system is working against you in order to create that team.

So is the need for this blueprint an admission that the guideline is inadequate, the national guidelines on care?

Christine, thank you.

And we'll be linked to the blueprint in our show notes.

Christine Jenkins is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of New South Wales.

On ABC Radio National, you're with a health report.

Well, it's a story about childhood cancer.

It's actually quite technical, but it's important.

And it's important for consumers to know about it, both adults and parents, because it could well be relevant for adults, too, who develop cancer.

And I just need to explain a little bit here.

And you can give me marks according to how right I am in my description.

To really understand this story, you've got to understand something about your genes and your genome, the genome being the sum total of the genes in each of your cells.

So we're born with a set of genes, half of which come from our mummy and half of which come from our daddy, the sperm and the egg.

They come together and that's called your germline.

These are your inherited genes.

And what happens during life is that some genes mutate.

And these are called, just the technical term, are somatic mutations.

So on top of your germline DNA or your germline genes, you've got changes on top called somatic changes.

Now, when you've got a child with cancer, they often go hunting for