What can you really learn from a biological ageing test?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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So Priya, how old do you think you are?
I hope I know that I'm 39. You're 39? Yes. Why? What were you thinking, younger or older?
Tick, tick, tick, tick. Well, I remember my kids were asked at one significant birthday, and we were all together and there were friends there as well, and my kids were asked, how old does your father think he is? And they said, he thinks he's 50. And they were right. Because I'm a wee bit older than you.
A wee bit. But the question is, is the age that I've just stated to you, is it correct or is there in fact a different age altogether?
That's right. Because Brian Johnson until recently would have said, you know, he's 18 years younger than he actually is. Biological age testing. That's coming up on The Health Report.
I'm Priya Alexander on Wurundjeri land. I'm Norman Swan on Gadigal land. Also coming up on the show, should you be worried about taking medication for acne?
Tracking viruses that are called RNA viruses, and we'll explain what that is later, and the efforts to predict the next outbreak. Let's go to news.
So we're starting with perhaps a good news story in the context of a very tragic one, and I'm referring to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighbouring countries, including Uganda. And it's probably worth noting at the time of recording, there's close to 2,000 confirmed cases of Ebola.
Yeah, despite us a few weeks ago saying that it seemed to be settling, it's not. It's really entrenched.
What is the episode overview and which stories will be covered?
And this is the WHO and the UN are now saying this is the fastest growing outbreak that they've seen. It's still the third largest outbreak ever recorded, but they are thinking that the numbers are very likely to explode, which is very concerning.
And it's not the same Ebola virus as the Liberian outbreak, which was, I think, about 11,000 people a few years ago.
No, this is the Bundabugyo strain, which doesn't have a current vaccine. And that's perhaps where the silver lining to this story comes. The University of Oxford is about to launch their phase one clinical trial, the world's first phase one clinical trial of a vaccine for this Bundabugyo strain of the Ebola virus, which is good news.
It is good news. It comes from the same group that developed the COVID-19 vaccine, the AstraZeneca vaccine, using a virus to take in the antigen which will stimulate the immune system. One of the reasons they had developed the COVID-19 vaccine is that they also developed a vaccine for Ebola, the regular version. So they've got form here and it's great news that they've been able to turn this around for this other version of Ebola and we'll see whether it has an effect.
Just very interestingly, because I found this fascinating, so they're just recruiting currently 50 healthy individuals aged 18 to 55. Phase one is usually small, just looking at safety. There's already, Norman, a company, the Serum Institute of India, that's manufactured and stockpiled 620,000 doses of this vaccine in case it needs to be rolled out.
That's cool.
Amazing. Amazing.
It's an amazing organisation, that institute, and in terms of producing vaccines in bulk, it's incredible.
Also in the news, we're going back to pharmacy, and I believe you covered this last week when I was away. I was measured.
Not in my comments that I made about it. So last week we talked about a study that was done sponsored by the College of GPs into the evidence base for pharmacy prescribing and shows that it's weak and particularly in terms of benefits. And I talked a lot about the downside, which is about not separating prescribers from dispensing, which means that there's a financial incentive here.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:15
2
What is the episode overview and which stories will be covered?
2:15–8:39
3
What is the current status of the Ebola outbreak and vaccine trials?
8:39–18:12
4
What problems did the Grattan Institute identify in community pharmacy funding?
18:12–38:28
5
What is the controversy over mandatory testosterone screening for US troops?
38:28–43:23
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from Health Report
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