I’m not quite sure what it was, but there must have been one, because the AGI health checks on indigenous children in the NT last year did not record a single case. (Update: this claim of zero cases of trachoma recorded, taken from the post linked to below, has been contradicted, although the rate recorded is still extraordinarily low.)
Fred Hollows must be causing a scene around the Pearly Gates in the way he’s kicking himself for missing such a simple and effective solution to a common cause of blindness that was a special concern to him due to Australia’s central desert regions having the highest incidence of trachoma in the world.
The crucial ingredient in miraculously eradicating trachoma appears to be (drumroll) the recruitment primarily of recently-graduated doctors from urban and coastal regions (who’d never seen a case of trachoma before) to do all the health checks in a region where the condition is endemic. Voila! No cases of trachoma recorded! The previous incidence rate of 45% reduced to zero in one strike! Marvellous (and who knows what other medical conditions may also have been eradicated by this daring initiative?). Think of all the funding for blindness programs that can now be re-allocated because there are no more cases of trachoma in the central desert!
I suspect that this miraculous eradication method could quite possibly be effectively adapted elsewhere. What say you?
Update: some of you need your sarcasm meters recalibrated. Yes, the “miracle cure” is pure snark.
In all seriousness, this crap went down under the original Brough plan, but the adjustments to the intervention under Rudd aren’t much better - there’s still horrendous underfunding for any Close The Gap measures, and a wasteful duplication of efforts that are already in place, with little to no local consultation.
They eradicated child abuse too. Not a single person has been arrested since the intervention started.
Well spotted Ken - so they did. What other explanation could there be?
There is an established Trachoma program underway in the NT. You can link to the 2006 progran data here.
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-cdi3104b.htm/
I don’t think it’s a case of Trachoma being missed by the AGI docs. It’s possibly simply a matter of ongoing program responses functioning effectively.
The post to which I linked mentioned that ongoing program, Geoff, and the dedicated health practitioners already living in the NT working on treating chlamydia eye infections ASAP to prevent subsequent trachoma complications. That’s exactly why the assessments of the AGI health checkers that saw no problems have met with such disbelief.
In genuinely good news, a team at QUT have recently produced an immune response to a vaccinne against Chlamydia in koalas. This may not only prove the salvation of our cuddly friends, the work is closely related to the same team’s work agaist Chlamydia in humans and success in one species is likely to lead to success in the other.
The team leader did tell me that it was going to be harder to make a vaccine against Trachoma than against the sexually transmitted form of Chlamydia so a real cure is quite a few years off.
On topic, I would have thought that any half-way decent doctor coming to NT would read up on trachoma. MOre obscure local diseases would likely slip through the net, but surely they would be aware this is one they need to know about?
Doctor_K’s post mentioned that as there is virtually none-zero-zip-nada incidence of trachoma in the urban/coastal areas from which these (young, inexperienced) doctors were recruited, one shouldn’t assume that they would necessarily know about trachoma unless they had an adequate orientation from the organisation which recruited them. I’m not at all sure that such an assumption about the AGI organisation should be made given the stories from people who’ve been working in the NT on health and child protection for years who are simply not being asked to share any of their local knowledge at all.
Those ear-infection figures quoted by Tyler are ridiculous, as she says. And the ear problems lead to other long-term intractables, like chronic hearing issues that make education even more problematic than it already is.
Ok at the risk of being branded a troll heres my 2 bobs worth.
Basic hygene will be the “miracle cure” you are reffering to. Clean bed linen, less dogs inside, regular washing of faces and bodies. Also I might add any upgrading of wter potability will be a great improvement as well.
It really is that simple.
Why do you think this problem is so prevalent among this one group? early detection and treatment will be of great assistance, but something as simple as a regular face and hand washing regime WILL be a miracle cure.
The way you have stated this is taking a hygene issue and pretending to be bemused by its causes.
Mole, handwashing etc stops the transmission, but doesn’t cure the condition. It still defies belief that there are absolutely no cases.
But tigtog, anyone who has read a good feature article on Indigenous Health in NT knows Trachoma is a major problem. Surely a doctor heading up there would have heard of Fred Hollows and be aware that there is a disease the Hollows foundation is raising money to fight (the ads are pretty widespread)? You’d need training to learn about more obscure conditions, but if most of the readers on LP are aware of what Trachoma is and that its a huge problem there surely even an inexperienced doctor would be too.
Now of course I wouldn’t be able to diagnose trachoma, and I suspect most LP readers wouldn’t either, but if I was recruited to work there the first thing I’d do would be feed it into Google.
In the Kimberley, the State government, with an eye to the election, has decided to solve the surgical wait list problem. Not by employing extra theatre nurses or more district medical officers (surgeon is alraedy in-situ) but by paying a for profit organisation (Aspen) to set up field surgeries in places like Fitzroy Crossing and do a surgical blitz for 3 months (aiming to reduce the waiting list by 1000 I think).
All well and good up to a point, but it’s not like Aspen know anything about the Kimberley and way to go to damage the goodwill of medics and nurses up here already.
I’d like to not be cynical, but if it looks like an intervention and smells like an intervention…..
And trachoma rates in the Kimberley fluctuate wildly from year to year, but zero in the NT - yup, I think Dr K has it about right.
Mindy.
I wasnt disputing the lack of cases found as evidence of a miracle cure. Just noting that the prevalence of the disease can be massively reduced by really simple personal hygene.
Anyone want to have a little wager that hygene in the worst affected communities is terrible?
I recall reading about a good little programme where one of the remote areas schools ran a “food and face wash” start to the day that saw a large drop in many of the simple diseases such as this. If I get a chance later Ill try and find the report. It was on the ABC a couple of years ago but I cant even recall if it was state/private/federal or even which community it was in.
Yes Mole, you’re quite right, it’s something that proper education and a good water supply would fix easily. Oh, wait …
Stephen L, although I am sure that the recruited doctors had an adequate general training and a genuine desire to help, why on earth would they not trust the recruiting body to provide them with the outline of the information that they should know? I suggest that this trust would be misplaced in the case of the AGI bodies because it has always been more about being a political stunt than about actually making a difference, but I’m a cynical old polblogger, not an idealistic not-long-graduated physician.
I also question how many of the readers of LP would know the word trachoma, let alone most GPs (especially recent graduates who have been concentrating on passing exams, not broadening knowledge). I’ve got a hospital background as a physio, I know there are lots of eye problems amongst the indigenous peoples of the central desert, I didn’t know the specific word trachoma off the top of my head (when I read it it rang vague bells).
Most GPs I know - not all, but most - have a lower level of general current affairs knowledge than most other people simply because of the time they have to spend keeping abreast of the knowledge requirements of medicine. There really is only so much time in a day that one can spend reading, and their priority is - and should be - their continuing education according to the accreditation guidelines rather than according to personal or general interest.
I don’t blame any recruited doctors for not finding information on their own about a regionally-specific endemic disease - I would totally expect them to trust that background on the diseases to look for would be provided to them in training. If such background information wasn’t provided then that is hardly the fault of the recruits, it is the fault of the recruiters.
Mole,
Perhaps you should, seeing as my use of the term was entirely sarcastic.
One of the best ways to combat the disorder in remote communities is for the community to have a swimming pool, which is why the Royal Lifesaving Society is working up there along with other NFPs to build pools and train remote community members as lifeguards for those pools. Of course, that program has run into its own difficulties.
tigtog. Swimming pools are fine, but why not start at home?
I refuse to hold (some) Aboriginal parents to lower standards than any others. The same as Id do for a white family who neglected their own. Why is it talked of as a medical issue, it is an education and hygene issue first and foremost.
The children are suffering life long debilitating illnesses because of lack of care by their gaurdians.
Ill add the caveat that if their water supply is substandard or contaminated its whatever department that is responsible that needs its arse kicked.
How very generous of you. Perhaps you should do a little research into just how commonly that is indeed the case for remote central desert communities in our Lucky Country.
Edited to add: The swimming pools are also part of a larger community health program and also an incentives program for kids to attend school - no school attendance, no pool attendance.
Your sarcasm isnt appreciated. There has been nigh on 10 years of Lab govt here in WA. Result, bugger all.
Libs in Federaly, result bugger all
So who do you sheet blame home to?
Or is there some “department of impoverishing Aboriginals” Ive managed to be unaware of?
In all seriousness, whos been doing nothing for the last 30 years? ALL sides of politics have had their turn and many people both black and white have made millions for what? I might also point out thousands of people use substandard water in regional areas. I was a shearer for years in the murchison/northern areas as far up as Willuna. Id spend every day covered in sheep shit, dust and flies, what blessed me with the ability to escape these types of diseases?
Trachoma is a lifestyle disease.
Your education, including your education in health and hygiene. An education, moreover, that you were able to take full advantage of because you could hear properly.
Sorry Pavlov’s cat, you got part of that wrong. Im a micky whisker off profound deafness which made my school years hell. Thats why I was a shearer in the first place, a late education…
Your point on education is exactly what Im on about. But lets face it its not a huge education needed to drum (call it propaganda if you want) “wash your baby morning and night to stop the sickness”. (seen a few posters like that around)
This is a disease that shouldnt exist.
tigtog - I’m a bit confused and with respect etc etc , disinclined to believe that no reporting = wilful ignorance. Can you point me to where the “surge” was instructed to report trachoma and left it blank?
Lest my questioning be interpreted as etc etc - for the record I’m against one off initiatives unless backed by evidence that they will work and I am for working with local health people who are on the ground.
Mole
Behaviour change requires more than somebody telling you what to do. I agree that Trachoma is not really a medical problem, but largely the result of poor funding of housing over many years.
There was a good Journal article recently by Torzillo P et al the the Aust NZ J of Public Health, which backs this up and is discussed in the link below.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2165535.htm
Essentially all the education and posters in the world will do nothing if there are no functioning taps in the houses.
Before I read the post I thought the title’d meant they’d legalized pot in the NT. Damn!
Of course not, and that’s not what I meant to imply.
First: it simply beggars belief that not one of the kids examined by the AGI teams had trachoma, so why wasn’t it one of the conditions reported? They reported all sorts of other conditions that the local health teams already knew that the kids had (and some that the kids didn’t actually have, according to Dr Tyler) so why not report trachoma if they could see that it was there?
Secondly: if there were tickboxes for various conditions, why on earth would there not be one for trachoma?
tigtog - I just can’t find the report and the context as to why trachoma wasn’t reported rather than go on third party acounts. I do understand there was contingents of opthamologists up there and they certainly would have ben looking for and treating trachoma.
One would hope so, FXH.
For clarification - I know my post is OTT sarcastic hyperbole. That was entirely deliberate, even if perhaps I should have gone another route.
The big story, really, is the claim that this reported rate of zero trachoma infections ended up affecting federal funding allocations for the NT’s existing trachoma programs. If confirmed, this would be a diabolic level of clusterfuck way above any hypothetical (yet all too credible) holes in the AGI health checks reporting system per se.
I’ll work on the confirmation part with some private correspondence.
Yuwalk.
Sorry to be a bit circular, but who or what govt entity is responsible for repairing these places?
It is unaccceptable that this housing is that poor. Unless there is a record of regular maitanence and repair then why havent any public servants heads rolled?? (Fed or state)
The only acceptable excuse might be deliberate damage, but even that should be regularly fixed. Im just plain grumpy that my tax dollars dont appear to have made a jot of difference in 30 years. The same reports, the same problems, the same causes.
Great post tigtog. More money required & effort on the part of governments to ensure adequate services, education & water provided. Mole is basically doing the tricky dick thing. Another Howeirdian style song of bitterness about losing the election, blame the race…& “please lower my taxes cause I’m superior, i knows what’s best & I’m concerned for others but they just don’t know what’s good for them, me tax going to waste, bring in the Right again to save the day…& cut taxes for the rich”.
As for the “hygiene” bit…seems to me going by what I’m seeing in the malls & supermarkets of Australia it’s SOME of those parents/guardians who have access to plenty of water that should be ashamed of themselves. Little kids running rampant, screeching & bellowing at the top of their lungs, filthy bare feet in winter, stained clothes, snotty noses unwiped and trembling in the cold…touching fruit & veges w/ bacteria & snot covered fingers…unfortunately spreading illness everywhere…poor little blighters.
They don’t know any better. But the parents/guardians SHOULD.
For gawd sakes, this is the 21st Century, not bloody Britain/Aussie circa 1890. No excuses. We need a hygiene campaign (think of the sick days reduced, how many kids & elderly & those w/ chronic illnesses will benefit)…and shops that sell foodstuffs need to be more vigilant…certainly we don’t want to see kids starving because parents were turned away…but surely there comes a point where the health of the nation & its kids MUST come first. Look at how many have been ill this winter. Not surprising.
And patients even stand yapping to receptionists in doctor’s offices, coughing lungs out, no attempt to put their hand over mouth, wash hands w/ soap or leave the waiting area quickly after seeing the doctor in order to not spread germs to their fellow patients. No wonder illness spreads like wildfire here.
And young people entering physician etc. training courses need to TOUGHEN UP from the feedback I’m getting from some experienced practitioners…plenty supposedly dropping out because they’re not used to getting their hands dirty and doing long hours. Too many spoilt prats during these so called prosperous days.
Howard’s government have alot to answer for…they pretended to be conservative…but they let food safety, health regulations & monitoring, customs and other areas fall into a heap (in combo w/ some States like NSW) in order to appease corporate mates and allow an influx of cheap goods & tourists in order to effect the economic figures.
Every manufactured GOOD STORY is merely a FACADE…& hidden behind the facade are the consequences of the con & the lie. The intentional neglect of Aboriginal communities in order to profit from cheap labour, exploited talent & food stores/bottle shops/petrol stations that sucked in the aboriginal dosh…in tandem w/ the desire to access land for resources…led to another form of slavery & potential genocide.
Certainly more hygiene helps aboriginal kids…but the lack of appropriate medical assistance and services demonstrates criminal & intentional neglect on the part of all governments during the past decade who had the MORAL IMPERITIVE to fulfil their SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS.
Who will be the new Fred Hollows? Plenty of rich dicks out there who need to redeem themselves for their hedonistic & penny pinching attitudes the last decade. How about some money, transport & buildings constructed to help these proud people (too oft bashed for ‘greed & gain’ & ‘moral panic’ & political reasons)…& in turn provide incentive to the next Fred Hollows of our generation?
I’ll give to that.
N’
You have to be careful with that snark, tigtog. They are unpredictable beasts, and can often bite the hand that feeds them.
I was a little surprised by this post, because it implied a level of medical incompetence that seemed rather excessive. Yes, the AGI was a rushed job, but I can’t see even “recently-graduated” doctors overlooking one of the commonest conditions in the outback.
It would not have taken you long to actually track down the data, as I did. Obtaining primary source data is generally a good idea, you know, before unleashing the hungry snark.
The figures are contained in this document: “Progress of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Child Health Check Initiative: Health Conditions and Referrals”.
[link]
These are the figures: “of the 1,989 children aged 6 to 15 years who were screened for trachoma, 7% were identified as having trachoma in at least one eye. The prevalence of this disease was similar for the 6 to 11 year olds (7%) and the 12 to 15 year olds (6%). However, differences were observed between the regions, with 9% of children in the Barkly/Katherine and Central Australia regions who had been screened identified as having trachoma, compared with 4% of children in the Arnhem region.”
There was apparently a bit of a stuff-up in the collection of this data. “The available data indicate that 47% of children in the relevant age group (i.e., 6 to 15 years) were screened for trachoma, 6% were not screened, and this information is missing for 47% of children.”
Nonetheless, they certainly did not completely overlook the disease, as your original post claims.
Whatever you do, folks, don’t hire Ken Lovell to do internet-based research.
This took me about 2 minutes to find. From the NT Police website:
http://www.nt.gov.au/pfes/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewMediaRelease&pID=7949&y=2008&mo=2
Progress of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Child Health Check Initiative:26 May 2008
Level of missing data
Due to the format of the question on trachoma, information on whether trachoma screening was completed as part of the Child Health Check was not provided on 47% of the forms. As discussed in Section 3.2, the prevalence of trachoma was calculated only for those children for whom screening was known to have been undertaken.
From Section 3.2 page 13 of the report:
As shown in Table 3.4, of the 1,989 children aged 6 to 15 years who were screened for trachoma, 7% were identified as having trachoma in at least one eye. The prevalence of this disease was similar for the 6 to 11 year olds (7%) and the 12 to 15 year olds (6%). However, differences were observed between the regions, with 9% of children in the Barkly/Katherine and Central Australia regions who had been screened identified as having trachoma, compared with 4% of children in the Arnhem region.
Thanks for hunting down the original report, Paulus. It certainly does contradict the figure of zero cases reported in my original post. Serves me right for not checking more rigorously because the source was a Friend of a Friend. I can see how she arrived at the way she told it in her post though.
I could only conceive of it in the [eta: hypothetical] circumstance of recruiters reasonably assuming that trachoma assessment would be general knowledge in doctors, even those recruited from areas where the condition does not exist, and the recruited docters reasonably assuming that their training would include any regionally specific conditions, and there being a mismatch in these two reasonable assumptions. Because AGI was a rushed job, I found that idea credible.
The information missing for 47% of the children is a pretty huge stuff-up though, isn’t it? I can see how that could have easily transformed by word of mouth into “those AGI newbies missed all the trachoma”, and there you have the rest. Not that this excuses me not tracking down the official report as you did (I tried, but not very hard), but I’m fascinated by the way that such kernels of true fact morph in the telling into much larger claims that are not borne out.
I’ll now have to concentrate just on the source of the claim about this low incidence rate affecting the federal funding until an NT local set them right. Knowing how factoids circulate and urban legends grow, that could easily be something that an intermediate vector of this story embroidered on rather than a verifiable fact as well.
tigtog - I am critical of the health surge but I think your informant above needs to be corrected.
This would not appear to be supported by the report which shows a 4% to 6% to 9% prevalence of trachoma in at least one eye in those screened. Kids weren’t screened who had been known to have been screened under other programs.
There is no suggestion in the report that these people didn’t recognise trachoma. These teams of doctors and nurses were oriented to the NT issues prior to going out in the field by NT practitioners including Remote area nurses.
I’ve updated the original post to reflect that the zero figure has been contradicted, FXH.
I agree that the idea that newbie docs recruited by the AGI would not recognise trachoma is merely a hypothesis proposed to explain the original zero factoid. I could see how such a situation could arise in a rushed political stunt, and I ran with my prejudices.
While running with one’s prejudices when told a juicy tale is a typical socialised response, I’ve been trained to know better, and my old friends at alt.folklore.urban will have me go several rounds in the ring with the sewergator and the jackalope for this.
However, I still find the missing 47% of no data collected cases highly problematic in terms of how it reflects on the general effectiveness of the health checks program.
nasking
You might have comprehended Im grumpy with both sides of the fence on this.
To spell it out both Lab and Lib have fucked up at Federal level for decades
Both Lab and Lib have fucked up for decades at state level.
That clear to you?
“..please lower my taxes cause I’m superior, i knows what’s best & I’m concerned for others but they just don’t know what’s good for them, me tax going to waste, bring in the Right again to save the day…& cut taxes for the rich..”
Yup why not? Why is it moraly right to throw a bucket load of money for NO RESULT?
Go on state why you think nothing has changed in 30 years. Spit out something other than “Its just Howards fault”, as though that absolves any responsability by the state governments.
Id be happy to give Kudos to Rudd if he either ramps up the brough plan or impliments an effective one of his own devising. What I dont want is to be 10 years futher on and reading the same stories.
“..The intentional neglect of Aboriginal communities in order to profit from cheap labour, exploited talent & food stores/bottle shops/petrol stations that sucked in the aboriginal dosh…”
This report is quite a good look into remote stores. In many cases the shops are community or Aboriginal owned. Yup there are shonky whites mentioned as well…
http://www.anu.edu.au/caepr/Publications/DP/2002_DP234.pdf
As far as I can tell most of the problems stem back to one major issue, education. Without that people dont know they are being ripped off, dont know how to even access information, so therefore cant make informed decisions.
I fail to see how these sentiments make me a “bitter howardite”.
And nice point on the ratchildren in the supermarkets, there does need to be a better grasp of the basics of infection/disease prevention in the general community as well.
Mole
Essentially funding has been lacking and where it is available there are not enough plumbers, carpenters electricians etc to fix the houses and when they are available there are accommodation problems with no where to stay on communities.
It is not so much a case of your tax dollars being wasted as your tax dollars simply not going to basic housing over 30 years.
Nasking
Food safety is a State and Local Government Responsibility with not much involvement from the Federal Level except for http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/
These standards are all around Australia now and means that the rules don’t change as you change states or Territories. For all Howard’s faults I do not believe sabotaging food safety was one of them.
I also contend the importance you put in medical services. Yes they are important, but in general medicine has done very little for health when compared to good shelter, sewerage systems, rubbish removal, a large supply of mostly clean water and better nutrition.
Where do you see that? I see the report acknowledge that the calculations only reflect the numbers of children known to have been screened by the NTER teams, but that’s juxtaposed with their acknowledgement that in 47% of assessments there was no trachoma data collected at all.
I don’t find the missing data much of a problem. You’ve worked as a clinical worker - how would you approach a data collection form designed in Canberra. How easy do you reckon it would be to understand and fill in.
We don’t really need anymore screening info on aboriginal health - its all pretty well documented - what is needed is treatment and early intervention and prevention where possible. Trachoma incidence / prevalance is well documented.
There was some promising pilots regarding swimming pools and trachoma but i’m not sure where the long term evidence goes to - or even if the long term evidence is in.
I don’t know who mentioned it - but if telling people to “clean up their act” (as is often advocated with aboriginal health) worked then we would have fixed illness due to overweight. We would have lowered rates of diabeties 2, heart problems, cholesterol, not to mention smoking etc etc.
On reading the report, and on reflection, I’m not so concerned now as I was that the missing data reflects a lack of treatment. The teams were there, assuming adequate orientation regarding trachoma (which still niggles at me a little) we can presume that they treated any cases they found.
There’s still a problem with the lack of effectiveness of the whole data collection exercise taken in conjunction with the Child Health Checks. As you say, we have good data from other more rigorous studies as to general incidence/prevalence etc of trachoma and other conditions which are common to indigenous peoples in the NT. So was the data collected purely for the purpose of putting out a lovely report that could be held up in a press conference? Even if it’s essentially meaningless? It’s looking more and more like it.
Agree w/ you on the education bit Mole…change the media owners & message, you help change the perception towards Aborogines & they will believe in themselves & use their talents/abilities for better purposes…as many have done…& still are. The rotten corporate media…& even some puppets in the ABC…helped promote the negative perception/painting, self-esteem bashing, belief destroying, negative stereotype creating message…I observed it closely…day by day. Over many years. It was/is criminal. Any HOPE was dashed. Plenty of good projects crushed. Not enough homework centres & tutoring…not enough energy…too many corrupt or ill-advised Aboriginal leaders who were EXPOSED & ridiculed in public. Too much HATE…& Hanson crap. The MELTDOWN was partially intentionally created…some was related to incompetence and tight-arsedness & bad will. And just plain stupidity & ignorance.
But some communities survived well. Good for them. Not that the bloody media gave a stuff…profiteering from SUSPICION & FINGER-POINTING & CONFLICT & HATE & DIVISION. At the expense of those kids out there.
They waited…then declared an EMERGENCY…just in time for the election race they couldn’t believe they were losing…brought in SAVIOURS…INDOCTRINATION types, ready to preach the prosperity rampant capitalist gospel.
Now, finally…some FRESH AIR. New ideas. Will take time. Plenty who would luv to see the DREAM sabotaged.
Aboriginal people…the First People of Australia…& their friends & allies MUST not let it happen again. No more being the political, cultural, historical, business punching bag.
Yuwalk:
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s255588.htm
Changes to Australian Food Standard Committee questioned
The World Today Archive - Tuesday, 6 March , 2001
Reporter: John Stewart
COMPERE: Well in the face of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom, you might assume governments around the world would, if anything, be strengthening their methods for regulating food safety.
But, according to a former National Food Standards Committee, exactly the opposite is happening in Australia.
In the last few weeks the Howard Government has quietly restructured our Food Safety Board to increase the influence of business. The nine-member board has been enlarged to ten members, half of whom now represent business and trade rather than health and safety interests.
This change to the Food Safety Authority follows criticism by the Howard Government that the old board made decisions that imposed an unreasonable cost burden on industry. And as John Stewart reports, the government is now being warned that its changes will put Australian consumers at risk.
——–
Funny how so much changed after Bush got in. Howard obviously got the word from his American Neo-CON mates that everything was changing, probably assisted them a bit…& his media mates/enablers w/ all that “fear over refugee” stuff…
Imagine THE WORD from Bush/Cheney…”come many more of the multi-national corporate behemoths your way”…yep, spreading ill-health & destroying local businesses & industry & the environment…leaving plenty damage & addiction cycles in their wake.
I’ll say no more on the issue on this thread cause it’s important tigtog gets the medical message out. Thumbs up to her. And other commentors on here.
N’
41. nasking
Ill just ask your opinion on a theory of mine. In my opinion most of the communities which have done well (Ive been on 3), have only done so because the “big man” (wether he be elder or just influental) was a man of integrity.
Where the big man was out for himself, or there was no “big man” but a revolving door of white advisors everyone in a community suffered.
Im not praising the strong man idea of governance, just seeing if anyone else has an opinion regaurding why some comminities are fine and others disfunctional.
I reckon it’s the communities that have strong, caring, innovative women who promote education & ensure that innovation rules.
Oops my bad, I should have included the ladies as well…