Australian Politics
Katherine's PFAS water treatment plant finally ready for action
This is an old Greenie scare but there is still no clear evidence that PFAS compounds are harmful to humans in the concentrations normally encountered
In a small remote town in the outback, a multi-million-dollar mega facility shipped in from America will soon turn potentially toxic drinking water into some of the cleanest in Australia.
It is the largest to be built so far and one of the first, but experts and activists say many more will be needed as Australia begins to deal with PFAS contamination.
A few years ago, residents of Katherine received the alarming news that the water they had been using was contaminated by a group of human-made chemicals known as PFAS, which some experts say are linked to cancers and other serious health concerns.
Between 1988 and 2004, during firefighting training at the Tindal RAAF Base, PFAS leached into the Katherine River and spread kilometres through the highly connected aquifer below.
The government advised against eating fish caught from the river, the local swimming pool was closed, bore-reliant properties surrounding the base were delivered bottled water by Defence and residents lined up for blood tests.
A major study on the health effects of PFAS and a landmark class action were launched and an interim water treatment plant was brought in, but its size left many in fear the clean water would run out.
Since then, residents have been clinging to the promise Australia's largest PFAS water treatment plant would be built and after years of delays it has been confirmed the facility will be completed by August at the latest.
Senior project manager at Power and Water Corporation Liam Early said it would deliver "very high-quality water," and agreed it would likely be the first of many needed across Australia as the nation began to grapple with the enormity of PFAS contamination.
Associate professor Suzie Reichman, an expert in pollution science at the University of Melbourne, said the sticky substances were known as "forever chemicals" because of their persistence in the environment and could be found in hundreds of everyday products like cosmetics, sunscreens and non-stick pans.
"Evidence is mounting that high concentrations can have a number of health impacts, including cancer," Dr Reichman said.
"We haven't definitively proven that in humans, but we also don't know what concentrations cause [cancers].
"The Australian government has taken a very precautionary approach and we have very low thresholds for PFAS in the environment, including in drinking water.
"But because it wasn't on people's radars as a contaminant for so long, we're now seeing it has gotten out into the environment … the more we look the more we're finding."
With an already high reliance on groundwater projected to rise across Australia as surface resources become less available due to climate change and droughts, Dr Reichman said treatment plants, despite their expense, would offer a good solution.
"We have already contaminated the environment with PFAS, and if it's the only source of water, the solution to keep it safe for people and stock … is to clean it up," she said.
After water is sucked up from the groundwater through a bore, it is processed through the pressure vessels.
Microplastics made of resin called "media" capture the PFAS and remove it from the water.
While Defence continues to filter contaminated water and pump it back into aquifers at Katherine, Oakey and Williamtown, ongoing droughts and lingering health concerns are far from over for residents.
Peter Spafford, Katherine's sole GP during the peak of the PFAS scare, said long-term health issues were still a worry for residents despite a major study finding no conclusive evidence of increased risk of cancer or disease in the three towns.
Amid over-pumping, drought, and the steady influence of climate change, he said the treatment plant was a "bandaid measure".
"It's tapping into underground water supplies, which, certainly with decreased rainfall and the increased usage due to fracking, [are] not necessarily sustainable," Dr Spafford said.
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Heart problems as a Covid vaccine side-effect may be more common than is usually admitted
It started with the ambulances. Queensland recorded its fourth-highest number of triple-0 calls for a single day last Monday with paramedics waiting up to three hours to offload patients and nine ambulances waiting outside a major hospital because there were no beds.
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath was flummoxed. ‘I don’t think anyone can explain why we saw a 40 per cent increase in code ones,’ she told journalists. ‘We had a lot of heart attacks and chest pains and breathing/respiratory issues. Sometimes you can’t explain why those things happen.’
Ambulance ‘ramping’ has been at crisis point in every state in Australia over the summer. In Western Australia, just 70 per cent of priority one emergency call outs in March were responded to within 15 minutes. March was also the busiest month ever for paramedics in Tasmania with a 15 per cent increase in callouts. Ambulance Victoria experienced its busiest quarter on record, a 16 per cent increase on the same period last year. In South Australia, ramping was so bad that it became an election issue. Paramedics in New South Wales were so angry about staff shortages that they went on strike this week.
Part of the problem was the callous and stupid decision to sack paramedics during a pandemic because they refused to be immunised with a vaccine which, as it turns out, has almost no efficacy in preventing infection with the omicron variant. So, staff numbers have been reduced by mandates, by infection with omicron, and by the need to quarantine.
But what explains the increase in demand which has occurred in summer, not during the winter flu season? It’s not the pandemic. NSW, for example, has a combined private and government hospital capacity of 12,500 beds including 1,000 in intensive care units, but there are only 1,583 people admitted to hospitals ‘with’ Covid, and only 71 in intensive care. The chief executive of Ambulance Tasmania offered a clue saying that while a lot of the patients had respiratory complaints or chest pain in line with Covid, there was also an increase in mental health cases and in falls. What caused them?
To get some clues out, you needed to turn on the Footy Show. Discussing Brownlow medallist Ollie Wines, who was taken to hospital at half time where he was diagnosed with a ‘heart irregularity’, former Richmond forward Nathan Brown asked, ‘Is there a lot of this going on in world sport?’, clarifying that he was referring to the side effects of Covid vaccine booster shots. Journalist Damian Barrett said the question was being asked, ‘by a lot of people’ and that it wasn’t just the heart issues’.
Essendon star Matthew Lloyd, another panellist on the show that night confirmed that he had Bell’s palsy – and that both heart issues and Bell’s palsy had ‘gone through the roof since the boosters and Covid issues’. He added that 3AW sports journalist Michelangelo Rucci had said that there’s a ward in Adelaide filled with people with similar symptoms to Ollie Wines – nausea, heart issues – ‘so there has to be something more to it’.
That Covid vaccines can cause myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis (inflammation of the sac around the heart) as well as other severe reactions, including death, is a taboo topic in mainstream media. The Daily Mail accused the Footy Show hosts of making a ‘shocking claim’ for suggesting Wine’s heart issues could be linked to the Covid vaccines.
Yet as the Therapeutic Goods Administration confirms, myocarditis is a known side effect of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. So far there have been 1,168 reports of myocarditis to the TGA (10 fatal) and another 3,215 of pericarditis (1 fatal).
The TGA claims that only 593 are likely to be confirmed as myocarditis. But the Myocarditis Foundation in the US warns that nearly 20 per cent of sudden cardiac deaths are linked to myocarditis because common symptoms are misinterpreted. They include many reported to the TGA including chest pain (11,976 reports), shortness of breath (9,519), fatigue (14,569), palpitations (5,249), tachycardia (2,428), fainting (3,424), dizziness (2,843), and peripheral swelling (1,057). If any of these symptoms are detected, the foundation urges people to see a doctor straight away because myocarditis is the third leading cause of death in children and young adults and discouraging talk about the symptoms of post-vaccination myocarditis is dangerous, especially for young athletic men and boys who are at the greatest risk.
In less than three months, since Covid vaccines were rolled out to children aged 5-11, three have died. A 7-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl suffered cardiac arrests, the worst outcome of myocarditis, and a 6-year- old boy also died but whoever filed his report simply described his medical reaction as an ‘adverse event following immunisation’, a description that provides no useful information to investigators and has been used in 755 reports, 161 of them fatal.
There have also been 49 reports of adverse reactions in babies via exposure their mothers’ breast milk including trouble breathing, chest pain, fatigue, dizziness – all symptoms of myocarditis. One infant suffered Bell’s palsy. There have been 244 reports of spontaneous abortions, 14 stillbirths, 11 reports of foetal deaths, 11 of foetal hypokinesia (decreased bodily movement of the foetus). The vaccines were not tested on pregnant or breast-feeding women. The TGA had no clinical basis to say they were safe.
Since the vaccines were rolled out in February last year, 19,926 people have reported adverse reactions and 815 people have died. More than two every day. Compare that to influenza vaccines – 21 deaths in 47 years, less than one death every two years. Are any of these tragedies caused by the Covid vaccine? Is anyone at the TGA trying to find out? When the US government rushed out a swine flu vaccine to 45 million people in 1976, the program was halted when it was reported to have caused one case of Guillain-Barré syndrome per 100,000 persons vaccinated, and 53 deaths. To date in the US there have been 26,693 deaths, including those Pfizer, Moderna and J&J have reported occurring abroad, 49,516 people are permanently disabled, and the mainstream media says nothing.
Why the difference? In 1976, vaccine manufacturers could be sued for injury and death. Now they have immunity from prosecution unless they can be shown to have engaged in fraud or to have hidden safety data. While courageous scientists, doctors and whistleblowers sound the alarm about damning evidence, no one who has been coercing people to get vaccinated – government, media, employers – wants to admit that there might be a problem. Like ramping ambulances, nobody wants to explain why those things happen
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/04/vaccine-mysteries-need-explaining/
****************************************************Antisemitic nut not welcome at Israel Independence Day celebrations
She is clearly a Leftist "independent" candidate. Ever since Karl Marx, Leftists have despised Jews and they often still do beneath the surface
Outrage within Melbourne’s Jewish community over independent candidate Zoe Daniel attending upcoming Israel Independence Day celebrations has resulted in a Shule stopping her and Liberal opponent Tim Wilson from taking part in the festivities.
The former ABC journalist was due to attend a local event on Shabbat on May 7 at the Blake Street Shule at Caulfield South to celebrate Israel’s national holiday, but serious concerns were raised after Ms Daniel recently refused to withdraw her signature from a controversial letter accusing Israel of maintaining an “apartheid regime against Palestinians”.
When The Australian contacted the Shule on Monday both Ms Daniel and Mr Wilson, the incumbent MP, were both due to attend the celebrations, but hours later they were both told they were no longer welcome.
Many members of the Jewish community remain furious Ms Daniel has refused to remove her signature from an open letter she signed in 2021 that states, “Israeli vigilante mobs attack Palestinians and the Netanyahu government has unleashed a new, brutal war against the besieged population of Gaza”.
Alex Goodman, one of the Shule’s founding members, said he was “concerned” that Ms Daniel was scheduled to attend the Israel Independence Day celebrations at any Shule, including his own.
“The main reason is her signing of the letter with other journalists to be blatantly biased against reporting on Israel and the false claim that Israel is apartheid which is totally offensive,” he told The Australian.
The celebrations on Israel Independence Day mark the anniversary of the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein has repeatedly called for Ms Daniel to “remove her signature and renounce the “Do Better on Palestine” letter.
The letter said “the coverage of Palestine must be improved” and “consciously and deliberately make space for Palestinian perspectives, prioritising the voices of those most affected by the violence”.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he won't allow a controversial Liberal candidate who campaigned against trans women in sport to be 'silenced'
Some moderate Liberal members have called for Ms Deves to be disendorsed after she apologised for calling transgender children 'surgically mutilated and sterilised' in tweets last year.
But Mr Morrison today stood by his candidate, saying: 'I'm not going to allow her to be pushed aside as the pile on comes in to try and silence her.
'I will stand up with her, my team is standing up with her, and we will make sure that she won't be silenced.'
Ms Deves co-founded the group Save Women's Sport which aims to stop transgender women competing alongside biological women.
'She is standing up for women and girls and their access to fair sport in this country,' Mr Morrison said.
'I think she will make a great Member of Parliament, she has learned in her advocacy in her private life there are better ways to do things to take things forward as a Member of Parliament.
'I believe that is how she will approach the task if she is elected as the member for Warringah, and I don't think she should be silenced,' he said.
In the first week of the election campaign Ms Deves apologised for the wording of her old tweets about the issue.
In those tweets she described transgender children as 'surgically mutilated and sterilised', and likened her stance on the issue as being akin to the French Resistance fighters who resisted German occupation during World War II.
Ms Deves revealed she has been bombarded with death threats by left-wing activists on social media.
High profile Liberal moderates Trent Zimmerman and Matt Kean have publicly called on Mr Morrison to dis-endorse her over fears her views will haemorrhage support in inner-city seats.
'I don't think having candidates that want to spruik the politics of division is in the interests of the party or in the interests of those people candidates,' NSW Treasurer Mr Kean said.
But Ms Deves has support on the party's conservative wing with former Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott backing her stance.
On Monday, independent Warringah MP Zali Steggall told Sky News the topic of trans athletes competing in female sport was a 'distraction' from bigger issues.
'I feel there's a lot of lying going on about the actual status quo, we already have a law. The Sex Discrimination Act already deals with the situation, this is just not an issue,' Ms Steggall said.
'And saying that parents will be concerned is just repeating a transphobia line.'
When she was asked to clarify why concerns about the issue should be deemed 'transphobic' she said 'because we are talking about a minority of the population that is already incredibly vulnerable.'
Warringah takes in part of Sydney's northern beaches and north shore. It was Tony Abbott's seat but was taken by Ms Steggall at the 2019 election. She is favourite to hold on to the seat.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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