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The first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the beginning of conflict in Gaza left UK schools with a dilemma: how to mark the event. It has affected many around the world, including school children and their families in the UK.

Earlier in 2024, government adviser on social cohesion, Sara Khan, suggested that schools were not supporting reasonable debate about the Israel-Gaza conflict because teachers are nervous about handling such a sensitive topic in the classroom.

But if schools shut down the topic they risk encouraging mistrust, anger, hate and polarisation. Not least because students will instead seek out information online – and are quite likely to stumble upon fake news and conspiracy theories.

The leader of the UK’s biggest education union, Daniel Kebede, recently noted that there simply isn’t enough space in the curriculum for students to discuss such difficult issues. He claims the solution is to embed philosophy as a subject across England’s school curriculum.

The subject of philosophy is specifically set up to promote critical thinking skills and teach people how to have difficult conversations about controversial issues.

Teaching controversial topics

Controversial and sensitive topics are unavoidable. We encounter them discussed in the media, on the news, in the street and in our homes. Yet we are not always sure what to think, especially when the issue is complex, or how to talk to people we disagree with. And the skills of reasonable dialogue can be even harder when emotions are running high.

Young people need to learn how to discuss controversial issues like the Israel-Gaza war. The best way to do this is by including philosophy on the curriculum. Philosophy has an excellent toolkit designed to explore various points of view in a critically engaged way and, when taught dialogically – through discussion between students and teachers – students become seekers of shared knowledge and wisdom.

A key aspect of a democracy involves welcoming different ideas. Such diversity is a strength because it allows for many claims to be scrutinised, with only the best arguments gaining traction. Yet this process of sharing ideas requires our citizens to be able to hold reasoned discussions and to think critically.

The ability to hold reasoned, critical discussion is a valuable skill.
fizkes/Shutterstock

To avoid aggression or chaos, people need to engage charitably with one another, being respectful of various experiences and perspectives while also being critical of the ideas presented.

The dialogical skills of philosophy

Philosophy, more than any other subject, encourages students to think about the reasons why they think something, and entertain the possibility that there are other points of view.

Philosophy is inherently dialogical. The most common teaching approach is to think about the steps in an argument, and then to consider the weaknesses in each of these.

Philosophy does this by teaching students to check: What assumptions am I making? Are the premises of my position sound? Does the conclusion logically follow from my starting point? What is a counterargument or counterexample to which I need to reply? Could I be wrong about this? What additional information do I need to draw a conclusion?

These kinds of questions encourage intellectual humility: the idea that I, like anyone else, could be wrong. Intellectual humility goes hand in hand with open-mindedness, ensuring we remain open to relevant new information.

Such skills of critical thinking and respectful disagreement are vital in a time of disinformation and fake news. Not only do we need young people to learn how to fact check and be critical of what they see and hear, but we also need them to learn that it is OK to disagree.

Being open-minded

The influential American philosopher Daniel Dennett, who died earlier this year, wrote about the importance of criticising with kindness and seeking the most charitable version of your opponent’s position. This is so important when discussing controversial topics, because reasonable people will disagree.

Criticising with kindness means staying humble and open to different points of view when having difficult conversations. And it means creating space for the airing of diverse arguments and examples. In this way, teachers who are trained in philosophy are able to remain politically neutral while helping students converse with one another about important issues that affect them and those they care about.

Philosophy is about learning to be respectful of others whose views differ from one’s own and to accept reasonable disagreement. It also teaches us to be comfortable with unsettled questions and complex answers. Teaching philosophy in the classroom leads to students engaging with ideas charitably and critically, encouraging open-mindedness and intellectual humility.

It is the skills of dialogue that we need as our society faces increasing polarisation and violent disagreement. These skills are some of the defining characteristics of a democracy. Happily, teachers are uniquely positioned to embrace the subject of philosophy and the skills it has to offer. Läs mer…

The Guardian and anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate have revealed the existence of a new network of far-right intellectuals and activists in an undercover investigation. Called the Human Diversity Foundation (HDF), this group advocates scientific racism and eugenics. Although it presents itself as having a scientific purpose, some of its figureheads have political ambitions in Germany and elsewhere.

Research shows these kinds of groups are nothing new and are linked to eugenics groups that have been active since the second world war. Defending the scientific legitimacy of eugenics, these organisations worked to keep a discredited intellectual tradition alive.

Although it has been debunked by decades of research evidence, eugenics once enjoyed a reputation as a credible science since it emerged in the late 19th century.

First coined by Francis Galton, a prominent Victorian statistician and evolutionary theorist, the term eugenics refers to the study of what Galton considered favourable and unfavourable genetic patterns within the population. Galton believed that the principles of evolutionary theory could be applied to the human species and used to intervene in its genetic fitness.

Sir Francis Galton was a proponent of social Darwinism, eugenics and scientific racism.
Portrait by Charles Furse/Alamy stock photo

Galton and other early eugenicists advocated policies that would ensure that groups they believed held “desirable” traits, such as high intelligence, creative ability, or productivity, could reproduce in greater numbers than groups with less favourable genetics. Some even believed that “undesirable” groups should be prevented from reproducing, through forced sterilisation or abortion.

Ruling elites used eugenics to justify brutal treatment of disabled people, ethnic minorities, colonial populations, and LGBTQ+ people.

In the 1930s these ideas came to form the bedrock of Nazi race doctrine. Eugenics was a key component of Nazism and shaped both formal fascist ideology and how the Nazi regime treated its victims.

Before the second world war, many researchers regarded eugenics as a legitimate science. But in the aftermath of the war came a shift in attitudes, and scientists and society came to view eugenics as scientifically false and morally objectionable.

Instead of disappearing from academia, however, eugenics merely retreated into the
margins. Racial research became the focus of a handful of groups intent on keeping
the eugenics tradition alive.

Though they operated on the fringes of academia, these groups received financial support from private donors. The most prominent of these donors was the Pioneer Fund, a charity established in 1937 to support race science and white supremacy in the US and elsewhere.

These groups were close-knit. United by a shared sense of exclusion from the
academic mainstream, the people involved were prolific writers and together
generated a large body of work. They inflated their own citation counts by frequently referencing each other’s work and, in this way, established the impression of scientific rigour.

Pseudoscientific journals

Seeking to salvage the reputation of eugenics as a legitimate science, these groups
tended to cluster around journals and periodicals.

Chief among these was Mankind Quarterly, established in 1961 by a group called the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE). Some decades later ownership of the journal was transferred to the Ulster Institute for Social Research, a eugenicist think tank founded and directed by Richard Lynn. Lynn is widely considered the intellectual figurehead of 21st-century eugenics.

The Mankind Quarterly quickly became known as a bastion of scientific racism. It published work by notorious pseudoscientists, neo-fascists, and such controversial political figures as former British MP Enoch Powell, remembered for appealing to racial hatred in his speeches.

Other similar journals emerged in the following decades. In France, Nouvelle École (“New School”) was established in 1967 by a white nationalist group. In Germany, Neue Anthropologie (“New Anthropology”) was first published in 1973.

These publications were part of the same networks. Their editors received funding from the same sources, including the Pioneer Fund, they published translations of each other’s articles, and their editorial boards overlapped.

Eugenics today

Reported to have developed out of the Pioneer Fund and to have taken ownership of Mankind Quarterly, the HDF is the successor to earlier groups like the IAAEE and the Ulster Institute.

Today, the eugenics movement is experiencing a period of uncertainty following the
death of Richard Lynn in July 2023. When he died, Lynn was the director of the Pioneer Fund and the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly. Organisations like HDF, led by people who have worked closely with Lynn, are trying to fill that void.

Whether the HDF will survive public scrutiny remains to be seen. But the broader networks from which it emerged are arguably stronger than at any previous moment in post-war history, facilitated by the rise of the far right and online extremism. All of which means it has never been more important to remember the tradition’s history. Läs mer…

In a significant diplomatic manoeuvre that may have far-reaching implications for the international system of alliances, Turkey has submitted a formal request to join Brics, the group of emerging-market economies, signalling its intent to diversify its partnerships beyond the west.

The Brics grouping, named after Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, comprises some of the world’s largest economies. Earlier this year, it welcomed four new members: Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt. Although Saudi Arabia has been invited to join, the official process is yet to take place. Often viewed as an alternative to western-led organisations such as the EU, G7 and Nato, Brics signifies a significant shift in global power dynamics.

Ankara’s decision could be a strategy to strengthen relations with non-western powers as the global economy’s centre continues to shift away from the west, but is also about chasing more trade with Brics members.

Announced ahead of the Brics summit starting on October 22, Turkey’s application has raised questions about the broader implications for its role within Nato. If accepted, Turkey would be the first Nato member of Brics. However, this is not to say that Turkey is entirely turning away from the west. Turkey’s institutional ties with the western world run deep. At most, this move signals Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s intention to increase the government’s flexibility in its foreign relations.

Erdoğan said on September 1 that this move shows Ankara’s aims to cultivate ties with all sides simultaneously to “become a strong, prosperous, prestigious and effective country if it improves its relations with the east and the west simultaneously”.

Turkey’s acceptance into the group could be discussed during the upcoming 16th Brics summit, in Kazan, Russia. Malaysia, Thailand and Azerbaijan are among other countries expecting to join.

Between east and west

Turkey’s balancing act between east and west is not a recent phenomenon but a continuation of its policies since the end of the cold war, and is in line with its geographical position at the edge of Europe and Asia.

This strategy has been central to Turkey’s intricate, at times conflicting, approach to international relations and remains pertinent in an increasingly complex world. The shift from a unipolar world – the idea that the world is dominated by one super power – to one with more global powers has led all governments to reassess their foreign policies, and Ankara is no different.

Turkey’s longstanding commitment to Nato makes it highly unlikely that its willingness to join the Brics group signifies a move away from its western allies. Since 2016, Turkey has strengthened its economic, political, and military ties with Russia and China, and its recent application to the Brics group reflects this trend. According to some experts in Turkish foreign policy, while this development may raise concerns in western capitals, there is no pressing reason for the west to be alarmed about Turkey making concessions to Russia or acting independently of Nato.

Map of the Black Sea region.
Shutterstock

There are two incentives driving Turkey’s application. According to Sinan Ülgen, director of the Istanbul-based Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies: “The first is Turkey’s aspiration to enhance its strategic autonomy in foreign policy which essentially involves improving ties with non-western powers like Russia and China in a way to balance the relationship with the west. The second is the accumulated frustrations over the relationship with the west. For example, the EU has not even been able to decide on the start of negotiations on the updating of the customs union, its trade deal with Turkey that dates back to 1996.”

Read more:
Bottled up in the Black Sea: Russia is having a dreadful naval war, hindering its great power ambitions

Control of the Black Sea

Turkey has been keen on joining the Brics group since 2018. Putin, during a meeting with Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan in Moscow in June this year, welcomed Ankara’s interest and promised that Moscow “will support this desire to be together with the countries of this alliance [Brics], to be together, closer, to solve common problems”.

Since the war in Ukraine, Russia has been making extra efforts to gain the support of more countries. Turkey holds a particular significance in this effort due to its strategic location, and its control of the Black Sea straits, an essential trade route for both Ukraine and Russia. The Black Sea has played an important part in the Ukraine war, and Turkey has been part of an alliance that has stymied Russia’s attempts to fully control the waters, and allowed Ukraine to continue to use the waters.

The Montreux Convention regulates maritime traffic through the Turkish Straits. The convention distinguishes between Black Sea and non-Black Sea powers, acknowledging specific advantages for the former, which includes Ukraine and Russia.

In March 2022, Erdoğan indicated that the convention allows Turkey to restrict the passage of naval vessels belonging to warring parties. Putin may be hoping that with Turkey on board as a Brics ally he may be able to persuade Ankara to give him more leeway. Currently Russia’s inability to control the Black Sea and cargo ships within it are seriously weakening its ability to constrain Ukraine’s economy.

Turkey anticipates that Brics membership will enhance its geopolitical standing and expand its economic influence, especially in non-western markets. Most importantly, leveraging its geopolitical position to influence global affairs and pursuing a more balanced and diversified foreign policy.

It is evident that Turkey aims to maintain its connections with the west while also desiring the flexibility to engage with other regions. It is highly improbable that this would lead to a significant overhaul of Turkey’s ties with western countries. It may, however, cause concern among fellow Nato members about how much they can rely on Turkey in the future. Läs mer…

There is a city nearby that we hide from view. Its people are of all ages, ethnicities and classes. What unites them is a disease: all are diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME.

We hide them there because we don’t know where else to put them. Like a plague village, we have no plans to treat them, to study their disease or to trial possible drugs for them. We could choose to draw up such plans, to give the residents hope for their future health. But our country’s choice is to turn away and forget about these 250,000-plus inhabitants altogether. A city the size of Brighton that we deliberately ignore.

Worse, when we don’t ignore them, we blame them, telling them that they are all free to rise from their beds and wheelchairs, to walk away from the city. Doctors tell them they can free themselves of the disease by changing their belief systems. Make the effort, they say, and you will regain your health and previous lives.

This article is part of Conversation Insights.
Our co-editors commission long-form journalism, working with academics from many different backgrounds who are engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

Outwardly, the city is quiet: its clocks have stopped, the streets are empty and house blinds are drawn. Inwardly, some lie still in their darkened rooms, masks on to protect them from their light sensitivity, keeping within their limited energy level, unable to tolerate sound, food and touch – lives spent in the shadows, barely lived. Inside, they feel like they have life-sapping toxins coursing through their veins. They say it feels like being on the verge of death; some even call it a “pseudo dying syndrome”.

A brief conversation with a friend, or washing their hair, or a sudden movement causes their symptoms to flare. This intensifies a fatigue that sleep cannot alleviate, and heightens their muscle or joint pain, headaches, or sensitivities to food, light or sound.

Simon McGrath, a close friend of mine who has lived with ME and written about it for 20 years, tells me:

I never know how much it is safe for me to do. It’s like I’m surrounded by an electric fence that will trigger a bad day if I touch it. But the fence is invisible, and moves every day.

A ‘scandal’ so much more than chronic fatigue

Fatigue does not begin to describe this disease, despite its other name being chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS. “A bad day is like a very bad hangover lasting 24 hours or more: the morning after, without the night before,” Simon explains. “But with much more pain, much more fatigue and very bad brain fog. I feel as if all the neurons in my skull have collapsed and disconnected from each other.” By spotlighting fatigue, ME’s other name fails to convey its many debilitating symptoms.

Simon – or, rather, his illness – is why I am a ME researcher. At university, where we met, he graduated with a biochemistry degree, fizzing with energy and talent. His ME soon dimmed his bright future but would not stop him making a difference to the ME community through his writing, and in helping me understand this horrible disease.

Treatment of ME has been called “the greatest medical scandal of the 21st century” by Guardian journalist George Monbiot. It is difficult to disagree when there is not a single bed anywhere in the UK set aside for treating people with severe ME.

The Times journalist, Sean O’Neill, says that ME is “routinely stigmatised and ignored by the NHS” and calls it “a scandal waiting for its Post Office moment”. O’Neill and his family had to endure the inquest into the death of his daughter, Maeve Boothby O’Neill, who died from natural causes because of severe ME.

Maeve’s ME left her unable to move, communicate or tolerate light, sound or touch. She did not want to go to hospital because, according to her GP, she “always gets worse when [she] goes in”.

Why is it that we give the least or worst treatments to those who are most in need?

Exile and misogyny

ME exiles people from their family, friends, and hoped-for futures. For most, this banishment is for life because nine in ten will never recover, and also because we expend too little effort to end this wicked disease.

That’s the irony – it’s society’s lack of effort to understand this illness and its treatment; our societal inertia; our failure to accept patients’ symptoms that perpetuate their exile.

So let’s attempt to diagnose what causes our apathy towards this cruel disease. The chief cause is misogyny, an ingrained prejudice born of the disease’s strong female bias: for every five women living with ME, there is only one man. It also has a strong age bias – young men are ten times less likely to be diagnosed with it than older women.

Another female-dominant disease is endometriosis. Like ME, the medical establishment is only just starting to appreciate the full nature of this debilitating condition.

In her memoir, Giving up the Ghost, the prize-winning novelist Hilary Mantel said of her endometriosis: “The more I said that I had a physical illness, the more they said I had a mental illness. The more I questioned the nature, the reality of the mental illness, the more I was found to be in denial, deluded.”

ME patients also report feeling that their concerns and symptoms are all too often dismissed.

Women with ME have spoken about their experiences of medical misogyny. For example, I talked to the Vikings actress Jennie Jacques who has spoken openly about her experiences of ME. She said that “Medical misogyny [is] at the heart of it. ME was psychologised when it most definitely shouldn’t have been”.

Soon after the World Health Organization recognised ME as a disease in 1969, the Royal Free Hospital ME outbreak of 1955 was re-evaluated by two psychiatrists, Colin McEvedy and William Beard. They reassessed this outbreak as “an epidemic of hysteria” principally because there was a “high attack rate in females compared with males”.

When later asked by ME specialist Byron Hyde MD “why had he written up the Free Hospital epidemics as hysteria without any careful exploration of the basis of his thesis?”, McEvedy responded devastatingly, saying: “It was an easy PhD, why not?”

This explains in part why the state invests a mere £3 per ME patient each year on researching this disease.

In the US, female-biased conditions attract less funding than male-biased ones. Funding for ME is 400-times less than for HIV/Aids, a male-biased disease, once their different disease burdens are accounted for.

In 2021, the previous UK government acknowledged the problem stating: “Studies suggest gender biases in clinical trials and research are contributing to worse health outcomes for women.”

COVID empathy?

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic should have woken us up from our collective lethargy, and should have turned apathy into empathy. For then there were times when we all became housebound, often sick with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and moreover so many of us – a million people, more than Liverpool and Manchester combined – came down with Long COVID.

Long COVID and ME share so many symptoms: post-exertional malaise, fatigue, widespread pain, disordered sleep, and brain fog. This overlap should never have surprised us – after all, two-thirds of people with ME report having had a triggering infection, such as glandular fever, just prior to their initial symptoms. Around 10% of people with glandular fever go on to develop ME symptoms.

It is as if we have our own brain fog, obscuring everyone with ME, forgetting how we – if fortune had been different – might have been them.

If we do not act to reduce the spread of infection, through immunisation and better ventilation, then numbers of people with long COVID – and other ME-like illnesses – will continue to rise, as infections so often trigger these conditions.

Read more:
Long COVID: effects on fatigue and quality of life can be comparable to some cancers – new research

Harmful treatments

Going back to Simon, ME made him housebound, then bedbound. The NHS treated him with therapies based on increasing activity levels (Graded Exercise Therapy, or GET). This involves “gradually increasing physical activity to improve fitness and get the body used to activity again”.

The other NHS treatment approach, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), is about changing “illness beliefs”. Here, patients are asked to examine “how thoughts, behaviour and CFS/ME symptoms interact with each other”.

But these treatments are ineffective as cures. And worse still, for the majority of 11,000 people with ME on one survey, GET did more harm then good.

ME blogger and friend of the author, Simon McGrath.
Simon McGrath, Author provided (no reuse)

In a different online survey, of 542 ME patients, 81% responded that their symptoms worsened because of GET treatment. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, revised in 2021, say that CBT is not curative and that GET should not be offered to people with ME. Yet this new guidance has been implemented by only 28% of English NHS Trusts and Integrated Care Boards.

So, despite GET being described by patients as causing harm, and CBT as being ineffective as a cure, they are still being offered as a treatment. Over decades, very little has changed for Simon and hundreds of thousands of others with ME.

As we grew older together, Simon watched as I changed scientific career from physics into biology. I watched as his health might begin to rebuild, before suddenly collapsing, setting him back months or years. His ME has cost so much, he told me:

It’s so isolating and there’s so much loss. I got ill in the prime of life. It cost me relationships, my social life, my career, the chance of a family, the chance to contribute. Everything. Plenty of people seem to think it’s a lifestyle choice. Nobody would choose this.

As if his ME burden was not heavy enough, he started to carry other long-term health conditions, which each alone would bring me to my knees. Even though he does not feel it, I see his strength and resolution in adversity. At a time when biomedical evidence was rarely championed, he began his ME blog, and together with co-authors re-analysed clinical trial data. They concluded that the “recovery rates in the CBT and GET groups were not significantly higher than those in the control, no-therapy group”.

His own experience of ME, and his scientific eye-for-detail, make him a go-to person for people in the ME community.

In contrast, by 2013, and despite my decades of scientific training and academic privileges, I had done nothing for ME research. Why did I hesitate? “It’s not my scientific area,” I told myself. I trusted other researchers to identify effective and potentially curative treatments soon.

I was unprepared for the shock of my first ME research meetings. When studying other diseases, I had become used to vast conference halls brimming with celebrated scientists, enthusiastic PhD students, science prize winners, funders, and journal editors, all on the hunt for the next big breakthrough, grant or career opportunity.

For ME, however, the rooms were small and half-empty, funders and journal editors were nowhere to be seen, and researchers were talking at cross-purposes, showing sparse data from small-scale studies. These meetings were also empty of robust evidence for what physiologically had gone wrong for so many. At each meeting, a single word came to my mind: “forsaken” – those who others shun, neglect and abandon, whose existence is denied. I could not then, in all conscience, turn my back and walk away.

Not once have I regretted this decision. Its professional cost – measured in traditional markers of esteem, such as “glamour” publications, international conference and seminar invitations – has been more than offset by the fulfilment from working in this long-neglected field.

The extent of scientific disinterest in ME is clear: so far this year, there have been 17-times more publications mentioning “multiple sclerosis” than those mentioning ME or CFS, despite MS being rarer.

New study

My privilege now is to walk ME’s city of stolen futures alongside many people – like Simon – whose lost decades have been spent searching for their disease’s root causes. Together, for two-and-a-half years our team went back-and-forth with the Medical Research Council MRC and the National Institute for Health and Care Research NIHR. Eventually, we managed to secure a £3.2m award for DecodeME, a hunt for ME’s genetic causes.

DecodeME is not just the world’s largest study of the genetic causes of ME, but it was the first to place people with experience of ME at its heart. A total of 27,000 people with ME in the UK took part. We will report the study’s results as soon as we can. When we do, we will give them back first to the ME community whose data and samples we hold in trust.

The UK government has pledged to publish its delivery plan on ME in 2025. Andrew Gwynne MP, parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department of Health and Social Care, has said that it “will focus on boosting research, improving attitudes and education and bettering the lives of people with this debilitating disease”.

This delivery plan will need to be radical.

Today, we urgently need more people to move through this city of lost hope to hear and to listen.

We need scientists to develop new vaccines against infections that trigger ME.

We need researchers, clinical specialists, hospital managers, and politicians to give deserved priority to this long-forsaken community and help lead these long-lost inhabitants back into the land of the well.

For you: more from our Insights series:

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The Australian National Health and Medical research Council (NHMRC) has today released draft guidelines for acceptable levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water.

PFAS chemicals are also known as “forever chemicals”, because they don’t break down easily and can persist in the environment, including drinking water supplies.

The new guidelines – which are not mandatory but will inform state and territory policy – are expected to be finalised in April 2025. They propose a reduction in the maximum levels previously considered safe for four key PFAS chemicals: PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFBS.

Continually scrutinising and updating our PFAS regulations is important to ensure Australians’ safety. However, these updated guidelines are unlikely to have a significant impact on Australia’s drinking water. The majority of potable water supplies in Australia either have no detectable PFAS, or have levels already below the new limits.

What are PFAS chemicals?

PFAS are highly fat-soluble compounds that are very slow to break down. They are basically long chains of carbon atoms studded with fluorine molecules.

PFAS chemicals are inert, water-repellent and heat-resistant. These properties make them ideal for industrial usage and they have been used in firefighting foams and fire-retardant material. They have also been used in common household items such as nonstick pans and stain-resistant fabrics.

PFAS chemicals are very slow to break down.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

Unfortunately, their useful industrial stability means they persist in the environment and can accumulate in the human body. It can take five years for half an ingested dose of PFAS to be removed.

Given PFAS chemicals have the potential to mimic the body’s own fats, there has been concern they could harm our health if sufficient amounts accumulated in the body.

What sorts of health effects are they linked to?

The buildup of a chemical that’s hard to remove from our bodies is always of concern. Despite this, the potential health risks appear to be low. In 2018 the Australian Expert Health Panel for PFAS looked in detail at the evidence.

One of the largest concerns was PFAS chemicals’ ability to increase levels of cholesterol in the blood, potentially increasing heart disease risk. However, studies of people who have been chronically exposed to significant levels of PFOA have not shown statistically significant increases in heart disease.

In 2018, the report from Australia’s expert health panel stated:

Evidence to date does not establish whether PFAS at exposure levels seen in Australia might increase risks of cardiovascular disease… Established risk factors … are likely to be of a much greater magnitude than those potentially caused by PFAS.

Cancer has also been a concern. However the expert panel found no consistent evidence that PFAS chemicals are associated with cancer. One study even found exposure to PFOA decreased the incidence of bowel cancer.

However, the impact of PFAS on human health is continuously reviewed as new evidence comes to light.

Why has Australia revised its drinking water guidelines?

Australia began to phase out PFAS chemicals in the early 2000s. Since then, the levels of PFAS detected in the Australian population have steadily dropped.

Now that industrial use is being phased out, the main way we are exposed to PFAS is through things like persistent environmental contamination. While drinking water is not a major source of PFAS, water can be contaminated from environmental sources, for example, if contaminated dust or ground water makes its way into reservoirs.

Most drinking water levels in Australia either have no detectable PFAS or are already below the new levels.
Juergen_Wallstabe/Shutterstock

The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines provide limits for how much PFAS is allowed to be in our drinking water.

The NHMRC periodically reviews the health evidence around PFAS used to develop these guidelines, which were last updated in 2018. The latest review looks at additional evidence available since then.

A few developments were of particular interest in this review: studies about the influence of PFAS on thyroid function. Altering thyroid function can be problematic because thyroid hormones regulate our metabolism, growth and development.

The International Agency for Cancer Research’s (IARC) recent ruling on PFAS and cancer also needed to be investigated. The IARC has classified PFOS – one of the four key chemicals Australia is regulating – as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. However the IARC noted there was “inadequate” evidence PFOS directly causes any type of cancer in people.

This agency can rule on the probability that a chemical can cause cancer under any possible exposure, no matter how extreme. But it doesn’t evaluate the risk of cancer from ordinary exposure.

This means the NHMRC needed to reevaluate the evidence that the levels present in drinking water would constitute a risk.

What are the new PFAS limits?

The NHRMC considered evidence about PFAS exposure in animal studies, and by looking at human epidemiology.

In studies involving animals, the NHMRC review paid particular attention to what concentration of PFAS exposure had no effect on their health. This threshold is used to determine limits for humans, by adding a safety buffer usually a hundred times lower than the level that was safe for animals.

The limits are set are carefully considering the evidence about impact on human health, as well as evaluating how much PFAS exposure is likely from sources beyond drinking water, such as food and inhaled dust.

The proposed limits are:

Note: PFOS and PFHxS are now regulated separately.
NHMRC

These guidelines are unlikely to have a significant impact on health. As the NHMRC report shows, majority of potable water supplies in Australia have no detectable PFAS, or levels are already below these new limits.

For example, drinking water sampling for WaterNSW found PFOS levels were between 1.2ng/L and undectable. Similar results were found for PFHxS (between 1.4 and 0.1ng/L) and PFOA (basically undetectable).

While the concentration of PFAS in bores near contamination sites are higher, these are typically not used as sources of drinking water.

The Australian guidelines differ from some international guidelines. The draft guidelines note that different jurisdictions place different weighting on animal and human evidence, and this will affect these regulatory levels.

The draft guidelines are now open to public consultation, with submissions closing on November 22 2024. Final guidelines are expected to be released in April 2025. Läs mer…

An ABC report on Monday revealed a concerning rise in peer-on-peer sexual abuse within Australian primary schools.

Data on Victorian schools shows hundreds of such incidents were reported in 2022 and 2023, with many involving children under the age of ten.

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study also showed rates of sexual abuse inflicted by peers has been increasing. Overall, 18.2% of participants aged 16 to 24 reported being sexually abused by a peer during their childhood, compared to 12.1% of those aged 45 years and over.

Parents may be wondering how they can protect their children at school.

One of the most effective tools parents have is open, regular and age-appropriate conversations with their kids.

Read more:
There are reports some students are making sexual moaning noises at school. Here’s how parents and teachers can respond

Talk about boundaries and consent early

What should you be talking about?

It is crucial for parents to talk with their children about boundaries and consent from an early age. For younger children, this can be as simple as teaching them their body belongs to them and no one else has the right to touch them without permission. Asking if its OK for a hug, and respecting when children say “no” is a great start.

When discussing consent, it is important to highlight consent is not just about saying “no”, but also recognising and respecting others’ boundaries.

Peer relationships and trusted adults play a crucial role in a child’s life. Helping children identify adults they can trust if they need to talk about something is also very important. Peers are often the first to hear of concerns or are often the recipients of disclosures, so fostering healthy friendships and teaching children to report to trusted adults is crucial.

Addressing peer pressure and secrecy

Children may feel pressured by peers or may be told to keep certain behaviours secret.

It is essential for parents to emphasise no matter who asks them to keep a secret, they should always share concerns or things they are unsure about with a trusted adult.

Parents can reinforce the message that if someone tells them not to tell, it is a “red flag”.

Children can often feel unsure or scared of whether what has happened is wrong. This is why encouraging openness and creating a nonjudgmental space for children to share is important.

Discussing online safety

Research shows exposure to harmful material, like pornography, is a contributing factor to inappropriate sexual behaviour among peers.

Being aware of your child’s internet use and educating them on how to keep themselves safe online is crucial.

What else can parents do?

While conversations with your children are vital, parents can also take practical steps to ensure their child’s safety at school. These include:

familiarising yourself with school policies: understand the school’s procedures for reporting bullying, harassment and sexual abuse. Parents should ask about how teachers manage supervision during breaks or other occasions where children may be less well unsupervised
advocating for comprehensive sex education at your school: when parents are involved in sex education it leads to better outcomes for children. Check what your school covers in the curriculum. Ask about what supports are available to parents, and how you can be involved
getting involved in your child’s social world: knowing who your child’s friends are and staying connected with teachers can offer insight into troubling dynamics. Create opportunities for your child to talk about their friendships and school experiences regularly. And as they start navigating the digital world, it’s even more important to know who they are engaging with
teach assertiveness and confidence: find ways to empower your child to speak up for themselves when they are unsure, or something feels wrong. Don’t leave this up to a class teacher to deal with in respectful relationship education. At home, you can encourage assertiveness in expressing their preferences and boundaries. You can also model how to stand up to peer pressure. Children can learn and be encouraged to say simple phrases such as, “stop, I don’t like it” or “no, I don’t want to”.

If there is a problem

If you do come across an issue or problem, try and work with your school. Despite your distress, try not to be adversarial – rather pitch your conversation to the teacher or principal as “How can I help us work through this together?”

Parental involvement in education, can reduce the risk of child sexual abuse. If parents and schools can work together, they are more likely to be effective in keeping children safe.

Prevention requires vigilance, communication and support from both parents and schools. Parents play a crucial role in shaping their child’s understanding of what’s OK, what’s harmful, as well as boundaries, safety and consent.

By having ongoing conversations, staying informed, and working with schools, parents are the first step to creating safety for children – and supporting them if something goes wrong. Läs mer…

Australia’s fertility rate has fallen to a new record low of 1.5 babies per woman. That’s well below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 needed to sustain a country’s population.

On face value, it might not seem like a big deal. But we can’t afford to ignore this issue. The health of an economy is deeply intertwined with the size and structure of its population.

Australians simply aren’t having as many babies as they used to, raising some serious questions about how we can maintain our country’s workforce, sustain economic growth and fund important services.

So what’s going on with fertility rates here and around the world, and what might it mean for the future of our economy? What can we do about it?

Are lower birth rates always a problem?

Falling fertility rates can actually have some short-term benefits. Having fewer dependent young people in an economy can increase workforce participation, as well as boost savings and wealth.

Smaller populations can also benefit from increased investment per person in education and health.

But the picture gets more complex in the long term, and less rosy. An ageing population can strain pensions, health care and social services. This can hinder economic growth, unless it’s offset by increased productivity.

Other scholars have warned that a falling population could stifle innovation, with fewer young people meaning fewer breakthrough ideas.

In the short term, lower birth rates can mean more is able to be spent per-person on services like education.
Jandrie Lombard/Shutterstock

A global phenomenon

The trend towards women having fewer children is not unique to Australia. The global fertility rate has dropped over the past couple of decades, from 2.7 babies per woman in 2000 to 2.4 in 2023.

However, the distribution is not evenly spread. In 2021, 29% of the world’s babies were born in sub-Saharan Africa. This is projected to rise to 54% by 2100.

There’s also a regional-urban divide. Childbearing is often delayed in urban areas and late fertility is more common in cities.

In Australia, we see higher fertility rates in inner and outer regional areas than in metro areas. This could be because of more affordable housing and a better work-life balance.

But it raises questions about whether people are moving out of cities to start families, or if something intrinsic about living in the regions promotes higher birth rates.

Fewer workers, more pressure on services

Changes to the makeup of a population can be just as important as changes to its size. With fewer babies being born and increased life expectancy, the proportion of older Australians who have left the workforce will keep rising.

One way of tracking this is with a metric called the old-age dependency ratio – the number of people aged 65 and over per 100 working-age individuals.

In Australia, this ratio is currently about 27%. But according to the latest Intergenerational Report, it’s expected to rise to 38% by 2063.

An ageing population means greater demand for medical services and aged care. As the working-age population shrinks, the tax base that funds these services will also decline.

An ageing population can mean more pressure on tax-payer funded services like healthcare.
Chinnapong/Shutterstock

Unless this is offset by technological advances or policy innovations, it can mean higher taxes, longer working lives, or the government providing fewer public services in general.

What about housing?

It’s tempting to think a falling birth rate might be good news for Australia’s stubborn housing crisis.

The issues are linked – rising real estate prices have made it difficult for many young people to afford homes, with a significant number of people in their 20s still living with their parents.

This can mean delaying starting a family and reducing the number of children they have.

At the same time, if fertility rates stay low, demand for large family homes may decrease, impacting one of Australia’s most significant economic sectors and sources of household wealth.

Read more:
No savings? No plans? No Great Australian Dream. How housing is reshaping young people’s lives

Can governments turn the tide?

Governments worldwide, including Australia, have long experimented with policies that encourage families to have more children. Examples include paid parental leave, childcare subsidies and financial incentives, such as Australia’s “baby bonus”.

Many of these efforts have had only limited success. One reason is the rising average age at which women have their first child. In many developed countries, including Australia, the average age for first-time mothers has surpassed 30.

As women delay childbirth, they become less likely to have multiple children, further contributing to declining birth rates. Encouraging women to start a family earlier could be one policy lever, but it must be balanced with women’s growing workforce participation and career goals.

Research has previously highlighted the factors influencing fertility decisions, including levels of paternal involvement and workplace flexibility. Countries that offer part-time work or maternity leave without career penalties have seen a stabilisation or slight increases in fertility rates.

Any solutions to falling fertility rates must balance other important factors such as women’s increased workforce participation.
Halfpoint/Shutterstock

The way forward

Historically, one of the ways Australia has countered its low birth rate is through immigration. Bringing in a lot of people – especially skilled people of working age – can help offset the effects of a low fertility rate.

However, relying on immigration alone is not a long-term solution. The global fertility slump means that the pool of young, educated workers from other countries is shrinking, too. This makes it harder for Australia to attract the talent it needs to sustain economic growth.

Australia’s record-low fertility rate presents both challenges and opportunities. On one hand, the shrinking number of young people will place a strain on public services, innovation and the labour market.

On the other hand, advances in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence and robotics, may help ease the challenges of an ageing population.

That’s the optimistic scenario. AI and other tech-driven productivity gains could reduce the need for large workforces. And robotics could assist in aged care, lessening the impact of this demographic shift. Läs mer…

Irish writer John Connolly once said:

The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another’s pain as one’s own, and to act to take that pain away.

For most of our history, we believed empathy was a uniquely human trait – a special ability that set us apart from machines and other animals. But this belief is now being challenged.

As AI becomes a bigger part of our lives, entering even our most intimate spheres, we’re faced with a philosophical conundrum: could attributing human qualities to AI diminish our own human essence? Our research suggests it can.

Digitising companionship

In recent years, AI “companion” apps such as Replika have attracted millions of users. Replika allows users to create custom digital partners to engage in intimate conversations. Members who pay for Replika Pro can even turn their AI into a “romantic partner”.

Physical AI companions aren’t far behind. Companies such as JoyLoveDolls are selling interactive sex robots with customisable features including breast size, ethnicity, movement and AI responses such as moaning and flirting.

While this is currently a niche market, history suggests today’s digital trends will become tomorrow’s global norms. With about one in four adults experiencing loneliness, the demand for AI companions will grow.

The dangers of humanising AI

Humans have long attributed human traits to non-human entities – a tendency known as anthropomorphism. It’s no surprise we’re doing this with AI tools such as ChatGPT, which appear to “think” and “feel”. But why is humanising AI a problem?

For one thing, it allows AI companies to exploit our tendency to form attachments with human-like entities. Replika is marketed as “the AI companion who cares”. However, to avoid legal issues, the company elsewhere points out Replika isn’t sentient and merely learns through millions of user interactions.

Screenshot of contradictory information on Replika’s help page versus advertising.

Some AI companies overtly claim their AI assistants have empathy and can even anticipate human needs. Such claims are misleading and can take advantage of people seeking companionship. Users may become deeply emotionally invested if they believe their AI companion truly understands them.

This raises serious ethical concerns. A user will hesitate to delete (that is, to “abandon” or “kill”) their AI companion once they’ve ascribed some kind of sentience to it.

But what happens when said companion unexpectedly disappears, such as if the user can no longer afford it, or if the company that runs it shuts down? While the companion may not be real, the feelings attached to it are.

Empathy – more than a programmable output

By reducing empathy to a programmable output, do we risk diminishing its true essence? To answer this, let’s first think about what empathy really is.

Empathy involves responding to other people with understanding and concern. It’s when you share your friend’s sorrow as they tell you about their heartache, or when you feel joy radiating from someone you care about. It’s a profound experience – rich and beyond simple forms of measurement.

A fundamental difference between humans and AI is that humans genuinely feel emotions, while AI can only simulate them. This touches on the hard problem of consciousness, which questions how subjective human experiences arise from physical processes in the brain.

Science has yet to solve the hard problem of consciousness.
Shutterstock

While AI can simulate understanding, any “empathy” it purports to have is a result of programming that mimics empathetic language patterns. Unfortunately, AI providers have a financial incentive to trick users into growing attached to their seemingly empathetic products.

The dehumanAIsation hypothesis

Our “dehumanAIsation hypothesis” highlights the ethical concerns that come with trying to reduce humans to some basic functions that can be replicated by a machine. The more we humanise AI, the more we risk dehumanising ourselves.

For instance, depending on AI for emotional labour could make us less tolerant of the imperfections of real relationships. This could weaken our social bonds and even lead to emotional deskilling. Future generations may become less empathetic – losing their grasp on essential human qualities as emotional skills continue to be commodified and automated.

Also, as AI companions become more common, people may use them to replace real human relationships. This would likely increase loneliness and alienation – the very issues these systems claim to help with.

AI companies’ collection and analysis of emotional data also poses significant risks, as these data could be used to manipulate users and maximise profit. This would further erode our privacy and autonomy, taking surveillance capitalism to the next level.

Holding providers accountable

Regulators need to do more to hold AI providers accountable. AI companies should be honest about what their AI can and can’t do, especially when they risk exploiting users’ emotional vulnerabilities.

Exaggerated claims of “genuine empathy” should be made illegal. Companies making such claims should be fined – and repeat offenders shut down.

Data privacy policies should also be clear, fair and without hidden terms that allow companies to exploit user-generated content.

We must preserve the unique qualities that define the human experience. While AI can enhance certain aspects of life, it can’t – and shouldn’t – replace genuine human connection. Läs mer…

In September 2023, an Australian Senate committee released a landmark report on concussions and repeated head trauma in contact sports.

The committee made 13 recommendations to improve outcomes for past, present and future players.

The report emphasised shared responsibility and transparency in developing a national approach, with the government to lead nine of the recommendations.

As of October 2024, no official government update has been provided.

We’ve assessed the status of the recommendations – of the publicly available sources, we found evidence of action in some areas but no national strategy in directly addressing the focus of several key recommendations.

As part of this review, we searched the websites of the Australian government’s Department of Health and Aged Care and the Australian Sports Commission/Australian Institute of Sport (ASC/AIS).

We approached the Senate committee secretary and the Department of Health and Aged Care for more information but neither was able to comment.

We acknowledge there is likely more work going on behind the scenes, and these processes take time.

Here’s what we found.

Progress being made

In the past year, there has been progress made with several recommendations including those addressing community awareness, education and guidelines for amateur and youth sports.

The AIS continues to engage in health-led efforts with a suite of resources aimed at increasing community awareness and education.

In June this year, the institute published a new set of return-to-play guidelines specifically targeting community and youth athletes.

This represents a tangible response from a federally funded sporting body.

However, these guidelines must be easily implemented by clubs. To date, there is no indication the government plans to increase funding or resources to clubs to help do so.

The committee also called for national sporting organisations to “further explore rule modifications to prevent and reduce the impact of concussions and repeated head trauma, prioritising modifications for children and adolescents”.

Several major sporting codes have modified their rules and we expect them to remain focused on rule modifications to ensure the longevity of their sports.

General practitioners (GPs) are often the first port of call after a concussion, and the committee recommended the development of standardised guidelines for GPs and first aid responders.

This addresses concerns that GPs may require additional training in treating sport-related brain trauma.

In response, the AIS developed a free, online short course for registered GPs.

Work in progress, or lack of progress?

There appears to be work in progress or a lack of progress elsewhere, including key recommendations for a National Sports Injury Database (NSID) and professional sport data sharing.

The inquiry highlighted how patchy data collection had contributed to evidence gaps in understanding sports injury management and surveillance. The committee’s most urgent recommendation therefore was for the government to establish the NSID.

This would work closely with another recommendation that called for professional sport codes to collect and share de-identified concussion and sub-concussive event data with the NSID.

As of October 2024, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports the NSID is still under development and is not yet ready to receive data.

Other recommendations related to research – establishing an independent research pathway, ongoing funding commitments and a co-ordinated and consolidated funding framework.

These recommendations called for the government’s existing agencies, or a newly created body, to coordinate research on the effects of concussion and repeated head trauma.

No new dedicated sports-related concussion research pathways have emerged since the inquiry.

In terms of funding commitments, in April this year – after former rugby league star Wally Lewis’s National Press Club appearance – Dementia Australia reported the government had pledged $A18 million for concussion and CTE support services and education.

Read more:
Why a portrait of a former NRL great could spark greater concussion awareness in Australia

The May 2024 federal budget allocated $132.7 million to boost sports participation from grassroots to high performance. But this did not address concussion and repeated head trauma, and we haven’t been able to find evidence of a co-ordinated and consolidated funding framework.

Our view is concussion funding pools should be primarily focused on supporting independent research projects. However, sporting bodies clearly need to be involved – they provide access to athlete populations and most people in these organisations have a genuine care for athlete welfare.

Another recommendation called for a national concussion strategy. This should focus on binding return-to-play protocols and rules to protect participants from head injuries.

The recommendation included a role for government and whether any existing government bodies would be best placed to monitor, oversee and/or enforce concussion-related rules and protocols.

In our view, this recommendation involves much more than producing guidelines. It requires a more comprehensive national strategy, with consideration to monitoring compliance and enforcement.

We could not find any evidence indicating the current status of this recommendation.

Increased funding and support for affected athletes were also focus areas.

These recommendations called for a review to address barriers to workers’ compensation and ensure adequate insurance arrangements remain in place.

We could not find any evidence of whether state and territory governments are involved in the reviews of workers compensation to apply to professional athletes.

The committee recommenced the government consider measures to increase donations to brain banks for scientific research.

We couldn’t find any evidence of steps taken to implement this recommendation.

Moving forward

There has been progress in education and guidelines but a lack of the coordinated, transparent approach the committee envisioned.

A formal government response, as demonstrated in Canada and the United Kingdom, is essential to establish trust and chart a clear path forward.

The Australian government, as guardian of the Australian public’s health, has an opportunity to do the same. Läs mer…

Despite huge advances in cyber security, one weakness continues to overshadow all others: human error.

Research has consistently shown human error is responsible for an overwhelming majority of successful cyber attacks. A recent report puts the figure at 68%.

No matter how advanced our technological defences become, the human element is likely to remain the weakest link in the cyber security chain. This weakness affects everyone using digital devices, yet traditional cyber education and awareness programs – and even new, forward-looking laws – fail to adequately address it.

So, how can we deal with human-centric cyber security related challenges?

Understanding human error

There are two types of human error in the context of cyber security.

The first is skills-based errors. These occur when people are doing routine things – especially when their attention is diverted.

For example, you might forget to back up desktop data from your computer. You know you should do it and know how to do it (because you have done it before). But because you need to get home early, forgot when you did it last or had lots of emails to respond to, you don’t. This may make you more exposed to a hacker’s demands in the event of a cyber attack, as there are no alternatives to retrieve the original data.

The second type is knowledge-based errors. These occur when someone with less experience makes cyber security mistakes because they lack important knowledge or don’t follow specific rules.

For example, you might click on a link in an email from an unknown contact, even if you don’t know what will happen. This could lead to you being hacked and losing your money and data, as the link might contain dangerous malware.

Many cyber attacks are successful because people click on unknown links in emails and text messages.
ParinPix/Shutterstock

Traditional approaches fall short

Organisations and governments have invested heavily in cyber security education programs to address human error. However, these programs have had mixed results at best.

This is partly because many programs take a technology-centric, one-size-fits-all approach. They often focus on specific technical aspects, such as improving password hygiene or implementing multi-factor authentication. Yet, they don’t address the underlying psychological and behavioural issues that influence people’s actions.

The reality is that changing human behaviour is far more complex than simply providing information or mandating certain practices. This is especially true in the context of cyber security.

Public health campaigns such as the “Slip, Slop, Slap” sun safety initiative in Australia and New Zealand illustrate what works.

Since this campaign started four decades ago, melanoma cases in both countries have fallen significantly. Behavioural change requires ongoing investment into promoting awareness.

The same principle applies to cyber security education. Just because people know best practices doesn’t mean they will consistently apply them – especially when faced with competing priorities or time pressures.

New laws fall short

The Australian government’s proposed cyber security law focuses on several key areas, including:

combating ransomware attacks
enhancing information sharing between businesses and government agencies
strengthening data protection in critical infrastructure sectors, such as energy, transport and communications
expanding investigative powers for cyber incidents
introducing minimum security standards for smart devices.

Earlier this month the minister for cyber security Tony Burke introduced new cyber security laws.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

These measures are crucial. However, like traditional cyber security education programs, they primarily address technical and procedural aspects of cyber security.

The United States is taking a different approach. Its Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan includes “human-centred cybersecurity” as its first and most important priority.

The plan says

A greater emphasis is needed on human-centered approaches to cybersecurity where people’s needs, motivations, behaviours, and abilities are at the forefront of determining the design, operation, and security of information technology systems.

3 rules for human-centric cyber security

So, how can we adequately address the issue of human error in cyber security? Here are three key strategies based on the latest research.

Minimise cognitive load. Cyber security practices should be designed to be as intuitive and effortless as possible. Training programs should focus on simplifying complex concepts and integrating security practices seamlessly into daily workflows.
Foster a positive cyber security attitude. Instead of relying on fear tactics, education should emphasise the positive outcomes of good cyber security practices. This approach can help motivate people to improve their cyber security behaviours.
Adopt a long-term perspective. Changing attitudes and behaviours is not a single event but a continuous process. Cyber security education should be ongoing, with regular updates to address evolving threats.

Ultimately, creating a truly secure digital environment requires a holistic approach. It needs to combine robust technology, sound policies, and, most importantly, ensuring people are well-educated and security conscious.

If we can better understand what’s behind human error, we can design more effective training programs and security practices that work with, rather than against, human nature. Läs mer…