Australia is battling its biggest rise in whooping cough cases in 35 years.

During 2024 and 2025 Australia recorded 82,513 whooping cough cases – the highest number since monitoring began in 1991.

Also known as pertussis or the “100-day cough”, whooping cough is a potentially fatal respiratory illness which causes severe coughing episodes.

It spreads from one person to another and is particularly deadly among infants.

So why the surge? And how can you protect yourself and your loved ones?

What is whooping cough?

Whooping cough is a respiratory infection caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis.

Transmission occurs through close contact with infected people such as via coughing and sneezing.

Early symptoms include runny nose or sore throat. This is called the “catarrhal phase” and can look similar to a common cold.

A persistent cough comes next, and typically lasts between six and ten weeks.

This leads to intense bouts of coughing, with babies and children often making high-pitched “whoop” sounds when they breath in. This is where the term “whooping cough” comes from.

Whooping cough can be very severe in newborn babies and infants. About one in 125 babies with whooping cough aged below six months dies from pneumonia or brain damage.

Household contacts and carers often pass the illness onto infants, with parents the source of infection in more than 50% of cases. Infants can also pick up an infection from siblings and health-care workers.

Complications in older children and adults include interrupted sleep and pneumonia, a lung infection which can require hospitalisation. Patients can even sustain rib fractures from coughing so hard.

Antibiotics, when given early, can stop disease progression.

However after the cough is established, which is when most people realise they are infected, antibiotics have little effect on the disease’s progression.

But, there’s a vaccine for it?

Yes. The whooping cough vaccine is given as a combination vaccine with diphtheria and tetanus.

In Australia, this vaccine is part of routine infant and childhood immunisation schedules. A booster dose is also given to Year 7 students.

Pregnant women are advised to vaccinate every pregnancy to boost the production and transfer of antibodies to their unborn baby. This also helps protect infants who are too young to be immunised.

A 2025 study from Denmark found vaccination during pregnancy to be 72% effective against laboratory confirmed whooping cough.

Although infants are most vulnerable to whooping cough, it can cause infection across all ages and put a large strain on the health-care system, especially for adults aged over 50.

To protect themselves and limit spread of the disease, adults should get vaccinated every ten years.

Australia’s national vaccine regulator checks the safety of whooping cough vaccines each year. Ongoing monitoring over many years shows these vaccines are safe and continue to protect people of all ages.

But low immunisation rates among children and adolescents remain a concern, with new data showing Australia’s 2024-25 childhood immunisation rate was the lowest in a decade.

Only about one-fifth of adults 50 years and older are up to date with the whooping cough vaccine. This means they have had a booster within the last ten years.

Why are there so many cases right now?

Whooping cough is a challenging disease to control because immunity, acquired through immunisation or natural infection, wanes over time. This gives rise to whooping cough epidemics every two to three years.

Whooping cough is most commonly diagnosed using PCR testing of a throat swab. This usually involves visiting a GP to get the swab sent to a lab, and then waiting for the results. This method has been routinely used since the early 2000s.

In 2024, 57,257 whooping cough cases were detected in Australia. This included a case where a child with an antibiotic-resistant infection required intensive care support.

This represents the highest notification rate since records began in 1991. And it reflects a true increase in the prevalence, as well as awareness and testing, of whooping cough.

The 2024 surge in cases was likely due, at least in part, to COVID public health restrictions which disrupted the usual epidemic cycle.

During this time, many children didn’t get the normal immune “boost” after being vaccinated and exposed to the bacteria. This left them more vulnerable to infection, particularly when authorities lifted social distancing restrictions.

Whooping cough was also widespread in 2025 with 25,256 cases reported that year. All age groups were affected, but notification rates were highest among school-aged and preschool-aged children.

Unfortunately, whooping cough isn’t going away anytime soon. However, timely vaccination across all ages is vital to curb its spread and protect vulnerable populations.

Archana Koirala, Paediatrician and Infectious Diseases Specialist; Clinical Researcher, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has lifted the cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.85%, adding to pressure on households and businesses. While the move was widely expected by markets and most economists, the Reserve Bank says inflation risks remain too high to be comfortable.

The RBA said inflation “picked up materially” in the second half of 2025. Governor Michele Bullock told a press conference:

Based on the data we have seen and the conditions here and around the world, the board now thinks it will take longer for inflation to return to target and this is not an acceptable outcome.

The rate rise reflects concern that inflation will not return to the RBA’s 2–3% target range until June 2027, according to the bank’s updated forecasts also released today.

Stronger than expected economic growth means capacity pressures are rising and keeping inflation higher than expected. Progress could stall unless interest rates are pushed a little higher.

It was the first rate increase since November 2023, and followed three cuts in 2025 when inflation was cooling.

Policy set for a year ahead

In the lead-up to the meeting, there appeared to be a gap between market expectations and the RBA’s own comments. Markets and many economists focused on the latest inflation data, which showed a renewed uptick, particularly in prices for services. That data strengthened the case for a rate rise at this meeting.

The RBA, however, has repeatedly emphasised it does not set policy based on short-term movements in inflation.

That message has been reflected in recent meeting minutes and reinforced in a January ABC interview with Andrew Hauser, the RBA’s deputy governor. He said interest rate decisions are guided by where inflation is expected to be in about a year’s time – not where it has been over the past quarter or two.

Today’s decision suggests that, on that forward-looking view, the RBA became less comfortable with the inflation outlook. Rather than a temporary overshoot, the path back to the 2-3% inflation target will take longer than previously thought.

What’s driving inflation?

The latest consumer price index (CPI) figures help explain the Reserve Bank’s caution. Trimmed mean inflation – the RBA’s preferred underlying measure – was 3.3% in the year to December, up from 3.2% in the year to November. That puts underlying inflation clearly above the target range.

More importantly, recent inflation pressures have been led by services prices. Costs related to rents, insurance, health and education have continued to rise, reflecting domestic pressures such as wages and business operating costs.

In its statement, the RBA pointed to stronger demand and ongoing capacity constraints as key concerns:

Private demand is growing more quickly than expected, capacity pressures are greater than previously assessed and labour market conditions are a little tight.

Services inflation tends to fall slowly. Unlike petrol or food prices, it does not usually reverse quickly once it picks up. For the RBA, this persistence increases the risk inflation could remain above target for longer than hoped.

Why the RBA moved now

Faced with these risks, the bank appears to have concluded that waiting would have been the bigger gamble. If inflation stayed above target for too long, or if expectations began to drift higher, the RBA could later be forced into sharper and more disruptive rate rises.

By lifting the cash rate to 3.85% now, the Reserve Bank is trying to stay ahead of the problem. A modest move today may reduce the chance of more aggressive action later.

Australia is out of step

This decision also puts Australia out of step with several other major economies.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times in 2025 and is signalling further cuts are likely this year. The European Central Bank has moved even faster, cutting rates eight times between June 2024 and June 2025 to boost growth.

By contrast, Australia’s inflation challenge appears more domestically driven, particularly through persistent services inflation. That helps explain why it is moving in the opposite direction to many of its global peers.

Credibility and what comes next

The quick turnaround after the last rate cut in August may raise questions about the RBA’s earlier judgement. But inflation risks remain tilted to the upside.

The board judged that inflation is likely to remain above target for some time and it was appropriate to increase the cash rate target.

For households and businesses, the message is clear. Borrowing costs and mortgage repayments are rising again.

What happens next will depend largely on whether services inflation begins to cool and whether wage growth shows clearer signs of moderation.

If inflation resumes a steady decline towards the target band, this increase could be a one-off rise. If not, the RBA has signalled it is prepared to do more.

For now, the message from the Reserve Bank is simple: inflation is lower than it was, but still too high for comfort – and interest rates are likely to stay higher for longer until that changes.

Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s corporate regulator has secured refunds of A$40 million to more than 38,000 investors in risky financial products, following a review of the industry.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) raised concerns that marketing of high-risk products known as “contracts for difference” or CFDs, failed to clearly explain the risks involved.

This is just ASIC’s latest intervention in more than 15 years of ongoing concern with the potential harm of CFDs to retail investors.

Fine-tuning the marketing of these complex financial products to a suitable audience remains an unfinished task for the regulator.

What are CFDs?

In its report, ASIC said thousands of Australians lose money trading CFDs every year. In 2023-34, over 133,000 people, or 68% of retail clients, lost more than $458 million.

Contracts for difference are a type of financial instrument known as derivatives because they follow the price of an underlying asset, such as stocks, the Australian dollar, and other financial products.

They are traded “over-the-counter” (meaning not on a public exchange) on platforms run by CFD providers.

Investors can profit from both upward or downward movements in financial assets with CFDs. Unlike buying shares, investors need only pay a fraction of the price (the margin) up front to enter into a CFD to track a financial product, with the hope of making a profit.

CFDs are leveraged products, which means an investor is borrowing money to speculate on the price of an asset. A small price change in the underlying stock or commodity can have an amplified effect by increasing the gain – or the loss – on the CFD.

For example, this can be as little as paying $1 upfront to gain the same trading power as $100.

Let’s say you buy a CFD on one Apple share. As you only need to pay a fifth of the Apple stock for the CFD, you can buy five Apple CFDs for the price of one Apple share. So if the price of Apple rises by $1, you could make $5. But if it falls by $1, you could lose $5 dollars.

CFDs are therefore popular with investors as they can trade many financial instruments (betting on rises or falls) and magnify their trading power.

The downside is that trading on margin also amplifies losses if the market goes against the bet that a price will rise or fall. This has led to financial distress and cases of attempted self-harm.

ASIC has been particularly concerned about issuers offering “margin discounts” to clients on particular trades, to reduce the amount or “margin” that the investor pays up front.

This contravenes ASIC’s 2021 product intervention order. ASIC published a further warning to CFD issuers in 2024 to stop this practice.

The complexity and risk of CFDs has meant they are effectively banned in the United States. In Singapore, prospective traders need to pass a customer knowledge assessment before they are allowed to trade CFDs.

Who are the products being marketed to?

CFDs are not for the faint of heart and would only suit investors who are very knowledgeable and have a large appetite for risk. Despite this, retail investors (regular people) are the dominant market targeted by CFDs issuers in their marketing and advertising.

In ASIC’s recent report, the regulator found that CFD issuer websites misled consumers.

Some examples were promoting the underlying instruments, such as shares or commodities, rather than actual CFDs, and overstating the benefits of trading CFDs and understating the risks.

ASIC has forced 46 issuers to rewrite their websites by removing misleading content and making them clearly state that they are offering CFDs, among other changes. One issuer amended 1,000 web pages.

ASIC chair Joe Longo last week floated the idea of banning advertising for high-risk financial products, which would also include CFDs.

The underlying concern is that unsophisticated investors are being attracted to complex financial products that carry great risk of financial loss.

Indeed, ASIC’s report found that only 32% of retail clients made money from CFDs after fees. Of those that traded the most per month (over 50 trades), only 19% were profitable after fees.

Fears vulnerable investors still slipping through the cracks

The key difference is between retail and wholesale clients.

Wholesale clients are generally institutions or sophisticated investors, highly experienced and more likely to trade complex derivatives and make a profit. Wholesale clients are defined in law based on certain tests.

Wholesale clients also lose some of the consumer protections that apply to retail investors, such as receiving product disclosure statements and having access to dispute resolution.

Yet, ASIC found that even wholesale clients lost money, with only 30% making profits.

This raises concerns for ASIC of whether some retail clients were misclassified as wholesale clients by the CFD issuers.

So, it is not the laws that need changing, which clearly define sophisticated investors. What is needed is more scrutiny of how issuers misclassify potentially vulnerable investors.

The statistics are concerning as this means the large majority of investors are losing money trading CFDs, driven largely by paying fees. On the flip side, this means CFD issuers are profiting from some of these losses as they earn the fees.

This raises questions of whether CFD issuers are attracting suitable clientele through advertising, as the losses by investors seem excessive. This suggests that advertising should carry warning labels, similar to advertising for other risky activities, such as sports betting.

Walking a fine line

CFDs have existed for over two decades, with a market that is predominantly comprised of retail investors.

ASIC has managed the fine balance of permitting their access, while regulating issuers on their marketing and operations without banning them outright. Potential investors would be wise to do their own homework to carefully assess the costs and risks of CFDs before wading into the market.

Adrian Lee, Associate Professor in Property and Real Estate, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Where kids are born in a family can be important. But it is not just about who gets more grown-up privileges or parental pressure.

Research tells us firstborn children, on average, tend to do better on a range of outcomes. This includes doing better at school and being more likely to be top managers when compared to those born later.

In our new study, we looked at what impact birth order might have on how children spend their time. Both on their own and with their parents.

This revealed differences in terms of screen use and time spent enriching their intellectual development.

Our research

In our study, we used survey data from around 5,500 Australian children aged two to 15. The data comes from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, a nationally representative survey.

This included detailed 24-hour diaries, which recorded how children spent their time from waking up to going to sleep. They specified if activities were done with parents or independently.

We grouped activities into “sleep”, “school time”, “enrichment activities”, “screen time” and “physical activities”.

Enrichment activities are outside of school activities that help intellectual development. For example, reading, homework, playing board games or learning a musical instrument.

We then compared the diaries of firstborn children to later-born children from different families born in the same year, living in the same neighbourhoods, with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. All families had two or three children.

There is no similar data (such as time use records over years) available on siblings within the same family to capture and compare what siblings were doing at the same age.

Other studies looking at different outcomes (such as academic achievement) have shown birth order comparisons within a family are extremely similar to birth order comparisons across different families, once you adjust for family size, as we have done in our study.

So, it is likely our results would be similar to actual sibling comparisons within a family.

Younger kids get more screens

When compared to firstborn children, second- and thirdborn children spend an extra nine and 14 minutes, respectively, per day having screen time.

While this may sound modest, it represents a 7–10% increase compared to the average daily screen time of firstborns. Over the course of a week it is between about one and 1.5 hours.

This extra screen time also comes at the cost of other activities. In particular, later-born children spent 11 to 18 minutes less per day on enrichment activities, an 11–20% reduction compared to older siblings in the study.

We found no consistent differences between older and younger siblings when it came to time spent on other activities, such as school, physical activity or sleep.

Looking across age groups, the effects are generally greater for 10–14-year-old children. This suggests early adolescence is a period where particular attention is needed.

To check whether these patterns extend beyond Australia, we repeated the analysis using time-use diaries from a sample of children in the United States. The results were similar.

Why is this happening?

One common explanation for differences between first and subsequent children is parental time. As families grow, parents have less time and attention to foster subsequent children’s development.

However, this may not be the whole story. Our study showed later-born children did spend less time on enrichment activities with their parents. But about half of the difference comes from later-born children spending less time on enrichment activities on their own.

Screen time shows a similar pattern. The increase among later-born children is largely explained by activities they do alone, rather than with parents or siblings.

So this also reflects differences in children’s own choices or opportunities, not just direct parental involvement. For example, a younger sibling may have more freedom to choose to play video games rather than do their homework.

Of course parenting may still play an important role here. Our study shows later-born children face fewer rules around screen use, such as limits on programs or time, and are less likely to feel their parents expect them to follow rules. This may in part reflect parents’ desire for fairness in allowing similar use of screens for siblings at any given time, rather than at specific ages.

What does this mean?

The differences we find may seem small on any given day.

But they can add up over time. As our 2024 study showed, spending more time on screens and less time on reading, homework or other learning activities can lead to gaps in academic skill development over childhood, as measured by lower NAPLAN test scores.

The increase in solo screen time for later-born children is particularly concerning, because it may expose children to inappropriate content online.

What can we do?

First, recognising later-born children on average spend more time on screens and less time on enrichment activities than firstborns can be helpful for informing parenting strategies.

Second, it shows spending quality time with later-born children, actively encouraging enrichment activities, and keeping consistent rules around screen time all matter.

Finally, this suggests broader policies, such as the social media limits for under 16s, could help equalise opportunities for later-born children to learn and grow.

Danusha Jayawardana, Research Fellow in Health Economics, Monash University; Gawain Heckley, Researcher in Health Economics, Lund University, and Nicole Black, Associate Professor of Health Economics, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s political parties set new records in funds raised and spent in the lead-up to the 2025 federal election. Now, nine months later, Australians finally get a look at who funded the parties’ election campaigns.

Data released today reveal that big money matters in Australian elections, and political donations remain highly concentrated among a small number of powerful individuals and interest groups.

The big spenders

Money matters in Australian elections because it helps spread political messages far and wide. The Coalition substantially outspent Labor in the year leading up to the 2025 election, declaring $212 million in expenditure compared with Labor’s $160 million. In fact, the two major parties together spent three quarters of a total $489 million in 2024–25. These figures include electoral communication, as well as party operating expenses and salaries, but there is no breakdown.

Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots party came in third, declaring $53 million in expenditure, well below the $123 million and $89 million his United Australia Party spent in the 2022 and 2019 election campaigns, respectively. The Greens declared $40 million and One Nation just $3 million in expenditure in 2024–25.

Australia’s political parties collectively exceeded their 2022 election budgets in 2025, raising $490 million, compared with $402 million in the lead-up to the 2022 election, and coming very close to the half-a-billion mark for the first time.

The Coalition has long led the fundraising “arms race” between the major parties, with Labor taking a substantive lead only once on record – in the lead-up to the 2007 election that saw Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party defeat John Howard’s Coalition government.

The big donors

So who’s stumping up these whopping sums? A few big donors dominate the picture.

Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy – which donated almost exclusively to the Trumpet of Patriots – was by far the largest donor in the 2024–25 financial year. While Palmer’s $54.3 million in donations this electoral cycle is lower than his record-breaking intervention in 2022, it still shows the substantial sway a single donor can have in an election year.

Climate 200 was the second-largest donor over the period, with the organisation making $6.6 million in donations to a range of independent candidates and campaign groups. Donors to Climate 200 – including Scott Farquhar, William Taylor Nominees, and Mike Cannon-Brookes – were among those stumping up the largest individual donations.

One new player this cycle was Coal Australia, a lobby group founded in 2024 to represent coal mining interests. The group made more than $4 million in donations to electoral campaign groups such as Australians for Prosperity, and Jobs for Mining Communities.

The single biggest donation to the Coalition came from philanthropist Pam Wall, who gave $5.2 million to the Liberal Party of South Australia in 2024–25, in memory of her late husband, Ian Wall. Other major donors to the Coalition included the Cormack Foundation (an investment arm for the Liberal Party), Oryxium Investments (linked to the Lowy family), and DoorDash Australia.

Labor’s single biggest donor was Labor Holdings (an investment arm of the party), which donated $4 million, followed by the Mining and Energy Union ($3.3 million). SA Progressive Business, a fundraising arm of the Labor Party, donated $1.4 million.

Anthony Pratt’s paper and packaging company Pratt Holdings made big donations to both Labor and the Coalition, as it has done in previous years, with Labor benefiting to the tune of $2 million, and the Coalition $1 million.

What about the rest of the money?

There’s a lot of hidden money in Australian politics. Declared donations made up only a quarter of political parties’ total income in 2024–25. Public funding made up another quarter, and “other receipts” a further 20%. That leaves about 30% ($144 million) in undisclosed private funds.

The Coalition’s funding is a little more murky: 36% of Coalition income in 2024–25 was undisclosed, compared with 23% for Labor. Only donations bigger than $16,900 need to be declared under the current rules, so substantial donations remain hidden.

Reform is coming, but there’s still more to do

Fortunately, the rules are changing soon to provide much more transparency. From July 1 this year, the donations disclosure threshold will be lowered to $5,000, and donations data will be released much more quickly. Donations will be required to be disclosed within seven days during an election period, and at other times, within 21 days following the month the gift was received.

That means Australians will finally know who’s donating while policy issues – and elections – are still “live”.

The new rules also introduce caps on donations and electoral expenditure, helping to reduce the influence of money in politics. But the new rules unfairly advantage major parties over independents and new entrants.

The new total cap of $90 million for electoral expenditure by a political party is too high, keeping too much money in politics. And the per-seat spending cap of $800,000 is too low, advantaging incumbents over new entrants. There is also a loophole in the design of the donations cap that advantages major parties by allowing the cap to apply separately to each branch of a party.

The new legislation should be reviewed and amended to close the loopholes before the next federal election.

Kate Griffiths, Democracy Deputy Program Director, Grattan Institute and Matthew Bowes, Senior Associate, Economic Prosperity and Democracy, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

New South Wales is set to become the first jurisdiction in the country to end the use of good character references in the sentencing of convicted criminals.

The government will introduce a bill this week to amend the state’s sentencing laws. The amendment will stop people submitting references of their “good character” to lobby for more lenient sentences.

References attesting to the convicted criminal’s prospects for rehabilitation and their likelihood of reoffending will still be permitted.

The move acknowledges the potential re-traumatisation faced by victims when unsubstantiated character references from family and friends are submitted for consideration during sentencing hearings. Victims have stated the process can make them think the courts don’t care about or take seriously the harm they have experienced.

It’s a decision that aligns with expert evidence, so might other states follow suit?

What is a good character reference, exactly?

Good character references are letters presented to a court during the process of sentencing someone convicted of a crime. They are often provided by friends and family members, though references may be sought from employers, priests and other respected community members.

The references usually describe how the person is a valuable family or community member, has a good work record and no criminal history.

Character evidence can help a judge more fully understand the person they are sentencing and decide if they can be rehabilitated. Demonstrated prior good character enables the judge to ensure the appropriateness and fairness of the sentence.

But contemplating the subjective opinions of non-professionals regarding the possibility of rehabilitation can be problematic.

Such references have promoted people being sentenced for sexual assault and rape as having “high moral values”, being a “kind-hearted, loving father” or having a “good work ethic”.

Since 2009, NSW hasn’t allowed good character references for child sexual offenders who used their position of influence to gain access to victims.

But two sexual abuse victims, Harrison James and Jarad Grice, have led a campaign for more substantial change. Called Your Reference Ain’t Relevant, the campaign protested against convicted child sex offenders being able to produce glowing character references to reduce their sentence.

What does the evidence say?

The Australian Law Reform Commission has been reviewing justice responses to sexual violence. In its 2025 final report, the commission said it received submissions describing the provision of good character references for convicted sexual violence offenders as a “problematic” practice.

The commission noted the NSW Sentencing Council was reviewing the use of character evidence. It said the outcome of the NSW process would inform any suggestions for future reforms at a national level.

The New South Wales Sentencing Council’s report was released on February 1. It recommended legislation to prevent the court from using evidence that goes solely to a finding of good character. This legislation, however, may permit the court to consider other relevant evidence in sentencing.

The report states “there is no settled definition of what good character is, or what it reflects”. The council said the concept “has been criticised as being vague and incoherent […] lacking a settled definition”.

The council’s recommendations go beyond child sexual offences. They apply to all convicted offenders.

And for NSW at least, they would overrule a 2001 High Court decision allowing character to be considered in providing “some leniency” in sentencing.

Will other states do the same?

A report by the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Commission into the sentencing of sexual assault and rape recommended that some types of good character evidence be limited. It said good character evidence should only be used to assist the court in deciding on the rehabilitation or the potential recidivism of the convicted criminal.

The report recommended that courts have the option, depending on the nature or seriousness of an offence, to disregard character references when determining sentencing.

In September 2025, Queensland parliament passed legislation addressing the recommendations. The references can now only be considered to inform a judge’s assessment of the likelihood of rehabilitation or recidivism.

But as some frontline sexual assault services submitted in consultations this left open ways to circumvent the rule. Friends and family could provide references mentioning the prospects of rehabilitation.

So while there’s some movement on the issue in Queensland, if the NSW recommendations are to lead the way in nationwide reform, the task will not be easy.

Significant differences exist between the states. This is because apart from Commonwealth offences, criminal law remains primarily a state matter. This has produced divergent offence labels, maximum penalties and sentencing regimes.

Even on the specific issue of character evidence in child sexual offence proceedings, there are substantial differences in laws and contexts across the country.

These contrasts in approach to legislating the use of good character references in sentencing will, as observed by the Law Council of Australia, likely result in similar cases attracting different outcomes in different states.

But sometimes it just takes one bold attempt at reform to inspire action in others. As advocates have succeeded in NSW, it’s likely others will attempt similar change. State and territory governments have been put on notice.

Vicki Lowik, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Sciences, CQUniversity Australia and Amanda-Jane George, Associate professor, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cosmic radio pulses repeating every few minutes or hours, known as long-period transients, have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in 2022. Our new study, published in Nature Astronomy today, might finally add some clarity.

Radio astronomers are very familiar with pulsars, a type of rapidly rotating neutron star. To us watching the skies from Earth, these objects appear to pulse because powerful radio beams from their poles sweep our telescopes – much like a cosmic lighthouse.

The slowest pulsars rotate in just a few seconds – this is known as their period. But in recent years, long-period transients have been discovered as well. These have periods from 18 minutes to more than six hours.

From everything we know about neutron stars, they shouldn’t be able to produce radio waves while spinning this slowly. So, is there something wrong with physics?

Well, neutron stars aren’t the only compact stellar remnant on the block, so maybe they’re not the stars of this story after all. Our new paper presents evidence that the longest-lived long-period transient, GPM J1839-10, is actually a white dwarf star. It’s producing powerful radio beams with the help of a stellar companion, implying others may be doing the same.

Enter white dwarf pulsars

Like neutron stars, white dwarfs are the remnants of dead stars. They’re about the size of Earth, but with an entire Sun’s-worth of mass packed in.

No isolated white dwarf has been observed to emit radio pulses. But they have the necessary ingredients to do so when paired with an M-type dwarf (a regular star about half the Sun’s mass) in a close two-star system known as a binary.

In fact, we know such rapidly spinning “white dwarf pulsars” exist because we’ve observed them – the first was confirmed in 2016.

Which raises the question: could long-period transients be the slower cousins of white dwarf pulsars?

More than ten long-period transients have been discovered to date, but they’re so far away and embedded so deep in our galaxy, it’s been difficult to tell what they are. Only in 2025 were two long-period transients conclusively identified as white dwarf–M-dwarf binaries. This was quite unexpected.

However, it left astronomers with more questions.

Even if some long-period transients are white dwarf–M-dwarf binaries, do they radiate in the same way as the faster white dwarf pulsars? And are the long-period transients only visible at radio wavelengths doomed to be a mystery forever?

What we needed is a model that works for both, and a long-period transient with enough high-quality data to test it on.

A uniquely long-lived example

In 2023 we discovered GPM J1839-10, a long-period transient with a 21-minute period. It was the second-ever such discovery, but unlike its predecessor or those found since, it is uniquely long-lived. Pulses were found in archival data going back as far as 1988, but only some of the times that they should have been detected.

As it’s 15,000 light-years away, we can only see it in radio waves. So we dug deeper into this seemingly random, intermittent signal to learn more.

We watched GPM J1839-10 in a series dubbed “round-the-world” observations. These used three telescopes, each passing the source to the next as Earth rotated: the Australian SKA Pathfinder or ASKAP, the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in the United States.

The intermittent signal turned out to not be random at all. The pulses arrive in groups of four or five, and the groups come in pairs separated by two hours. The entire pattern repeats every nine hours.

Such a stable pattern strongly implies the signal is coming from a binary system of two bodies orbiting each other every nine hours. And knowing the period also helps us work out their masses, which all adds up to being a white dwarf–M-dwarf binary.

Checking back, not only were the archival detections consistent with the same pattern, but we were able to use the combined data to refine the orbital period to a precision of just 0.2 seconds.

A heartbeat pattern

Radio data alone tells us GPM J1839-10 is definitely a binary system. What’s more, the peculiar heartbeat of its pulses gives clues to its nature in a way that’s only possible from looking at radio signals.

Inspired by a previous study on a white dwarf pulsar, we modelled GPM J1839-10 as a white dwarf generating a radio beam as its magnetic pole sweeps through its companion’s stellar wind. The varying alignment of the binary bodies with our line-of-sight throughout the orbit accurately predicts the heartbeat pattern.

We can even reconstruct the geometry of the system, such as how far apart the stars must be, and how massive they are.

All told, GPM J1839-10 has the potential to be the missing link between long-period transients and white dwarf pulsars.

Armed with our model, other astronomers have already been able to detect variability at our measured periods in high-precision optical data, despite not being able to distinguish the binary pair.

Research is ongoing on exactly how the emission physics works, and how the broader range of long-period transient properties fit together. However, this is a crucial step towards understanding.

Csanád Horváth, PhD Candidate, Radio Astronomy, Curtin University and Natasha Hurley-Walker, Radio Astronomer, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If you’ve ever been constipated you may have tried laxatives. They’re easy to get without a prescription and often help get things moving.

Certainly a lot of people use laxatives and some older people are very reliant on them to help with bowel function.

But you might have heard it’s not a good idea to take them over the long term. Even though serious complications from chronic laxative use are rare, they do happen. That’s why, whenever possible, long-term laxative use should be guided and monitored by a doctor.

Types of laxatives

There are five main types of laxatives (all are oral):

1. bulk-forming laxatives (also known as fibre laxatives), which absorb water to form a soft, bulky stool and prompt normal contraction of bowel muscles. Common brands include Metamucil and Benefiber

2. osmotic laxatives, which draw water into the colon to allow easier passage of stool. Common brands include Osmolax, Actilax and Movicol

3. stool softeners such as docusate (brand name Coloxyl), which acts like a detergent and allows fat and water to mix in with hard stool – this makes it softer and easier to pass

4. stimulant laxatives, which trigger rhythmic contractions of the bowel muscle. Common brands include Dulcolax, Bisalax and Senna

5. lubricant laxatives, which coat the bowel and soften the stool. A common brand is Parachoc.

Starting a laxative

Before starting a laxative you should try dietary and lifestyle changes such as:

• eating more foods with fibre in them, such as kiwifruit, corn, oats and brown rice
• drinking more water
• doing more exercise.

But if constipation persists, you might think about a laxative. Consider starting with gentler options, such as the bulk-forming laxatives or stool softeners, and implement those dietary and lifestyle changes listed above.

It’s a good idea to see your local doctor when starting a laxative; constipation may be a sign of something more concerning, especially if there are other symptoms such as rectal bleeding.

Your doctor can also advise whether laxatives might interact with any other medications you take.

Do laxatives cause a ‘lazy colon’?

Probably not. So where does this idea come from?

A case report published in the 1960s described bowel changes in a patient who had been taking stimulant laxatives for more than 40 years.

When the colon was examined, doctors noticed a reduced number of key cells in the colon. This sparked concern about whether long-term use of stimulant laxatives could result in damage to the gut, culminating in a “lazy colon” (also known as a cathartic colon). This is when the colon becomes an inert tube with no real muscle function to push along stool.

However, a later review of more than 70 publications describing 240 cases of stimulant laxative abuse found no cases of cathartic colon reported. Researchers concluded the prior cathartic colon cases might have been linked to a laxative called podophyllin that is now no longer recommended.

A review of 43 publications on the safety of stimulant laxatives discovered many of the studies were of poor quality, with small sample size. Confounding factors, such as medications and age, were often not being taken into account.

It found no good evidence chronic use of stimulant laxatives damages the gut.

That said, there are other good reasons not to take laxatives regularly and over the long term unless advised by a doctor who is monitoring your progress.

Gut symptoms and electrolytes

Laxative abuse is when someone takes laxatives to lose weight through frequent and repeated use of laxatives.

The most common symptom of laxative abuse is diarrhoea, which can mean abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and weight loss.

But laxative abuse can also disrupt the body’s electrolytes.

The main electrolyte in poo is potassium. As the body loses more and more potassium through diarrhoea, you can end up with lower blood potassium levels.

This can lead to:

• generalised muscle weakness
• heart complications
• changes in heart rhythm
• in extreme cases, stopping your heart beat, which can lead to death.

A 2020 systematic review of case reports found that laxative abuse can cause mild to severe cases of cardiac complications.

Laxative abuse can also lower other electrolytes, such as calcium and magnesium, leading to painful muscle contractions. Occasionally the kidney can be severely affected by chronic laxative abuse.

If you take just the recommended dose of laxatives, though, the risk of serious electrolyte complications is extremely low.

Depression, dementia and mental health

Two UK studies that examined a data set of approximately half a million participants found regular laxative use was associated with a higher risk of developing depression and dementia.

One theory is chronic laxative abuse could alter what’s known as the microbiome-gut-brain-axis (the way microbiota and the brain communicate) and lead to a higher risk of conditions such as depression and dementia.

Laxative abuse is commonly associated with eating disorders, so it’s important anyone found to be abusing laxatives also undergo a comprehensive mental health assessment. A plan might be needed to address the broader problem.

Safe when taken properly

Laxatives are obtained easily without a prescription and are very widely used in the community. They are certainly helpful for treating chronic constipation.

However, they can cause side effects such as diarrhoea and electrolyte imbalances. Long-term use and overuse can lead to problems.

It’s always a good idea to consult your doctor before starting laxatives, especially if you have other medical issues or are taking other medications.

Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and Clinical Academic Gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Coffee first entered human lives and veins over 600 years ago.

Now we consume an average of almost two kilos per person each year – sometimes with very specific preferences about blends and preparation methods. How much you drink is influenced by genes acting on your brain’s reward system and caffeine metabolism.

Coffee can raise your blood pressure in the short term, especially if you don’t usually drink it or if you already have high blood pressure.

But this doesn’t mean you need to cut out coffee if you have high blood pressure or are concerned about your heart health. Moderation is key.

So how does coffee affect your blood pressure? And if yours is high, how much is OK to drink?

What is high blood pressure?

Blood pressure is the force blood exerts on artery walls when your heart pumps. It’s measured by two numbers:

• the first and biggest number is systolic blood pressure, which is the force generated when your heart contracts and pushes blood out around your body

• the lower number, diastolic blood pressure, is the force when your heart relaxes and fills back up with blood.

Normal blood pressure is defined as systolic blood pressure of less than 120 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and diastolic blood pressure of less than 80 mm Hg.

Once your numbers consistently reach 140/90 or more, blood pressure is considered high. This is also called hypertension.

Knowing your blood pressure numbers is important because hypertension doesn’t have any symptoms. When it goes untreated, or isn’t well-controlled, your risk of heart attacks and strokes increases, and existing kidney and heart disease worsens.

About 31% of adults have hypertension with half unaware they have it. Of those taking medication for hypertension, about 47% don’t have it well-controlled.

How does coffee affect blood pressure?

Caffeine in coffee is a muscle stimulant that increases the heart rate in some people. This can potentially contribute to an irregular heartbeat, known as arrhythmia.

Caffeine also stimulates adrenal glands to release adrenaline. This makes your heart beat faster and your blood vessels to constrict, which increases blood pressure.

Blood caffeine levels peak between 30 minutes and two hours after a cup of coffee. Caffeine’s half-life is 3–6 hours, meaning blood levels will reduce by about half during this time.

The range is due to age (kids have smaller, less mature livers so can’t metabolise it as fast), genetics (people can be fast or slow metabolisers) and whether you usually drink it (regular consumers clear it faster).

The impact of caffeine on blood pressure from coffee (and cola, energy drinks and chocolate) varies. Research reviews report increases in systolic blood pressure of 3–15 and a diastolic blood pressure increase of 4–13 after consumption.

The effect of caffeine also depends on a person’s usual blood pressure. An increase in blood pressure may be more risky if you have hypertension and existing heart or liver disease, so it’s best to discuss your coffee consumption with your doctor.

What else is in coffee?

Coffee contains hundreds of phytochemicals: compounds that contribute flavour, aroma, or influence health and disease.

Phytochemicals that directly affect blood pressure include melanoidins, which regulate the body’s fluid volume and activity of enzymes that help control blood pressure.

Quinic acid is another phytochemical shown to lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure by improving the lining of blood vessels, allowing them to better accommodate blood pressure rises.

Can coffee cause hypertension?

In a review of 13 studies that included 315,000 people, researchers examined associations between coffee intake and the risk of hypertension.

During study follow-up periods, 64,650 people developed hypertension, with the researchers concluding coffee drinking was not associated with an increased risk of developing the condition.

Even when they examined data by gender, amount of coffee, decaffeinated versus caffeinated, smoking or years of follow-up, coffee was still not associated with an increased risk of developing hypertension.

The only exceptions suggesting lower risk were for five studies from the United States and seven low-quality studies, meaning those results should be interpreted with caution.

A separate Japanese study followed more than 18,000 adults aged 40–79 years for 18.9 years. This included about 1,800 people who had very high blood pressure (grade 2-3 hypertension), with systolic blood pressure of 160 or above or diastolic blood pressure of 100 or above.

Here, risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, including heart attack or stroke, was double among those drinking two or more cups of coffee a day compared to non-drinkers.

There were no associations with death from cardiovascular disease for those who had either normal blood pressure or mild (grade 1) hypertension (systolic blood pressure 140–159 or diastolic blood pressure 90–99).

The bottom line

There is no need to give up coffee. Here’s what to do instead:

1. know your blood pressure, health history and which food and drinks contain caffeine

2. consider all factors that influence your blood pressure and health – family history, diet, salt and physical activity – so you can make informed decisions about what you consume and how much you move

3. be aware of how caffeine affects you and avoid it before having your blood pressure measured

4. avoid caffeine in the afternoon so it doesn’t affect your sleep

5. aim to moderate your coffee intake by drinking four cups or less a day or switching to decaf

6. if you have systolic blood pressure of 160 or above or diastolic blood pressure of 100 or above, consider limiting to one cup a day, and talk to you doctor.

Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For people with migraine, summer can be a double-edged sword. You may be able to relax more, sleep in, enjoy the sunshine, and spend time with family and friends.

But other factors – such as glare, heat, and changes to sleeping and diet – can make migraine attacks more likely or more severe.

Migraine is a disabling neurological disorder affecting 5 million Australians. In addition to a throbbing headache, it can cause hypersensitivity to light, sound, smells or movement.

Triggers for attacks vary from person to person and seasonal changes don’t affect everyone. But if you find your migraine attacks are worse or more likely in summer, knowing why can help you prepare.

The effect of hot weather

Normally when it is hot, you sweat more to regulate your core temperature. Your body becomes cooler when sweat evaporates off your body.

In summer when the air is hotter and there is more humidity, your brain’s hypothalamus causes blood vessels close to the skin to dilate so that heat can escape.

But people with migraine often have hypersensitive nerves and blood vessels. When blood vessels dilate in the heat, it can irritate nearby nerves and cause inflammation, which the migraine brain interprets as pain. This is due to the brain’s stress response, not an infection.

Dehydration

Sweating helps regulate your core body temperature, cooling you down as the sweat evaporates off your skin. But when the air is hot and humid, it’s harder for the sweat to evaporate and cool us down.

This can lead to dehydration – another potent trigger.

Why is dehydration so bad?

Imagine your brain like a sponge that is floating in spinal fluid within your skull. If you are dehydrated, the brain shrinks like a dry sponge and pulls on the attachments to the skull, which can trigger pain.

If you are well hydrated, the brain can expand to fill the space within the skull so there is less “pulling” and therefore less pain.

Sensitivity to light

For many people with migraine, glare is more than a minor annoyance – bright lights and reflection can cause pain and trigger attacks.

When light enters the back of the eye, special cells (retinal ganglion cells) process this signal and send messages to the brain’s sensory centre (the thalamus).

In migraine, these sensory pain pathways involving the thalamus are hypersensitive. Any extra light – or flickering or moving lights – is perceived as pain, rather than merely brightness, and can also lead to dizziness.

Glare also reduces the contrast of incoming light signals, so the brain’s visual centre (the visual cortex) needs to work extra hard to process signals. Certain wavelengths can also be harder to process (including blue and fluorescent light, or sunlight reflecting off screens). This can cause pain.

Disrupted routines

The migraine brain does not like change. But longer days in summer can mean changes to our routines.

Changes that might trigger a migraine include sleeping at inconsistent times on holidays, skipping or delaying meals, or changes in stress levels. This means new stress, increased stress – or even relaxing after a stressful period.

Changes in sensory information that the brain processes can also worsen migraine. This may include new smells (such as sunscreen or insect repellent), louder noises (excited children on holidays), and brighter light or glare.

Even exercising more than usual may be a trigger for some people.

Thunderstorms

Pollen, humidity and thunderstorms trigger allergy flares in people with asthma, hayfever and eczema. This makes the immune system release chemicals called histamine, which can trigger migraine attacks in some people.

Asthma and allergy action plans are doubly important for wellbeing in this group.

Sudden changes in air pressure (in aeroplanes and during storms) can also be a strong trigger for some people. Your friend who says they can predict the weather by their migraine symptoms may be right.

Know your triggers

Regardless of the season, being prepared is the key.

Keep a diary of your headache days and impacts of weather (temperature, humidity, glare) or activities (for example, how much you’re socialising or exercising). Headache neurologists can use this data to give you a targeted migraine plan.

In summer, you can also:

• plan outings for cooler days of the week or times of day

• limit sun and pack a hat and sunglasses. Lenses that are polarised or FL41-tinted may help beat glare

• carry water bottles and electrolyte-rich fluids to avoid dehydration

• set phone alarms so that you go to bed and wake up at consistent times

• try to maintain regular balanced meals, without excess sugar, alcohol and processed foods.

Taking care of your medication

It’s also important to plan and correctly store your migraine medication, especially if you’re going on a trip. You should:

• take acute migraine medications with you and make sure they’re up-to-date

• check your scripts are current and you have repeats left

• protect medications from heat. Don’t store them in the glovebox or bag in the sun for long periods. Injectable medications should be stored in the fridge below 4°C until use.

When travelling, you may need to adjust timing of doses or use a cooler bag to keep medication cool.

If you think you’re sensitive to seasonal changes, it’s best to talk to your neurologist about a migraine management plan. This can help you identify and manage key triggers and prevent and treat acute attacks.

Lakshini Gunasekera, PhD Candidate in Neurology, Monash University and Elspeth Hutton, Head, Headache Service Alfred Health & Monash Neuroscience Headache Group, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On Wednesday, the federal government announced plans to reform how medications are dispensed and tracked, aiming to reduce unsafe use, stockpiling and “doctor shopping”.

This will include two stages. First, the government will require all online and telehealth prescribers to upload information about a patient’s prescribed medications to their My Health Record.

Second, the government plans to develop a National Medicines Record – an over-arching database to register and monitor all current prescriptions.

So, how would this work? While some detail is still lacking, here’s what we know.

Why is this needed?

An increasing number of Australians take multiple medications. Recent research analysing prescribing patterns in Australia estimates almost two million of us took five or more regular medicines in 2024.

While multiple medicines are often needed to manage multiple conditions, there are risks of adverse effects.

And when a clinician prescribes medication or a pharmacist dispenses it without a full understanding of the patient’s current medications, it can lead to harmful interactions between them.

This can make a patient sicker and often lands them in hospital. An estimated 1.5 million people in Australia experience some kind of harmful side effect from using medicine each year.

Those at particular risk are older adults taking numerous medications, as well as those transitioning between health-care settings (such as going into hospital or returning home).

Sometimes patients also stockpile medications, including through consulting multiple doctors, known as “doctor shopping”. For example, they might do this to obtain extra supplies of addictive pain medication.

How does it work right now?

Currently, there is no centralised, mandatory register that records all of the medicines a person is prescribed and dispensed.

Instead, prescribing information may be siloed in hospital and aged care systems, general practice records and those of online telehealth providers such as Instant Scripts, 13SICK and Hola Health.

This can prevent any single doctor or pharmacist from having clear, comprehensive information about a patient’s medications.

Some health-care practitioner and pharmacy bodies have criticised the online prescribing industry, in particular, for contributing to inappropriate prescribing and medication misuse.

For high-risk medications such as opioids, there is already a Real Time Prescription Monitoring system. Victoria has a similar system called SafeScript, but this doesn’t record the full range of prescription medications.

Announcing the reforms, Health Minister Mark Butler referred to an Australian woman who died from an overdose after stockpiling her medicine. He explained her parent’s advocacy prompted the government to address the lack of a comprehensive medicines record.

What will change?

First, the government will require online and telehealth prescribing platforms to add information to the My Health Record system about prescribed medications. This will include information about the clinical reasoning for prescribing.

My Health Record is a government-run platform providing a secure, online collection of a patient’s health information. Both patients and their treating health-care professionals can access it.

So any medication or related clinical information uploaded by a prescriber would be accessible via My Health Record, to the patient as well as to their health-care providers and pharmacists.

Many general practices already upload this information, but online prescribing platforms may not. Organisations representing pharmacists have long called for this kind of change.

Will it work?

In theory, it is a step forward. The challenge is that the My Health Record system remains under-used. One in 10 Australians have no My Health Record (the system is opt-out).

For the millions of Australians who do have a My Health Record, usage is increasing. But many still have never accessed their own record.

It is also not clear whether, and how, a patient’s access to their own My Health Record would reduce medication harm (particularly if the patient is deliberately stockpiling medication).

Almost all GPs, pharmacies and public hospitals are registered for My Health Record and have used the system. But data shows pharmacies are mainly using it to upload information rather than looking at records others have uploaded.

Overall, ensuring that all medicines information is available on the My Health Record is a positive step.

But it does not mean that the information will be accessed (or understood) by others who are prescribing and dispensing medication to a patient.

Indeed, sadly, the warnings that were placed by hospital services on the My Health Record of the young woman who died from an overdose were not accessed by telehealth services nor pharmacies prescribing and supplying her with medication.

What’s ahead?

As a second step, the government says it will design and build a National Medicines Record. This would be an overarching platform linked to My Health Record and other digital health systems, to register all current prescriptions.

At this stage, detail is lacking, but health-care practitioner and pharmacy bodies are broadly supportive.

A consultation is underway.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Megan Prictor, Associate Professor in Health Technology Law, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.