Global chemo drug shortage impacts SA and other top stories.

• Global chemo drug shortage impacts SA

  

  A chemotherapy drug shortage means some cancer patients in South Australia will receive larger injections delivered more slowly, SA Heath has revealed. A global shortage of the chemotherapy agent etoposide phosphate, used to treat a range of cancers, means SA patients will be injected with an alternative form of the drug from late October. SA Health says the alternative form, etoposide as base, is not directly interchangable with the phosphate version which can lead to dosing errors. The depart..

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• 'How could this happen in Australia?': Cairns cafe worker responds to customer's racial slur

  

  Former refugee Josie Ajak, 20, was on shift last week at the busy Gloria Jeans cafe in central Cairns when a female customer refused her assistance, instead requesting her to ‘get a white lady’ to serve. Ms Ajak, who arrived in Australia as a refugee in 2004 after her family fled wartown Sudan, said she was "completely stunned" by the woman's reaction, having earlier greeted her with a smile. "I was shocked but I responded very kindly, I said that’s fine and just moved her to the side and..

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• New study says ovaries capable of growing new eggs

  

  The belief that a woman is born with a fixed number of eggs appears to have been broken by a discovery by scientists at the University of Edinburgh. A study wherein cancer patients were given ABVD, a chemotherapy drug, discovered the women had a larger density of eggs compared to women of the same age. The ability to grow new eggs was a side effect of the medication, says Evelyn Telfer, head researcher of the study conducted by the university. “This was something remarkable and completely unexp..

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• Top sports medic wants sugar intake halved

  

  He works with some of world's best cricketers to ensure they stay in top physical condition and now Dr Peter Brukner is aiming to improve the health of ordinary Australians, which he says is a mess. The respected sports physician, who's the Australian cricket team doctor, believes the nation's alarming obesity and diabetes rates can be cut if we halve our sugar intake. Total abstinence from sugar isn't necessary. Dr Brukner says the one rule to the Sugar By Half Program, launched this week, is ..

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• 'Peanut clinics' to help Perth babies avoid allergies

  

  Medically-supervised 'peanut clinics' are being set up to test whether exposing infants to the potentially deadly nut can help reduce rising allergy rates.Perth doctors are setting up the clinics and hope to test 400 infants and compare the incidence of peanut allergy between children exposed early and those exposed later. The new clinics are designed to help children avoid peanut allergies later in life.  Three per cent of all one-year-olds are allergic to peanuts."Peanut allergy is the ..

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