The Briefing

This week Dr Caroline Shaw and Associate Professor Diana Sarfati consider the pros and cons of breast cancer screening, in light of the growing controversy (mostly in the northern hemisphere) about the possibility that the benefits of breast cancer screening are (much) less than previously thought due to over-detection and other issues.

​As part of influenza pandemic readiness, NZ has a 32 million dollar stockpile of antiviral drugs. But given recent evidence from a new Cochrane systematic review – NZ policymakers should probably now carefully review this approach. ​

​ In a just published study we found that the NZ Government’s investment in HPV vaccination for girls is clearly a “good value-for-money” way to protect health – even at the modest 47% coverage. In this blog we discuss these findings and how the country could catch-up to the much higher HPV vaccination coverage levels seen in Australia and the UK. ​

This blog considers the key recent evidence relating to prostate cancer screening.  There remain many problematic issues with this type of screening – including the cloudy nature of the overall evidence on benefits vs harms. 

Flu pandemics are important but relatively rare so the lessons learned from such events may not be available when they are most needed. This is where historical research can help. Here we reflect on some lessons that could be learnt from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

The “100% Pure” marketing of NZ has been in the news. This blog suggests there is a case for striving to achieve the “100% level” through 100% elimination of a hazard or risk. Namely, tobacco, human papilloma virus (HPV), measles, and rotavirus.

An article we published last week generated plenty of debate in particular on the complexities of taxing food. In this blog, Professor Nick Wilson argues that, yes, such tax packages have to be well designed (and more research would be helpful), but nevertheless that there is much that could be potentially gained by taxes on saturated fat.