Research links soil disease increase to NT intervention



Medical researchers believe the federal intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities could be to linked to a spike in cases of melioidosis.

Over the past 20 years, the soil-borne bacteria has caused about 30 cases of melioidosis a year, including several deaths.

But data published in the Medical Journal of Australia shows a sharp spike in cases in the Top End in 2009-10, when a record 91 people were diagnosed with the infection and 11 died.

Professor Bart Currie from the Menzies School of Health Research says seasonal variation in rainfall is the main contributor.

"The most important factor is the unprecedented rainfall that occurred in the Darwin region, in particular during that 12 month period, indeed the year following it was also a very heavy wet season.

"And we had another year of large numbers of cases, so the rainfall is the number one predictor of the melioidosis case numbers."

In 2009-10, there was also a rise in the proportion of cases in urban cases.

"We're seeing two thirds or 65 per cent of cases were in the Darwin-Palmerston urban area," Professor Currie said.

He says the intervention has led some Aboriginal people to move from remote areas into urban areas, where they're exposed to the elements.

He says four of the five Indigenous people from Darwin who died from the disease in 2009-10 were homeless, previously lived in remote communities, and were heavy alcohol drinkers.

"If people are coming in from the remote communities and then seeking alcohol or drinking heavily in a homeless situation they're particularly at risk of melioidosis," he said.

"Because the have the risk factor and also some of them may be diabetic and they're also exposed substantially to the environment."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-19/researchers-link-soil-disease-deaths-to-nt...



So supporters of the NT Intervention are not only racist, they have blood on their hands.

bobbythefap1 wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 11:00am:


How stupid.

... wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 11:01am:

Have you looked at us?
Everything we do is ignorant and dangerous.
We destroy the environment
Got to pointless wars and kill millions of innocent people
Support a financial system which puts billions of people in poverty and creates crime, disease and starvation.
We follow a completely messed up political system
We couldn’t give a crap if our freedoms are removed and we are to lazy to stand up for ourselves.
We worry more about dancing with the stars then children starving to death in our own backyard.

so it rains heavy and thats a govt-caused problem???

in the meantime, more kids are going to school, less kids are bring raped and less wives getten beaten while alcohol consumption has gone down.

the intervention was one of the great Howard policies and supported by Rudd and Gillard.

bobbythefap1 wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 11:00am:



How do you suggest the government address the issues that prompted the NT intervention? A completely disproportionate number of women and children are abused and neglected in remote communities by their alcoholic men. What do we do to protect them, Mr Know it All?

Do we follow your usual strategy of not thinking about it and hope it goes away?

... wrote on Mar 19^th, 2012 at 11:14am:
Well that’s questionable because its affects would probably spread among the community.
But even then there are still many members of the white community who would be in need of intervention.

So you beat the shyt out of someone and complain he got injured.
Great.
I really cant be bothered having this argument so this is my last post on this thread

110% opposed to the 'intervention'.

Always was, always will be.