Medical Clinic pushing Ketamine for depression

University of Melbourne Professor Graham Barrett told the ABC he felt there was a conflict of interest between his research work and Aura Medical's push for profits.

Aura Medical Corporation has set up shop in Sydney and Melbourne selling unapproved prescription drugs to severely depressed and needy people.  They are offering take home packages of up to 10 doses of Ketamine.

From the Aura website

Aura Medical Corporation Pty Ltd is an Australian Medical Group specializing in treating patients with treatment resistant depression.  Our doctors have expertise in helping patients through a process of assessment, counselling and introducing effective strategies for treatment.

Aura Medical can help when a patient has not responded to conventional antidepressant treatments.

This is a breakthrough first in Australia with Aura Medical Corporation bringing the new strategies for patients with “treatment resistant depression”.

Doctors at Aura Medical Corporation use a pharmacological approach to treatment-resistant depression which is widely, and successfully, used in USA and some European countries.

Of course our doctors adhere to the strictest privacy provisions of the National Health Act.

If you, a loved one or someone you know is suffering from this level of pain and depression........

So what is Ketamine?

Ketamine is used by medical practitioners and vets as an anaesthetic. It's also used illegally by drug addicts.  It can produce hallucinogenic effects and cause a person to see, hear, smell, feel or taste things that aren't there.

It's sold illegally as a white crystalline powder but can also be made into tablets and pills or dissolved in liquid.

It can be swallowed, snorted or injected and sometimes smoked with cannabis or tobacco.  The effects can be felt within 30 seconds if injected, 5-10 minutes if snorted and 20 minutes if swallowed and effects last for approximately 45 to 90 minutes.

Whistle blowers and former patients report that "client liaison officers" and managers are pressuring patients to sign up to the treatment which costs up to $1,200 for a four week course of 8 injections.

Although several clinical depression trials have shown a dramatic short-term improvement in mood, as yet, ketamine has not been approved for the treatment of depression.

Jennette Jenkin was told the company was running a "medical trial" when she visited Aura Medical Clinic in Sydney this year. 

"When they told me how much the injections were - they would have cost me $300 a week - which I could not afford, they said they would give me a discount and only cost $260." 

Desperate for help, she signed up for 8 injections and was taught how to draw the liquid into the syringes.  The doctor was not interested in getting information about her condition from her GP nor did anyone call her to follow up on her progress at home.

When she finished the course, the doctor said it would be dangerous to stop the drug suddenly and she would need a further 6 injections, but she couldn't afford any more.

"She (the doctor) seemed to be pushing it, even my husband felt the same way, I guess because when she mentioned The Black Dog Institute were doing trials as well, I thought it was legit" Ms Jenkin said.  

But the Black Dog Institute issued the following statement.

Last month, the company's Medical Director Professor Graham Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, told the ABC he had resigned from the position, citing a conflict of interest between his work as a medical researcher and the company's profit-driven approach.

Farmer's wild dog trees

Trees near the towns of Benambra and Myrtleford in Victoria are displaying an usual sight in recent weeks - dead wild dogs.  They decimate livestock, particularly sheep, and kill native animals.

Robert Belcher from Bonang near the Snowy Mountains National Park, said hanging the wild dogs in trees and on fences where they can be easily seen, is a tradition and lets farmers know that one more predator has been caught.

The displays also help city tourists realize just how bad the problem is. Because they don't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there.  Mr Belcher said there are "thousands" in bushland near his home. Some of the dogs are huge.  "You've got no hope against a dog like that" he said.

But come 30th June 2015, the Victorian state government will cease to pay a bounty for wild dogs and all the good work will stall. 

Words fail me. 

Robert Belcher

Gina Rinehart loses family trust battle

I guess we'll never know why Gina Rinehart didn't want her children to receive the money their grandfather Lang Hancock set up for them when they reached a certain age.  That time has come and gone yet their mother fought tooth and nail to deny them his wishes and we are left wondering why.

Gina and Lang

During the trial, Gina resigned as trustee of the trust and today, 28th May 2015, the NSW Supreme Court Justice Paul Brereton appointed Bianca 38, trustee of the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust, worth around $4 billion.

Justice Brereton said Bianca was "better suited than any of the alternatives to administer this trust in the prevailing circumstances" and that she had "demonstrated the ability robustly to assert the rights of the trust" against her mother and the flagship family company Hancock Prospecting.

The judge also said that Gina Rinehart had gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain control of the trust and had exerted "enormous pressure and great influence to do so."

Bianca Hancock

Before he died, Lang Hancock drew up a trust for his four grandchildren and ordered it to be made available in September 2011 on the day the youngest Ginia, turned 25.  But their mother changed the date to 2068 without their consent.

For three and a half years, Gina Rinehart and her youngest daughter Ginia fought to deny John and Biance their inheritance.  A fourth grandchild Hope Welker settled with her mother in 2013 for $45 million because she couldn't handle the stress involved with the litigation.

The trust's main asset is a 24 per cent share in Hancock Prospecting and their mother owns the rest.

John Hancock

Because Gina resigned voluntarily as trustee during the trial, the judge could not rule on John and Bianca's assertion that their mother was guilty of serious misconduct.  But the world now knows that she was.

Terrorist's wife and children want to come home

Khaled Sharrouf

Australian Khaled Sharrouf proudly posted a picture of his young son holding a bloody severed head with the caption 'that's my boy.'

Everyone was shocked except his relatives back in Sydney.  His brother said we should simply forget about it. "He's gone, forget about it, he's forgotten youse."

Now his Australian wife Tara Nettleton, a Muslim convert, who took her five children to Syria to join her husband, has decided she wants to come home.  She converted to Islam and had the first of her five children with Sharrouf when she was seventeen.

Sharrouf knows he's burnt his bridges, if he sets one foot on Australian soil, he'll be arrested and given a lengthy jail term and the same should apply to his wife and children.  But political correctness won't allow that to happen.  

Karen Nettleton

And Sharrouf's wife has an ally - her mother, Karen Nettleton - and with her help, she successfully smuggled her three young boys and two teenage daughters out of Australia to Syria via Malaysia. Her mother went out of her way to deceive authorities and make the move possible.

The government want to strip citizenship from Australian-born children of immigrants who go to fight with ISIS and force them to take up citizenship in the birth country of their parents.  But it's easier said than done. Yesterday when the federal cabinet agreed to introduce laws to strip sole Australian citizens of their rights, there was a revolt and the proposal failed. 

Tara Nettleton's father Peter pleaded with authorities to bring his grandchildren home months ago when he saw a picture of his grandson holding a severed head in the paper. But it's too late for that, they have already been indoctrinated into the brutal world of ISIL and you can't undo the damage already done.

Tara Nettleton made her bed and now she must lie in it and pleading ignorance won't wash. 

We don't want you or your children back. Ever.

Crystal meth now out of control in Sydney

The Central Coast is the third largest urban area in New South Wales and only an hour and a half away from Sydney.  The population varies from retirees to working-age couples who longed to live near the beach but couldn't afford Sydney prices. But unfortunately, there are never enough jobs to go around and hundreds battle the long commute every day to Sydney for work.

There was an Ice Summit on the Central Coast this week and Dobell Federal Liberal MP Karen McNamara opened the meeting with a horror story.  An ice addict in an Emergency Department gouged out his own eyeballs and ate them.  She used this story to demonstrate that ice is not a recreational drug and somehow we must get this message across to our young. She said the incident occurred at John Hunter Hospital at Newcastle.

Last week in Sydney, the Organised Crime Squad seized another 170 kg of ice worth $110 million, but it's nothing new.  The cops are on the news every week, proudly displaying another find but it happens so often, it's hardly newsworthy anymore.  And it's not only local cooks they have to find, it's because Australia pays more for ice than any other country in the world, so it's pouring in from overseas hidden in almost anything you can think of.  

Head of Emergency Department at Gosford and Wyong Hospitals, Dr Kate Porges said that "killer doses" were needed to calm the addict down.  "The doses are six times what we'd give the average person, if I gave you this sort of dosage, you'd be dead" she said.

Doctors and nurses were regularly assaulted but rarely reported because they were too busy to deal with the paperwork.

Paramedics are also risking their lives.  The drug-induced psychosis gives ice users super-human strength.  Toukley ambulance manager Dave Morris said it took 12 men, including large police officers, to subdue one addict who weighed around 60 kg.

Meanwhile, as we hold more seminars and summits and keep talking about crystal meth, the cops keep looking for it, the crooks keep cooking it, and the kids keep buying it.  

And so it goes.

http://www.crystalmeth.org.au/meetings/sydney/

Sydney teacher Alexander Gollan arrested

Alex Gollan was arrested on Wednesday night, seven months after police searched his Condell Park home.  A teacher and deputy principal of Homebush Public School, he was charged with allegedly grooming a 9 year old girl for sex on Facebook and 14 counts of possessing child pornography.

He was released on strict bail conditions and will face court on 30 June 2015.

The girl's family were diligent enough to discover what was happening on their daughter's computer and reported it to police in September 2014.

The Education Department said he was removed from school and assigned alternative non-teaching duties as soon as the department were aware of concerns and he complied with the necessary Working With Children check.

But Alexander Gollan swears he is innocent.  He claims he was framed by right-wing extremists who planned to set him up and that the child pornography was sent to him by his enemies.

So who are these enemies?  Mr Gollan devotes his spare time to writing anti-bogan, anti-discrimination and anti-racist material and once sold stickers and Tshirts promoting his cause. He says the haters sent him the child porn with a note that said "we know you love this shit" hoping to ruin his career and brand him as a paedophile.

Asked about his alleged online conversation with the young girl he said investigators misunderstood the meaning of what he said.  "I said things that I say verbatim to adults, I said 'stop being cute' but I say stuff like that to adults, obviously it's triggered warning bells, I was here alone, I wasn't grooming."

Mr Gollan said he wanted to return to his role as assistant principal as soon as possible.  "I've been in the same industry for a long time.  It's an absolutely awful feeling, I've been throwing up."

None of his alleged victims were linked to the Homebush Primary School.

Uber drivers must pay GST

Yesterday the Australian government announced that Uber drivers must apply for an ABN (Australian Business Number) and charge 10 per cent GST (Goods & Services Tax).

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has given Uber drivers two and a half months to start paying GST.

In response, the company released a statement.

.......................We were therefore disappointed that the ATO has taken it upon itself to dictate government policy for the sharing economy by imposing a flawed interpretation of the law that was introduced in the 1990s upon participants of a new business model that is only one year old.

Today's decision by the ATO is not a tax on Uber but rather impacts the over 9,000 ordinary Australians who drive on the uberX platform.

These are 9,000 individuals who will now be caught up in red tape before they even accept their first ride and will then be hit with a tax on their very first dollar earned, unlike the truck drivers, painters, online sellers, gardeners, other sharing economy participants, and every other small business who do not have to collect GST until their business reaches $75,000 p.a. in turnover.

The typical uberX partner in Australia works for around 20 hours a week and takes home around $30,000 p.a. - well under the government's threshold for GST.....................

The current penalties are $220 for non-lodgement of a BAS and fines apply for non-payment of outstanding GST on supplies already made.

Yesterday, the company's head of policy Brad Kitschke threatened to challenge the government's decision in the courts.  "It's something we are considering" he said.