The Future of Nanomedicine (journal article)
By Robert A Freitas Jr
from Futurist Vol. 44 Issue 1 Jan/Feb 2010, p21-22
"The article focuses on the use of nanotechnology in the medical treatment of various diseases in the U.S. It states that the technology utilizes nanomachines and one-billionth of a meter robot which would repair the damaged tissues of the human body at a molecular level. It mentions that nanomedicine will replace the expensive surgical treatment of certain diseases. In addition, nanotechnology also reduces the rate of premature deaths due to postoperative complications. It also emphasizes the establishment of the Nanofactory Collaboration founded by Ralph Merkle."

Biotech 2009 life sciences : navigating the sea change [book]

Author: Burrill & Company

Contains analysis and perspectives on the performance of the biotechnology industry in 2008, and presents financial projections for 2009 and beyond. Market segments covered include: healthcare, personalizing medicine, emerging technologies, "bio green tech" and wellness.

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Harmacy : the political economy of community pharmacy in Australia [book]

Author: David Gadiel / Centre for Independent Studies (Australia)

Argues for the deregulation of the pharmacy industry in Australia.

The Birth of the Biotechnology Era: Penicillin in Australia, 1943-80 (journal article)
By John A. Mathews
from Prometheus Vol 26 Iss 4 Dec 2008 , pp. 317 - 333
"As Australia and other countries seek to establish biotechnology industries, it is timely to review successes and failures in this field. One of the most notable stories is the development of penicillin, as a wartime project, to which Australians made major contributions. Australians during and immediately after the war contributed much to the scientific identification and purification of penicillin, and to the industrial scaling up in its production at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne. This was a classic instance of war accelerating innovations in public administration. Yet the nascent antibiotic industry was never allowed to gain international competitiveness, and was allowed to run down and eventually disappeared by the end of the 1970s. This article is concerned to tease out the puzzle posed by this contrast in aspirations, between the highest levels of scientific and technical achievement in bringing penicillin into widespread use (Australia being the first country in the world to provide penicillin to the civilian population in 1944) and shockingly poor performance in sustaining and developing a national antibiotics industry. As the stirrings of a biotechnology industry may be observed in the first decade of the twenty-first century, it would be unfortunate to ignore the lessons of this earlier experience at the birth of the biotechnology era. "

Phone health an elusive call (journal article)
by Bianca Nogrady
from Australasian Science, Nov/Dec 2008, pp. 29 - 31
To investigate whether mobile phones and base stations affect people's health, researchers are having to come up with clever tests that pull together several strands of research.
Contact the library for a copy of this article

Climate Change is not our Number One Problem (article)
By John-Paul Fenwick
from IPA Review Vol 60 No 4 Sept 2008, pp. 42 - 43
"This articles ranks the worlds problems and it is not all about climate change."

Chemicals and plastics regulation [book]

Australia. Productivity Commission

"Finds that the current institutional and regulatory arrangements are broadly effective in managing the risks to health and safety, but are less effective in managing risks to the environment and national security." - overview.

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New arenas for public life: Negotiating health on-line(journal article)
by Anni Dugdale
from Australian Journal of Political Science, Volume 43 Issue 1, March 2008, pp. 27-41
"This article examines the provision of on-line health information in the Australian polity, looking specifically at the question of whether e-health information can give rise to new forms of politics, citizenship and democracy. It has been argued that the Internet provides new ways for governments to conceive their nature and purpose while, at the same time, providing new forms of civil society and political mobilisation. Adopting a theoretical perspective that regards the technologies of government and not just their ideologies as critical determinants of power distribution within societies (Foucault 1984; Henman 2006), we examine these questions in the specific realm of e-health, using a range of qualitative data drawn from web sites and individual on-line health consumers."