Australians petition for tobacco tax rise

Australia’s research continues to research and developactivities between university medical research institutions and private-sector industries seem set to continue in Australia. In the 1994-95 budget, the government announced that funding of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) proformed in 1990, would be gramme, reviewed 18 months after it started and a year before the fourth year. Minister for Industry, Science, and Technology, Senator Peter Cook, has released the government’s response to the Industry Commission Report on Research and Development, to which had been submitted the Report of the CRC Evaluation (Myers Report) in July, 1995. Following the Myers report, there was some doubt about government funding being maintained. Cook said that the 150% tax concession for cooperative research and development expenditure will continue as an incentive for industry, and that the Industry Commission had not proposed any major revisions to current funding arrangements for research agencies, such as the National Health and Medical Research Council, which would "continue unchanged". (This news might not necessarily be well received by people at the NHMRC, who have been complaining about the low funding for at least 5 years.) The government response to the Myers Report was made jointly by Senator Cook and the Minister for and Education, Employment,

ooperative ment

woo

industry

Training, Simon Crean, who agreed to review income tax legislation, which presently taxes postgraduate research scholarships, where scholarships "are provided clearly for educational purposes". Crean committed the government to continuing support for research links between universities and industry and agreed with the Industry Commission’s endorsement of the dual approach of institutional and competitive funding for university research, which requires universities to raise some their own funding, predicated on original and clinical research results (see Lancet Jan 27, p 250). In its evaluation, the CRC dealt with any tendency toward bias in allocating funds to "firm-specific research" by stating that the CRC programme "has a responsibility to ensure that benefits accrue to the wider Australian community and that are these benefits maximised". the CRC also However, recognised that there could be a disincentive for industry to continue to cooperate if there was "obsessive concern" with the level of private benefit to companies. The CRC evaluation also recommended that centres should recover all costs where centres do not retain control of resulting intellectual property. Commentators do not expect the predicted change of federal government in March to affect these decisions. Peter

Harrigan

Australians petition for tobacco tax rise and professional bodies have cooperated in petitioning the Australian government to increase greatly the excise duty on tobacco products. The Australian Medical Association, the Cancer Australian Society, the Australian Council on Smoking, and the National Heart Foundation want the additional money to be used to treat smoking-related diseases, and to fund smoking-prevention programmes. The petition suggests that there should be a gradual increase in federal excise duty to 40% (from 22-2%), between August, 1996, and February, 1998, according to AMA federal president, David Weedon. Writing in Australian Medicine (Feb 5), Dr Weedon nominated smoking as "the largest preventable cause of death in Australia", which costs the nation A$9-2 billion annually in health-care costs and loss of production. Weedon added that the national death rate from smoking-related illness was presently around 19 000. This concerted effort is supported by the recent Herron report on the Senate inquiry into tobacco-related illness, which recommended rises in tobacco tax at State and federal levels. Australian Medicine quoted a spokesperson for the Philip Morris company as saying that "tax changes and increases will not be effective in reducing the incidence of juvenile

Community health

smoking". Peter

Harrigan

Italy’s supernumerary doctors

News in brief

nlike

UK of

countries, Italy can a want of qualified doctors. According to Health Minister Elio Guzzanti, interviewed at a meeting of the Italian National University Committee in Florence laast month, "there are 100000 some

U scarcely

lament

too many: the academic year 1996-97 must see a 20% reduction

doctors

in enrolments". While France and the UK make do with 180 000 and 150 000 respectively, Italy’s doctors total 308 000, "a blueprint for unemployment", says Guzzanti, for while the degree in jurisprudence (the most popular faculty in Italian universities) provides a variety of job openings, that in medicine gives access only to medical practice. Guzzanti’s opinion is echoed by

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Prof Pierluigi Frati, chairman of the Italian Health Council and Dean of the Medical School of Rome’s La Sapienza University, who says much greater emphasis should be given to training paramedics, nurses, and technical staff, all in short supply in Italian hospitals. The only solution will be to apply a numerus clausus policy. Though this has been notoriously unpopular and strongly resisted ever since the student revolt of 1968, it is now practised to varying extents in medical faculties up and down the peninsula. Otherwise, says Frati, one would risk "creating" patients in order to provide employment for superfluous doctors.

Timothy Keates

osteopathic council As part implementation of the 1993 Osteopaths Act, a self-regulating, General statutory Osteopathic Council has been set up. Only practitioners who can meet the required standards will be admitted to the statutory register. Once the Act is in force, only those osteopaths on the

register may practise. Social policy in Europe The latest issue of Social Europe has been published (European Comm-ission (ISBN CE-AA-94-003-EN-C). It summarises the progress made over the past 2 years in the field of social policy. This period saw the publication of the white paper on social

policy,

now

being implemented.