I gave my first news media interview in 1976, after publishing a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia about the elderly making up the lion’s share of psychotropic drug use. In the 39 years since…
- Emeritus Professor in Public Health, University of Sydney
Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm is a conviction libertarian. He loathes excess government regulation, bureaucracy and taxes. He’d also like to see Australians able to carry concealed weapons…
In October 2013, Catalyst broadcast a segment highly critical of statins, a class of drug used for lowering cholesterol.
I’m a regular drug user. Every morning I take a drug to manage blood pressure. I get my supplies from my neighbourhood dealer, but I can get the stuff almost anywhere.
The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney has just announced A$1.3 of funding from Blackmores, the complementary medicine manufacturer, for a Chair in Integrative Medicine (a blending of evidence-based…
Tomorrow at TedX Sydney’s Opera House event, high-profile neurosurgeon Charlie Teo will talk about brain cancer. Last Saturday Teo was on Channel 9’s Sunrise program talking about the often malignant cancer…
On April 30, 2015, South Australian Family First Senator Bob Day published an opinion piece on his website titled Wind turbines’ inconvenient truth. In gotcha-style exuberation, Senator Day noted that…
When your local butcher or grocer retires, it’s perfectly clear what this means. They are no longer there in the shop when you next go in. Someone else has taken over, or the shop has changed to another…
A study published today in the leading journal Addiction might just change everything for electronic cigarettes
In 1998 I wrote Lifesavers and samaritans, then the first report on people’s experiences of using mobile phones in emergency situations. At the time, just 5.1 million Australians had a mobile phone and…
* This is the first in an occasional series of articles on must-read, indispensible papers in public health. Forty-one years ago when I started working in public health, there was a parable someone would…
There is near-universal agreement that Australia’s implementation of tobacco plain packaging in December 2012 has seen the most virulent opposition ever experienced from the global tobacco industry.
The out-going head of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Warwick Anderson confirmed in Senate Estimates recently that calls for research proposals for up to a total of A$2.5 million…
We can now say with confidence that up to two-thirds of smokers will die from their smoking, on average ten years early. Stopping smoking before age 45 appears to eliminate most of this risk.
There is no direct evidence that wind turbines affect physical or mental health, according to a review of the evidence by the National Health and Medicine Research Council (NHMRC). The review found no…
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) today released its long-awaited review of the evidence about whether wind turbines have health effects. The NHRMC released its interim report last…
Industry engagement with researchers can bring mutual benefits to industry, further research, and to society when benefits flow to consumers, communities and the environment. Public trust in the integrity…
Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) became available in Australia in 1984 (gum) and 1993 (patches), first as prescription-only items. From 1988, they started becoming available as an over-the-counter item…
Across 38 years in tobacco control, I have been asked countless times in media interviews if I ever smoked. It’s often an early question. I always unhesitatingly explain that I did: I stopped in my mid…
My first column last week was quickly trolled by a small group of mostly UK-based vaping activists. Of 49 comments posted, 17 were removed by The Conversation’s moderator before the comments were closed…
Joe Cocker, the Sheffield singer who died on December 22, will always be remembered as one of the most searing, unforgettable voices of the past forty years. Ten of his best songs can be found here. “Mad…
Healthy men aged 50 to 69 years who request a prostate cancer check will be offered a blood test every two years if draft guidelines released today by two peak cancer groups are adopted. The guidelines…
In an era when cinema attendance is in continual decline, the United States Surgeon General’s proposal that all movies depicting smoking should be rated R is a particular form of silliness. The Surgeon…
A UK study published online in the journal Addiction has generated headlines proclaiming electronic cigarettes as an established new way to reduce the harms of smoking or quit altogether. But such claims…
There is no reliable or consistent evidence that proximity to wind farms or wind farm noise directly causes health effects. That’s the finding of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC…
Contact Simon for
- Media request
- Location: Sydney, Australia
- Website
- BlueSky: @https://bsky.app/profile/simonchapman.bsky.social
- Facebook: private
- YouTube: @https://www.youtube.com/@simonchapman6
- Article Feed
- Joined
