Australia's premier medical research funder provides almost no research into climate change impacts on health despite the issue providing "a huge challenge for the health sector", a group of leading scientists say in a new paper.
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) pioneered studies on the urgent need for research into global warming's health impacts with a 1991 report. Despite that Australia had spent less than one dollar in every $1000 on health funding to the issue since, the researchers including Nobel laureate Peter Doherty said.
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| Heatwaves are becoming more intense, more frequent and lasting longer in Australia, researchers say. Photo: Getty |
The near total lack of medical research into climate change and health comes despite heatwaves already killing more Australians than any other natural hazard. For instance, severe heat in the days prior to the 2009 Black Saturday fires killed more than twice the 173 bushfire fatalities, said Andy Pitman, one of the authors.
"Climate change and health is an issue that's fallen through a crack", said Professor Pitman, who also heads the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science based at the University of NSW. "It's a failure of design that wasn't as apparent in the past but it's becoming more apparent as we're seeing more extremes affecting health."
On the one hand, funding under the Australian Research Council explicitly bars research into medical areas. On the other, scientists are deterred from applying to NHMRC grant panels for broad-ranging matters such as climate and health, which takes in physics, human physiology, sociology and economics, he said.
Mosquito study
The NHMRC told Fairfax Media it had provided $16.6 million in climate change research from 2000-2016, or about $1 million year.
It said it supported one project related to climate change in 2016 worth $529,896 – to begin in 2017 – for a study on the risk of chikungunya transmission – a disease spread by mosquitoes.
"The NHMRC does not generally determine the subject of research grant applications," its media unit said. "Applications are investigator-initiated and therefore based on the expertise and research interests of those applying for funding."
Professor Doherty, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine, said the NHMRC's funding structure needed an overhaul.
"The perception of excellence depends a bit on who's on the review committee," Professor Doherty said. "With an area that goes across a number of sub disciplines, it's often very hard to get that review in a way that makes it seem exciting."
A national centre "with modest funding" may be the only way forward, he said.
The Nature paper noted Europe and the US had found ways to pursue research into climate and health.
A US government study in 2016 identified research priorities including: temperature-related death and illness; air quality impacts; impacts of extreme events on human health; vector-borne diseases; impacts on water-related illness; food safety, nutrition, and distribution; and mental health and wellbeing.
'Acting like invertebrates'
Fairfax Media sought comment from Greg Hunt, the new federal health minister who had overseen climate policy in one of his previous roles as environment minister.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale said the government's approach had been to save money now rather than address "one of the major health issues of this century".
"Not planning to mitigate the health impacts of a warming planet is recklessly dangerous and a failure to look after people's wellbeing," Dr Di Natale, who is also the party's health spokesman, said.
"This is a complex challenge that crosses a number of scientific fields, we need to be smarter by actively creating ways for researchers and policymakers to work together," he said.
Simon Chapman, a professor emeritus of public health at Sydney University, contrasted the near-absence of climate research with the $3.3 million allocated by the NHMRC into studying the effects of wind farms on health despite its own year-long study finding no "consistent evidence" of a problem.
"In the current climate it is hard to believe that the absence of any Targeted Call for Research on climate change and health does not reflect the NHMRC executive and board reading the political tea-leaves, and acting like invertebrates," Professor Chapman said.
"Their shameful acquiescence in indulging the crossbench-dominated Senate wind farm committee's ludicrous conclusions that harm from wind turbines needed priority research did little to inspire confidence."
Catherine King, Labor's health spokeswoman, told the Climate and Health Alliance roundtable in Canberra last year that climate and health would be a priority of the party.
"The first step is to accept the science of climate change, as well as its impact on health – unequivocally," Ms King told the gathering. "I do think it's worth noting that only one of the major parties can say that it accepts the evidence of climate change without complaint."
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