Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world, with studies indicating that one in two children is chronically stunted, a condition from which they can never recover. The reasons are complex. It’s rarely a question of hunger, rather a lack of critical nutrients in the first 1000 days … Continue reading
Thrilled and honoured to be nominated as a finalist in the 2018 Australia Museum Eureka Prizes in the science journalism category. Continue reading
Following up my longform articles for Undark and The Atlantic (links can be found in earlier posts) I filed this radio doco for ABC RN’s The Health Report on what is hopefully the end game against this devastating virus. Tragically, around the same time, vaccine-derived polio turned up right next door, in PNG, where the … Continue reading
Earlier this year I went to northern Nigeria to research a story on the final push to wipe out wild poliovirus from the last crucibles of disease in terrorised parts of Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Commissioned by Undark magazine, it was co-published in The Atlantic. Continue reading
My story for Cosmos magazine on the work of research scientists in Papua New Guinea into that diabolical human foe, the malaria parasite. Photos by Mayeta Clark. Link here. Continue reading
One of the perks of the job is to meet the likes of Peter Doherty, and I’ve had the great luck to interview and chat with him a dozen times or so over the past several years. Indeed he kindly wrote a lovely endorsement of my climate book, a few years back. A gorgeous, brilliant, … Continue reading
“TB is the child of poverty – and also its parent and provider”: Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was himself a survivor of childhood tuberculosis. I was recently commissioned by the NGO ChildFund to pull together this report on the impact of the TB epidemic on the children of Papua New Guinea. You can find the … Continue reading
