This week's Media Take programme takes its lead from the New Zealand Herald's Rugby and dementia dilemma, which is the most substantial media examination yet of the hidden toll taken by concussions in rugby union and rugby league, sports that many New Zealanders not only love but define themselves by.
This isn't the first time the Herald has tackled the issue – the first was in 2012, on the heels of new and alarming research – but this time Dylan Cleaver's series seems to have triggered a much greater response.
What was originally intended as a three-day campaign was extended as new accounts came in. Most notably, perhaps, that of All Black legend Waka Nathan:
On the day the Herald launched this series which investigates the links between head injuries suffered in rugby and dementia conditions including Alzheimer's, his wife Janis took him to the village library where they read the story about the Taranaki Ranfurly Shield team of 1964, and the plight of five players who have died with, or are suffering from, dementia.
It struck an immediate chord.
Dylan joins us on the programme, along with AUT researcher Alice Theadom, Rob Allen (brother of the mercurial All Black Nicky Allen, who suffered a fatal on-field concussion after a series of knocks over several years), Maori Sports Trust CEO Dick Garrett and Wairarapa clinical nurse and concussion researcher Doug King, who tells this powerful story:
The issue has been driven in part by the growing recognition in the United States of a condition called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, which is often asymptomatic until players retire, when it begins to show up as a range of cognitive and emotional problems. Salon last month ran a story suggesting the toll was particularly heavy among Samoan and Tongan NFL players, such as Mosi Tatupu and Junior Seau, who took his own life in 2012. Seau was never recorded as having suffered an on-field concussion, but a posthumous examination of his brain showed unmistakeable evidence of CTE.
Now, Bennet Omalu, the doctor who first identified CTE and whose story is told in the new biopic Concussion, has strongly suggested that OJ Simpson has CTE, noting that its behavioural symptoms "include explosive, impulsive behavior, impaired judgment, criminality and even mood disorders."
Although rugby union and rugby league have taken important steps in concussion management in recent years, Doug King's experience shows that the new thinking does not extend to the sidelines of club games. And even if the reforms can change the picture, it seems evident that there is a great deal of trouble already stored up from the past. It's about a hell of a lot more than a bang on the head.
Last night's Sunday programme on access to the expensive new anti-viral drugs that cure Hepatitis C – a debilitating and ultimately life-threatening disease that 50,000 New Zealander have, whether know it yet or not – was a good example of how these stories look when they're not driven by drug company PR.
It featured two people: musician Chris Heazlewood, who has been infected with the Hep C virus for 25 years and is at risk of end-stage liver failure; and Tasmanian man Greg Jefferies, who found himself in the same boat and started a buyers' club to help others who couldn't afford $80,000 to $90,000 for a 12-week course of pills. Jefferies sources the anti-virals from countries where they cost a fraction of what patients in developed countries pay and sends them on to people who need.
I know Chris and I'm delighted he is getting treatment. I'm also aware that he had a problem for some time doing something that's not mentioned in the Sunday report: finding a sympathetic doctor. Many doctors aren't familiar with the drugs involved and are wary of the idea that the patients would bring them in themseles.
I talked to a GP I know when Chris was in some distress about his dealings with doctors and got some feedback which I edited up as general advice:
There’s always a risk buying medicines overseas, but the Indian factories supplying their domestic market usually aren’t too bad.
The way I work, all the HepC patients see a specialist in private or public, have a fibroscan to assess liver scarring, and maybe a liver biopsy as well for the same reason, and then remain closely or loosely in touch with the specialist depending on results and preferences. Sometimes I will do all the monitoring and followup scans, other times the specialist will.
The old drugs were actually pretty useless (low cure/bad side effects) and lots of people opted not to bother, but the newer drugs are quite different, and I think now all my patients have one way or another have used them (mostly thru trials run by Ed G and Auck Uni).
The key point to get across is that the type of drug or combination used, and the dose(s), and the course length all depend on the scarring/cirrhosis level, and the HCV genotype. Without this information it is not possible to give the correct course, and gain optimum benefit and chance of cure. This information can only be obtained from specialist gastroenterology or hepatology services.
If a patient of mine was found to have HepC I would be happy to supervise medication sourced from overseas if:
- I knew the patient well enough - they had been assessed by a specialist as above - the treatment plan was written down, plus the monitoring needed
To do this I would refer them for assessment at the liver unit at Auckland Hospital, or to see a specialist in private, and once I had a letter back with the plan we would go ahead.
Your acquaintance needs a proper assessment and treatment plan from a Hepatologist, and if he’s got a good relationship with his GP then it really shouldn’t be a problem.
So if you're in the position of needing this treatment, you should watch the Sunday report – there is some debate about the efficacy of the generic substitutes – and talk to your doctor. If your doctor doesn't want to talk about it, you will have to find another doctor. The Hep C Information website might be a good place to start with that.
I suspect that Auckland City Limits' promoters didn't know when they booked Kendrick Lamar that he'd be playing their show with a new album in hand, plus seven Grammy wins for the last one and what people are calling one of the the best Grammy performances ever. But he is, and it's a rare chance to see the hottest rap artist in the world right now.
This video posted this week of Lamar rap battling some British kids at a Reebok event in Britain also makes the point that it's kind of pleasant having a huge rap star who's not also a prat:
I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's headine set, to hearing Fat Freddy's Drop on the big stereo and to generally seeing how what is in many ways a new kind of festival for New Zealand works out. I expect to be spending quite a bit of afternoon time lakeside in the Golden Dawn area, but apart from that, I think I'll just take it as it comes. We have a house full of friends staying over and I think some serious mum-and-dad-rocking will be done.
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In the past few years vinyl records have established a solid niche in overall music sales: we all know that. But while everything else has changed, the vinyl manufacture process is still the same mechanical twentieth century process. And yeah, a lot of people probably like that – but it's slow, inefficient and dirty.
That could be about to change. Patents have been filed for a new "high definition" vinyl process whose inventors promise better sound quality, higher capacity and much lower environment impact:
The ‘HD Vinyl’ name is a working title, though the basic idea is this: instead of the manual and time-consuming process currently used for creating vinyl LPs, the ‘HD Vinyl’ process involves 3D-based topographical mappingcombined with laser inscription technology to more quickly generate a far superior product. Not only will the end product be vastly improved, but the time required to produce the LPs will also be radically reduced.
Most importantly, the records will play on existing turntables. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.
Meanwhile, a company in Britain will, for a fee, turn you into a record. Or, rather, press up your ashes after you're cremated. It certainly puts a whole new slant on the idea of crate-digging.
Back in the digital world, one of the problems with the fully-accounted streaming music model is that it hasn't been able to harness the vitality of mix culture. But Apple Music has just announced a partnership with a company called Dubset that will act as a kind of distributor for remixes and edits. Dubset's audio analysis technology will, it's claimed, detect elements of original works within tracks and allocate rights income to both the original creator and the remixer. There's a more detailed explanation in this Billboard story.
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I mentioned the theremin last week: well, it turns out that wasn't the only musical instrument to be created by Leon Theremin. There was also the Rhythmicon, devised in 1931 and, as this intriguing backgrounder at Open Culture says, the first drum machine.
There are so many new local releases it's hard to know where to start this week. But I'm finding it hard to go past the new Average Rap Band album, El Sol, which is available on Bandcamp at a price of your choosing. Tom Scott has said a few things lately about no longer being the enfant terrible and just wanting to work at making music. Well, long may he do so, because this is sumptuous stuff:
Anna Coddington's new song 'Release me' was pitched to me as "a great yacht-rock-y tune" for the last of the summer – and it totally is. Nice to see mi amigo Esther Macintyre in the clip too:
More cinematic R&B pop from Thomston, this time in duet with the Australian singer Wafia. He's like your ultimate sensitive boyfriend:
One final teaser before the long-awaited second Street Chant album Hauora comes out in April. Noisy as fuck:
Album tour details and vinyl pre-orders here, along with a link to a Brooklyn Vegan post hailing 'Insides' as a good example of Street Chant’s sneery, snotty style, dropping Sylvia Plath references while jamming out power chords." It's actually better than that: the actual line is "Like Sylvia Plath/From Sylvia Park," which is some top-notch Auckland mall humour.
Raiza Biza has a new tune inspired by a Vice documentary about parallel universes and the multiverse theory. Some smooth spacetime rap (free download):
The Swedish DJ Disco Tech churns out of a lot of edits but doesn't often make them available for download. He's made an excetion for this cool, clever take on 'Nipple to the Bottle'. Click the "buy" button to download for free:
And, hey look, because it's you guys and I'm in a good mood, here's a edit of 'Higher Ground" that's also a free download. Don't say I never doing anything for you.
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The Hard News Friday Music Post is kindly sponsored by:
Last night's MediaTake show looking at the way Helen Kelly's public stand on medical cannabis has changed the whole media conversation on that topic is online for viewing now.
The highlight is a powerful personal account by Dr Huhana Hickey on the way her use of the cannabis-based spray Sativex has eased painful spasms associated with her multiple sclerosis, allowed her to cut out morphine, tramadol and other drugs – and got back back into her walking frame for the first time in five years.
Huhana is one of 100 or so New Zealanders approved to use Sativex, but will have to give it up because of the cost – it's not funded by Pharmac and costs her about $1200 a month. Most of the people approved to use Sativex (which requires a special application under the Medicines Act) do not do so because of the cost.
That unfunded status is due in part to the Pharmacology Therapeutics Advisory Committee telling Pharmac last year that the risk of "diversion" (i.e: inappropriate use) was too high in "the New Zealand setting". This doesn't make sense and equivalent bodies elsewhere in the world have taken a very different view.
Also on the show, Chris Fowlie, president of Norml, was articulate and knowledgeable, and the Rev Hirini Kaa was usefully sceptical about wider cannabis law reform. But everyone was on the same page on medical cannabis. Something's got to give.
To round out the programme, Toi and I talked to Stallone Ioasa, the writer and director of the grassroot Samoan identity comedy Three Wise Cousins, which launched from half a dozen screens in South Auckland to take $1 million in cinemas and is still going strong.
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We thought it would be a nice idea to open the first show of the new Media Take season with me and Toi shouting at each other, so we got in the voice booth and let rip.
We like it so much we think we might kick off every show like this. But we need a good name for it – te reo Maori or in English. Any ideas?
Helen Kelly was only days away from stepping down from her post at president of the Council of Trade Unions when she was interviewed on The Nation in October. But she went into the appearance with the intention of launching one last campaign.
Pretty much everything that has unfolded since was signalled in that interview with Lisa Owen: Kelly had exhausted other options in dealing with the symptoms of her lung cancer (including morphine "which is a horrible drug") and wanted access to medical cannabis. Pressed by Owen on whether she had in fact already tried cannabis, she beamed "Yeah, I've inhaled."
In that first interview, Kelly announced her intention to apply to Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne, for a "medical exemption" under the Medicines Act. The process of that application revealed significant shortcomings in the system to handle medical cannabis approval, especially for those, like Kelly, who seek cannabis for pain relief and palliative care.
I don't think all this would have happened without Helen Kelly sharing her story. But what now? Now that we're actually having this conversation?
On the first episode of the 2016 season of Media Take, Toi and I talk to Huhana Hickey, who has multiple sclerosis and has been using a wheelchair since 1996. She has taken a variety of drugs to deal with pain and found most of them debilitating. She actually has approval for the only pharmaceutical-grade cannabis product available in New Zealand, Sativex, but has been foiled by the price – up to $1400 for three 10ml bottles. She'd like to see Sativex and other products funded.
We're also joined by Norml president Chris Fowlie and the Rev Hirini Kaa.
And later in the show we'll talk to Stallone Ioasa, director of self-funded film Three Wise Cousins, the Samoan identity comedy that charged in the national box office Top 10 off a handful of screens in South Auckland and is now screening nationwide and across the Tasman.
If you'd like to come along to this evening's Media Take recording you'll be very welcome. Come to the front door of TVNZ at 5.45pm. We'll have you away around 6.45pm.
And the programme itself screens tomorrow night at 10.15pm on Maori Television.
