Latest news with #TimCannon
ABC News
30-07-2025
- Science
- ABC News
NZ 'ULEB' wood heaters emit a fraction of the pollution of standard models. Why aren't they in Australia?
A new generation of low-emission wood heaters that can produce a fraction of the particulate pollution of current models could save lives by improving air quality, according to researchers. But while the heaters have been on sale in New Zealand for more than a decade, and Australian clean air groups have called for their widespread adoption, they might not be widely available here for many years. Updating pollution standards that would effectively make all new heaters sold in Australia low-emission would take up to 10 years, according to Tim Cannon, chair of a Standards Australia pollution committee. Mr Cannon is also head of the lobby group the Australian Home Heating Association — but he said decisions on pollution standards were voted on by all members of the committee, which includes a range of perspectives. He told the ABC he was unconvinced by recent peer-reviewed modelling that showed long-term exposure to wood-heater smoke was responsible for more than 700 premature deaths every year around the country. But, Mr Cannon said, the committee would consider tightening pollution standards, although he was concerned that doing this too rapidly could "decimate" the industry. "You can't just roll out changes [to wood heaters] overnight," he said. However, Australian researchers studying the effectiveness of low-emission burners said the introduction of new low-emission heaters "could be done very rapidly" based on the NZ experience. So what are ultra-low emission wood heaters and what impact have they had to pollution levels in New Zealand? Ultra-low emission burners (ULEBs) cost the same and look much like traditional wood heaters, but include various technologies to improve combustion, convert more of the fuel to heat, and ultimately reduce particulate emissions. They were introduced into New Zealand following the introduction of tougher standards, and are now undergoing testing at the University of Tasmania. Testing has shown ULEBs are the only kind of heater that could meet more stringent emissions standards. John Todd, a wood-heater expert taking part in the testing, said NZ wood-heater manufacturers were forced to innovate and develop ULEB designs after parts of the country introduced tight emissions controls a decade ago. "They said they could never build heaters that could meet [ULEB emission standards] and they now have 30‒40 models that do." The heaters have made a significant difference to the air quality of Christchurch, where the local council ran a phase-out scheme for traditional wood heaters. Dr Todd said testing of ULEB designs on Australian hardwoods showed the heaters could emit just 10 per cent of the particulate matter (specifically particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less, known as PM2.5) generated by wood heaters complying with current Australian standards. Fay Johnston, director of the University of Tasmania's Centre for Safe Air, said Australia could follow NZ's lead with ULEBs, along with other measures such as a phase-out of wood heaters in general in urban and high-density areas. "There's really no reason not to adopt it and drive the same innovation and have far less-polluting heaters available for Australians," Professor Johnston, who led the testing, said. The decision around how dirty wood heaters sold in Australia may be is largely governed by wood-heater pollution standards set by Standards Australia's "CS-062" technical committee, a group of 20 members made up mostly from industry and government. Over the past 30 years, the committee has tightened its pollution standards, so heaters emit much less particulate matter (at least on paper) than previous designs. Despite the change, however, air quality in areas with high wood-heater use isn't falling. There are opposing arguments for why this is happening. Mr Cannon said most wood heaters being used were old and built before the current tight standards. But others, including wood-heater emissions experts such as Dr Todd, said the laboratory protocol used to test heater emissions for compliance with the Australian standards did not reflect how Australians actually used these heaters at home. As a result, Dr Todd said, new wood heaters were up to 10 times more polluting than the standards suggested. "No-one operates heaters the way they're being tested," he said. "The standard assumes everyone is going to operate their heater in the best way possible." Professor Johnston agreed. She and others have called on the Standards Australia wood heater committee to change its compliance testing protocol, which would effectively tighten pollution standards for wood heaters. Professor Johnston said a draft real-world testing protocol would be submitted to the standards committee by the end of the year. "In my view, it's a long overdue [change]. We know we can get better and we haven't done it." Mr Cannon told the ABC he was interested in the emissions research underway at the University of Tasmania, but was reluctant to tighten standards too fast. Committee decisions are made on the basis of consensus, through voting in a formal ballot. Mr Cannon told the ABC the industry was under attack from "health groups" such as the Centre for Safe Air. He said reducing wood-heater emissions was politically necessary "to keep … those types of clean air scientists at bay. The Australian Home Heating Association campaigns against local councils and state and territory governments phasing out wood-heaters via, for instance, newspaper ads and targeted social media campaigns. "It would take five years' worth of research and then it might be five years before [ULEBs] becomes mandated in certain areas," Mr Cannon said. "So it could be, at best, 10 years away." Mr Cannon also said that while he was not convinced by the modelled health impacts of wood-heater smoke, he wanted to accommodate critics in order to avoid a "blanket ban on wood heaters". "What I think and what [I do] representing our industry are not necessarily aligned," he said. "We want to see the longevity of our industry. We could just push back [against critics], but that's going to get us nowhere. "We have to try to be friends." Health groups are calling for a general wood heater ban in urban and high-density areas. Asthma Australia CEO Kate Miranda said the non-profit wanted a "phased transition away from wood-fire heaters in favour of cleaner and healthier heating alternatives" such as reverse-cycle air conditioners. "There is no safe level of exposure [to wood smoke] and even small amounts can cause health effects and trigger asthma symptoms." Professor Johnston said wood heaters had a role in "low-density rural areas" where the smoke could not affect large populations or neighbours, but should be banned in urban areas "where you have to buy firewood". "We live in a highly fire-prone country. We need to manage our fuel loads," she said. If you do have a wood heater, here are some tips to reduce, but not eliminate, smoke:
Business Insider
23-07-2025
- Health
- Business Insider
Colonoscopies are no fun. These at-home colon cancer screenings offer a shortcut.
Colon cancer is the second-deadliest cancer in America. It's not deadly because it's particularly hard to treat or because oncologists are bad at spotting it. In large part, it's because people aren't getting their colon checked out often enough. Only about 1 in 5 adults who are between the ages of 45 and 49 is up to date on their colon cancer screening (older adults fare better, with around 7 in 10 completing it). "This is a highly preventable disease and we have to change the status quo so that people don't die," Dr. Paul Limburg, a gastroenterologist and chief medical officer at Exact Sciences, the company that makes one of the most popular do-it-yourself colon cancer screening tests, told Business Insider. A colonoscopy is still the most reliable tool, both for spotting colon cancer and for serving double duty as a colon-cleanup service. "I would still choose a colonoscopy for myself," Dr. Tim Cannon, a medical oncologist who directs the gastrointestinal cancer program at the Inova Schar Cancer Institute, told BI. "It is considered the gold standard, you can detect precancerous polyps and take them out during the procedure, and you can do it less often" than DIY tests, Cannon said. However, a new suite of at-home tests is rapidly expanding. For those struggling to find an appointment, those who don't have great insurance, or those who are just squeamish about colonoscopies, there are some pretty painless precursors you can do to check things out. Some recently-approved tests check your blood or your stool for signs that something is awry. One highly anticipated test, which isn't out yet, may require nothing more than your breath. The budget-friendly original: an at-home FIT test The fecal immunochemical test (aka FIT) has been around since the 1980s and is still a recommended screening tool today because it's cheap, relatively reliable, and requires no preparation. "Fecal-immuno test is the most inexpensive," Dr. Asad Umar previously told BI. "People don't like to do it, because — maybe it's the 'yuck' factor — but this could be lifesaving." You typically perform the FIT in your bathroom after a bowel movement by collecting some stool out of the toilet bowl with a brush. After the kit is sent to the lab, it will be checked for hidden blood in the stool — an early colon cancer symptom. Since colon cancers don't constantly let out blood in your stool, the test isn't perfect. FIT is about 75% accurate at detecting colon cancer cases, and a smaller number of people (about 1 in 20) may get a false positive result when they don't have colon cancer. The pooper scooper: Cologuard stool testing Like FIT, Cologuard is a stool test that you do in the bathroom, and then send into a lab for testing. Unlike FIT, Cologuard looks for both blood and cancerous DNA in your poop. Adding DNA to the mix makes Cologuard more successful: it picks up more than 9 in 10 colon cancer cases, and can flag some precancerous polyps. The downside is that Cologuard also sometimes flags poop samples that aren't cancerous, with roughly 1 in 10 patients receiving a false positive test reading. Anne Jones, a collegiate athlete career coach, was 46 when she first tried Cologuard. She knew that more women her age were being diagnosed with late-stage colon cancers, but she was hesitating about when to schedule her first colonoscopy. Did she really need to do this right now? A colonoscopy procedure requires several hours of prep work at home, emptying out your colon with heavy-duty laxatives. It's performed under anesthesia, so you need someone to pick you up from the hospital afterward. "It was less the fear of the colonoscopy and more just the hassle," Jones said. When her doctor explained she could order a Cologuard test and do it on her own at home with zero prep, it seemed like a no-brainer. "The doer in me is like 'great, let's do it.' I want to get this done. Cross it off the list." Crossing her colon cancer screening "off the list" ended up taking a few more steps, though, because Jones's Cologuard test came back positive. Within a few months, Jones went in for a colonoscopy, which found and removed multiple pre-cancerous polyps in her colon. "It was not cancer, but there were three polyps that were pre-cancerous," Jones said. She said she's glad she was given the nudge to go under, though. "It just begs the question, if I had waited a year, might that have been different?" Cologuard, made by Exact Sciences, was first approved in 2014. In late 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Cologuard Plus, which is more accurate than the regular Cologuard test and detects around 95% of colon cancers. The blood draw: Guardant Guardant Health has a new cancer screening test that skips the toilet and goes straight to your blood, analyzing your DNA for tell-tale clues that cancer could be lurking. "What you're detecting is an abnormal molecule that is only created by a cancer," Guardant's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Craig Eagle told BI. "The more we learn what that looks like, the more we can actually find smaller and smaller amounts." Guardant's first colon cancer blood test, called Shield, was FDA-approved in July 2024. It's part of the company's suite of "liquid biopsies" that use blood to help doctors gain insights about cancer, whether for cancer diagnosis or in later stages to inform cancer treatment decisions. Guardant CEO Helmy Eltoukhy told BI he hopes that Shield can soon be harnessed to identify even more cancers, including some that are notoriously hard to detect, like pancreatic cancer. One federally funded study is recruiting 24,000 people across the US to test out Shield on multiple cancers. "That's the beauty of this test: think of it as your iPhone, where initially it only had a few features. Over time, it has a thousand features," Eltoukhy told BI. Patricia James, now 77, was one of the first patients to try Shield in Guardant's pivotal clinical trial that ultimately led to its FDA approval last year. As a cancer survivor with a family history of colon cancer, she is a big believer in preventative care. But she doesn't really like colonoscopies, having had a rare but really bad experience during her first, when she woke up halfway through the procedure, and started "crashing around" on the operating table. After that, she said, she essentially swore off colonoscopies. She's getting older and has a greater risk of internal tearing and other rare complications from the procedure. So when her doctor mentioned there was a blood test available to screen for colon cancer, she said "sure." "There was no extra doctor's visit or anything," James told BI. She did it while she was in for a regular mammogram visit. She's now a huge advocate for the test, and even gave video testimony to Congress before it was FDA-approved. "Look, I don't ever wanna mess around with my health, I've lost people to cancer and I battled it myself," she told the lawmakers. "I'm someone who wants all the time in the world to keep living. I have sung the praises of this test to friends and look forward to getting it again." Like the other screening tests mentioned here, Shield does have a risk of false-positive and false-negative results, but those inaccuracies decrease as cancer progresses. In other words, the further along cancer is, the better the test is at detecting it. Method: Blood How often: Once every three years Cost: Generally covered by insurance for those over 45, and by Medicare for older adults. The test costs around $1,500 out-of-pocket. Pros: No poop involved Cons: Requires a doctor's visit to collect blood. Also,roughly 1 of every 10 patients who don't have colon cancer may receive a false positive result, and 1 in 6 who do have cancer may receive a false negative. The breath test for colon cancer Imagine that instead of collecting blood or poop to screen for colon cancer, all you have to do is breathe out for a few minutes. Several companies, in the UK, US, Canada, and Israel are working on innovative cancer screening tests that would pick up on volatile organic compounds in your breath. It's essentially like an emissions test for cancer. While none of these are available yet, the Israeli-based startup SpotitEarly is hoping to make its test available to consumers in the US as early as 2026, if all goes well with FDA regulators. A company-sponsored study published in November suggests the test is about 86% effective at picking up early-stage colon cancer cases (Stage 1 and 2).
