Viagra Drug

On pill victory, Murray pulled out all stops

August 27, 2006

When you were a child, no matter what your background or language, you likely were read some version of “The Little Engine That Could.”

It’s a saccharine tale of a tiny train engine that tried to push a larger locomotive up a steep hill, and succeeded through pure persistence.

Patty Murray apparently took that life’s lesson to heart. The state’s senior Democratic senator doesn’t fold without a fight.

I mention her now because this week she won an uphill battle that took more than three years, against much larger forces.

The issue was the over-the-counter sale of the Plan B contraceptive, also known as the “morning-after pill,” which the Food and Drug Administration decided Thursday to allow.

The saga began in 2002, when the drug was being sold by prescription. The FDA was poised to approve it for over-the-counter sales. Instead, under pressure from some conservatives, the FDA began pondering the “behavioral” aspects of teenage girls with access to an emergency contraceptive.

They were, Murray complained, looking at morality issues, something the FDA doesn’t do with other drugs. “Did they do this with Viagra?” she asked me last year.

In December 2003, the FDA’s own advisory group approved Plan B for over-the-counter sales by a vote of 24-3. But groups that said they represented family values lobbied the White House, and the approval stalled.

Last year, Murray and Sen. Hillary Clinton dug in. They held up the nomination of one proposed FDA commissioner. They were persuaded to let go, told that the FDA would have a final answer on approval in September 2005.

They relented, only to be betrayed, as Murray put it, when the FDA announced its decision: The agency would think about it some more.

This year, Murray and Clinton refused to allow the latest nominee for FDA commissioner to be confirmed, and Murray said she wasn’t falling for any promises.She knew that behind the scenes, influential cancer–

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patient groups and other research advocates were pressing the White House hard to install the new FDA commissioner, who comes from the National Cancer Institute.

With the FDA commissioner’s chair vacant for almost a year, the White House acceded and Plan B was approved.

Murray and Clinton then announced they had lifted their “hold” on the new FDA nominee, Andrew von Eschenbach.

Murray chose wisely in allying herself with Clinton, a potential presidential candidate. The White House didn’t want to give Clinton an issue to wave around.

Murray doesn’t jump on every issue. But she has embraced two as though they were her own children: veterans’ welfare and women’s health, including choice. Like the Little Engine, she has pushed them forward over rough terrain. From now on, call her Persistent Patty.

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Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Merck, Pfizer, Bayer and Smith Micro

August 25, 2006

-Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day, the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Merck (NYSE:MRK), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Bayer (NYSE:BAY) and Smith Micro (Nasdaq:SMSI).
Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Not Big on MRK’s Arcoxia

Merck’s (NYSE:MRK) Arcoxia is a second-generation Cox-II inhibitor, which is basically the same thing as drugs like Vioxx (from Merck, taken off the market), Bextra (from Pfizer {NYSE: PFE}, taken off the market) and Celebrex (from Pfizer, still on the market). Developed a couple years after Vioxx, Merck has been busy telling everyone that Arcoxia is a much better drug. Except that it really isn’t.

Two studies on Arcoxia have now been completed, MEDAL and EDGE. In the MEDAL study, Merck was able to prove that there is no increased cardiovascular risk when compared to a drug called diclofenac, which is a pretty commonly used prescription drug available for osteo and rheumatoid arthritis. Merck went on to basically tout this finding as a big deal. But I can think of five specific reasons why it isn’t:

1.) First of all, no one ever said diclofenac is safe - it also has increased cardiovascular risk. That’s not the same thing as having no statistical increase in risk,

2.) The FDA specifically said it wanted to see comparative studies between Arcoxia and naproxen (sold by Bayer {NYSE: BAY} as Alleve), which, head-to-head, proved to have less cardiovascular risk than Vioxx, Bextra, etc. In fact, these head-to-head studies were what led to all those problems with those drugs. So the FDA may take the results of this MEDAL study and say, “Great. Now go back and test versus naproxen,”

3.) Arcoxia did show an increased risk in high blood pressure and edema. So if you consider that the whole reason companies developed these Cox-II inhibitors in the first place was because naproxen carries some G.I.-tract side effects, all Arcoxia is doing is substituting a G.I. risk with a high blood pressure risk. If you’re a patient with a healthy G.I. tract but already have high blood pressure, then this is a drug you should not be taking,

4.) Not only do I expect Merck to have a hard time getting Arcoxia to market, but even if they do, they’ve got to convince physicians and their patients to prescribe and take a drug in the same class and with a similar compound - and from the same company - as Vioxx. Based on all the problems Vioxx has had over the past year, I don’t really see a lot of physician and patient uptake, and

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5.) I can’t believe any insurance company is going to willingly recommend this drug. If you take tier formularies into account - where, for instance, your co-pay will be higher for a personal choice drug like Viagra than it would be for a cholesterol modifier like Lipitor - then I would expect if Arcoxia gets covered at all it will only be at the highest co-pay rate.

The road to market for Arcoxia is expected to be a very bumpy one. There are lots of hurdles this drug still needs to overcome. And there are other logistics, too: Merck will probably not be allowed to market Arcoxia on TV, and, as I said before, it will be tough convincing patients to use it, especially when it may cost twice as much as just going to the store to buy Alleve or Tylenol.

Initiating Smith Micro as a Buy

Smith Micro (Nasdaq:SMSI) is a developer of wireless communications software and utility software for multiple OS platforms. It has significant relationships with several large cellular providers and OEM cell phone manufacturers. The company has acquired two companies that will be accretive to earnings and provide the technology needed to achieve Smith Micro’s strategic objectives.

Revenue growth is benefiting from new products such as music downloads to cell phones. Future products include video downloads and Enterprise communications management. Our price target is $18 a share

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Why are Canadian women denied drug-induced abortions?

August 24, 2006

Two decades after mifepristone, the so-called abortion pill, became available in Europe, the option of a drug-induced abortion is still not open to Canadian women.

Why? Why are women being denied a relatively safe, inexpensive and accessible alternative to a surgical procedure?

Abortion is legal in Canada, but access to surgery remains inadequate.

Fewer than one in five hospitals perform abortions. Women, especially in rural areas, must travel a long way and waits are far too long. (If there is one area where we should have a waiting-time guarantee, it is abortion.)

This is a scandalous failure of our publicly funded health system to provide a medically necessary procedure in a timely manner.

Where there are private clinics, the procedure is expensive — in excess of $300 on top of what providers can bill the public system. The cost of abortion, when done in a private clinic, should be reimbursed in toto, as the Quebec Superior Court ruled last week.

In European countries with similarly liberal laws on abortion (including those, like Canada, that have no law at all), up to one-third of women opt to terminate pregnancies with prescription drugs rather than surgery.

Women can have abortions at home — not at a hospital or clinic — using a drug prescribed by their doctor.

Mifepristone (brand name Mifeprex) works by blocking production of the hormone progesterone, which nourishes the fetus and is required to sustain a pregnancy. It is taken in conjunction with another drug, misoprostol, which induces contractions. An abortion results.

(The abortion pill is not to be confused with the morning-after pill, levonorgestrel, commonly known as Plan B, which prevents a fertilized egg from latching on to the uterus, and thus preventing pregnancy.)

In the United States, the approved regime allows mifepristone to be used for women pregnant as long as 49 days, and requires three doctors visits. Since it was approved in 2000, almost 600,000 women in the United States have taken the drug.

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Also known by its laboratory name RU-486, it is also available in all countries of the European Union except Portugal, Italy and Ireland, plus China, India, Russia, Australia and South Africa, among others.

It goes without saying that abortion remains controversial. The drug has been a target of anti-abortion zealots, and that is the only reason it is not more widely available.

The manufacturer, Roussel-Uclaf, created a spinoff company to produce the abortion pill. It also decided that it would not market the drug in a country unless it was invited to do so.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration did so after then-president Bill Clinton intervened and a company, Danco Laboratories LLC, was created because big-name drug companies don’t want the grief associated with marketing an abortion pill.

Canada needs to follow a similar process. But current Canadian law does not allow the regulator, Health Canada, to extend an invitation, and Canadian governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, have not had the backbone to intervene to improve women’s access to health services.

The excuse, presumably, is that there are doubts about the drug’s safety.

A Canadian researcher conducted a clinical trial of mifepristone but it was shut down on Aug. 28, 2001, after an unidentified woman died after taking the drug.

The woman, it turns out, died of a rare bacterial infection, Clostridium sordellii. Five U.S. women have died of the same infection after taking mifepristone and another died from a similar infection, C. perfringens.

Does that mean the drug is dangerous and unsafe? No, it does not.

The reality in Canada is that an estimated 12,000 people a year die of adverse events related to prescription drugs.

Far more people die after taking Viagra, penicillin and common painkillers such as acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) than would die from mifepristone.

It is important to note that in the deaths associated with use of the drug, the women took mifepristone orally (the usual method), then took the contraction-producing drug misoprostol vaginally (evidence is mixed as to whether it should be taken orally or vaginally); and some of the women took both drugs vaginally, which is unusual. C. sordellii is a bacterium that thrives in the reproductive tract.

Abortion, miscarriage, menstruation, tampon use and childbirth all create conditions that increase the risk of infection, but there is no evidence the abortion drug itself results in additional risk.

Both surgical and drug-induced abortions are extremely safe and effective procedures. Their availability should be based on science — not politics, religious beliefs or moral judgments.

About 105,000 Canadian women undergo abortions each year. In exercising choice, they should also have choices.

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Rumored use of AIDS drugs as preventive aids overblown

August 19, 2006

Breathless media reports and a federal government survey made public last year had fueled fears that healthy people are gulping Gilead Sciences’ pills to shield them from the AIDS virus before engaging in risky sex or intravenous drug use.

Now it appears it was largely an urban legend.

Only one out of 851 gay and bisexual men interviewed in the past few months by the San Francisco Public Health Department said he had taken such drugs to protect himself from the virus, HIV, according to data unveiled Thursday at a Toronto AIDS conference.

Similarly, of nearly 600 people queried at Gay Pride events by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1 percent reported using drugs that way, officials with the agency said this week.

Nonetheless, health authorities plan additional surveys on the subject, partly because they suspect curiosity about the prophylactic potential of the Foster City firm’s medicines will grow.

That’s due to the series of studies under way in this country and other nations to determine if two Gilead drugs — Viread and Truvada, which combines Viread with another Gilead medicine, Emtriva — can block HIV infection in people. Both drugs already are approved to treat those infected with the virus.

“We want to keep a close eye on it,'’ said Dr. Albert Liu of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Rumors have persisted for years that drugs marketed to treat those with HIV are being used by healthy people in hopes of blocking the virus. That has sparked fears the practice could lead to more people engaging in risky behavior and becoming infected.

“We could imagine a situation of people popping a pill, thinking they’re safe and not using a condom,'’ said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition in New York.

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The concerns were amplified in July 2005 when the CDC released data from surveys it conducted at gay pride events in San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit and Baltimore. Of the 1,046 people who were asked if they had taken medicines before engaging in sex to reduce their chances of getting HIV, 7 percent said they had.

That prompted a story in the Los Angeles times a few months later about “the growing practice'’ of healthy gay men swallowing Viread along with Viagra and ecstasy at gay dance clubs.

Indeed, some HIV-negative people are using Gilead’s drugs to guard against the virus. San Francisco Dr. Marc Conant said he prescribes Truvada as a preventive medicine to three of his patients.

But officials at several Bay Area gay publications and AIDS-related organizations said they have seen no evidence the practice is widespread.

“There’s been a lot of interest in this question recently,'’ said Jason Riggs, of the STOP AIDS project in San Francisco. But he added, “We’re not hearing of people using it.'’

Troubled by the CDC survey and media reports about it, health officials in San Francisco decided to do their own survey. They interviewed 403 gay and bisexual men randomly and the rest at a clinic and a giant Palm Springs party from February through July this year. The CDC conducted its follow-up surveys last year and this year.

So why were the results from first CDC survey and the later ones so different? The agency issued a statement this week saying it isn’t sure. But it noted that respondents in the first study filled out written forms, while those in the subsequent surveys were questioned about their drug use by an interviewer.

“It is possible that the mode of survey administration may have affected the results,'’ the statement said.

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Forget about underage drinking - we should worrying about overage drug-taking

August 18, 2006

I’ve just had the most exhausting week of my life. Five days in Ibiza - wooh wooh! - celebrating a friend’s 40th birthday. My friend, an architect, invited 18 of his chums from across the globe to stay in a beautiful villa he and his partner had rented. There was a political analyst from Washington DC, a TV producer from New York, an economist from Tel Aviv, a Lloyds underwriter, and so on - mature adults with demanding jobs and impressive intellects. I chose my holiday reading carefully, made sure I was clued up on the Lebanon/Israeli crisis and brought along a list of delicious restaurants to try.

I needn’t have bothered. The entire vacation was like a scene from Studio 54. While no slug in the fun stakes - or so I thought - I was open-mouthed (dangerous in the circumstances) at the Doherty-like drug consumption.

Not entirely naive, I expected to see a few tabs of ecstasy when we hit one of the superclubs (how else was everyone going to dance until 8am and then drive home?) but I wasn’t prepared for the mountains of coke, MDMA and, scariest of all, bumps of ketamine (a horse tranquilliser) that were casually scattered around the villa like bowls of pot pourri. In the course of a few days, two cars were written off, one guest was rushed to hospital needing three stitches in his head and another suffered a severe black eye. Two more were left scarred by jellyfish stings and the villa’s furniture was a lot less stable than when we arrived. On the final morning, the departure lounge at the airport looked like a tableau from the London Dungeon.

Fortunately, I survived unscathed: mainly due to two strong bolts on my bedroom door and the fact that a swig of Red Bull (I’m a chav at heart) keeps me high for hours. But it raises the question of how a not insignificant number of thirty-fortysomethings, both gay and straight, manage to combine such stress-packed professional lives with excess-fuelled social ones? Of course, their drug consumption on holiday is going to be much higher than normal, but when I met up with a couple of them to go to a Madonna concert midweek it wasn’t Smirnoff Ice that made one miss the last 30 minutes because he got confused and thought the show had already finished.

The problem is - if it is a problem, that is - that one leads to the other. A whole generation of ambitious achievers - Thatcher’s children - have arrived at the top of their respective career ladders with enormous professional responsibilities but no domestic ones. There has been little time for dating, marriage or reproduction (if the inclination was there in the first place) and so they arrive at the weekend with cash to burn and time to kill. And if your household bills are sorted by your PA, your fridge is of no interest because you only eat out, and there are no small children to wake you up early on a Sunday morning, all you need to worry about at the weekend is your hangover.

But, like a Mr Squarepants, I do worry whether these hoary hedonists will know when to draw the line, so to speak. Who tells a single 40-year-old how to behave? If there is no wife or husband to tut and frown, no children to induce embarrassment with their mere presence, and often no friends inclined, or in a position, to criticise, where does the wake-up call come from?

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A single, gay acquaintance of mine told me last week that he takes ketamine most weekends and then heads off to Vauxhall, south London, where there is a large number of nightclubs. However, because ketamine can hamper your ability to get an erection, he also pops a Viagra or two into his jeans pocket. He is good-looking, has a respectable job and is very intelligent. But what happens if he is still carrying on like this in 10 years’ time? It isn’t underage drinking and drug use we should be worrying about any more, it’s the epidemic of overage drug-taking.

· Owing to a spate of burglaries, car thefts and a violent mugging - never a problem in Dalston, where I lived for 10 years - there has been much talk of how to prevent crime in my bijou corner of north London. Half of the residents are keen on an improved neighbourhood watch scheme and, Cameron-like, on cuddling the hoodies who have been causing the problem. The other half want to hire a private security firm to patrol the streets and keep the riff-raff away.

The latter proposal hovers dangerously close to class apartheid: why should the residents of Camden’s less photogenic corners be made to feel unwelcome by Primrose Hill residents just because they can’t afford to live there?

I feel awkward whenever I venture into nearby St John’s Wood, with its high number of security-patrolled streets, and I’m only on the hunt for wheat-free muesli. But looking at the grotesque amounts given away by the City in bonuses this year - £19bn, the equivalent to the country’s entire annual transport budget - soon whole swathes of London are going to be the equivalent of gated communities, since only bankers will be able to afford the inflated prices in the local delis, let alone the properties themselves.

I’m all for a dash of materialism - I edit Wallpaper*, a magazine unashamedly devoted to the good things in life - but these bonuses are not only vulgar (how much money does a person need, for God’s sake?), they are socially divisive. Besides, all the money in the world can’t buy you class - or style, for that matter, which is why the lovely local streets around me are becoming populated with people keen on aesthetically displeasing displays of wealth. Even I’m beginning to resent the Wags of bankers clogging up the cafes with their orange tans, blinged-up handbags and gold Dolce e Gabbana mobiles.

There will come a time when it will be the middle-classes in cashmere hoodies chucking bricks through the windows of the Bentleys and Maseratis parked outside on the streets they have been told they are no longer wealthy enough to inhabit. Exactly as happened to the working classes who were forced to move on before them, I suppose, except this time round the battle is between the haves and the have-mores. It doesn’t feel very edifying.

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Doctors highlight risks of buying drugs from online pharmacies

August 11, 2006

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Informing EMS About Viagra In An Emergency

August 10, 2006

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Viagra for your heart?

August 6, 2006

Sildenafil citrate, more commonly known as Viagra, is widely known as a treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED) in men. What many may not realize is the drug was not originally intended for sexual purposes, but rather for cardiovascular use. The help the drug provides for ED was merely a side effect recognized in a study. Viagra was previously believed to have no effect on the heart.

However, in a recent study, the drug was tested on mice, and researchers found it deterred the short-term effects of hormonal stress on the heart. The mice whose hearts were larger due to stress remained a normal size when Viagra was used.

The drug was also seen to be helpful in stopping and reversing the long-standing cardiac effects of high blood pressure. Furthermore, a study has been conducted on humans, and the outcome appears optimistic for the future of heart health.

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Dr. David Kass and his team from Johns Hopkins observed the effects of Vi
agra in the heart via 35 study participants with no past or signs of heart disease. The patients were given two injections over a three-hour period of dobutamine — a drug that increases heart rate and the strength with which the heart pumps.

After the first injection, patients took either a dose of Viagra or a placebo. Those who took Viagra saw a slowdown of 50 percent from the increased heart rate induced by the dobutamine.

Kass said what researchers have recently discovered “is that the enzyme that Viagra and drugs like Viagra block acts kind of like a brake for the heart.” He described the condition further, saying if this “brake” is applied under normal conditions, nothing takes place, but if applied when stress is present, “you really can blunt stress response in the heart.” Kass also noted that Viagra taken for cardiovascular purposes does not cause sexual stimulation, because that side effect requires the right environment.

Kass said if all goes well in the clinical trials, the drug could be used for cardiovascular treatment in about three to four years. This type of use for Viagra could have major positive implications for those who have heart disease.

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Editorial: In the company of drug-makers

August 3, 2006

GIANT drug companies are easy targets, but in reality they are no better or worse than the rest of the business world. Critics caricature Big Pharma as greedy and heartless, concerned more with turning over multi-billion-dollar profits from drugs such as Viagra than finding a cure for malaria and other diseases that afflict the world’s poorest citizens. Popular culture helps to massage this message. In the film version of John Le Carre’s thriller The Constant Gardener, a pharmaceutical company plays the evil villain exploiting Kenya’s poor to test a potentially deadly drug. Rachel Weisz won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her role in the film as a diplomat’s wife murdered after unravelling the conspiracy. The real story about Big Pharma ignored in the celluloid version is the way drug companies have changed lives immeasurably for the better. Whether you are talking about cancer, heart disease, HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, vaccinations for children, mental health or erectile dysfunction, Big Pharma’s chequebook has translated scientific breakthroughs into pharmacy medicines.

Estimated at about $US2 billion ($2.6 billion), the cost of developing a new drug and running the necessary clinical studies to secure regulatory approval is well beyond the means of the public purse. As with many other commercial enterprises with a product to sell, Big Pharma spends lavishly to entertain its target market, in this case doctors. The scale of its investment means this is perfectly understandable. At the same time, Australians are entitled to feel confident that the doctors making decisions about their medical treatment are doing so without being influenced by offers of overseas trips, lavish meals and other perks laid on by drug firms. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last month issued tough new guidelines to inject more transparency into the relationship drug companies enjoy with doctors. That the federal Government spends about $5 billion a year of taxpayers’ funds under its Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to make prescription drugs more affordable to Australians only increases the case for closer scrutiny. Under the new code imposed by the corporate watchdog, drug companies will for the first time have to disclose publicly a line-by-line account of all wining and dining and other gifts delivered to doctors.

The ACCC announced the new measures after this newspaper published a series of articles by Ray Moynihan revealing the Roche drug company had spent more than $65,000 treating more than 200 top cancer specialists to an extravagant meal at an exclusive restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour. Now a new study, reported in The Australian today, shows that many doctors are as enthusiastic about the relationship as Big Pharma and often solicit their backing, rather than the other way around. According to the study, carried out by researchers from NSW and Newcastle universities, up to 15 per cent of doctors approach pharmaceutical companies seeking largesse ranging from overseas travel and staff funding to financial help with conferences and even office parties. One drug company paid a medical practice $80,000 to employ a nurse. Involving 823 doctors, the research found that up to 90 per cent accept offers of items including food, office products, personal gifts, travel costs, tickets to sporting events, medical equipment, textbooks, journals and retainers. Most doctors are decent, hard-working professionals with the interests of their patients uppermost in their thinking. Greater openness in their dealings with drug companies will help to keep it that way.

Carbon-copy reject
States could never run a national emissions-trading scheme

THE prospect of paying a Kyoto tax to Europe every time the kettle is boiled for coffee has, thankfully, become less likely. With the European experiment of a Kyoto-inspired carbon-trading system slipping into chaos, Australia will concentrate its efforts on more profitable and productive ways to meet its environmental obligations.

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The Kyoto approach, as adopted by the EU, was always slanted heavily in favour of self-interest, as New Zealand and Canada have found to their great cost as they grapple for an escape route after facing heavy penalties for not meeting emission targets. The rort worked for Europe because the closure of old-world industry in the East was always sufficient to offset the excesses of their Western neighbours. Ambitious growth forecasts helped make sure there was plenty of buffer in the system. The result has been wild volatility and an effective collapse of the system. French demands that credits not spent in the first round be carried over into the second phase from the end of 2007 will, if allowed, be a recipe for further chaos and little environmental benefit. Which all goes to show the wisdom of Australia’s cautious approach.

That Australia will now seek another way is confirmed by the decision to downgrade the state-led review of a carbon-trading scheme. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, supported by his mining state compatriots in Western Australia, has been successful in pushing for a new approach. In the face of federal resistance to Kyoto, the states tasked themselves to develop a Green Paper which would form the basis of a White Paper for the implementation of a national emission-trading system by 2010.

The Green Paper is now overdue and has been downgraded to a discussion paper. Export industries such as aluminium are out. In fact, there are now so many exclusions it has become meaningless. Politically, the advice has been that a trading scheme will make electricity more expensive and hit the poor hardest. So, with a close eye on the booming export coalfields to his north, Mr Beattie has successfully argued investment in developing clean coal technology should be given priority. This is in line with the approach taken by AP6 – the body set up by Australia and the US to find an alternative response to Kyoto.

The downgrading of the state review confirms the Kyoto model of carbon-trading is not going to fly here. And from the experience so far, it is straining credulity to think the states could collectively run a complex carbon-trading system when after a century they can’t even agree on a standard-gauge rail line. As the world’s biggest coal exporter, Australia’s best environmental contribution has always been to find a way to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations. However, while correct to reject Kyoto’s punitive model, Australia must still demonstrate that real environmental progress can be made by consent.

Blind eye at Wadeye
Permit system remains a barrier to indigenous reform

IF the federal Opposition leader were to visit one of the country’s most dysfunctional Aboriginal communities and no press were allowed to report it, would he make a sound? Apparently not. For when Kim Beazley went to Wadeye, 300km southwest of Darwin, yesterday he was forced to leave behind his usual retinue of reporters and photographers due to objections of the local “community”. This is not the first time Wadeye, whose residents were recently compelled to clean up the place on pain of losing government funding, has tried to keep the press from reporting local goings-on. In 2002 Paul Toohey, then a journalist for The Australian, was prosecuted for visiting Wadeye without a permit. More recently another journalist for this newspaper, Ashleigh Wilson, was barred from the town during the gang warfare that racked the community in May. Curiously – and the reasons and details behind the deal that orchestrated her permit may never be known – Fairfax’s Lindsay Murdoch has received access to the community and is presently there.

The moral of the story is that monsters live in the dark. Over the past year a series of stories highlighting the condition of Aborigines living in remote communities has shamed all Australia, starting with the report of a judge who initially sentenced an Aboriginal elder to just four months in jail for kidnapping, bashing and raping his 14-year-old “promised bride”. Outrage reached a crescendo with the appearance of Nanette Rogers on ABC’s Lateline during which the Northern Territory Crown prosecutor detailed a culture of physical and sexual abuse against women and children. For a moment it seemed the entire nation seemed determined to fix the horrific conditions within many Aboriginal communities. Yet across the country a rigid permit system controls access to remote Aboriginal communities and allows those with the most to gain from barring outsiders to say who is allowed in. State and territory bureaucrats likewise have an interest in the system as it keeps meddlesome journalists from reporting the negligence of governments. And as always, it is the weakest members of the communities who pay the price.

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