John Dwyer
Professor John Dwyer AO, is an Immunologist, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UNSW and for many years heavily involved in efforts to improve the delivery of healthcare in Australia. He was the founder of the Australian Healthcare Reform Alliance.
John's recent articles
6 March 2025
An election looms, but there's no sign of the political boldness needed to fix our healthcare system
The inequity and inefficiencies in our current health programs and the resulting need for change, have been obvious for decades. Finding the necessary political boldness to change this situation has eluded us to date. I acknowledge that there have been a number of governments and ministers who wanted to improve the healthcare of Australians and the cost efficiency of the same.
6 February 2025
Trump's decision to withdraw American support for WHO is a huge mistake
It only took a week for Donald Trump to have America looking like Belarus as a dictator, helped by totally subservient politicians, put governing in the hands of unqualified, unintelligent loyalists. As one commentator asked this week “When did brains go out of fashion!”
11 November 2024
Trump victory increases hazards for climate and global health
The well documented and steadily increasing health problems globally, directly associated with climate change, have been discussed with appropriate alarm by many expert contributors to P & I.
25 March 2024
Complacency can be deadly
Downplaying the seriousness of the Covid-19 sequelae known as Long Covid is a serious mistake.
2 September 2023
Heading into trouble: Hazards of the Womens World Cup
Much of the health reform urgings I have presented over the years have emphasised the importance of prevention and the paucity of attention it receives. Less than 1.2% of our health budget is spent on preventing health problems. OK, but what has this to do with the Soccer world Cup?
31 May 2023
No amount of money will fix the current health system
It has been obvious for many years that our health system needs a radical, evidence based, redesign if it is ever to meet the oft spoken goals of equality and cost-effectiveness, with a focus on prevention and timely availability of care based on need, not financial wellbeing.
30 March 2023
New obesity treatments offer hope, but can we afford them?
Worldwide obesity has tripled since 1975. WHO surveys tell us that more than 2 billion adults, 18 years and older are overweight and of these nearly 800 million are actually obese. 39 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in a 2020 survey and it is estimated that 400 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 are overweight or obese. At least 6 million people die each year as a direct result of their obesity rather than its complications.
6 March 2023
Politics, not science, fuelling debate about the origin of COVID-19
Last week 4.8 million people contracted Covid-19 and 39,000 died as a result. The pandemic rages on around the world with, globally, cumulative cases of 675,565,574 and 6,873,798 deaths documented.
9 February 2023
The Medicare Review: how will its aspirations be achieved?
The Medicare Review contains welcome aspirations, but the instruments to achieve them are poorly delineated.
21 October 2022
Sixty percent of all claims sent to Medicare for payment are fraudulent!
Is $8 billion dollars a year being rorted from Medicare? This claim for almost universal fraudulent behaviour is a nonsense. The entire bill for Medicare funded GP services is only $12 billion.
24 September 2022
Right wing media outraged by Australias Covid 19 response
While there are demands from right wing commentators for a Royal Commission into Australias mishandling of the essentially innocuous SARS-Cov-2 virus, in reality Australians continue to die from infection while the distressing and prevalent morbidity associated with infection is becoming clearer and clearer.
6 September 2022
Our primary care system needs a philosophical and structural revolution (part two)
One of the unique disadvantages we must deal with as we try and integrate our delivery of health care is the division of responsibility for Hospital care and Primary Care between our State and Federal governments. The tension created, largely around money, makes the desired smooth integration of all health care needs ,in a patient focussed way, impossible. No reform is more important than abandoning this mess by creating a single funder model for Australias health care.
5 September 2022
Our primary care system needs a philosophical and structural revolution (part one)
It is totally appropriate to use the word crisis when describing the current state of Primary Care in our country. Our General Practitioners are increasingly giving voice to their frustration with the structures and strictures within which they are expected to deliver health care to Australians. Their disillusionment is infectious with recent studies reporting that only 9-15% of graduating doctors are contemplating careers as GPs.
2 September 2022
The parlous state of consumer protection from health care fraud
Revelations of the incredible harm done to many Australians undergoing cosmetic surgery, performed by doctors lacking the skills to perform such operations, have been literally shocking. Surely regulations exist to insure the surgical competence of those offering such operations? Not so!
14 July 2022
Complacency, wishful thinking and misinformation are all contributing to our lack of success in containing the spread of COVID-19
I dont read The Australian so I did not know until I received a barrage of emails from anti-vaxxers lauding the wisdom therein, that on July 4 the paper had published an Opinion piece criticising Australias response to the SARS virus. The article claimed that the incompetence involved warranted examination by a Royal Commission.
8 June 2022
Desperate Premiers call for radical redesign for health care funding
Australian hospitals are finding it increasingly difficult to meet legitimate, often critical demands for in-patient care. The money to do so is not there and staff shortages are critical. A combination of professional dissatisfaction re the standard of care they are able to deliver, has many health professionals deserting our public hospital system. Add in staff absences as a result of our pandemic and a severe Influenza season and we have the perfect storm lashing our hospitals.
11 May 2022
Healthcare reform is not featuring in the current election
Australias public hospital system is having a hard time meeting the ever increasing demand for in-patient care.
4 February 2022
New variant plus our Covid-weariness frustrates pandemic control
It's hardly surprising that a new variant has been detected in more than 55 countries, given only how little of poor countries' populations have been vaccinated.
7 December 2021
Australia's splintered healthcare system is plagued by inequity
The reforms required to improve health outcomes are not controversial and are proven overseas what is lacking here is the courage to tackle the systemic problems.
3 December 2021
Patient beware: many a medical practitioner is naught but a dodgy doctor
The ease with which the protections of Australians from healthcare fraud can be breached can only be described as disgraceful, writes John Dwyer.
27 November 2021
Omicron is fuelled by our failure to mount a coordinated global response
The new Omicron coronavirus variant is a wakeup call on the need to fully vaccinate the world's poorest nations, and our own children.
14 September 2021
A house divided against itself cannot tame the pandemic
St Matthew tells us that Jesus was at pains to teach his disciples that, A house divided against itself cannot stand. The truism comes to mind as one looks in vain for the United States of Australia, an entity essential for our taming of the Covid pandemic.
23 August 2021
Premier Berejiklian, please stop thinking about easing of restrictions after 6 million jabs
There have been many mistakes in many countries hindering efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic. None has been more counterproductive than the premature easing of public health containment initiatives. Time and time again this has breathed new life into infections by the SARS-Cov-2 virus. This is especially so when dealing with the Delta variant.
8 August 2021
Not good enough, Premier Berejiklian
The NSW outbreak of delta infections is worse after six weeks of lockdown. As I am sure is true for many readers, I am frustrated today by the obvious loopholes in our current lockdown.
20 July 2021
Poor leadership, irresponsible media and a clever virus
Despite this being the most scientific of all ages, capable of producing highly effective vaccines a year after the SARS-COV-2 virus was identified ( Russian scientists actually achieved this in six months), poor leadership, ignorance, stubbornness and irresponsible media, (broadcast and social), are making this pandemic much worse than it needs to be.
15 July 2021
The NSW 'lockdown' that isn't while putting business before people.
A lockdown strategy that does not involve lockdown, a vaccine distribution policy that is dangerously inconsistent and covid testing facilities that cannot meet the demand generated by public health orders, are but some of the problems responsible for the continuing explosion of COVID-19 cases in Sydney
5 July 2021
The chaotic incompetence of our roll out of the Covid vaccines? Part 2
Controversy characterises the current, somewhat heated, discussions about how to use the vaccines available to us. While we hope to eventually employ at least four effective vaccines at the moment our choice is limited to one of two, the AstraZenica vaccine which we can manufacture here and the Pfizer vaccine which we need to import.
4 July 2021
The chaotic incompetence of our roll out of the Covid vaccines? Part 1
Who would have thought that a well educated and scientifically sophisticated nation like ours would find itself dead last among OECD countries when the percentages of citizens fully vaccinated in each country are examined.
2 June 2021
The hunt for man-made coronavirus is counter productive
We are recently informed by the Wall Street Journal, quoting an unidentified source, that three Chinese scientists who were working in the Wuhan Virus Laboratory became ill with a Covid like illness in November of 2019. Ah Ha! Surely they must have been working with the responsible virus in the laboratory, got themselves infected and then spread the infection into the local community. As we had not heard of such events previously the Chinese must have been hiding this crucial information.
17 May 2021
The second year of the pandemic is even more deadly. Australians in India are being abandoned.
If we clever humans can put a rover on Mars we can deliver AZ vaccine to the Australian High Commission in Delhi!
3 May 2021
A moral responsibility to get Australian's home
Almost 40,000 Australians are trapped abroad because of the Covid-19 epidemic. Many have been trying to return for more than a year. Many in countries with raging epidemics, such as India and Brazil are in real danger of personal infection. Many new viral variants are more infectious and can cause serious disease in younger populations than was the case with the first generation of SARS-2-Cov.
17 April 2021
Explaining the AstraZeneca blood clots: what are our risks and how do we proceed?
Australian governments are advising people under the age of 50 not to pursue vaccination with the now locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine. Given Australia's control over community transmission, any risk posed by the AZ vaccine is unacceptable, particularly, for not at-risk populations.
4 April 2021
The unfolding Covid disaster in PNG
Helping New Guinea with its disastrous Covid outbreak is not pure altruism on our part. The unbridled, indeed raging pandemic, known to have infected 100,000 already and likely to have infected a million more within a week or so, provides a perfect incubator' for wild type more infectious variants of the Covid to develop. We need to help our close neighbour in a way that prevents transmission of the New Guinea variant spilling into Australia.
23 March 2021
Vaccine misinformation on social media is out of control, but we should expect better from the mainstream media
I am surely not alone in being angry that The Australian would accept Clive Palmers money and let him publish dangerous, inaccurate claims about our Covid vaccination program.
22 March 2021
How effective are the Covid vaccines for our global immunisation efforts?
While there are more than 200 vaccines against Covid-19 being developed, there are now seven vaccines being widely distributed and used around the world. Do they all work? That depends on how you judge works often described in terms of efficacy in achieving desired goals.
20 March 2021
Reflections from the '80s: the HIV epidemic in Myanmar
For the last three years off the fifteen I worked in the US my clinical life was consumed with setting up a unit at Yale University to study and treat patients with the mysterious Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the cause of which was eventually discovered to be a unique retro-virus called, logically enough, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, (HIV). In those early years all the patients I treated died from their infection. By the time I returned to Australia (1985), HIV had been established as the causative agent and the epidemic was spreading out of control in the US, Africa...
9 March 2021
Vaccination controversy shouldn't compromise efforts to protect Australians
The crucial fact is that all the vaccines being administered around the world provide near 100% protection from death and the need for those infected to receive intensive hospital care.
17 February 2021
The race is on ... vaccines vs variants. The global response will determine the winner
Boris Johnson's call for wealthy nations to share Covid vaccines more equitably with poorer countries was vital. The warning from the WHO that no-one is safe from Covid till all are safe is a truism with major implications.
23 January 2021
We have the tools to help control the pandemic; we have to use them
The arrival of more infectious Covid variants means more of us need to be vaccinated than previously thought, with an uptake of at least 80%. The federal government must now drive that promotion campaign with a focus on vaccine safety.
3 January 2021
It is foolhardy, indeed downright irresponsible, to have spectators at cricket and tennis matches this summer
The basic imperative for controllingan epidemic wherein the inhalation of aerosolised viral particles can cause much illness and death, is tostay away from each other.
2 January 2021
Reflections on and predictions for the Covid-19 pandemic as 2020 gives way to 2021. Part 2
If there is a brotherhood of man now is the time for it to manifest itself as we respond to the enormous challenge involved in overcoming the inequity that could stop us winning the struggle with a deadly virus. Of course in helping the less fortunate we will be helping ourselves.
1 January 2021
Reflections on and predictions for the Covid-19 Pandemic as 2020 gives way to 2021. Part 1
At a meeting recently in Texas the chairman of the International Association for the Promotion of SARS viruses addressed an enthusiastic audience. Representatives of all strains of COVID-19 currently having their way with humans were present. How much better is this than being confined to a dingy cave resting in a Bat, he laughed. How smart we were to pick a host whose behaviour is helping us to multiply and see the world?.
30 December 2020
Surely pre-senile dementia is too high a price to pay for sporting glory
Watching 22-year-old cricketer Will Pucovski collapse after a rock-hard ball travelling at more than 100mph smashed into the side of his head was literally sickening. The ninth time he would be diagnosed as having concussion, the cumulative damage to his brain could be very serious.
21 December 2020
The global effort by anti-vaxxers to destroy confidence in Covid-19 vaccines
With the global effort to immunise 8 billion people leaving the station the challenges involved are immense.
20 December 2020
Scott Morrison said NSW was the gold standard in infection control but begging is not working in encouraging mask wearing
Recent infections in NSW demonstrate how fragile is our control of community acquired Covid infections. As it will be many months before Australians are immunised and immune to Covid-19 we must focus on stronger containment strategies now. Its time to mandate mask wearing and not just ask people to wear masks.
10 November 2020
Biden wins the poisoned chalice as we pray for a coronavirus vaccine
The challenges facing President-elect Joe Biden and his team are daunting; A polarised population, high levels of unemployment, a likely Republican-dominated senate, and the perseverance of COVID-19 to name a few.
1 November 2020
Around the world it is the lack of caution among 19-29 year olds that disproportionally puts infection control at risk
The Victorian 'lockdown' was necessary, brutal and successful. But any COVID complacency could be literally fatal. We must ask a lot of our younger Australians who understandably chafe at restrictions placed on their social interactions.
15 October 2020
Misinformation about Covid-19. Don't listen to Donald Trump or Alan Jones.
Here is the big so important question. As we prepare to ease some restrictions, will we, in contradistinction to many communities in other countries, embrace the long-term behaviours that must be normalised to allow us to live as safely and productively as is possible in a Covid-infected world? We need to look closely at the efforts of those in many countries for their track record is dismal.
6 September 2020
PART 2: COVID controversies and vaccine shortcuts
The urgent need for a vaccine to protect us from COVID-19 is obvious. Scientists have produced some promising candidates but, as so often is the case in this pandemic perceived political imperatives are demanding shortcuts in the development process that may hinder essential studies of efficacy and safety.