Julia Medew is Health Editor at The Age.
Victorian health authorities are under pressure to reveal why they did not issue public health warnings on Monday night about the unfolding asthma emergency that has now caused at least four deaths.
Five people are critically ill and more than 60 people remain in Victorian hospitals after Monday night's "thunderstorm asthma" crisis.
Pro-euthanasia doctors have slammed the Australian Medical Association's decision not to back assisted death laws, saying the powerful group is out of touch with the community.
Some of Melbourne's wealthiest suburbs are home to the slimmest populations in Australia, new health data shows. But in most parts of Victoria, people of a healthy weight are now a minority.
A majority of doctors support the profession being involved in assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia if laws are changed to allow it, a survey by the Australian Medical Association has found.
Two people from Melbourne's west have died, including one man forced to wait at least half an hour for an ambulance, after an unprecedented number of people fell acutely sick on Monday evening, in what is believed to be a mass incident of 'thunderstorm asthma'.
Dozens of health professionals, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, are dying of fatal drug overdoses every year, and some of them are using drugs found in their workplaces.
The question of whether a doctor should be able to provide a lethal drug to a terminally ill patient will be debated in a Melbourne tribunal next week as the Victorian government weighs up a voluntary euthanasia law.
One of Australia's top IVF companies is continuing to publish potentially misleading success rate data on its websites despite a "warning shot" from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Some of Australia's leading IVF clinics have been caught advertising false and misleading information about their success rates in what the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has described as a "race to the bottom" targeting vulnerable people.
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