Life expectancy

• SILVER SPRING, Md., March 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Duvyzat (givinostat) oral medication for the treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) in patients six years of age and older.
• Duvyzat is the first nonsteroidal drug approved to treat patients with all genetic variants of DMD.
• "This approval provides another treatment option to help reduce the burden of this progressive, devastating disease for individuals impacted by DMD regardless of genetic mutation."
• DMD is the most common childhood form of muscular dystrophy and typically affects males.

• The Cognitive Impairment in Heart Failure: A Heart Failure Society of America Scientific Statement published today in the Journal of Cardiac Failure (JCF), indicates that clinicians have a responsibility to recognize and address cognitive impairment as an integral component of personalized care for patients with heart failure (HF).
• Heart failure clinicians should be equipped with tools to assess and identify markers for cognitive impairment.
• Cognitive Impairment in Heart Failure outlines several domains affected by cognitive impairment including learning and memory, executive function, complex attention, perceptual-motor function, language, and social cognition.
• The Cognitive Impairment in Heart Failure: A Heart Failure Society of America Scientific Statement is available online in the JCF at www.onlinejcf.com .

• The Australian government released its draft National Autism Strategy yesterday.
• Now focus shifts to whether the draft strategy – open for public feedback until the end of May – fulfils the hopes of the community.

Why a national autism strategy?

• Increased awareness has been a key factor behind the surge in the prevalence of autism diagnosis in Australia, estimated to be at least 3.2% of school-aged children.
• As reported in the draft strategy, the life expectancy of autistic Australians is on average more than 20 years shorter than non-autistic Australians.
• They are nine times more likely to die of suicide and they experience higher rates of physical and sexual abuse.

Read more:
New national autism guideline will finally give families a roadmap for therapy decisions

Who is involved?

• This is a great strength of the development process, which also involves working groups in key topic areas.
• But the fact the National Autism Strategy is being developed independent of state and territory governments constrains it.
• Read more:
  We don't need a hydrotherapy pool in every school, but we do need quality public education for all kids

What does the strategy include?

The draft strategy proposes 24 commitments across key areas such as:

• The draft strategy calls for public education campaigns about autistic Australians in the workplace, facilitating meaningful employment opportunities, and improving access to quality and timely supports that nurture autistic identity.
• It also calls for greater leadership and active involvement of autistic Australians in related policy and accountability mechanisms.

But there is room for improvement

• Improving this evidence base is a key priority to ensure the safety and effectiveness of supports for autistic individuals, but currently the strategy remains silent on this.
• Even where states and territories have primary jurisdiction, the federal government can still play a major role in leading change.
• Similarly, while education policy is set at the state and territory level, the federal government is a significant contributor to school funding.

Is the draft National Autism Strategy a game-changer?

• The draft National Autism Strategy includes an array of commitments that represent a critical step forward for the understanding, inclusion and empowerment of autistic Australians.
• However, its title of “National Autism Strategy” implies an ambition the terms of reference mean it could never meet.
• Alongside a top-down strategy, the goal of a coordinated approach could be better met by National Cabinet, which brings together the prime minister and the state premiers and territory chief ministers.

Andrew Whitehouse receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Autism CRC, and the Angela Wright Bennett Foundation. Andrew was a member of the Social Inclusion Working Group that contributed to the National Autism Strategy.

• On the surface, All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh, is a dark and twisty love story.
• Underneath, there is the often-present storyline seen in queer cinema: that of trauma and tragedy.
• All of Us Strangers follows lonely middle-aged gay man Adam (Andrew Scott), struggling to come to terms with his tragic past and sexuality.

Queer representation

• Queer representation in mainstream media has historically been marred by negative stereotypes, tokenistic representation and death.
• In my recent interactive documentary, Queer Representation Matters, queer media scholars and queer screen storytellers share how queer characters are often relegated to roles characterised by tragedy or trauma, perpetuating harmful tropes like “bury your gays”.

• Online queer news site, Autostraddle, have compiled a list of the 230+ dead queer female TV characters, which continues to be updated with each death.
• Essentially, for queer people, it starts to feel like you can’t have queer representation without someone dying tragically at the end.
• Read more:
  We studied two decades of queer representation on Australian TV, and found some interesting trends

We need diverse stories

• Tropes will always exist in storytelling, but by having more diverse queer filmmakers telling more diverse queer stories, audiences will have a more balanced narrative about queer life (and life expectancy).
• We need to see stories that challenge the narrative that being queer ultimately leads to pain, trauma and tragedy.
• We need to see we can also live long and happy lives, so we can believe we can have the happy ever after.
• Read more:
  All of Us Strangers: heartbreaking film speaks to real experiences of gay men in UK and Ireland

Natalie Krikowa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.