Child abuse
"The article about why women commit child sexual abuse is the first and only article I’ve ever seen about the motivations and psychology behind child sexual abuse; first and only! Considering that males commit these crimes far more commonly than females, I was shocked to see that finally the taboo about discussing it was broken by discussing females and not males where the majority problem is. We won’t be able to stop it unless we understand why people are doing it and how they developed that motivation."
Geoff Holmes

The cost of prevention
"I read with interest Angela Jackson's article arguing for more money for prevention. As someone who worked in the preventive health area of state government, I agree – one's budget gets skimmed to deal with high-profile health care issues, whereas good prevention goes almost unnoticed. Ministers do not get letters thanking them for the measles a child did not get. However, I have never seen a study that shows the preventive strategies allowing one to live a healthy life into old age reduce lifetime health cost. Some areas, such as injury prevention, have an almost immediate direct return by avoided care costs, but the extra decade or so we gain from a healthy lifestyle is not necessarily without the same or additional costs to the system."
Brian Wall

Flushed out to sea
"Your article on shark attacks was interesting. One of the issues around Sydney is of course its three deep water sewage outfalls into the ocean. This may not in fact have anything to do with the shark attacks, which may have increased for reasons related to global warming. However, it certainly speaks to the primitive nature of this form of sewage disposal. A modern approach to sewage disposal seems a tad overdue."
Julia Bovard, North Sydney

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