# Professor David Heslop: Are there downsides to living longer?

An episode of [Project 100 with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1767053714), 3 May 2026, 1 h 06 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/05ac4e52-79fb-46b8-849c-b305000bd6d0/dfd1bfb5-6af1-4cb4-9b78-b436005ea21d/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ef13e652-7a19-41fd-9d0f-b305000bd6dc

All content and media by Project 100 is created and published online for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. **** Professor David Heslop brings a unique perspective to longevity through his expertise in occupational medicine, military service, and biological threat assessment. From developing COVID protocols for the NRL to understanding genetic manipulation in laboratories, Heslop explores the hidden factors shaping our health future. This conversation covers: • Gene editing and its potential risks for future generations • The concerning gap between wealthy and poor in accessing longevity technologies • Australia's cautious approach to new medical testing versus other countries • How AI will transform medical practice while protecting patient privacy • The critical data we're missing despite drowning in health information • Why living longer might create unexpected economic and social problems The all-new WHOOP is here — now 7% smaller with 14+ days of battery life. New features like Healthspan show how your daily habits are affecting your rate of aging — and now you can check your blood pressure straight from your wrist. If you’re serious about performance, longevity, and actual progress — this is it. Sign up for a one-month free trial at WHOOP.com — or visit join.whoop.com/mentored for one month off your annual membership fee. Eight Sleep’s newest generation, Pod 5. isn’t just another bed-frame add-on; it’s a high-tech mattress cover that actively adjusts to your body temperature throughout the night, cooling, warming, and even elevating your body when needed, all based on real-time data. The new Pod 5 introduces for the first time, a hydro-powered blanket system, utilising the same technology as the cover to extend temperature regulation across your entire body, not just the mattress surface. Clinically proven to increase quality sleep by up to one hour each night, it’s basically like having an AI-powered sleep coach, personal thermostat, and advanced health tracker working for you while you rest. Head on over to eightsleep.com/project100 and use the code PROJECT100 (that’s Project one-zero-zero) and get up to $550 off your very own Pod 5. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Professor David Heslop. Welcome back, mate, but you've never been
[0:03] Speaker 1: on Project one hundred. We've discussed stuff before with you
[0:07] Speaker 1: on different projects, but probably one hundred is about longevity.
[0:09] Speaker 1: But welcome to the showmate.
[0:11] Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
[0:12] Speaker 1: Now. You're best known to me for the COVID period
[0:17] Speaker 1: and also what's you different than National Rugby League A
[0:19] Speaker 1: the NRL and building protocols can bring rugby league back
[0:23] Speaker 1: as I think probably one of the first contact sports
[0:27] Speaker 1: in the world to be brought back to be able
[0:30] Speaker 1: to be played during the COVID period with your protocols
[0:34] Speaker 1: and you worked on Project Apollo I think it was
[0:37] Speaker 1: called with the NRL. Wayne Pierce was sharing it.
[0:40] Speaker 2: Wayne called me yep.
[0:42] Speaker 1: And you've done other things for some very famous people.
[0:47] Speaker 1: You helped out Alex Folkonovsky. I remember you were kind
[0:51] Speaker 1: enough to help out Alex to build a protocol whereby
[0:55] Speaker 1: he could still train therefore could sensibly take on the
[1:00] Speaker 1: UFC's request to go and defend his title. And that
[1:03] Speaker 1: worked out very well for him, very well for him, yes,
[1:06] Speaker 1: and defended any one. And I was able to read
[1:11] Speaker 1: negotiate his agreement and it's probably killed it ever since.
[1:14] Speaker 1: But welcome back, mate, Thank you very much for coming on.
[1:17] Speaker 1: Maybe for our audience, if you don't mind, just give
[1:20] Speaker 1: us a little bit of an idea of who David
[1:22] Speaker 1: Heslop is. You're a medical pratitioner, but just gives a
[1:25] Speaker 1: bit of an outline of what you do, and let's
[1:28] Speaker 1: call it your qualifications understood.
[1:31] Speaker 2: Look, thanks Mark. I'm what's called an occupational and environmental physician.
[1:36] Speaker 2: It's a bit of a niche specialization. So we're part
[1:39] Speaker 2: of the College of Physicians, and our focus is on
[1:43] Speaker 2: not only sort of high workplace risks or when we
[1:46] Speaker 2: say occupational risks, it's things that anyone could do, but
[1:51] Speaker 2: also on environmental factors. And I think you've mentioned to
[1:55] Speaker 2: me in the past some interesting things about sort of
[1:57] Speaker 2: the environment. And it includes exposure. It includes the environment
[2:03] Speaker 2: per se as we refer to, and other things that
[2:06] Speaker 2: might happen to you while you're doing things in your
[2:09] Speaker 2: daily life or work. So that's my specialization. It's quite diverse.
[2:14] Speaker 2: It's about risk management, it's about science, there's a clinical
[2:20] Speaker 2: patient part of it and so on. I'm also GP.
[2:23] Speaker 2: I've been GP for a long time, worked with the
[2:26] Speaker 2: military for many years, and that what was your.
[2:28] Speaker 1: Role of the military.
[2:29] Speaker 2: Military actually was largely that occupational medicine. So seeing the soldiers.
[2:35] Speaker 2: I'm an ARMI doctor, seeing the soldiers, getting them ready
[2:39] Speaker 2: to fight, but also dealing with their injuries and also
[2:44] Speaker 2: their troubles as a GP, but equally as their injuries
[2:47] Speaker 2: and getting them back to work, getting them fit as
[2:50] Speaker 2: you can be, and managing that aspect to it. So
[2:53] Speaker 2: sometimes when it's overseas, it's also a bit of trauma
[2:57] Speaker 2: and a bit of emergency medicine as well.
[3:00] Speaker 1: I sort of recall when many years ago when we
[3:02] Speaker 1: first talked to you, and it was during COVID that
[3:06] Speaker 1: you talk to me about in the military environment, things
[3:11] Speaker 1: like anthrax and being involved at that level, knowing what
[3:20] Speaker 1: are the sort of biological warfare that can be raged,
[3:25] Speaker 1: what was that party or journey, what are the sorts
[3:28] Speaker 1: of things you do there.
[3:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm a bit unusual as a military doctor
[3:33] Speaker 2: having a bit of extra training. I call it a
[3:36] Speaker 2: bit of extra training, So people say a lot of
[3:38] Speaker 2: extra training in a specialized area called CBRN, which is
[3:42] Speaker 2: chemical and biological and radiological medicine, which is where you know,
[3:48] Speaker 2: for one of a better word, nasty people around the
[3:52] Speaker 2: world have developed weapons over the years that target people
[3:56] Speaker 2: through chemical means or biological means or and some times
[4:00] Speaker 2: radiological or even nuclear sort of weapons as part of it.
[4:04] Speaker 2: And there's some specific medicine that needs to be managed
[4:09] Speaker 2: in association with that, and that's how do you protect
[4:12] Speaker 2: a group of soldiers, how do you protect a military force?
[4:16] Speaker 2: And then how do you treat people if in the
[4:18] Speaker 2: worst case, people become exposed, become unwell. And they're pretty
[4:23] Speaker 2: high stakes environments. It's hard to work when there's a
[4:26] Speaker 2: threat hanging around. It's psychologically hard to work, but it's
[4:30] Speaker 2: also high risk from an actual medical perspective.
[4:33] Speaker 1: And we have seen that. I mean like during the
[4:36] Speaker 1: Venom War, we had Age Orange, of course, and which
[4:40] Speaker 1: was there to destroy forest, but at the end of
[4:42] Speaker 1: the day, you know, to de forest, DeForest and area
[4:46] Speaker 1: so that you could expose who's hiding in that area,
[4:49] Speaker 1: but unfortunately had a whole lot of knock on effects
[4:51] Speaker 1: to those people who get exposed to it. We hear
[4:54] Speaker 1: about all the you know, the I don't know if
[4:57] Speaker 1: they're right or wrong, but the story is about the Russians,
[5:01] Speaker 1: you know, eliminating people who were defected from Russia or
[5:05] Speaker 1: form Russian spies who were affected to other countries and
[5:08] Speaker 1: have been exposed to things like I think plutonium. I
[5:11] Speaker 1: think is that one of them? More I'm making that up.
[5:13] Speaker 1: I don't know where I got that word from. What
[5:15] Speaker 1: is it polonium? Make hours close closer, I've got the first,
[5:18] Speaker 1: let the right polodium. But that you know, that's that
[5:21] Speaker 1: stuff's pretty pretty mad. And we have heard of an
[5:25] Speaker 1: occasion where anthrax was a concern of various governments, you know,
[5:31] Speaker 1: being being sent in envelopes to politicians and or other
[5:36] Speaker 1: people from other places. Of course, we were worried that COVID,
[5:42] Speaker 1: originally in this original form, was something that was leaked
[5:46] Speaker 1: to the world out of China. And if I would
[5:50] Speaker 1: mind just touching on that, and I don't know if
[5:52] Speaker 1: you're prepared to talk about this, but like, given that
[5:55] Speaker 1: you know, you were very importantly involved in Australia's and
[6:01] Speaker 1: was at the times. Got Morrison's response to COVID, what
[6:06] Speaker 1: do you think about it now in hindsight?
[6:08] Speaker 2: Good question. Well, at the time it was a problem
[6:10] Speaker 2: that needed to be dealt with, and wherever it came from,
[6:14] Speaker 2: it was almost sort of not exactly relevant to the
[6:18] Speaker 2: management of the.
[6:19] Speaker 1: Population, not at the time.
[6:20] Speaker 2: Not at the time. In retrospect, though, you have to
[6:24] Speaker 2: start asking questions about how and why and there were
[6:29] Speaker 2: The best way to put it is, there's a lot
[6:30] Speaker 2: of uncertainty about where this came from. There's I think
[6:36] Speaker 2: some fairly let's just say the simplest explanation is that,
[6:40] Speaker 2: just like any other coronavirus, it emerged from an animal
[6:45] Speaker 2: reservoir into the human population through natural genetic mechanisms that is, mutations,
[6:52] Speaker 2: genetic shift, source of genetic drips the virus, the virus,
[6:55] Speaker 2: that's right, So it exploited a of it. I mean,
[7:02] Speaker 2: the way that mutations work is that an opportunity arose
[7:06] Speaker 2: for the virus, having mutated to actually then spread into the.
[7:09] Speaker 1: Population into a host first.
[7:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, into a susceptible host. And so that
[7:18] Speaker 2: can have That happens all the time, by the way,
[7:20] Speaker 2: So this is something we're familiar with. We're worried about
[7:23] Speaker 2: it in certain contexts with certain other viruses and other bacteria,
[7:28] Speaker 2: notably influenza. Worries us probably the most in terms of
[7:32] Speaker 2: pandemic influenza, but we were this particular last pandemic turned
[7:37] Speaker 2: out to be a coronavirus, and there was a let's
[7:41] Speaker 2: just say a not a trial run, or there was
[7:43] Speaker 2: a in the two thousands. These the first coronavirus SARS, yes,
[7:51] Speaker 2: SARS one ye. Okay. Now the thing is, the question
[7:56] Speaker 2: you've asked is could it have been deliberate or an accident?
[8:00] Speaker 2: I think unlikely, very very unlikely to be deliberate, deliberately released,
[8:05] Speaker 2: deliberately engineered and deliberately released, right is what I mean.
[8:10] Speaker 2: And I say that because I think it would be
[8:13] Speaker 2: a very unusual group of people to deliberately go out
[8:18] Speaker 2: to do that. You're harming your own population, and you're
[8:21] Speaker 2: harming others of course, and you're disrupting economic activity and
[8:25] Speaker 2: causing a whole lot of negative effects. It would have
[8:30] Speaker 2: to be something special about that pathogen for you to
[8:33] Speaker 2: want to do that. When I say you, I mean
[8:35] Speaker 2: a group of people and a government someone else. So
[8:39] Speaker 2: I think that's very very unlikely. Could it have been
[8:42] Speaker 2: a laboratory accident in Wuhan, Possibly, that's I think a possibility.
[8:49] Speaker 2: There are a lot of factors that would point towards
[8:52] Speaker 2: it being a possibility, and I think the intelligence reports
[8:57] Speaker 2: released by certain other nations who've looked into it have
[9:00] Speaker 2: highlighted that that was a possibility.
[9:02] Speaker 1: Possibility being something. If we could just get made around
[9:07] Speaker 1: by what you mean by possibility or what the reports
[9:10] Speaker 1: say is being possible, probably will be more than something
[9:13] Speaker 1: more than to say, fifty percent, but possible. There's a
[9:16] Speaker 1: rare a mere possibility or a possibilities that what do
[9:20] Speaker 1: you mean by possibility? What do you mean by possibility?
[9:23] Speaker 2: Well, it's actually a much bigger topic area. It's called
[9:25] Speaker 2: duel use technologies or duel use research. The laboratory in
[9:29] Speaker 2: Wuhuan was heavily involved in coronavirus research. That is the
[9:37] Speaker 2: first step towards it being some kind of lab accident.
[9:41] Speaker 2: So there was coronavirus in a laboratory setting that was
[9:44] Speaker 2: being manipulated. We understand looking at its characteristics, and that
[9:51] Speaker 2: manipulation could involve could have involved mutations that if it
[9:56] Speaker 2: got out of the laboratory, would have caused spread in
[9:58] Speaker 2: the population as in a pan demic or an epidemic.
[10:01] Speaker 2: And so certainly there are a lot of things which
[10:04] Speaker 2: would be the ingredients for a laboratory accident were present.
[10:08] Speaker 2: In fact, almost all of the ingredients that you would
[10:10] Speaker 2: need for a laboratory accident apart from an accident were
[10:13] Speaker 2: present for that to actually have been the case. The
[10:17] Speaker 2: other explanation, which it was a wet market or there
[10:20] Speaker 2: was the local bat population could have been spilled over
[10:25] Speaker 2: from a natural process. That is also equally plausible, and
[10:28] Speaker 2: you can't discount that. Pointing against that, I would say
[10:33] Speaker 2: is there's features about the viral sequence, as in the
[10:38] Speaker 2: actual sequence of all code genetic code, which would raise
[10:44] Speaker 2: concerns that it might have been manipulated.
[10:46] Speaker 1: So the first as genetically manipulation.
[10:48] Speaker 2: Genetically manipulated, which would be consistent with a origin from
[10:52] Speaker 2: a laboratory that was conducting genetic manipulation. Do I think
[10:56] Speaker 2: that it was a deliberate release?
[10:59] Speaker 1: I do not, So can I just ask you because
[11:02] Speaker 1: most of us modern most of all of us do
[11:04] Speaker 1: not understand what a manipulation means. So what actually happens
[11:09] Speaker 1: in these labs? I mean, why do they play around
[11:13] Speaker 1: with the virus? I mean, the virus is like under
[11:15] Speaker 1: a microscope somewhere. Everyone's probably got mass and all special
[11:17] Speaker 1: clothes on, so they they have to take it off
[11:20] Speaker 1: when they get out and probably get rinsed, washed or what.
[11:23] Speaker 1: I don't know, whatever it is, but Why are they
[11:26] Speaker 1: manipulating the virus genetically? Why are they changing their code
[11:30] Speaker 1: on the DNA.
[11:31] Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question. So firstly, just to talk
[11:34] Speaker 2: about sort of question about protecting the researchers in these
[11:38] Speaker 2: environments for viruses that cause a lot of harm or pathogens,
[11:44] Speaker 2: I should say it's not just a question of PPE
[11:48] Speaker 2: and having the right PPE. It's a question of and
[11:52] Speaker 2: what I mean by that is gowns or suits or
[11:54] Speaker 2: whatever personal protective equipment. It's also about the physical laboratory
[12:00] Speaker 2: and how it's constructed, and so in Wuhuan, for example,
[12:03] Speaker 2: it was a relatively new what we call BSL four laboratory.
[12:06] Speaker 2: That is BSL four means the highest level of protection,
[12:10] Speaker 2: and generally that involves, for what of a bitter word,
[12:13] Speaker 2: like a spacesuit kind of arrangement where there's a relatively
[12:18] Speaker 2: contained small area of laboratory that people in space suits
[12:22] Speaker 2: who have air flowing into their suits work in this environment,
[12:26] Speaker 2: and that is supposed to protect them when you take
[12:28] Speaker 2: those suits on and off. That's one of the key
[12:31] Speaker 2: well when you take them off in particular after you've
[12:33] Speaker 2: been in the environment, that's one of the key risk
[12:35] Speaker 2: areas that you might find where an accident could happen
[12:38] Speaker 2: where someone who wasn't perhaps cautious when they were taking
[12:42] Speaker 2: the suit off, may have been exposed. Another obvious possibility
[12:48] Speaker 2: is the suit was breached with some kind of sharp
[12:50] Speaker 2: object or a needle or something like that, which could occur,
[12:53] Speaker 2: but you take very strong measures to make sure that
[12:56] Speaker 2: doesn't occur. It could equally have been a waist flow
[13:01] Speaker 2: from the laboratory, but generally those are very strongly treated.
[13:05] Speaker 2: So that's the sort of background for these genetic manipulations
[13:09] Speaker 2: in high risk pathogens like coronaviruses that could cause a pandemic.
[13:14] Speaker 2: When we say what manipulations are being done, there's a
[13:17] Speaker 2: number of different mechanisms, but the last fifteen to twenty
[13:21] Speaker 2: years has seen some new methodologies become available. One is
[13:25] Speaker 2: called crisper, which is a genetic or gene editing tool
[13:30] Speaker 2: that can be used to literally insert new code into
[13:36] Speaker 2: a genetic code. That code could be anything. It could
[13:40] Speaker 2: be the gene from a plant, it could be a
[13:43] Speaker 2: gene from an animal. It could be a completely novel
[13:48] Speaker 2: or new sequence designed on a computer by AI. That's
[13:53] Speaker 2: the possibility that now exists. In addition, there are older
[13:57] Speaker 2: techniques which is literally swapping genes in and out that
[14:01] Speaker 2: you can do through other methodologies, but Crisper has really
[14:05] Speaker 2: been the key technology that has allowed this this ability
[14:10] Speaker 2: to happen in a laboratory like what happened in Wuphan
[14:13] Speaker 2: and what's done around the world every day in these
[14:16] Speaker 2: kind of laboratories. And there's actually hundreds of these laboratories.
[14:19] Speaker 1: Oh wow, do we have them here in Australia.
[14:22] Speaker 2: We do, we do, but they're under strict control. We
[14:26] Speaker 2: have one in Geelong which is probably our biggest BSL
[14:30] Speaker 2: for and a number of other ones and they're all
[14:32] Speaker 2: under state Health Department or federal government control and they're
[14:37] Speaker 2: very strictly monitored.
[14:39] Speaker 1: So if something was manipulated, like the genetic code of
[14:49] Speaker 1: the DNA of a virus, and it was manipulated, and
[14:54] Speaker 1: or what what are they trying to do where they're
[14:59] Speaker 1: trying to see how the new virus it's called the
[15:03] Speaker 1: new virus with the new DNA, how it responds, or
[15:08] Speaker 1: are they're trying to work out how more dangerous they
[15:12] Speaker 1: can make it? What are they trying to do?
[15:14] Speaker 2: That's a really good question. It's called so this whole
[15:17] Speaker 2: category of research, there's dual use technology, so it can
[15:22] Speaker 2: be used for good or it can be used for
[15:24] Speaker 2: maybe not so good dual use or multiple use technology.
[15:28] Speaker 2: And then there's a thing called gain of function research,
[15:30] Speaker 2: which is what you're talking about. Actually, a gain of
[15:34] Speaker 2: function research is where you give a pathogen, like a virus,
[15:40] Speaker 2: an ability that it didn't have before. So, for example,
[15:44] Speaker 2: you might have a pathogen and this has been published,
[15:48] Speaker 2: to the concern of many scientists over the past sort
[15:52] Speaker 2: of couple of decades, some good examples of where laboratories
[15:56] Speaker 2: have chosen to take a pathogen that, for example, was
[15:59] Speaker 2: not transmissible between humans and insert a gene from another
[16:04] Speaker 2: animal or from another virus that allows it to become
[16:08] Speaker 2: transmissible between humans. And this might be a virus or
[16:12] Speaker 2: a bacteria that is quite lethal to the animals that
[16:15] Speaker 2: it normally infects, and that is generally done. The question
[16:19] Speaker 2: you asked was why is this done? Generally done to
[16:24] Speaker 2: answer questions about whether that if it were to occur
[16:27] Speaker 2: in the natural world through mutation, could be stopped. Essentially,
[16:32] Speaker 2: could we develop a vaccine or whatever against that. The
[16:37] Speaker 2: argument against doing that is that we never know what
[16:41] Speaker 2: the natural world's going to throw at us, So the
[16:44] Speaker 2: risk of taking by manipulating the pathogen, thinking that we
[16:48] Speaker 2: know what's coming and thinking that that's going to be
[16:51] Speaker 2: the change that's coming, may not actually be the one
[16:53] Speaker 2: that's going to come, And so we've created potentially an
[16:56] Speaker 2: entirely new pathogen with all of these new functions for
[17:00] Speaker 2: not a very strong reason. Some other researchers feel that
[17:05] Speaker 2: doing this research is just valuable for the sake of gaining.
[17:08] Speaker 1: Knowledge scientific reasons, just being a scientist, just.
[17:12] Speaker 2: Breaking new ground, being the one who's done it first.
[17:15] Speaker 2: You know, new technologies. That always involves some form of
[17:18] Speaker 2: innovation generally to do this kind of work. So there
[17:21] Speaker 2: is an element of pressure to sort of breach new boundaries,
[17:26] Speaker 2: and that's been the focus of a lot of ethical
[17:28] Speaker 2: discussions and work were in the predominantly in the US,
[17:34] Speaker 2: but also around Europe and other places in the world,
[17:37] Speaker 2: really looking at whether this kind of research should be
[17:40] Speaker 2: overseen a little bit more carefully.
[17:43] Speaker 1: You're someone who studies these things and the studies the
[17:46] Speaker 1: potential effect of it on a population, et cetera. And
[17:50] Speaker 1: this is a show about longevity, but like, what what
[17:54] Speaker 1: do you worry about in this regard when it comes
[17:57] Speaker 1: to the Crispus project. I mean where Chris, but actually
[18:02] Speaker 1: can be really great is if someone's got a genetic
[18:06] Speaker 1: code to have diabetes and Nick Somema go and alter
[18:10] Speaker 1: the code and so that individual doesn't get diabetes. That's great.
[18:14] Speaker 1: But let's just take it outside of those territories. What
[18:19] Speaker 1: worries you? You're someone who's got their finger on the
[18:21] Speaker 1: pulse watching this, you're at the university doing work out
[18:25] Speaker 1: there as well, you talk to lots of people, you're
[18:28] Speaker 1: in the game. What worries you the most?
[18:32] Speaker 2: I think? I think the approach that's generally taken to
[18:35] Speaker 2: innovation is fairly linear. It's what I mean by that
[18:39] Speaker 2: is you you innovate, and the idea is you want
[18:42] Speaker 2: to reap some reward from that innovation. That might be
[18:45] Speaker 2: selling specialized drugs to people who can afford it and
[18:49] Speaker 2: make a lot of profit. And what worries me is
[18:52] Speaker 2: that the research that's necessary to look at the potential
[18:56] Speaker 2: impacts on our general popular genetic manipulation gets sidelined or
[19:03] Speaker 2: it's not as important because it's an overhead essentially to
[19:06] Speaker 2: that potential benefit for that innovator. So the business model
[19:11] Speaker 2: of innovation in this area doesn't prioritize a lot of
[19:16] Speaker 2: the safeguards which I think need to go in there.
[19:18] Speaker 2: So more, very broadly, that's my main concern because there
[19:22] Speaker 2: is so many different ways that you could manipulate the genome.
[19:26] Speaker 2: Things that worry me are introducing modifications to humans who
[19:33] Speaker 2: then go on to have children, and those children are
[19:36] Speaker 2: harmed by those genetic modifications. So the person who actually
[19:41] Speaker 2: purchased or accessed this new technology to become manipulated has
[19:47] Speaker 2: introduced into their own cells a modification which is actually
[19:51] Speaker 2: problematic for their progeny or their children, their grandchildren and
[19:56] Speaker 2: further down.
[19:56] Speaker 1: And that is like the Salerit of my Children, I mean,
[20:00] Speaker 1: is that sort of an example of that.
[20:02] Speaker 2: No, it's a little bit different to that. So so
[20:05] Speaker 2: with the th little my Children, my understanding was that
[20:07] Speaker 2: that was direct effects with birth defect, and so that
[20:10] Speaker 2: affected only that population itself. What I'm talking about is
[20:14] Speaker 2: that you know, when you make a genetic manipulation to somebody,
[20:17] Speaker 2: depending on how you do it, if you affect every
[20:20] Speaker 2: cell in the body, including the game metes that reproduce
[20:23] Speaker 2: you know, sperm and egg, Okay, if that then can
[20:28] Speaker 2: get passed down or would get passed down, if it's
[20:31] Speaker 2: if it's done properly to the next generation and then
[20:34] Speaker 2: the next generation after that, and it makes its way
[20:36] Speaker 2: into the general population. That worries me greatly because we
[20:39] Speaker 2: don't really have any techniques, or we didn't until very recently.
[20:44] Speaker 2: Perhaps perhaps new methods of AI might help us with
[20:47] Speaker 2: this to really start to explore and predict what effect
[20:53] Speaker 2: that might have long term and understand sort of the
[20:56] Speaker 2: positive and negative effects that might that might have. So
[20:59] Speaker 2: equally could have positive effects downstream for all of the progeny,
[21:03] Speaker 2: but I worry that it might have negative effects effects
[21:05] Speaker 2: that we can't predict that there might be. For example,
[21:10] Speaker 2: you might have manipulated your genes to perhaps never get diabetes,
[21:15] Speaker 2: but it also gives you early dementia. But we would
[21:17] Speaker 2: never be able to easily pick that up with it
[21:19] Speaker 2: you got it, yeah, well known, and you still won't
[21:21] Speaker 2: even then it would be a mystery. And so we
[21:24] Speaker 2: just don't have those good techniques to actually make those linkages.
[21:29] Speaker 2: We rely on statistics to understand linkage at the moment,
[21:33] Speaker 2: association and causation, which are sort of our techniques we
[21:38] Speaker 2: used in the legal world from a medico legal perspective,
[21:42] Speaker 2: but we also use them in science. They're the foundation
[21:45] Speaker 2: on which we understand how things are connected, and they're imperfect.
[21:49] Speaker 2: They're imperfect because you need a lot of data and
[21:52] Speaker 2: you need to ask the right questions, and unless you're
[21:55] Speaker 2: asking those questions.
[21:58] Speaker 1: Sometimes you know that don't know the questions.
[22:00] Speaker 2: And sometimes the data won't come for centuries, and it's challenging.
[22:04] Speaker 2: So that's what Probably the biggest thing that worries me
[22:07] Speaker 2: about manipulation is the effect on the population downstream. The
[22:12] Speaker 2: other is the US and them kind of issues, the
[22:15] Speaker 2: social impacts. And I've written about this, i think in
[22:18] Speaker 2: a few publications now a few years old, but they
[22:23] Speaker 2: are worthy of discussion here. So my initial interest in
[22:26] Speaker 2: this was emerging evidence that countries around the world were
[22:30] Speaker 2: interested in augmenting or enhancing their military forces through genetic means,
[22:36] Speaker 2: and that is something which I think surprises everyone to hear.
[22:39] Speaker 2: But actually, with Crisper, you could definitely go down that pathway,
[22:43] Speaker 2: but there's not Crispers just not the only pathway. You
[22:46] Speaker 2: could use sort of different therapeutics, for example, to give
[22:50] Speaker 2: people in the general population or the military population and
[22:54] Speaker 2: enhanced ability to process toxins for example, or you know,
[23:00] Speaker 2: clear or excrete sort of problematic parts of their metabolism,
[23:04] Speaker 2: so they've got more endurance. For example, we're talking performance
[23:07] Speaker 2: enhancement for everyone kind of in a way, but not
[23:11] Speaker 2: the performance hancement enhancement perhaps you would normally associate with
[23:15] Speaker 2: performance enhancement in sport. We're talking about sort of resilience,
[23:19] Speaker 2: resistance from the metabolically diseases, improved cognition, you know, you know,
[23:27] Speaker 2: tweaking your appetite so that perhaps you know, we're not
[23:29] Speaker 2: so interested in snack foods and so on, and we're
[23:32] Speaker 2: actually a little bit better regulated. And with all of
[23:35] Speaker 2: these things are certainly on for offering at the moment
[23:39] Speaker 2: when it comes to manipulation, and they're being actively explored
[23:42] Speaker 2: to our knowledge, a lot of it behind the scenes,
[23:45] Speaker 2: but it is out there. And so the question is
[23:48] Speaker 2: if we imagine a world where that was possible, Well,
[23:52] Speaker 2: of course, everyone with the means to get access to
[23:54] Speaker 2: it would probably at least a large proportion of people
[23:57] Speaker 2: would think about access.
[23:58] Speaker 1: Well, peptis right now, right, there's expensive, but there's only
[24:02] Speaker 1: people with money you're going to go and get it.
[24:03] Speaker 2: Correct. And equally, those weight loss drugs that we hear
[24:06] Speaker 2: about creditables, you know, those ones as your piece. Yeah,
[24:09] Speaker 2: that's right there. People are getting access to them who've
[24:12] Speaker 2: got money, and there's an equity issue here, and there's
[24:16] Speaker 2: an ethical issue here, and so you end up with
[24:19] Speaker 2: a two kind of speed society where the people who
[24:22] Speaker 2: don't have access are more unhealthy, die earlier, are less happy,
[24:28] Speaker 2: and have less opportunity. And you've got a group who
[24:31] Speaker 2: have got access who are essentially outcompete all the others.
[24:36] Speaker 2: And that's I think a recipe for a much more
[24:42] Speaker 2: serious sort of dissent and problems in societies. I think
[24:45] Speaker 2: we have to be very careful about going down that pathway.
[24:48] Speaker 1: It's very interesting because some that is to some extent,
[24:52] Speaker 1: what is happening around the world when it comes to
[24:55] Speaker 1: health tech. Because in my seat all the time, people
[25:00] Speaker 1: you know talking about like as you talked about mentioning that,
[25:03] Speaker 1: but you know, the the Ezmpics and the you know,
[25:07] Speaker 1: all the versions of the lp ones and and also peptize,
[25:12] Speaker 1: and they're doing it for they think they're doing anyway,
[25:15] Speaker 1: for performance enhancement and for longevity. In other words, I
[25:19] Speaker 1: can outlive you both in terms of time and quality.
[25:24] Speaker 1: Therefore I will therefore accumulate more than you because of
[25:28] Speaker 1: that advantage, I then have more of that to leave
[25:32] Speaker 1: to my offspring. My offspring therefore will have an immediate
[25:36] Speaker 1: advantage against your offspring, and therefore my group, my community,
[25:42] Speaker 1: will outperform your community, let's call it communities. And that
[25:48] Speaker 1: of course will build dissension between you know, one group
[25:53] Speaker 1: and another group. Even if one group decides to try,
[25:59] Speaker 1: if the lower group called lower group or the disadvantage group,
[26:02] Speaker 1: if they decide to try and reverse that, the other
[26:06] Speaker 1: group has so much power that they will quash that
[26:09] Speaker 1: reversal or they will resist that reversal because it will
[26:13] Speaker 1: go right through to politics, these things that this is
[26:16] Speaker 1: just normal process, This is what happens. Yeah.
[26:18] Speaker 2: So I'm certainly not an expert in that area of
[26:23] Speaker 2: sort of social dynamics, but my understanding of it, and
[26:26] Speaker 2: also some of the modeling work that we explore into
[26:31] Speaker 2: these areas doesn't paint a very rosy picture about the
[26:34] Speaker 2: consequences of that, and certainly I think it's been explored
[26:39] Speaker 2: in probably our best simulation, I'd say for this, and
[26:43] Speaker 2: I say this with all seriousness, is our fiction. It's
[26:46] Speaker 2: our creatives who have actually thought this through. There are
[26:50] Speaker 2: a number of good, good explorations of these issues that
[26:54] Speaker 2: come up quite regularly in fiction about the consequences of
[26:58] Speaker 2: this kind of thing for societies, about living forever or
[27:01] Speaker 2: living longer and so on. There's been some very good
[27:04] Speaker 2: fiction and recently about this.
[27:06] Speaker 1: Well, what about POOLO Brian Johnson. I mean, I don't
[27:08] Speaker 1: know if you follow Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson's a tech exit.
[27:13] Speaker 1: So he sold his business for eight or a million
[27:16] Speaker 1: in the US eight a million US and he's sort
[27:19] Speaker 1: of like a human experiment about and his whole thing
[27:23] Speaker 1: is don't die. And he spends two million bucks a
[27:26] Speaker 1: year US on himself manipulating just about everything you can
[27:34] Speaker 1: imagine to get better what you would call better. Let's
[27:40] Speaker 1: call blood panel outcomes for example, as an example, one
[27:43] Speaker 1: example of the all the things he does. He's probably
[27:47] Speaker 1: maybe fifty or close to fifty, but he'll get a
[27:51] Speaker 1: blood marker for I don't know, for your heart, whatever
[27:56] Speaker 1: the blood markers are for your heart, and then he
[27:59] Speaker 1: will say to say that to the population, my blood
[28:03] Speaker 1: markers have the equivalent of being twenty five years of age.
[28:06] Speaker 1: And I do know who he is now, Yeah, And
[28:09] Speaker 1: then the main Netflix series about him, there's TV series
[28:12] Speaker 1: about him, and he talks about things like, you know,
[28:14] Speaker 1: being able to hold an erection for however, many more
[28:18] Speaker 1: hours than everybody else in the week. Is that an
[28:22] Speaker 1: example of what you're talking about? Because that in itself
[28:24] Speaker 1: is divisive. It is divisive because people following and go, well,
[28:29] Speaker 1: hang on, they are love him or hate him for
[28:31] Speaker 1: a start, because people are well, hang on, I can
[28:33] Speaker 1: never live like that. Do you think the time will
[28:36] Speaker 1: come where we can democratize all that stuff so that
[28:40] Speaker 1: everybody can take advantage of it.
[28:42] Speaker 2: Yes, I'll come to that. I think I liked the
[28:43] Speaker 2: idea of democratization as a word for this, because that
[28:47] Speaker 2: is what's used. But it means much more than I think.
[28:50] Speaker 2: It's a misinterpreted kind of label. But just to comment
[28:54] Speaker 2: on Brian, I would ask, if if he did live
[28:59] Speaker 2: to two hundred, say what do you have lived a
[29:02] Speaker 2: good life to two hundred?
[29:05] Speaker 1: We can't go outside. He doesn't go outside, doesn't get
[29:07] Speaker 1: exposed at the son, he doesn't want to get exposed
[29:09] Speaker 1: to toxins in the air. He doesn't leave his house
[29:11] Speaker 1: very very often.
[29:14] Speaker 2: So look, everyone, I think it's easy for everyone to
[29:17] Speaker 2: sort of compare to others and get either love him
[29:19] Speaker 2: or hate him, and I think it's easy to sort
[29:22] Speaker 2: of dive into sort of trying to sort of and
[29:24] Speaker 2: judging situation. And I'm not saying I'm excusing him. What
[29:28] Speaker 2: I'm saying is is if I was in his shoes,
[29:32] Speaker 2: I'd be asking myself, am I living my life to
[29:35] Speaker 2: the fullest and maybe living to ninety but being engaged
[29:40] Speaker 2: and having a happy life where you've actually contributed and
[29:44] Speaker 2: and you have changed society for the better and then dying,
[29:51] Speaker 2: maybe that's better than living forever. Just raising it as
[29:56] Speaker 2: this again has been explored many times in both ethics
[30:00] Speaker 2: but also in fiction. And I think living a good
[30:04] Speaker 2: life that is that where you have purpose and contribution.
[30:08] Speaker 2: The Greeks all the way back thousands of years ago
[30:11] Speaker 2: ago talked about this new Diamonea. They called it, you know.
[30:17] Speaker 1: Ev domina of dominia, which means joy, but it doesn't meanful.
[30:24] Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean through relaxation. It means through effort
[30:28] Speaker 2: sometimes and sacrifice. Correct, yes, yeah, And this is the thing.
[30:33] Speaker 1: And Buddhism has the same concept.
[30:35] Speaker 2: Many religions do. And maybe this whole process of actually
[30:41] Speaker 2: getting because it's empowered, like what we're talking about is
[30:43] Speaker 2: empowering humanity to manipulate its own existence more and more,
[30:49] Speaker 2: and that comes with some profound, in my view, profound
[30:52] Speaker 2: ethical questions that actually have been considered and discussed through
[30:58] Speaker 2: philosophy for anyhow. And we think we're all new to this.
[31:04] Speaker 2: We're not new to this. You discussed many times over
[31:08] Speaker 2: about how you live your life, and so living in
[31:11] Speaker 2: a bubble to live forever to me sounds like hell.
[31:15] Speaker 1: It could also only suit one person, maybe him. Maybe
[31:19] Speaker 1: there's not many people other people who will do it,
[31:21] Speaker 1: and it sounds a little extravagant. But at the same time,
[31:24] Speaker 1: it's sort of an interesting experiment, you know, like if
[31:28] Speaker 1: as a for me, as a bystander, I find it interesting.
[31:32] Speaker 1: I don't know which part of it would be good
[31:34] Speaker 1: for me, not with me. I don't know. I couldn't
[31:37] Speaker 1: live the life, but it's good watching it observing it
[31:40] Speaker 1: sort of. It's sort of like I'm glad he's doing
[31:45] Speaker 1: it and I can look at it. I would hate
[31:48] Speaker 1: to be part of the process of doing it myself.
[31:51] Speaker 1: It's nearly like I'm watching him from like he's like
[31:56] Speaker 1: a TV show and I'm watching him on a TV
[32:00] Speaker 1: show and devices allow me to do that anyway, Can
[32:03] Speaker 1: I just talk. Can just put your hat on for
[32:05] Speaker 1: a moment. As a GP, are you still got your
[32:09] Speaker 1: general practice? And where was it was around in Mascot?
[32:13] Speaker 1: That's what that's it?
[32:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I still do, but largely I work
[32:16] Speaker 2: in specially a specialist.
[32:17] Speaker 1: Especially right, how much more do you think this country
[32:23] Speaker 1: needs to get on the game, get on the program
[32:28] Speaker 1: about allowing people to get things looked out into the
[32:32] Speaker 1: blood panels, for example, which are as opposed similar to
[32:37] Speaker 1: the way you can do it in America for example,
[32:40] Speaker 1: compared to you. I mean, like in America you can
[32:41] Speaker 1: get just better ring tested here. And that's the first thing.
[32:45] Speaker 1: The second thing I would like you to comment upon
[32:47] Speaker 1: is why don't we when we go and get our
[32:52] Speaker 1: blood's done. Do you think it's appropriate that with the
[32:56] Speaker 1: individual of the patient should be the first person to
[32:59] Speaker 1: get sexcess the results? Who do you think you should
[33:01] Speaker 1: be the doctor who orders it? Well?
[33:04] Speaker 2: Can we come back to that one, because that's a
[33:05] Speaker 2: very good question. But just coming back, I think your
[33:08] Speaker 2: first question is really interesting because it speaks to how
[33:10] Speaker 2: we run our health system. Actually, in my view, as
[33:13] Speaker 2: a GP, I have access to a certain amount of
[33:17] Speaker 2: funded pathology YEP, so I think the conversation will talk
[33:23] Speaker 2: about at the moment will be focused.
[33:25] Speaker 1: Around funded You mean guests paid by the government, correct medicare.
[33:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, So when you go and get your pathology done,
[33:30] Speaker 2: generally for most of the population haven't. They don't have
[33:33] Speaker 2: to pay a thing. And that's an amazing system. That
[33:36] Speaker 2: is fantastic, an amazing system, but it's limited. It is limited,
[33:40] Speaker 2: and it's limited to what is necessary and also shown
[33:43] Speaker 2: through science to be a valid way to actually examine
[33:46] Speaker 2: certain problems, and it gives you the greatest breadth to
[33:52] Speaker 2: look at certain problems. For example, a blood count, for example,
[33:56] Speaker 2: is very good at showing many, many different problems that
[34:02] Speaker 2: might be occurring in the body, and we use that
[34:05] Speaker 2: specifically to answer certain questions, and sometimes we use it
[34:09] Speaker 2: to answer questions more in a broader sense by looking
[34:12] Speaker 2: across patterns of different cells and so on. Just as
[34:15] Speaker 2: an example. That's one. Another one would be a good
[34:17] Speaker 2: one would be a biochemical analysis, including a liver functions test.
[34:21] Speaker 2: We take into consideration multiple different measures, but they're the
[34:25] Speaker 2: most basic of them, and more specialized testing is generally
[34:29] Speaker 2: limited to the specializations who have the qualifications and knowledge,
[34:34] Speaker 2: particularly about the science, to be able to comprehend some
[34:39] Speaker 2: of those more specialized tests. Traditionally that's how it's worked.
[34:44] Speaker 2: So as a GP, I have access to this funded system,
[34:49] Speaker 2: which is good for I'd say ninety nine percent or
[34:52] Speaker 2: more of what I'm looking at from a blood test perspective.
[34:56] Speaker 2: There are other tests that have come over the years
[35:00] Speaker 2: that we've added on and have become mainstreamed. Prostate specific
[35:05] Speaker 2: antigen p s A is a good one. I remember
[35:07] Speaker 2: the time where you didn't get a PSA You've got
[35:10] Speaker 2: to finger up the rear end instead, and there was
[35:13] Speaker 2: it was much more clinical. So as we've had access
[35:16] Speaker 2: to new biomarker testing and other other types of testing,
[35:22] Speaker 2: we are seeing that become more mainstreamed and then funded
[35:25] Speaker 2: through the system based on evidence.
[35:28] Speaker 1: Funded through Medicare.
[35:29] Speaker 2: That's correct, So there's a there's a group of experts
[35:31] Speaker 2: who make decisions about what becomes funded. So unlike the
[35:35] Speaker 2: US where its user pays on the whole, or you
[35:40] Speaker 2: have a health insurer, the sort of let's just say,
[35:45] Speaker 2: the access in Australia by virtue of the fact of
[35:49] Speaker 2: this system, there's very much what I call a gravitation
[35:52] Speaker 2: with the system in Australia where where if you ask
[35:55] Speaker 2: for more, there's there's a why why are you askings? Yes,
[36:00] Speaker 2: it raises a lot of questions. It's like, you know, well,
[36:03] Speaker 2: you can't just have a test because you want the result,
[36:05] Speaker 2: because you do you have the knowledge to interpret it correctly.
[36:10] Speaker 2: And there's a harm sometimes for doing a test randomly
[36:14] Speaker 2: just for so called reassurance when you're not actually answering
[36:18] Speaker 2: any clinical questions. So there's a very strong argument there
[36:22] Speaker 2: for saying be cautious about doing blanket screening of many
[36:28] Speaker 2: markers that might essentially lead you down a pathway that
[36:32] Speaker 2: could cause you harm.
[36:33] Speaker 1: This was a.
[36:34] Speaker 2: Classic, sort of a classic example of this was both
[36:39] Speaker 2: PSA testing and then which is prostate specific andigen testing.
[36:43] Speaker 2: There is a very small statistical harm from actually doing
[36:47] Speaker 2: the testing because people may may end up going on
[36:52] Speaker 2: and particularly in the past, having a surgery that is
[36:56] Speaker 2: associated with some risk. And so there were many good
[37:01] Speaker 2: studies that looked into that risk of even doing screening
[37:06] Speaker 2: testing using biomarkers, PSA being one men of a number
[37:11] Speaker 2: of examples of this. So we do have to be cautious.
[37:14] Speaker 2: I guess about not access. I'm not saying banning access,
[37:18] Speaker 2: I'm just saying there is a question there about how
[37:23] Speaker 2: we allow people to ask for it, and I worry
[37:26] Speaker 2: where it's a free for all, for example, with no
[37:29] Speaker 2: guidance is the right word guidance from a clinician about
[37:33] Speaker 2: people asking for these tests, that they might become led
[37:37] Speaker 2: down a pathway that might actually be quite deleterious for
[37:41] Speaker 2: them in the end, not only worry them. Worries an
[37:45] Speaker 2: anxiety is a harm, but it's a very small harm,
[37:47] Speaker 2: I guess, But it may lead them down other pathways
[37:51] Speaker 2: towards interventions they might try to for example, if they
[37:57] Speaker 2: have a finding, for example, where they're might be a
[38:00] Speaker 2: heavy metal that might be reported as abnormal, they might
[38:04] Speaker 2: choose to go and get any sort of a perhaps
[38:07] Speaker 2: are not scientifically supported, but available intervention like a kulation
[38:11] Speaker 2: for example. Colations excellent therapy if you need it, but
[38:16] Speaker 2: if it's if you're unsure, if there's ambiguity, it can
[38:20] Speaker 2: be harmful to so we do have to be quite
[38:23] Speaker 2: cautious about opening the doors to that knowledge. The knowledge
[38:26] Speaker 2: comes with risks, and I think as a GP, my
[38:31] Speaker 2: experience with exactly this has been since I first became trained.
[38:35] Speaker 2: I recall people coming in and saying I've found a
[38:38] Speaker 2: new test. I would like to get this test done
[38:40] Speaker 2: and my first com I've had many conversations with my
[38:43] Speaker 2: patients about whether these kind of tests would be valuable
[38:48] Speaker 2: for them, what does it show and what would they
[38:51] Speaker 2: then choose to do with the information? And I find
[38:54] Speaker 2: education in discussing is the best way forward for this.
[38:58] Speaker 1: How do you so, let's say, because a good one
[39:03] Speaker 1: that I've recently had some experience with is testing testing
[39:10] Speaker 1: APO lipoprotein B delay and in my case E because
[39:16] Speaker 1: of my genotype which I found out. But now that's
[39:21] Speaker 1: the thing. I mean, doctors asked They never used to
[39:23] Speaker 1: ask for it, but they used to just get your
[39:25] Speaker 1: hdl LDAL, HDAL and total cholesterol and and but now
[39:32] Speaker 1: it's sort of nearly normal to get those other things tested.
[39:38] Speaker 1: How is it? How do we work out when particularly
[39:42] Speaker 1: us as patients consumers and with AI, how do we
[39:47] Speaker 1: work out when something should be asked for from your doctor?
[39:52] Speaker 1: Well maybe we should ask everything from our doctor and
[39:54] Speaker 1: it's up to our doctor say Mark, that's not something
[39:57] Speaker 1: you need to do. How does that get work? What's
[40:00] Speaker 1: the thing is going to be the dynamic over time?
[40:02] Speaker 1: Given that you know, like you said, you know a
[40:05] Speaker 1: process PSA test have become that's just normal now. The
[40:13] Speaker 1: lippo proteins also starting to become more normal now, but
[40:17] Speaker 1: they weren't before. How do we know if we're keeping
[40:20] Speaker 1: pace quick enough.
[40:22] Speaker 2: There's a few things there to talk about. So I'm
[40:28] Speaker 2: a believer that the conversation is the most important thing
[40:30] Speaker 2: and who you're having a conversation with. So if your
[40:34] Speaker 2: conversation is with someone who's got a secondary agenda for
[40:39] Speaker 2: why they're selling you a test, then.
[40:42] Speaker 1: I have concerns you me being the patient. Correct, Ye.
[40:45] Speaker 2: So if I'm a patient and I have a conversation
[40:47] Speaker 2: with a commercial provider of you know, screening tests who
[40:55] Speaker 2: are sort of promoting this as the next best thing,
[40:58] Speaker 2: then I have some questions about about how that conversation
[41:02] Speaker 2: would unfold if it's with an independent person like a
[41:05] Speaker 2: GP who's got no sort of I guess skin in
[41:08] Speaker 2: the game when it comes.
[41:09] Speaker 1: To makes no more money by verge of asking you
[41:11] Speaker 1: for the test.
[41:11] Speaker 2: They're there and they're therefore your best interests, and there's
[41:14] Speaker 2: that established link that I'm far more comfortable with that
[41:17] Speaker 2: because I think you'll get a far more balanced answer
[41:19] Speaker 2: about the value. Where I also get concerned. On the
[41:22] Speaker 2: other hand, from a GP perspective, is when it's discounted
[41:24] Speaker 2: as valuable. So patients are seeing this and in fact
[41:27] Speaker 2: the technology is moving so quickly that it may well
[41:30] Speaker 2: be of value, and even though it's not funded by
[41:33] Speaker 2: Medicare yet, it still might be. People might be quite
[41:36] Speaker 2: comfortable in paying paying to get it done. And there's
[41:38] Speaker 2: no reason so the APPO lipoproteins, for example, are probably
[41:41] Speaker 2: going to in my view this is my opinion, but
[41:44] Speaker 2: probably going to be mainstreamed at least in part over
[41:47] Speaker 2: the next few years into the normal panel. So the question,
[41:51] Speaker 2: I guess that to reflect on my own comments there
[41:53] Speaker 2: would be the next step would be how do we
[41:57] Speaker 2: understand that process of new tests coming on board, which
[42:00] Speaker 2: they have done. We've got a number of different biomarket
[42:04] Speaker 2: tests and cancer tests and other things that have come
[42:06] Speaker 2: on over the decades that I've been trained as a doctor,
[42:09] Speaker 2: and these have come due to emergence of new evidence,
[42:12] Speaker 2: pressure from the public interest, commercial providers and so on.
[42:16] Speaker 2: Just keeping that momentum up. So the momentum is not
[42:20] Speaker 2: a bad thing.
[42:21] Speaker 1: But do you think we are quick enough in Australia.
[42:23] Speaker 1: Do you think there's the relative to the rest of
[42:25] Speaker 1: the world on.
[42:25] Speaker 2: Time by definition, we're slower.
[42:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, why is that.
[42:28] Speaker 2: Because of the system we run, Because everything is carefully,
[42:32] Speaker 2: carefully considered, so we tend to move on the movements
[42:35] Speaker 2: of others, or we take quite a long time to
[42:38] Speaker 2: deliberate ourselves on the pros and cons of that, mainly
[42:41] Speaker 2: because it's a big spend across the population, but otherwise
[42:45] Speaker 2: also we genuinely want to see that it's actually of benefit,
[42:48] Speaker 2: So we tend to be slower.
[42:51] Speaker 1: In terms of TGA and all those other approvimage.
[42:54] Speaker 2: But I don't think that's a bad thing. I actually
[42:56] Speaker 2: think that that's protected. It reflects a protective system where
[43:01] Speaker 2: we're actually taking the right asking the right questions. I
[43:05] Speaker 2: think manufacturers would would would perhaps be upset with me
[43:08] Speaker 2: for saying that, And certainly there have been times where
[43:11] Speaker 2: I felt that something be farmers, sure, but even small farmers,
[43:15] Speaker 2: you know, even Australian innovators. I think we would love
[43:17] Speaker 2: to have a faster regulatory system. So if I was
[43:20] Speaker 2: going to say what I'd like to see, I'd like
[43:22] Speaker 2: to see regulation happen quicker. But the depth that we
[43:26] Speaker 2: actually look at I think's right.
[43:27] Speaker 1: I think that's and what about the point I maybe
[43:30] Speaker 1: before about asking how to get access as to the
[43:33] Speaker 1: patient get access to our information, maybe at the same
[43:36] Speaker 1: time the doctor does or whoever. I mean, I don't
[43:38] Speaker 1: understand that there must be some legal fineness here that
[43:44] Speaker 1: says because the doctor ordered it, that's therefore the doctor's data.
[43:50] Speaker 1: But the patient would might say, and I've heard lots
[43:53] Speaker 1: of people say that, well, the data's come from me,
[43:56] Speaker 1: from my blood, and I'm the one I went to
[43:57] Speaker 1: the pathology place to give the blood. Therefore it's my information.
[44:02] Speaker 1: I should be able to get it too. What's that?
[44:05] Speaker 1: What's that all about?
[44:06] Speaker 2: Yeah? So the current position, and I'll try to get
[44:09] Speaker 2: this exactly right, although I would usually always refer and
[44:13] Speaker 2: funnily enough, I've read it many times, but I always
[44:15] Speaker 2: refer back. Is this is that, Yes, the doctor refers
[44:19] Speaker 2: for the test, and then there is an obligation legally
[44:22] Speaker 2: to communicate back.
[44:23] Speaker 1: With the doctor or the result from the pathology company.
[44:26] Speaker 2: Correct, that's right, and that and that's a well established
[44:30] Speaker 2: norm within medical practice.
[44:32] Speaker 1: That is it a convention or is it a legal thing?
[44:36] Speaker 1: Is it more convention?
[44:37] Speaker 2: It's now both both? Yes, right, Yeah, so that the
[44:40] Speaker 2: doctor is asking the question, the doctor needs to get
[44:42] Speaker 2: the answer back and and so that that's even more
[44:47] Speaker 2: sort of relevant to a whole range of other dimensions
[44:50] Speaker 2: that can come from this. For example, another doctor can't
[44:53] Speaker 2: receive that result. It has it really has to be
[44:55] Speaker 2: that doctor or at least someone.
[44:57] Speaker 1: Responsible, which is why they get to deject the thing
[44:59] Speaker 1: when you get to the is that your doctor and
[45:01] Speaker 1: other details?
[45:01] Speaker 2: Yes, correct, But in terms of patient access also the
[45:06] Speaker 2: way the lead the current legislation is written in various regulations,
[45:12] Speaker 2: the patient always has access to that information. That's a requirement.
[45:17] Speaker 2: So they the patient should always and in my practice
[45:21] Speaker 2: always can have access.
[45:22] Speaker 1: To that from you or from the pathology company.
[45:25] Speaker 2: Well from me, definitely the pathology company. That's something I
[45:30] Speaker 2: can't speak to because I'm not I don't work as
[45:32] Speaker 2: a pathology company.
[45:33] Speaker 1: I guess illegally they can't because I don't have a contract.
[45:36] Speaker 1: The privity, the concept of privity of contract doesn't exist
[45:40] Speaker 1: between patient and pathology because I didn't contract them. You did, you?
[45:43] Speaker 2: The doctor that being said, you do your sign an
[45:45] Speaker 2: agreement with the pathology company when you get it collected.
[45:48] Speaker 1: Okay, so therefore I probably should get access. What do
[45:52] Speaker 1: you see the danger of people accessing their own information.
[45:54] Speaker 1: Do you see any danger?
[45:55] Speaker 2: Well, I see a danger in the sense of misinterpretation
[46:01] Speaker 2: and potentially going non medical people or leading pathways AI.
[46:09] Speaker 2: I've got less of a concern. I'm happy to expand
[46:11] Speaker 2: on that. Why I've got less of a concern with AI?
[46:14] Speaker 2: Why have you in my experience AI and I work
[46:18] Speaker 2: in AI development in my university roles and research, and
[46:22] Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I've been finding that the risks that
[46:27] Speaker 2: AI is going to give you something misleading is quite low.
[46:30] Speaker 2: The hallucination sort of level within AI responses is becoming
[46:35] Speaker 2: much less and less now. And equally, it's quite balanced.
[46:41] Speaker 2: It's set to give you a balanced response. You would
[46:43] Speaker 2: have to actively set the AI to be malevolent or
[46:49] Speaker 2: imbalanced to get an imbalanced response out of it. It's
[46:53] Speaker 2: default setting. Particularly the big, the big AIS out there
[46:58] Speaker 2: that people access, will give a very balanced view and
[47:03] Speaker 2: actually even flag some of the cautions that you should
[47:06] Speaker 2: just be cautious about interpreting and so on. So I'm
[47:09] Speaker 2: actually less concerned with the sort of the big AI
[47:11] Speaker 2: sort of services and how they and how they might
[47:14] Speaker 2: actually advise a patient that I am about a group
[47:18] Speaker 2: of non medical trained people an.
[47:20] Speaker 1: Instagrammar yeah, at least someone saying we should be doing this, Yeah,
[47:25] Speaker 1: you should be doing that, or exactly.
[47:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially in the statement that is more concerning
[47:30] Speaker 2: to me than actually someone asked genuinely asking the question
[47:33] Speaker 2: of an ai what does this result actually mean for me?
[47:36] Speaker 1: So, David, one more question for well, sort of maybe
[47:41] Speaker 1: it's more than one question. But we don't get our bloods.
[47:47] Speaker 1: We can learn about, you know, how we should be
[47:50] Speaker 1: sleeping and eating. We all know about exercise, particularly in
[47:54] Speaker 1: this country. You know the horseman, let's call it the
[47:59] Speaker 1: the and four horsemen in it. That is measurement food, sleep, exercise.
[48:07] Speaker 1: But what worries Professor David Heslop outside of those things
[48:13] Speaker 1: that we're not looking at but they're not thinking about
[48:14] Speaker 1: in terms of our optimization of our it's caught longevity
[48:18] Speaker 1: that is not just necessarily living longer, living as long
[48:22] Speaker 1: as we're meant to live genetically, I suppose, and also
[48:27] Speaker 1: but also trying to avoid things maybe in our environment
[48:31] Speaker 1: that could cause us a problem. And what are the
[48:32] Speaker 1: things that worry you that might well, I might live longer,
[48:36] Speaker 1: period for longer because of medical technology. You know, they
[48:40] Speaker 1: can fix hearts, they can fix kidneys, they can get
[48:43] Speaker 1: all replacements or whatever. The mechanics can be fixed. But
[48:47] Speaker 1: I want to live in a nice life. I want
[48:49] Speaker 1: to live healthily. I don't want to be sort of
[48:51] Speaker 1: dragging mass around, will have to be pushed around by
[48:54] Speaker 1: somebody else. What are the things worrying about quality and longevity?
[49:01] Speaker 1: Good question.
[49:02] Speaker 2: I we are drowning in data, in health data, where
[49:08] Speaker 2: our smartphones are just the beginning, but we already there's
[49:13] Speaker 2: just so much data that gets.
[49:14] Speaker 1: Collected were either patient with generally in the population right
[49:19] Speaker 1: everywhere generally.
[49:20] Speaker 2: And it's it is collected, sometimes stored, often not stored.
[49:26] Speaker 2: But there is a huge stream of data that that
[49:28] Speaker 2: is not interpreted at all. Really it's it's not wasted
[49:32] Speaker 2: in a way, although some would call it it's a waste.
[49:34] Speaker 2: I'm saying that it's not interpreted and it's lost opportunities. Equally,
[49:39] Speaker 2: there's not good techniques or we don't have yet really
[49:43] Speaker 2: robust techniques for consolidating or what's called sort of consolidating
[49:48] Speaker 2: is all right, we're consolidating down that data intermeaning so
[49:52] Speaker 2: what does all this data actually mean for me? For you?
[49:56] Speaker 2: And so that for example, I am all of my
[50:00] Speaker 2: blood test results, maybe some monitoring from my smart devices,
[50:04] Speaker 2: the schedule that I'm running, how much sleep I'm getting.
[50:08] Speaker 2: All of these data points aren't necessarily getting synthesized well
[50:13] Speaker 2: into an overall picture. I know there's new apps and
[50:16] Speaker 2: so on that people do use, but they're quite I
[50:19] Speaker 2: don't want to be too critical here, but really they
[50:22] Speaker 2: could be so much more. And I think we're under
[50:26] Speaker 2: utilizing technology.
[50:28] Speaker 1: And relative to the amount of data it's available correct.
[50:31] Speaker 2: And I think that if we're looking seriously at optimizing
[50:35] Speaker 2: how we're living, we should be far more embracing technology
[50:40] Speaker 2: to perform that consolidation task. As a GP, it's almost
[50:45] Speaker 2: impossible for me to consolidate all of that data and
[50:49] Speaker 2: user clinically, so it needs to be automated. I often
[50:54] Speaker 2: default back to traditional methods that I was trained in,
[50:59] Speaker 2: pre AI and pre big data, which is all last
[51:02] Speaker 2: fifteen years. I tend to devoult back to those sort
[51:06] Speaker 2: of traditional ways of practicing medicine, and the patients like
[51:11] Speaker 2: it better and it's quicker and it's better. So we
[51:13] Speaker 2: still haven't bridged the gap between data and efficient clinical
[51:17] Speaker 2: practice quite yet. There is a lot If you are
[51:20] Speaker 2: my patient now, there is a lot of information that
[51:23] Speaker 2: I'm just picking up just looking at you and interacting
[51:26] Speaker 2: with you, that's never picked up in smart devices, that's
[51:30] Speaker 2: never picked up.
[51:31] Speaker 1: And would you record that?
[51:32] Speaker 2: It's impossible to record. We record it in our narrative,
[51:35] Speaker 2: we recorded in our impressions in our clinical notes, but
[51:38] Speaker 2: it's very imperfect. It's a huge amount of data that
[51:44] Speaker 2: I'm looking at right now, even looking at you Mark here.
[51:47] Speaker 2: That so for me, I might say, you know, Mark,
[51:50] Speaker 2: you're well. You know, Mark's well dressed, well spoken today
[51:53] Speaker 2: that rules in and rules out many different things. And
[51:56] Speaker 2: that code, that very simple code as a consolidated code
[52:00] Speaker 2: in my medical record, actually has so much meaning. Does
[52:04] Speaker 2: ruling ruling rule out a I really can't do that
[52:08] Speaker 2: yet reliably.
[52:09] Speaker 1: Do you think that at some stages then, from a
[52:11] Speaker 1: practitioners point of view, that there will be some some
[52:14] Speaker 1: format or some sort of protocol where the AI will
[52:19] Speaker 1: be instructured by you, but you'll be listening to the
[52:22] Speaker 1: conversation between you and I as patient doctor, and that
[52:25] Speaker 1: the AI will know how David Heslop thinks, his sort
[52:30] Speaker 1: of processes, the sort of things he looks for, and
[52:33] Speaker 1: that it might even be videoed and it could be
[52:36] Speaker 1: picking up how I respond my hand movements. You might
[52:40] Speaker 1: be looking at my eyes, you know how I'm with
[52:43] Speaker 1: the eyes of flicking or and off flickering, whatever the
[52:45] Speaker 1: case may be, or whether I'm stuttering or not pronouncing
[52:47] Speaker 1: my words properly. Do you think there will be a
[52:50] Speaker 1: stage where I'll be sitting in a doctor's surgery or
[52:53] Speaker 1: not a surgery, like his consulting rooms or her consulting rooms,
[52:57] Speaker 1: and there will be video like a camera like we
[52:59] Speaker 1: have here that'll be recorded for voice, and it'll be
[53:02] Speaker 1: looking at all my movements, and a I'll be saying
[53:05] Speaker 1: to will write up as summary as instructed by David Heslop.
[53:10] Speaker 1: A David hes Slop would have built his own medical agent.
[53:13] Speaker 2: Yes, that's a good question, and I'll just you've got
[53:17] Speaker 2: there one thing. I'll comment and then I'll answer that
[53:19] Speaker 2: question because it's a good question. You didn't know you answered,
[53:22] Speaker 2: you asked a question, but you did. But I'll firstly
[53:25] Speaker 2: say yes eventually, so the AI doesn't necessary AI or
[53:31] Speaker 2: machine learning tools that we have won't necessarily be looking
[53:34] Speaker 2: at the same things I am. So what I call
[53:37] Speaker 2: reading your body language, interpreting how you're dressed, how you're speaking,
[53:40] Speaker 2: stresses on your tonality and many many different and then
[53:45] Speaker 2: a whole lot of cultural overlay. So I'm familiar with
[53:48] Speaker 2: you as a fellow Australian living in Sydney. There's a
[53:52] Speaker 2: lot of context that is overlaid on what you're bringing
[53:56] Speaker 2: to the clinical sort of interaction, all of them, those
[54:00] Speaker 2: things I'm interpreting in my way as a human, whereas
[54:03] Speaker 2: an AI attached to a video camera, for example, would
[54:08] Speaker 2: be looking at different data.
[54:10] Speaker 1: But jigt instructed to do that.
[54:11] Speaker 2: Yes, but I'm just saying, yes, that's absolutely right. But
[54:14] Speaker 2: what I'm saying is that data is actually substantially different.
[54:18] Speaker 2: And I would say, in the end, the AA will
[54:20] Speaker 2: have access to so much more nuanced information than I
[54:23] Speaker 2: ever can actually perceive that it's probably going to be accurate,
[54:27] Speaker 2: more accurate than me on a few things. But how
[54:29] Speaker 2: I would interact with that AI would be rather I
[54:32] Speaker 2: would hope that medicine, rather than just moving over to saying, hey,
[54:36] Speaker 2: the AI is going to diagnose me or summarize me.
[54:40] Speaker 2: It is, yes, it can do that, but it would
[54:43] Speaker 2: be doctor Heslop, have you considered this this. I can
[54:48] Speaker 2: see that there's a possibility of this. Have you considered
[54:51] Speaker 2: that that sort of trusted, sort of wingman model I
[54:56] Speaker 2: think is the most valid, sort of helpful because until
[55:00] Speaker 2: AIS are able to take legal responsibility for the consult,
[55:04] Speaker 2: it has to be a trusted wingman the AI. Everything
[55:09] Speaker 2: that the AI does I have to check. So we
[55:12] Speaker 2: have clinical notes software at the moment where I can
[55:15] Speaker 2: take automated notes if I choose to. I don't, but
[55:18] Speaker 2: some do. Everything has to be read because I am
[55:22] Speaker 2: responsible for my clinical consult legally, but I'm also responsible
[55:27] Speaker 2: ethically for it as well. So yes, AI is coming
[55:31] Speaker 2: to medicine, but in my view, it's a trusted co
[55:35] Speaker 2: wingman that helps me with my consult. It's not yes,
[55:39] Speaker 2: replacing me in the consult. So that's one thing. How
[55:43] Speaker 2: that's done ethically but also safely from a privacy perspective,
[55:47] Speaker 2: Is that's an issue? Is that the second one you're at?
[55:49] Speaker 2: That's the question I'm interpreting if you're asking me sort
[55:52] Speaker 2: of how will that work in practices? I think that
[55:56] Speaker 2: there's a change coming in AI. So at the moment
[55:59] Speaker 2: we use AI providers online. Imagine if I uploaded your
[56:06] Speaker 2: medical records to chat DOBT or to anthropic or to
[56:10] Speaker 2: claude or another tool to copilot. Imagine if I uploaded
[56:15] Speaker 2: your medical records, that would be immediately a breach of
[56:20] Speaker 2: the Privacy Act. I cannot do that unless and unless
[56:25] Speaker 2: the companies absolutely guarantee that the data would be handled
[56:29] Speaker 2: in a particular way, and it's not yet at that point. Really,
[56:35] Speaker 2: the alternative is you run AI on premises, and I
[56:39] Speaker 2: think that's what's coming. When you talk about democratization, I
[56:42] Speaker 2: think we're going to have like we used to have
[56:46] Speaker 2: with personal computers.
[56:47] Speaker 1: So decentralize the AI problem.
[56:50] Speaker 2: Our AIS will be actually powerful enough to give us
[56:54] Speaker 2: service in our own practice, in our own practices. When
[57:00] Speaker 2: you say you'll have an AI, which is when I
[57:03] Speaker 2: say the wingman, Yes, my trained wingman, my wingman that's
[57:07] Speaker 2: learnt me. He's like a friend. He's a friend that
[57:11] Speaker 2: actually helps me with things. And he wouldn't be as
[57:15] Speaker 2: friendly to someone else because he wouldn't be as useful.
[57:18] Speaker 2: He knows my ins and outs. That's what I think
[57:20] Speaker 2: is coming.
[57:21] Speaker 1: Interesting because I know that because I know one organization
[57:24] Speaker 1: who sort of has done this. It's called Harris and AI.
[57:27] Speaker 1: They do it the better half a while, and they
[57:31] Speaker 1: they use they're a provider of AI. The use of
[57:36] Speaker 1: AI too specialists, radiologists in particular, who you might order
[57:42] Speaker 1: an MRI on my chest or was only you wouldn't
[57:45] Speaker 1: You probably get a seat too much chess, But you
[57:46] Speaker 1: might order an MRI in some part of me pat
[57:49] Speaker 1: patsmal prostate just to see what the shape and all
[57:51] Speaker 1: that looks like. And what Harris and AI does is
[57:55] Speaker 1: it actually assists the radiologists in the diagnosis. It looks
[58:00] Speaker 1: of what the radiologist says, may ask some questions but
[58:04] Speaker 1: also may make some suggestions and all the radiologists can
[58:07] Speaker 1: look at that. But Harris and AI has said in
[58:08] Speaker 1: relation to that prostrate MRI and sort of run a
[58:13] Speaker 1: reasonless check over it and maybe take some thinging out
[58:17] Speaker 1: of it or add something to it. But that seems
[58:19] Speaker 1: to be that type of thing seems to be working,
[58:21] Speaker 1: I think. But the thing it's only available for some specialists.
[58:23] Speaker 1: I don't know if everybody use it at the moment.
[58:25] Speaker 1: That's an Australian initiative been around a couple of years now.
[58:28] Speaker 1: The guys from Harris and AI run by medical run
[58:33] Speaker 1: by or founded by a medical practitioner. Because I get
[58:37] Speaker 1: quite excited by the prospects of AI, because we all
[58:42] Speaker 1: want to answers straight away, like Unfortunately, the world that
[58:47] Speaker 1: we live in with smart devices has trained us to
[58:52] Speaker 1: get answers immediately and to get more answers than we'd
[58:56] Speaker 1: ordinarily get in the whether it's from our lawyer, from
[58:59] Speaker 1: our accountant, from medical practitioner that we deal with, whatever
[59:04] Speaker 1: the case may be, nutritionness, whoever it is. And we
[59:09] Speaker 1: have this tension now between speed to answer, speed to
[59:14] Speaker 1: data relative to thoroughness and risk aversion, and it's an
[59:24] Speaker 1: interesting tension to watch over the next period. It's going
[59:27] Speaker 1: to be very interesting to watch how this pans out.
[59:29] Speaker 1: And no doubt that it'll overshoot in either direction, in
[59:33] Speaker 1: a over shoot in favor of AI and then overshoot
[59:36] Speaker 1: and favor regulation or more for the medical practitioners or
[59:39] Speaker 1: for the protect the patient and overshoot the other way
[59:41] Speaker 1: to just and soon or later, well you know, we'll
[59:44] Speaker 1: hopefully it finds this right levels. They all everything, all
[59:47] Speaker 1: these things find the right levels. But in terms of
[59:51] Speaker 1: our longevity prospects, do you think generally speaking, we're not
[59:57] Speaker 1: at the moment, but we will live longer. What do
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: you think? I mean, you look at these things. Epidemiology wise,
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: I think segments of the population will live much longer.
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: Obviously the people with more money. I think that's it
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: takes more money to do. That is the.
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: Probably barring other things, like you know, some parts of
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: the world, no matter how wealthy you are, are just
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: not associated with health, you know, and air quality for example,
[1:00:28] Speaker 2: just you can't escape it and everyone's subjected to it.
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: But outside of that, yes, I think you're right. I
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: think I think, you know, beyond a certain level of income,
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: I think that there's above that, you know, you're pretty
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: much guaranteed, barring sort of sort of other factors, to
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: have a much longer life than the rest of humanity.
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: It's a sort of bit unfair. There's a thing in
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: Australia and I'll finish off, and the thing in Australia
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: we use. It's this global concept, but it's an economic concept.
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: It's called it GENI coefficients GI and I, and it
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: says it's a coalficient. It's a mathematical formula measures the
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: difference between rich and poor. And you know, I wonder
[1:01:10] Speaker 1: whether or not in measuring the it's a bit like
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: trying to, you know, measure the economy some countries measure happiness.
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: I just wonder in our gene colficient calculation or in
[1:01:21] Speaker 1: the actually in the formula, that we should be looking
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: at people's ability to access medical technology to live a longer,
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: better life in the genical fisher because only the wealthy
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: people will be able to do it.
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: Well, I think that will become the extent of living stuff. Yeah,
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: I think that will become more and more relevant. There
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: are some downsides of limiting much longer as well that
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: perhaps we haven't touched on, but they're worth just mentioning. Yeah, yeah,
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: so you look out only until relatively recently. It's sort
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: of the turnover of the population occurred approximately at the
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: sort of sixty seventy eight year age group, and what
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: would happen is is assets and well for to flow
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: down to the younger age groups generally speaking, and if
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: you're living much longer, that doesn't happen.
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: Or does but at a later date.
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: At a later date, but it's also then diluted across
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: a much more different structure. So presuming that your children
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: then go on to have their own children who go
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: into their own children, potentially you could be a great
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: great great grandfather or grandmother, very old, still living with
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: control over all of the wealth that you've accumulating, and
[1:02:32] Speaker 2: that I think is a different, substantially different economic and
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: wealth transfer system than we perhaps contemplated.
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: We're already starting to see that now, we are starting
[1:02:44] Speaker 1: to see that.
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: Indeed, I agree, and I don't think we're ready for
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: it yet.
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's happening, and you're right, we're not ready
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: for it, and it's not being probably managed. I mean,
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: I got a view and bet if you're going to
[1:02:55] Speaker 1: get wounded by the producer a little bit, and I'm
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: going to view that. When Paul Keating first proposed the
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: compulsory superinnuation back in nineteen ninety three or four, whenever,
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: it was bravely and courageously. What might add that the
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: modeling that they did was based on a couple of assumptions.
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: The first assumptions that you retire sixty five. Second thing
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: assumptions you die at eighty males. The third is that
[1:03:26] Speaker 1: when you die, the money that you've accumulated and your
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: super from the time you started saving from let's assume
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: age of twenty working age, that there would be no
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: more money left because you would have had you would
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: have had just enough, given the returns on your super
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: over that period of time, enough you will have enough
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: money to live between sixty five age of retirement of
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: the age of death. Because these are mathematical formulas. If
[1:03:52] Speaker 1: we start living to ninety and we're still retiring sixty five,
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: there's ten years unfunded. That's a problem for the majority.
[1:04:01] Speaker 2: My understanding is that the top ten percent that's different
[1:04:04] Speaker 2: actually don't bite into that superin it keeps growing.
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's different tomen on average on average, So there
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: is another fairness argument that either we're going to we
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: have to now allow people to live long, to work
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: longer beyond sixty five, or part time work and get
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: the full pension without being affecting the pension. Because right now,
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: if you work past six, if we don't get the pension,
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: but you pay tax all your life, so you probably
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: should be entitled to get the pension. There's a number
[1:04:33] Speaker 1: of policy type issues sitting around all this, and by
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: the way, if you don't if the governments don't address this,
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: then they're going to disadvantage the poorer part of the population,
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: and unfortunately is not being addressed at this stage. Hopefully
[1:04:48] Speaker 1: we'll get addressed I don't think it's going to be
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: up in this budget coming up, but hopefully we get
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: one down the track. David, as usual, has been intriguing
[1:04:59] Speaker 1: to talk talk to you about your areas of expertise.
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: I appreciate everything you do. I mean, I really thank
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: you for all the interventions where you've been asked to
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: call in, have been called in to help out people
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: in terms of building protocols and making things happen, and
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: to some extent you've been a bit of a pioneer
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: in relation to that. I'm sure there's lots of colleagues
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: that have been able to help you, and that's true. Encourage you,
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: but yeah, it was a team effort. But nonetheless, some
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: of the things you did that I've that I've been
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: involved and have been fantastic and have actually helped the country,
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: particularly during the COVID period.
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: I appreciate it, mate, Thanks for having me

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