WEBVTT - Will Australia's tanning culture ever change? 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:05.200 Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:06.920 Oh, now it makes sense. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.560 Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday, 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:19.480 the first of March. 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.520 I'm Zara, I'm Sam. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:27.520 Tanning represents your skin cells in trauma. The fact the 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:32.040 skin is going darker means your skin is putting up 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:32.640 a defense. 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.040 That's the message. This year's Joint Australian of the Year, 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.000 Professor Georgina Long, wants you to know. She's a cancer 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.400 doctor and was part of a medical breakthrough that transformed 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.680 the way that we treat melanoma. While she's been focused 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.240 on treating patients that have advanced skin cancer, she's very 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.720 clear on what she thinks needs to change messaging about 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.200 tanning culture. In today's Deep Dive, I chat to the 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.680 incredible twenty twenty four Australian of the Year her work 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.480 in the melanoma field, as well as how her medical 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.080 breakthrough is now being used to treat her best friend 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.600 and co Australian of the Year recipient, Professor Richard Scollier. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:12.960 Before we get to that chat, Sam, it's making headlines. 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.760 There are calls for the identity of a former Australian 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.880 politician who the ASIO boss says worked for a foreign 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.840 spy group. ASIO Director General Mike Burgess said the unnamed 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.800 person quote sold out their country party and former colleagues 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.600 by agreeing to share knowledge from inside parliament in exchange 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.440 for payments. All we know is that they are a 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:39.600 former politician. 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:44.840 In Canberra, Australia and the Philippines have reached a new 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.960 deal aimed at protecting joint security interests in the Asia Pacific. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:54.160 Speaking in Canberra, Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Junior said protecting 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.160 the South China Sea was important for the preservation of 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.720 regional peace. The countries have agreed to an new maritime 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.480 defense and cyber safety partnership. However, Green Senator Janet Rice 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.040 pushed back on the president's address, accusing the Philippines leader 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.200 of corruption and human rights abuses. 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.200 Donald Trump's name may not appear on the US state 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.800 of Illinois's presidential ballot at its upcoming Republican primaries. On 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.360 March nineteen, a judge ruled to disqualify Trump as a 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.440 presidential nominee in the state over his involvement in the 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.080 January sixth attacks on Washington, DC. A spokesperson for Trump's 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.920 campaign however, said the former president will appeal the ruling immediately. 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.160 And the good news the Queensland state government is investing 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.960 eighteen million dollars in funding for endometriosis and pelvic pain programs. 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.880 Minister for Health and Women Shannon Fenterman, hopes the funding 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.720 will improve the state's health system, which she said has 0:02:52.720 --> 0:03:01.280 seen women and girls dismissed and misdiagnosed. Georgina Long is 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.360 nothing short of remarkable. She's the comedical director of the 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:09.560 Melanoma Institute Australia and this year she was named Australian 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.240 of the Year alongside her friend and colleague, Professor Richard Scolia. 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.440 Together with their teams, the pair have transformed the field 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.239 of melanoma research and treatment and are responsible for saving 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:25.040 thousands of lives here in Australia. Both are clear in 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.799 their messaging more needs to be done to prevent melanoma 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.400 and that starts with reshaping how we talk about tanning 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.840 in this country. A quick thing before we get into 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.360 this chat, as I said. The Australian of the Year 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:42.480 award was jointly awarded to both Georgina and Richard. Richard 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.240 was actually diagnosed with incurable brain cancer last year, and 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.440 now Georgina is treating him with the same breakthrough medicine 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.720 that changed the melanoma field forever. This chat you're about 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.640 to hear is about her melanoma research, her hopes for 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.960 the future, and what it's like to treat your best friend. 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.960 Without further ado, here's Professor Georgina Long. Professor Long, thank 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.000 you so much for joining us on the daily ours. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.080 Thank you Zara for having me here. 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.560 I want to start with a bit about your work. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.320 Can you just tell me a bit about the work 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.120 you've done in the area of melanoma cancer specifically. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.080 I'm a medical oncologist, so I treat cancer with drug therapy. 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.520 If you think of your immune system, your immune system 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.120 is responsible for keeping the nasties away. You don't want 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.240 your immune system to tack your own tissue, your good tissue, 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.599 your organs, but you want it to attack all the 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.320 nasties like viruses in bacteria and keep you healthy. So 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:42.599 we try to get a person's own immune system to 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.400 kill the melanoma cancer cells. The drugs we use activate 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.600 the immune system in a very specific way to kill 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:55.000 cancer cells. So melanoma cancer was the first cancer to 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:59.880 actually show that the modern immunotherapy's work, and I was 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.160 part of that development of those drugs. 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.840 I am part of a generation that heard slip stop slap. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.200 You know, we heard that tanning kills. Why do you 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.320 think that we are still having this conversation now? Why 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.360 do you think that messaging hasn't cut through yet? 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:22.520 Tanning's massive problem. I think we have not educated our 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.479 population well enough about the risks of the sun. We've 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.200 also got to remember that the great campaign of the 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.120 eighties slip stop slap, only really went for a decade, 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:38.040 and that has not been rejuvenated or done again in 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.279 a modern way. So we now have a whole bunch 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.159 of teenagers and twenty year olds and even early thirty 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.479 year old who did not learn about how dangerous sun 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.039 can be. Yeah, they had no hat, no play, but 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:58.120 actually understanding the damage that UV or the sun can 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.880 do and the risks is really not at the level 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:01.560 it needs to be. 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.560 I wonder how much it comes up against these beauty 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.720 standards that we have definitely perpetuated on social media. But 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.760 there is this standard that we think that tan skin 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:18.839 is something beautiful, something desirable. How does any marketing slogan 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.919 or anything come up against that sort of standard. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.000 It's a big mountain, but it can be done by 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:30.159 using the very tool that created it. So we've got 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:32.640 to use social media and we've got to just set 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:36.239 a new standard. I mean, a great example is fashion. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.520 I'm old enough now to have seen jeans up high 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.480 under the breast, slowed down almost. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.359 The loose jeans five years ago. That would not have 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:46.720 been a thing exactly. 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.360 All of these things are fashion and changeable. And that's 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:52.960 what we can do with tanning. We did it with smoking, 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.640 we do it with seat belts. In this country, we 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:57.440 can do this. 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.640 We're speaking here about social media. You are now speaking 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.880 to half a million young people. What is your message 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:06.560 to the people watching this on the. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:12.800 Daily os Tanning represents your skin cells in trauma. The 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:18.000 fact the skin is going darker means your skin is putting. 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.960 Up a defense when the skin is getting darker. Scientifically, 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:21.760 what is happening. 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.320 So in the layers of our skin, we have these 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:31.320 cells called melanocytes. When the sun or UV hits our skin, 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.840 those melanocytes are triggered to produce a pigment called melanin. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:42.480 That production of melanin is your skin saying I'm under trauma. 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:44.280 I need an armor. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.800 The mistake that we make is that when your skin's 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.760 making that armor, which is going a bit darker, is 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.480 that that's healthy and then will protect us further. But 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.160 it does not protect you from skin cancer. The fairer 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.760 your skin is the higher risk. But I have a 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.120 lot of brown eyed, brown haired people who think they 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.600 have olive skin in my clinic. 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.360 And it's not just older people who you're seeing right. 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.680 I believe that this is something that is also disproportionately 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:16.000 affecting young people. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.800 Every thirty minutes and Australian is diagnosed with a melanoma. 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.480 Every six hours, somebody dies of melanoma. It used to 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.480 be every four to five hours. We've changed that to 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.559 every six hours by the drug therapies I mentioned before. 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:39.320 Young people disproportionately are impacted by melanoma in Australia. Twenty 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.400 to thirty nine year olds. Guess what the most common 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.080 cancer is melanoma. 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.319 You have set a very lofty ambition to bring down 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.520 those deaths to zero? How do you go about doing that? 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.640 We strategize on this with our faculty and we have 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.360 a full big picture view of melanoma. We think of 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.600 the full life cycle and you can do this for 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:07.200 any cancer actually, So number one, what causes melanoma? That's prevention. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:09.760 What can we do in that space? You and i've 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:14.760 just spoken about glamorization of tanning. Melanoma Institute Australia. Research 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:20.920 has proved that sun beds cause melanoma. It was that 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.960 research that got commercial sun beds banned in this country. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:29.360 We've been speaking there about melanoma. But you were jointly 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.320 awarded the Australian of the Year title with your colleague, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.520 and my understanding is also a very close friend, Professor 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.360 Richard Scollier, and you've been using the work that you've 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:42.480 done in the melanoma field to actually treat Richard who 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.400 was diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. Can you just talk 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:50.040 me through what your work in that field has looked 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:50.640 like to date. 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.240 You can imagine if you're being told you possibly have 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.280 a brain cancer and you're a doctor and you know 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.200 all about it, and you've looked at brain specimens many, many, 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.240 many times throughout whole career, as Richard has, and you 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.319 just know that this is going to be a bad one. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.480 You can imagine that you're just in a state of shock. 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.840 At that point and your colleagues and friends like me, 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:15.160 I was just grief stricken, literally howling with that physical pain. 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.800 You can't describe it until you've been through it. So 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.120 we were speaking before about immunotherapy, using your immune system 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.360 to kill cancer cells. When I get presented with someone 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.760 with a bad melanoma that's spread everywhere, and I know 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:30.680 when looking at the tissue, Richard will look at the 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.360 tissue and then we'll analyze the tissue with our lab 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:35.920 all the features that tell us this is going to 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:37.679 be a bad one and it's going to be hard 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.040 to get the immune system to recognize it and kill it. 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.720 What do I do then? What are the trials I've done? 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.880 And I just applied those principles to Richard's humor. It 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.319 was scary what I was suggesting. I had a lot 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.720 of experience with melanoma. Richard and I, together with our colleagues, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:01.400 had pioneered using immunotherapy first before you remove melanoma surgically, 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:03.920 and we'd show and that when you do that, you 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.400 actually train your immune system better. So if you leave 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.200 a lump of cancer and it's not a lot of 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:14.320 cancer for stage three melanomas, it's risky, risky melanoma. Normally 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.319 we'd cut it out and the five years ago you 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.840 just watch now we cut it out, give twelve months 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.079 of immuno. But what we did is started using combination 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:29.079 immuno early, just two doses, then cut it out. All 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.920 of a sudden, we were seeing these incredible cures, and 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.560 we were training the immune system better by giving the 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.120 immune therapy first and then cutting out. But even better, 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.680 you actually got to feed back to the patient in 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.000 the standard. If you cut a cancer out and they've 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.040 got no more cancer that you can see on scans, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.560 but you think it's probably there microscopically, but you can't 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.760 see it on scans, and then you mop it up 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.720 with drug therapy. You don't know that you're successful. You 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.440 only know you're unsuccessful. If it comes back right in 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.760 this way, you give two doses, you cut it out, 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.920 you actually see the response. And that's where Richard comes 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.760 in as a pathologist. He would then classify the response 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:13.320 and into four different groups complete, near, complete, partial, or 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.880 no response. I was enable to say to patients, hey, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.000 you've had a great response, you've had a major pathological response. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.880 Your cued basically your chance of it coming back is 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.560 way less than five percent, whereas before we started I 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.319 was telling you it was more than fifty percent. So 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.120 it really did multiple things. We train hmmune system better. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.240 Patients were doing better, but they actually got real time 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.959 feedback within six weeks of diagnosis, and they love it. 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.240 They love to know and if it's not successful, they 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.080 love to know that because knowledge is power. Oh, it 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.600 hasn't worked very well, let's change it up. You're going 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:49.360 to need radiotherapy. That's only a local treatment. It'll stop 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.800 it coming back in the place it was. But let's 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.320 also use a different drug therapy afterwards. So that's where 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.600 we've really pioneered the treatment and the paradigm. It really 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.000 shift the paradigm. So I applied that to Richard's tumor 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.760 when he got back to Poland and I suggested it 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:06.200 to him. 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.360 What did that conversation look like? 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.880 I mean, we cried together, so through tears, it's like, 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.440 why don't we try this? Why don't we try this treatment? 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.160 And Richard, I'm going to try and pick the drugs 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:18.720 I think that are going to be the best for 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:20.560 this tumor. I'm going to treat it like the worst 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.040 of the worst melanoma, and that's what I did. We 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.600 don't know yet how this will go long term for Richard. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.719 He's fine now, but the odds are against him. The 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.680 type Richard has, his survival is approximately fourteen months with 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.480 the current standard treatment, and that treatment has not changed 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:44.560 since two thousand and five. So when two cancer researchers 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.480 are presented with that and you've just made all these 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.920 changes in melanoma, you can't but help think, can't we 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.440 try something different? And that's why we came up with 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.120 going with drug first, imminotherapy, delay the surgery, and as 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.120 Richard said, people might focus on my survival, but it's 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.079 that data that's incredible. This is a foundation, yea. Even 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.480 if Richard doesn't survive, this is a founding thing to 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.200 build upon. You're not going to make a light bulb 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.320 by refining a candle. Don't keep doing what you did before. 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.600 You need to think completely differently, because even if these 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.240 people don't survive, we learn for the next bunch of people, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.920 and Australians love to make a difference. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:28.920 I think that's a beautiful note to end on. Thank 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.360 you so much for your time, Professor, long Thank you, Sarah. 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.520 Thanks for joining us. On the Daily Odds today. If 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.520 you want to support the work Georgina and the Melanoma 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:42.000 Institute Australia are doing, you can donate at Melanomamarch dot 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.640 org dot au. We're also going to throw that leak 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.240 from that to today's show notes and if you learn 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.120 something from today's episode, don't forget to hit follow. So 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.960 there's a TDA episode waiting for you every weekday morning. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.520 We'll be back again on Monday morning. Have a wonderful weekends, 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:58.920 stay safe and we'll speak soon. 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.120 My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.119 Bunjelung Kalkudin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.360 that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.000 Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.880 Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.680 first peoples of these countries, both past and present.