In today's  news:

CAIRNS GP Dr Dion Dewar managed to sneak in to Burma with 20kg of emergency relief after Cyclone Nargis, the Cairns Post reports. After caring for victims the doctor was welcomed by the Myanmar General Practitioner Society. (link)

A PERTUSSIS outbreak in northern NSW is being blamed on low immunisation rates in the region, says the Northern Star. The local director of public health says peretussis rates are three times higher than last year, with the 6-9 age group worst affected. (link)

THE Australian reports on a radical new plan buy the Rudd government that would see elderly patients with dementia or Alzheimer's electronically monitored with devices implanted in their wristwatch or ankle bracelet. (link)

AFTER two years without a doctor, the south-west Queensland town of Cunnamulla may soon have a full time GP again with a doctor from South Africa applying for the post, says the ABC (link)

THE NT gets the “dirty ashtray award from the AMA for its abysmal efforts in smoking cessation, reports the ABC (link)

IT'S not teenagers but their fathers who are the nation's heaviest drinkers, new Roy Morgan research has found, prompting the Australian to suggest the findings represent another challenge to the Government's alcopops tax. (link)

THE Adelaide Advertiser reports on a new study showing more than 20 per cent of female HSC students have severe depression and suffer from stress, while 30 per cent show symptoms of acute anxiety. (link)

AUSTRALIA will lose the battle of the bulge if authorities focus on using lapband surgery to trim down the obese rather than measures that stop people getting fat in the first place, experts have warned in today’s Age. (link)

TODAY’S Daily Telegraph reports the popular television show All Saints is facing legal action after insinuating children with Down syndrome stem from incest. (link) 

ACCORDING to the Courier Mail, a national report has found nurses, teachers and paramedics cannot afford to buy houses in the areas they serve in because they are so underpaid (link).

HUNDREDS of students at Griffith University on the Gold Coast are being tested for tuberculosis after someone on campus was diagnosed with the disease, reports the Courier Mail (link).

SOME areas that appear to have enough doctors are under-serviced because the medical practitioners only work part time in the area where they have a provider number, says The Gold Coast Daily (link)