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February 18th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
INDIGENOUS children should be included in voluntary medical tests being conducted as part of a national health survey, a federal inquiry has heard.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) official were asked today during a senate estimates hearing about a decision to exclude Aboriginal children from the voluntary bio-medical testing element of the survey.
“I’m trying to understand why on earth you wouldn’t have seen getting in place the right processes so Aboriginal children could be included as a priority, given they are a closing the gap priority,” Liberal senator Sue Boyce said.
ABS statistician Paul Jelfs told the senate committee the exclusion was recommended by indigenous health experts.
“The money is not the issue, it’s statistical robustness,” Dr Jelfs said.
“If we don’t get good-quality information it’s almost worse than having no information.”
Dr Jelfs said indigenous health experts advised participation rates would be low and recommended building trust with the adult indigenous population first.
“If we only get a five per cent response rate the information is virtually useless,” he said.
The national survey, conducted every five years, involves 50,000 randomly selected adults and children across the country to give a snapshot of the health of Australians.
For this first time it will collect blood and urine samples on a voluntary basis to gauge chronic disease risk factors, such as high cholesterol and levels of nutrients such as iron or B vitamins.
The ABS is due to begin surveying 13,500 indigenous people in April 2012.
Dr Jelfs said indigenous adults would be able to participate in the voluntary medical testing part of the survey and the bureau aimed to extend that to indigenous children next time round in 2017.
Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Nigel Scullion disputed the expectation of poor participation rate expectations.
Senator Scullion said it was a “missed opportunity” to measure the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous children.
He referred to a prominent group of NT researchers who undertook health surveys on 539 indigenous kids between 1998-2001.
“Out of 539 only four didn’t given a blood sample,” Senator Scullion said.
“That’s less than one per cent, that said that’s not okay.”
Dr Jelfs dismissed that example, saying the sample size was small compared with what the ABS would need.
“We’re talking about trying to run a survey right across Australia across remote communities into urban parts of Australia and regional parts,” he said.
“We’re dealing with the logistics of getting a representative sample.”
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