Nine To Noon for Friday 4 February 2022

 

 

09:05 SOS: Save our soils for fruit and veg

There are urgent calls to prevent our increasingly scarce and prized growing land going forever, under concrete and asphalt. Just 15% of New Zealand's land is highly productive premium food production land.  Most of it is on the fringes of our cities. Over the past 20 years, 54% of premium food production land has been lost to urban sprawl, with a almost third of all new developments being built on land potentially available for agriculture during this period. Our horticulture sector is awaiting the imminent National Policy Statement to provide more certainty to fruit and vegetable growers who are being increasingly hemmed in and crowded out.   Kathryn is joined by Horticulture NZ Environment Manager Michelle Sands and Richard Gaddum, who heads lobby group Save Our Plains.

09:30 A more effective alternative to saline IV fluid in ICU?

ICU specialist Professor Paul Young says it's time to rethink the well-established use of saline intravenous fluids for critically ill patients in hospital. He says extensive research shows an alternative therapy, called balanced crystalloids, saves more lives than saline. Saline has been widely used in medicine for the last 200 years, but has not undergone the rigorous testing applied to new drugs. ICU and emergency doctors have long debated the relative benefits of saline versus balanced crystalloids; a salt-based solution with an electrolyte composition that mimics plasma. Professor Young says the results of new research by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand is the final piece of the puzzle, and when combined with data from other clinical trials, shows that for acutely unwell patients, using balanced crystalloids rather than saline, saves lives. The results of the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is expected change clinical practice in intensive care settings worldwide. Kathryn speaks with Professor Paul Young, who is the deputy director at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand and the leader of the study.

09:45 Asia correspondent Ed White

Ed talks to Kathryn about the somewhat muted start to the year of the tiger in China with Xi Jinping continuing with his zero-Covid policy as the rest of the world tries to get life somewhat back to normal. And the crisis in Ukraine looms large on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, including a summit later today between Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi. 

Ed White is a correspondent with the Financial Times.

 

10:05 The addiction psychiatrist who overcame his own alcoholism

Dr Carl Erik Fisher is a addiction psychiatrist, who has written a nuanced portrait of addiction drawing on his own recovery from alcoholism. Dr Fisher is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University. His new book The Urge: Our History of Addiction is part memoir, part history and contends that the complexity of the condition has been overlooked and ignored over generations. Carl Erik Fisher was a young medical graduate when his alcohol addiction took hold and he ended up spending time in a psychiatric ward in New York - ironically where he had interviewed for a residency just years before.

10:35 Book Review - Holly Walker's top 3 for 2021

Holly Walker reviews three of her favourite reads from 2021: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark published by Jonathan Cape; See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control, and Domestic Abuse by Jess Hill published by Black Inc and Skinny Dip: Poetry edited by Susan Paris and Kate De Goldi published by MUP

 

10:45 The Reading

11:05 Music reviewer Jeremy Taylor

The glacial melancholy of Floating Points with Pharoah Sanders, Elvis Costello's rocking 32nd album, offbeat instrumentals from David Long, and a demo set from PJ Harvey.

11:30 Some Westport residents ordered to evacuate as rains set to intensify

Civil Defence has ordered a partial compulsory evacation of Westport as rain is expected to intensify. Buller District Mayor Jamie Cleine has just spoken to media in Westport. RNZ reporter Samantha Gee was there.

11:30 Sports commentator Dana Johannsen

The Winter Olympics officially get underway tonight, with controversy over the IOC selecting China as host being criticised as being tacit endorsement of the country's human rights abuses. Will we see any political demonstrations from athletes? And on  the action front, NZ goes into the Games in the rare position of being medal favourites in certain events, with 2018 heroes Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous chasing history once more. NZ has never won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics - will this be the Games?

Dana Johannsen is Stuff's National Correspondent specialising in sport. 
 

11:45 The week that was

Comedians Te Radar and Donna Brookbanks with the brawl that erupted in a Philadelphia eatery over a steak.