32nd International Medical Advisory Group Conference

Canberra, Australia—October 17–20, 2004

Canberra, Australia was the host city for the 32nd IMAG conference, which was organized by the Australian Associated Brewers (AAB) and attended by well over a hundred delegates from nine countries. Dr. Timothy Cooper of Coopers Brewery Ltd. provided the official welcome and the opening address was given by Professor John Horvath, Chief Medical Officer for the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. Professor Horvath gave an overview of issues related to alcohol consumption in Australia, including problem areas such as youth and indigenous peoples, medical and media attention to the subject, and the need for effective education and cooperation between Government and Industry groups.

The remainder of the conference program featured six topical sessions that covered a wide-ranging area. The first session — on Policy And Public Health — included four talks and was chaired by Dr. Ross Kalucy, chairman of the AAB Medical Advisory Group. Dr. Mike MacAvoy, Chief Executive Officer of the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC), gave the first talk “Government Regulation and Corporate Responsibility: The Perils of Mixing Science and Politics with Alcohol.” The next three talks were by Professor Rob Moodie, Chief Executive Officer of the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation; Professor Rick McLean, president of the Adult Medicine Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; and Professor Ian Johnston, director of the Monash University Accident Research Centre. Respectively, these presentations dealt with prevention initiatives designed to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, alcohol policy issues within clinical medicine, and the overall approach to drinking and driving in Australia.

The second topical session featured five talks that focused on neuroscience, and was chaired by Professor Jim McLeod, Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney. First, Professor Frederick Mendelsohn, director of the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine at the University of Melbourne gave an overview of recent advances in neuroscience, especially those concerning neurodegenerative disorders, and related some of these advances to the effects of alcohol on the brain. Next, Dr. Izuru Matsumoto from the Department of Pathology at the University of Sydney discussed possible mechanisms of neuronal damage from excessive alcohol use, particularly that leading to over-stimulation of the NMDA receptor.  The following two presentations — by Associate Professor Iain McGregor, director of the Psychopharmacology Laboratory at the University of Sydney, and Professor Bevyn Jarrott of the Howard Florey Institute—examined both the underlying neuroscience of alcohol craving and the drugs that can potentially reduce craving. Finally, a talk by Dr. Peter Wilce, senior lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Queensland outlined neurogenetic differences between alcoholics and nonalcoholics.

“Alcohol and the Young” was the subject of the third topical session, which was chaired by Professor Richard Smallwood of the AAB Medical Advisory Group. Professor Glenn Bowes, Stevenson Professor and head of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne gave the introductory presentation, “The Health of Young Australians: Time for Action,” which outlined the results of a longitudinal study of juvenile health issues and touched on the need for secure programs to address the issues at hand. The three subsequent talks discussed the pathways that lead to youth substance use behavior and interventions that might be effective with adolescents, and were presented by Professor Jake M. Najmar, director of the Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre; Dr. George Patton, director of Adolescent Health Research at the Royal Children’s Hospital of Melbourne; and Professor John Condon, director of the Department of Psychiatry at the Repatriation General Hospital of South Australia. The session concluded with a panel discussion of a hypothetical situation regarding the consequences of youth alcohol consumption, and touched on the subjects of controlled environments, cultural issues and liability.

ABMRF president, Dr. Mack C. Mitchell, Jr., chaired the fourth session on Special Populations, in which three speakers presented information about their work in this area. First, Professor Ernest Hunter, regional psychiatrist with Queensland Health, outlined some results of a longitudinal study of alcohol use in the Aboriginal population. Next, Dr. Carol Bower, Senior Principal Research Fellow in the Division of Population Sciences at the Telethon Institute for Child, talked about alcohol use during pregnancy in Australia. Finally, Professor Gary Andrews, director of the Centre for Ageing Studies at Flinders University discussed alcohol use by the elderly. Each of these presentations provided interesting insights regarding alcohol consumption among each group, and highlighted both the disparities and the overlap between these particular populations, as regards alcohol and its effects.

The fifth session — entitled “Special Topics” — featured three presentations, and was chaired by Dr. Timothy Cooper, managing director of Coopers Brewery. Professor John Saunders of the Centre for Drug and Alcohol Studies at the University of Queensland gave the first talk, which reviewed available treatments for alcohol dependence, as well as their effectiveness. Next, Dr. Dallas English, a cancer epidemiologist at the Cancer Council Victoria, spoke about the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study. In particular, he examined various data from this large study regarding alcohol consumption patterns and various disease risk. The last talk of the session was given by Professor Geoffrey Donnan, director of the National Stroke Research Institute, who provided a review of scientific evidence related to alcohol consumption and stroke risk.

The final session addressed the topic “Alcohol and Nutrition” with two presentations. Associate Professor Cliff Tasman-Jones of the Beer Wine and Spirits Council of New Zealand spoke first about the effects of alcohol on metabolism in the context of diet and other lifestyle influences. Then, Professor Oliver James, head of the School of Clinical Medical Sciences at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, discussed a constellation of factors called the metabolic syndrome and the effect that alcohol consumption patterns can have on this syndrome.

After the scientific program had ended, Dr. Ross Kalucy provided some parting thoughts about the previous two days’ presentations. That evening, the delegates gathered at the Australian War Memorial, a national museum that commemorates the sacrifice of Australians in war, for a gala dinner and official closing of the conference.