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Lindsay Clifford Mollison is a retired Consultant Physician in Gastroenterology and Infectious Diseases. He was the founding member of the Kakadu Action Group [1] [2] (KAG) that led a campaign to prevent mining in the Coronation Hill area of the Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Mollison was born at St George's Hospital in Kew, Victoria in 1956. His father was a professional wood turner and his mother a shop assistant.
He was educated at Auburn Central School (now Auburn Primary School [3] ) and then Melbourne High School (where he was a prefect in his senior years at both). He graduated from school in 1974 with General and Special Exhibition Prizes in the Higher School Certificate examinations.
He then attended the University of Melbourne from 1975 to 1981 graduating with MBBS in that year. He was active in various non academic roles at University including being editor of the journal Speculum, [4] and President of the Melbourne Medical School Students Association. [5]
His early working professional life was in the Northern Territory based at Royal Darwin Hospital with rotations into Arnhem Land and the regions around Kakadu. Later he returned to Melbourne where he qualified as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. It was during this period of studying that the mining threat to Kakadu became apparent and he began the KAG.
Subsequently he returned to the Northern Territory as a Consultant Physician for several years. In 1994 he moved with his family to Perth, Western Australia, to take up University Teaching Hospital posts.
In the late 1980s the Australian Government was considering allowing gold mining by BHP in the Kakadu National Park at a site known as Coronation Hill. [6]
Opposed to this plan was the Kakadu Action Group which met regularly in the Australian Conservation Foundation's offices in Glenferrie, Victoria. Australia. [7] It was brought together by Mollison to oppose the proposed mine. To achieve this the group also organised and participated in various public meetings. [8] [9] [10] It was being surveilled by the Australian Government with archives of its meetings still held secretly by the Government (due for release in 2026). [11]
Influential letters from Mollison were published in the "To The Editor" section of the Melbourne Age newspaper. The themes were to protect the wilderness of the entire park for present and future generations from any further encroachment by mining interests [12] and to recognise the links between these spaces and the Australian psyche. [13]
During his time working in the Northern Territory Mollison researched First Nations Health and contributed to knowledge about it. [14] In particular he discovered the importance of HTLV-I infection in central Australian First Nations people publishing the first reports of known disease associated with it in Australia [15] and finding new links to common diseases afflicting these people due to infection with it. [16] [17] His groundbreaking insights and research has led to major efforts to further understand this disease in Australia [18] [19] although to date his work seems to have been under recognised.
During his working life in Western Australia, particularly at Fremantle Hospital, he helped to bring international trials of novel Hepatitis C medications to Australia and the State. [20] [21] Many of the drugs he and his team worked on are now mainstays of day to day therapies offering cures to patients with Hepatitis C.
He established a private Gastroenterology Practice [22] and Hepatology Practice [23] which continue to provide medical advice and therapies to the people of Western Australia (WA).
During his time in WA he completed a MPH at UWA. His team organised several international conferences on Hepatitis (the Annual Indian Ocean Hepatitis Meeting) during the early 2000s
Mollison became a snow sports Instructor in 2011 and has taught in Italy and Australia and has taken holiday groups skiing in France, Switzerland and Italy. [24] He enjoys Bushwalking. He is a keen ocean swimmer and has achieved some ocean swimming milestones including the 20 km crossing of the Indian Ocean from Perth to Rottnest Island. [25] [26]
He has two adult children and numerous grandchildren.
Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Hepatitis is acute if it resolves within six months, and chronic if it lasts longer than six months. Acute hepatitis can resolve on its own, progress to chronic hepatitis, or (rarely) result in acute liver failure. Chronic hepatitis may progress to scarring of the liver (cirrhosis), liver failure, and liver cancer.
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tiredness. Other symptoms may include bone pain, chest pain, or itchiness. Some forms are slow-growing while others are fast-growing.
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection period, people often have mild or no symptoms. Early symptoms can include fever, dark urine, abdominal pain, and yellow tinged skin. The virus persists in the liver, becoming chronic, in about 70% of those initially infected. Early on, chronic infection typically has no symptoms. Over many years however, it often leads to liver disease and occasionally cirrhosis. In some cases, those with cirrhosis will develop serious complications such as liver failure, liver cancer, or dilated blood vessels in the esophagus and stomach.
Kakadu National Park is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km (106 mi) southeast of Darwin. It is a World Heritage Site. Kakadu is also gazetted as a locality, covering the same area as the national park, with 313 people recorded living there in the 2016 Australian census.
Hepatitis A is an infectious disease of the liver caused by Hepatovirus A (HAV); it is a type of viral hepatitis. Many cases have few or no symptoms, especially in the young. The time between infection and symptoms, in those who develop them, is 2–6 weeks. When symptoms occur, they typically last 8 weeks and may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, fever, and abdominal pain. Around 10–15% of people experience a recurrence of symptoms during the 6 months after the initial infection. Acute liver failure may rarely occur, with this being more common in the elderly.
Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 or human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV-I), also called the adult T-cell lymphoma virus type 1, is a retrovirus of the human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) family.
Baruch Samuel Blumberg, known as Barry Blumberg, was an American physician, geneticist, and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his work on the hepatitis B virus while an investigator at the NIH and at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. He was president of the American Philosophical Society from 2005 until his death.
Viral hepatitis is liver inflammation due to a viral infection. It may present in acute form as a recent infection with relatively rapid onset, or in chronic form, typically progressing from a long-lasting asymptomatic condition up to a decompensated hepatic disease and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Malvern ( ) is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Stonnington local government area. Malvern recorded a population of 9,929 at the 2021 census.
Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma is a rare cancer of the immune system's T-cells caused by human T cell leukemia/lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1). All ATL cells contain integrated HTLV-1 provirus further supporting that causal role of the virus in the cause of the neoplasm. A small amount of HTLV-1 individuals progress to develop ATL with a long latency period between infection and ATL development. ATL is categorized into 4 subtypes: acute, smoldering, lymphoma-type, chronic. Acute and Lymphoma-type are known to particularity be aggressive with poorer prognosis.
An oncovirus or oncogenic virus is a virus that can cause cancer. This term originated from studies of acutely transforming retroviruses in the 1950–60s, when the term "oncornaviruses" was used to denote their RNA virus origin. With the letters "RNA" removed, it now refers to any virus with a DNA or RNA genome causing cancer and is synonymous with "tumor virus" or "cancer virus". The vast majority of human and animal viruses do not cause cancer, probably because of longstanding co-evolution between the virus and its host. Oncoviruses have been important not only in epidemiology, but also in investigations of cell cycle control mechanisms such as the retinoblastoma protein.
This is a timeline of HIV/AIDS, including cases before 1980.
Kakadu National Park, located in the Northern Territory of Australia, possesses within its boundaries a number of large uranium deposits. The uranium is legally owned by the Australian Government, and is sold internationally, having a large effect on the Australian economy. The mining has been controversial, due to the widespread publicity regarding the potential danger of nuclear power and uranium mining, as well as because of objections by some Indigenous groups. This controversy is significant because it involves a number of important political issues in Australia: Native Title, the environment, and Federal-State-Territory relations.
Hepatitis B vaccine is a vaccine that prevents hepatitis B. The first dose is recommended within 24 hours of birth with either two or three more doses given after that. This includes those with poor immune function such as from HIV/AIDS and those born premature. It is also recommended that health-care workers be vaccinated. In healthy people, routine immunization results in more than 95% of people being protected.
Hepatitis B is an infectious disease caused by the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) that affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. It can cause both acute and chronic infection.
This is a timeline of Aboriginal history of Western Australia.
A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also referred to as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the older term venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, oral sex, or sometimes manual sex. STIs often do not initially cause symptoms, which results in a risk of passing the infection on to others. Symptoms and signs of STIs may include vaginal discharge, penile discharge, ulcers on or around the genitals, and pelvic pain. Some STIs can cause infertility.
El Sherana is an abandoned uranium mine in the South Alligator River Valley of the Northern Territory, Australia.
Duncan John Maskell, is a British and Australian biochemist, academic, and academic administrator, who specialises in molecular microbiology and bacterial infectious diseases. Since 2018, he has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Australia. He previously taught at the University of Cambridge, England.
Coronation Hill is a sandstone outcrop within Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia.
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