Cancer screening error

A BOWEL cancer screening error affected 12,500 more people than earlier revealed, with 30 of them developing cancer. The Health Ministry said in February a technical glitch involving a pilot screening programme at Waitemata District Health Board meant 2500 people missed out on screening. It said three people developed the killer cancer as a result and one died. But new details released today show about 15,000 Waitemata residents missed out – including the original 2500. Ministry officials said initial analysis showed that more than 30 of those people got bowel cancer. Jane O’Hallahan, the Ministry’s National Screening Unit clinical director, said they had clearly failed some people “and for that we are sorry”. She emphasized the problems only related to Waitemata residents and the pilot, not the national rollout of screening now under way. Russian hackers suspected Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is checking whether New Zealand has been hit by a fresh wave of global cyber attacks, she says. The United States, Britain and Australia have said hackers backed by the Russian government infected computer routers around the world. Speaking in Berlin, Ardern said she was awaiting advice from the New Zealand intelligence agency, GCSB. GCSB director-general Andrew Hampton said in the agency’s annual report in November that 122 local incidents, about a third of the 396 serious incidents recorded by the GCSB’s National Cyber Security Centre, had “indicators of connection to foreign intelligence agencies”. He said Russian state-sponsored hackers were behind some of those incidents. “New Zealand is not immune to the threat of espionage by foreign states or to foreign efforts to interfere with the normal functioning of government or the rights of New Zealanders,” the report said.