In India, a country with a vast population and a diverse socio-economic fabric, healthcare remains fraught with challenges including disparities in access. These socio-economic disparities are deep, and they influence health outcomes. It is imperative to bridge these gaps amid the ongoing epidemiological, nutritional and demographic transitions that are bringing …
CANCER chemotherapy is, even at the best of times, a pretty tricky business. Doctors are always walking the razor's edge, since the line between killing the tumour and killing the patient is extremely thin. That is because chemotherapeutic drugs targeted to kill the rogue cells first spread throughout the body, …
SIDE-EFFECTS: The France-based Roche Holding AC, has planned to withdraw its drug for high blood pressure, Posicor, as its interaction with other medicines is poor. Long term clinical trials have shown that Posicor is no more effective in treating congestive heart failure. Last year, company officials had warned that there …
Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes are the major causes of death in China today. According to a report published by the national health economics institute, more than US $12 billion will be spent on the treatment of these diseases. By 2000, the annual expenditure will cross …
calcutta's air is highly polluted with polyaromatic hydrocarbons (pahs) such as benzene, toluene and xylene (btx), which are carcinogenic. Levels of these pollutants in the ambient air have been assessed for the first time in an urban environment in India. The study was conducted by a team headed by Dipankar …
The European Commission (EC), the Brussels-based executive arm of the European Union (EU), backed away from imposing a Europe-wide ban on phthalates, potentially dangerous chemicals used in children's toys. Environmental groups allege that the EC bowed to pressure from the chemicals industry. In the decision taken on July 1, the …
linzhou , a tiny mountain province in China, has seen a lot of action lately. Here, in a nondescript red-brick health centre, next to a metalworking shop that could be perfectly at home in the Middle Ages, us and Chinese doctors operated recently on Chinese peasants with high-tech medical equipment …
cancer, the universally-dreaded disease, could soon be eradicated. In a recent development, scientists tested two new drugs they claim can cure laboratory mice injected with the disease. And if all goes well, the first cancer patient could be injected with these drugs well within a year. Some cancer experts say …
roentgen would have been proud if he was alive today to see how the x-ray, his invention, has become indispensable to the medical world. For more than half a century now, this invention has been helping medical practitioners administer better healthcare services to millions. And if the most crucial inventions …
There has been an alarming rise in cases of childhood cancers in the last two decades. According to reports in Environmental Health Perspectives and The Ecologist, this has been attributed to several environmental factors - prominent among them being the high levels of chemical pollutants in the environment. A number …
though the factors responsible for a woman's risk of breast cancer have been known to the doctors for years, there was little they could possibly do except issue warnings and suggest preventive measures to cut down the chances of aggravating the disease. However, there has been little consensus on what …
vehicular emission can pose some formidable health hazards. Everybody knows that. But only now, are scientists further cautioning that diesel fumes are perhaps more dangerous than what was previously thought. And according to a government draft report released recently by the Environmental Protection Agency ( epa ), usa, these fumes …
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will provide an assistance of US $ 4.4 crore for phasing out the use of 137 tonne of cholorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The ministry of environment and forests and the UNDP have recently signed an agreement in this regard. Under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the UNDP …
the crowds thronging Janpath, Delhi's premier shopping mall in Connaught Place, are blissfully unaware of the serious health risk due to the alarming level of cancer-causing benzene in the air. The new indicative data on benzene levels, available from an investigation done by a foreign scientist, is a rebuke to …
more than half of all tumour cells contain tiny extra chromosomes that encourage the cancer to grow. Now scientists may finally be able to find a way to obviate cells of the excess dna , using a technique that lets them watch these chromosomes at work in living cells. Called …
THE Spanish Conquistadors came to the New World in search of gold. They found tobacco instead, a cash crop which sold better than any other in history. It became a legal narcotic, the foundation of many a business empire. It also became a scourge let loose by the New World …
scientists in California have developed an anti-cancer drug. Researcher Harinder Grewal of the Arizona Cancer Center in Tuscan, usa , said that the new drug has so far been effective in treating cancers of the mouth and throat. He believes that it will work against liver cancer and recurring breast …
this is where physics meets medicine. The science of particle beams may be quite beyond the limits of medical science, but the two might soon collaborate, with results that may surprise many doctors (of medicine, that is). Two new research programmes in Europe have begun exploring down-to-earth uses for two …
the controversy has been raging ever since cellular telephones invaded our lives. These gadgets heat up your brain, meddle with your pacemakers and perhaps, cause cancer. And ever since these words of doom were uttered, scientists have been looking at the connection of these adverse health effects with the increasing …
a chance discovery that a stingy little invertebrate is not always what is seems will soon help in the development of a promising new anticancer drug. Researchers in California have discovered why some populations of Bugula neritina ( B neritina ), a marine fouling organism, produce the drug but others …
Sunscreens do not help prevent skin cancer. This startling revelation came recently at a science conference in Philadelphia, USA, where the widely-held belief that sunscreens lower the risk of deadly melanoma skin cancer was questioned. Sunscreens prevent sunburns, and since there is evidence that frequent burns, especially at an early …
