Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
If nothing else, the incidence of plague in Himachal Pradesh served to focus attention on the entire gamut of disease management in the country. At the end of it, at least one message was clear
• The Supreme Court recently slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on the Union environment ministry for showing laxity in probing the disappearance of huge quantity of hazardous waste oil from major ports. • The Sikkim Forest Department arrested a person on charges of smuggling medicinal plants from Borong recently. …
the challenge faced in the control of infectious diseases such as hiv/aids, tb and malaria is now seen more as a political and communications one than scientific and medical. Medical and technical solutions to keep major contagions in check are now available. Yet, they remain major killers, says a recent …
What do you say when a Cabinet minister - an articulate and vocal one at that - refuses to appear on a television panel to discuss a serious public policy issue with you? Ram Naik, the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and I were invited by a private …
For just us $101 billion a year in medical research and treatments, 8,000,000 lives can be saved annually in the developing world. Moreover, us $186 billion a year in world income now lost to illness can be recovered. So concludes a report on economics and health published recently by the …
LIKE A FISH out of water, she chokes and gasps. Writhes. She struggles to snatch a lungful of air, while watching television she suddenly hits a vacuum. She is asthmatic. She is just about anybody. One of the 150 million that are reminded the hard way that life in today's …
WITH increasing patients and many of them in industrialised nations the market for asthma drugs is growing rapidly. It is the eighth largest selling drug market and possibly the most profitable venture for pharmaceutical companies, at par with profits made from cancer and heart diseases related drugs. In the absence …
exposure to environmental pollutants present in mothers' blood and breast milk can hinder the development of a baby's brain before and after birth, research shows. Gerhard Winneke and colleagues from Heinrich-Heine University, D
If it was Lucknow which mourned its dead children a few weeks ago, it is Guwahati which is a mute witness to its children literally dropping dead. And no one seems to care. Does life really have no value for us, especially those of our young. In Lucknow, several new-born …
Take a look around, if the roadside sign "stop pollution' is too hazy to read, it's because the government, indusry and the public are to blame. The government will not tax the polluting vehicles, the industry won't innovate and the public will not ask for its right to clean air. …
The 4th wto ministerial conference in Doha has granted that governments are free to take all necessary measures to protect public health. Simply put, governments can override patents without the threat of a backlash of large pharma multinationals. It is now upto governments to use these powers to bring down …
after a gap of 18 years the Union government has formulated a draft national health policy 2001, which fails to address the key issues of the national healthcare scenario. While the policy mentions several problems and inadequacies of the healthcare system, it hardly suggests any solutions. "Identifying problems is fine, …
Hundreds of people are suffering from a lethal form of dengue fever in Venezuela. According to officials, more than 24,364 cases of the disease have been reported this year
The Nepalese government has decided to regulate private medical centres all across the country to make health care system more transparent. "Through such measures the government wants to cut down the exorbitant fees charged by these private hospitals and make the health care system more affordable to the general public,' …
india's first public hearing on the effects of a nuclear installation in Kanchipuram near Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, on July 27, 2001, was a statement on how the country's nuclear establishment is run. The hearing was held for the controversial prototype fast breeder reactor ( pfbr ), which is to be …
It is a hellish accounting subsidising death for profit. Tobacco giant Philips Morris, as a messenger of death, has come out with the most outrageous revelation: deaths from smoking will help governments save healthcare costs by reducing the average life of a person by five years. In a report submitted …
health care facilities in India have declined considerably over the years, according to the Human Development Report 2001 of the United Nations . The report shows that the infant mortality rate in the country is as high as 70 per 1,000 births. Only 55 per cent children are immunised against …
the world's six leading publishers of medical journals have agreed to give researchers in developing countries online access to their publications free of cost or at greatly reduced prices. The agreement covers about 1,000 of the world's top 1,240 medical journals. The World Health Organisation ( who ) had urged …
The rash of leptospirosis cases in Mumbai during the current monsoon points towards the gradual breakdown of health services in burgeoning metropolises Another monsoon has crossed Mumbai coast and a second round of leptospirosis among other water-borne diseases has taken its toll. The epidemic has claimed around 40 lives so …
The Bush administration has taken the first step to settle the multi-billion dollar civil lawsuit against the tobacco industry, which many believe will let Big Tobacco off the hook. On June 20, attorney general John Ashcroft named a team of lawyers to explore the possibility of a settlement with the …
