Philip Morris International, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, is trying to force a British university to reveal details of its research involving thousands of children aged between 11 and 16 about their attitudes towards smoking and cigarette packaging. The demands from the tobacco company, made using the UK’s Freedom of …
TOY makers use phthalates to make plastic toys supple and chewy. But the chemical also happens to be very toxic and its use in the Indian toy industry remains unregulated. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has finally drafted standards for phthalates in toys and childcare products so that their …
EXPOSURE to organic pollutants can disrupt the formation of nervous system in a foetus. This in turn may lead to neural tube defects. The disease affects over 320,000 infants worldwide every year. Earlier studies have linked organic pollutants like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), from indoor coal stoves, smoking and vehicle …
Using cell phones to broadcast text messages reminding health workers in Kenya how to treat children’s malaria increased the number of cases handled correctly, a study has found. The study by researchers from Oxford and the Kenya Medical Research Institute was published in The Lancet. It involved 119 health workers …
CARBONATED drinks and junk food may soon be off the shelves of school and college canteens. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said this in a counter-affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court on July 18. Global bans • US passes bill in December 2010 banning junk …
A mystery fever is stalking children in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district. As many as 47 children succumbed to the disease by June 29. Seventy-nine others, admitted in the two government hospitals in the district, were either undergoing treatment or had been discharged after treatment. The disease has been around in Muzaffarpur …
HealthDirty truth If you stop your children from eating mud, read this. Craving for earth—geophagy—can be one of the natural ways to protect stomach against pathogens. After studying 480 reports and analysing theories that geophagy is driven by hunger and for nutrients in the soil like iron, zinc or calcium …
About a year ago, this magazine carried a story on how lethal toys could be. I was struck by a paragraph that described how children could be ingesting chemicals when chewing a toy meant for teething children. That scary feeling came back while reading What’s gotten into us? Staying healthy …
In January, about 300 people in the US suffered health problems from excessive consumption of energy drinks like Red Bull and Monster; most of them were children and teenagers, as per the American Association of Poison Control Centers. The association has recently started tracking the toxicity of energy drinks that …
CHILDREN and adolescents injected with a swine flu vaccine could be at an increased risk of a sleeping disorder, warned a study. Made by multinational pharma firm GlaxoSmithKline, Pandemrix vaccine was used in 47 countries, including India, during the swine flu outbreak in 2009-10. Finland’s National Institute for Health and …
Global climate change will have multiple effects on human health. Vulnerable populations—children, the elderly, and the poor—will be disproportionately affected. We reviewed projected impacts of climate change on children’s health, the pathways involved in these effects, and prevention strategies.
Ajay and Pooja Naik lament the day they took their child for a special vaccination programme. Soon after Yathartha’s birth last year, Ajay learned that a government hospital in Indore in Madhya Pradesh was offering vaccines against many diseases, including polio, H1N1 and hepatitis, for free. What he did not …
It was a cold January morning. As the mist cleared, groups of women could be seen wending their way to the aanganwadi (kindergarten) in Khitwans village in Lalitpur district’s Birdha block. The women were either pregnant or lactating mothers. Pramilla Jha, a counsellor for infant feeding, was waiting for them. …
It is logical for India to be one of the few countries to spend about two per cent of its gross domestic product on the social sector. After all it hosts the world’s largest number of poor. But it sounds illogical that nearly three-fourths of it is the cost of …
In 1990, McDonald’s threatened activists of a London-based ethical food group with libel suits. A pamphlet, What’s wrong with McDonald’s, had earned them the ire of the fast food biggie. Three of the activists from London Greenpeace—not to be confused with Greenpeace International, which distanced itself from the matter— apologised …
Measles remains an important cause of child mortality, although the numbers of measles-related deaths has decreased during the last decade through childhood immunisation programmes and follow-up measles vaccine campaigns. In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) launched a global plan to further reduce …
In response to calls for more direct measurements of pesticide residues in foods consumed by children, and to compare direct measures of pesticide residues in foods representing actual consumption with those reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program, Lu et al. measured pesticide residues in 239 24-hr …
EARLY as well as late sexual maturation harms adolescents. Early onset leads to increased risk of obesity, diabetes and cancer in reproductive organs, while late maturation diminishes bone strength. For many years, scientists blamed estrogen-mimicking chemicals for messing up girls, hormonal balance. These chemicals led to early puberty. Others like …
ALREADY battling with Japanese Encephalitis, eastern Uttar Pradesh is now under the grip of a mystery fever. Till September 16 this year, 277 children died in 12 districts of the region. The physicians and scientists remain clueless about the genesis of the disease. Though a surge in deaths between July …
