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 …
In response to the threat posed by multinational companies to the Himalayan yew (Taxus baccata), which yields the anti-cancer drug taxol, the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has launched a conservation programme for the tree. Having depleted yew resources in the US, drug manufacturers have now turned to …
HOUSEHOLD electrical appliances may be convenient, but exposure to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) they generate may not be safe. In fact, such EMFs and those generated by power transmission lines, radars and satellite equipment can even cause cancer, say scientists citing experimental results. But other scientists are not convinced and …
LED BY giants Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco, the US tobacco industry has sued the environmental protection agency (EPA), claiming its report on passive smoking -- the inhalation of exhaled cigarette smoke -- was unscientific and arbitrary. The EPA report, published in January, classified exhaled tobacco smoke in the most-serious …
THE US patent and trademark office last December issued patents for three transgenic animals, which are animals that have been implanted with genes at an early developmental stage. The only previous animal patent issued was four-and-a-half years ago for the Harvard onco-mouse, into which cancer-causing genes had been introduced. Animal …
YOU DON'T have to be a smoker or tobacco chewer to be at risk of cancer from tobacco. Just handling large amounts of raw or processed tobacco can lead to changes in human cells, which give rise to uncontrolled cancerous growths. Rajani Bhisey and her team at Bombay's Cancer Research …
NEXT TIME you liberally smear suntan lotion on your body and linger too long in the sun, beware: Sunscreens are not sunproof, say scientists. According to US epidemiologists Cedric and Frank Garland, though the lavish use of sun lotions blocks out the most damaging sun rays and prevents sunburn, it …
SCIENTISTS have found that the ability of certain rats to reject a tumour can be transferred to other rats using a simple technique that could one day be used to enhance human resistance to cancers. Ashok Khar of Hyderabad's Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) discovered a certain type …
FOR CHEMIST Andrea Stierle, it was like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. She was scouring the ancient cedar forests in Montana, USA, for a fungus that produces a compound called taxol, which is used to treat ovarian cancer. And find it she did, though she herself had …
PERHAPS one of the worst fears a woman harbours is that of getting breast cancer, a justifiable fear for, in USA alone, 46,000 women die every year of breast cancer -- and, this rate is increasing by 1 per cent annually. Despite the vast amounts of time and money pumped …
TRADITIONALLY associated with young lovers and new life, spring may soon become a time of worry because new data shows winter depletion of the protective ozone layer over Antarctica begins much earlier than was believed. The data also shows ozone levels over the Northern Hemisphere are falling rapidly. Both findings …
TIBETAN emigres accuse China of seeking to build a nuclear reactor near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital; of dumping nuclear waste on the Tibetan plateau, and of setting up sites there for missiles aimed at India. The US-based International Campaign for Tibet adds forced prison labour is being used to build …
GIVEN Doordarshan's current preoccupation with movies for entertainment, it seems to have cheerfully tossed science and environment programmes out through the window. Nothing notable has been shown on the small screen in recent months except for a film on the Narmada dam, already reviewed in this column. Fortunately, Star Plus …
THOUGH reports linking brain, cancer to the use of mobile phones pushed down shares of US Cellular telephone companies, Japanese firms remain mostly unaffected. Tokyo stock market analysts explain this is because the Japanese have been inoculated by earlier reports of radioactive cellular phones. Says Edward Staiano of Motorola, the …
MORE than 70 new chemicals are registered every hour in the US alone. The public - battered and bemused by daily press reports about the dangers of smoking, pesticides, pollution and food additives - looks to scientists to pronounce on the safety of this rising chemical tide. But the scientists …
A REVOLUTION is taking place in medical immunology with the discovery of a method to produce monoclonal antibodies, which offer a powerful and less toxic treatment for diverse diseases, from cancer to rheumatoid arthritis, than most available drugs (British Medical Journal, Vol 340, Nos 6864-6). In the mid-1970s, a group …
SCIENTISTS at Cambridge University's Department of Pathology have found an effective way of treating patients with long-standing rheumatoid arthritis, using "humanised monoclonal antibodies". Produced from animal cells, monoclonal antibodies are designed to order and can kill unwanted cells. Mainly used to treat cancer, these antibodies are now being used to …
When 35-year-old Jayamma was brought to the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology ((KMIO) in Bangalore for advanced cervical cancer treatment, little did she anticipate the nightmare that lay in store for her. Jayamma was selected for Brachy therapy, in which sources of radiation are kept inside the affected part of …
SCIENTISTS say a vaccine for human lung cancers may be ready soon, allowing a therapeutic cure for the disease. Lung cancer is characterised by an abnormal production of hormones, particularly the human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). Malignancy is indicated by high lev els of HCG and successful surgery in lung cancer …
THE HIGH incidence of bone cancer and leukaemia in western Rajasthan has led doctors to advocate studies be carried out to ascertain whether the 1974 Pokharan nuclear test is responsible in any way. A retrospective study of malignancy frequency in the region, conducted by R G Sharma and his associates …
Environment minister David Maclean has delayed British Nuclear Fuel's (BNF) commissioning of the L1.8 billion Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) at Sellafield until a L50 million treatment plant is set up to neutralise emissions of Krypton 85, a radioactive gas. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have warned local residents …
