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. …
The Gulf War has long since been over. Yet its repercussions are found even today; specifically in the health of those soldiers who took part in it. But while these symptoms of ill-health have manifested several years ago, it is only now that the US government and more recently a …
The objective of the study is to study the relationship of hemoglobin to exposure to motor vehicle exhaust. http://tih.sagepub.com/content/12/5/629.abstract
agriculture can be a highly disease and accident-prone proposition. A large number of acute and traumatic injuries and deaths are caused by accidents involving farm machinery. Farm equipment also impart chronic injuries upon workers which include noise-induced hearing loss and vibration associated ailments of the back. Agrichemicals pose a risk …
'SIT straight. Keep your elbows close to your body.' How often one has been admonished and hated it all along. But this is what was suggested by experts who met at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. If you are consistently using your hands for your …
Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) frequencies were deter mined in peripheral lymphocytes from traffic policemen drawn from various busy traffic points of Madras metro in India. These policemen were under constant exposure to automobile exhaust pollution during their 8 h work schedule. Analysis of SCE frequencies revealed a sig nificantly greater …
Female nurses having irregular working hours for more than six years, are upto 70 per cent more prone to heart attacks than their male counterparts. This was revealed by Ichiro Kawachi and his colleagues at the Harvard Medical School, USA. Researchers attribute the hazards of this profession to the stress-related …
An us7owned vanadi'u'm mine in Vametco in tfie North West province seems to be doing a repeat of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Inhabitants of the villages of Mothutlung which has a population of around 12,000, and Rankhotea which has a population of about 2,000, have called for an open debate …
The glamour of the profession apart, airline crew face a heightened risk of cancer. Researchers of the Finnish Cancer Registry conducted a study of the extent to which airline staff were exposed to cosmic radiation and the consequent risk of cancer harboured by them (British Medical journal, Vol 311, No …
Workers exposed to hazardous chemicals at work often use protective clothing to prevent skin contamination. But they still run the risk of exposure (Spectrum, September- October, 1995). To assess the effectiveness of the protective clothing, a group of occupational hygienists at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Britain developed a …
The story of Chinchurgheria, a village in West Bengal, is a chilling expose of the apathy of businesspersons, the government and politicians. In 1986, the people of Chinchurgheria and a few neighbouring villages joined a new stonecrushing unit. Within 2 years, villagers working as labourers started suffering from silicosis. With …
The first-ever comprehensive study on the agarias, salt workers in Gujarat's Rann of Kutch, reveals their serious occupational health problems. They show symptoms of slowly turning numb from the feet upwards. The culprit is the way the salt is produced: the agarias dip their salt in the brine and scrape …
Industrial workers need sell only their skills, not their health. A landmark Supreme Court verdict says that the right to occupational health falls within the meaning of Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to live with dignity. The ruling by a three-judge bench came in response to …
The Supreme Court has directed all industries involved in mining or producing asbestos to create adequate healthcare mechanisms for diagnoses and treatment of workers engaged in these units. The industries have been asked to maintain a health record of every worker upto a period of 40 years from the beginning …
A British chemical company, Thor Holdings, has been hauled up to the London High Court by 2 workers in South Africa suffering from severe mercury poisoning, and by the family of a man who died from exposure to the metal. It is on the mat for alleged negligence in allowing …
THE Love Canal study in New York forced the then American president, Jimmy Carter, to declare an emergency in the vicinity and cleared the way for relocating about 2,500 residents. The study revealed that there was a significant excess in the incidence of low birth weight among new-born infants from …
TRAFFIC cops in Ahmedabad run risk of cancer; Silicosis among refractory plant workers in Orissa; Radiation hazards haunt Geological Survey of India; Asthma in Rajasthan -- Ever wondered what runs common in these headlines? A close look will reveal the theme running through them -- the identification of a group …
IN A case unprecedented in the annals of medical science, 10 workers in a Nasik paint factory became infertile due to exposure to some chemicals used in the manufacturing process. The workers, between 22 and 24 years of age, first complained of sterility in September last year. When this was …
SILICOSIS -- an incurable lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica, a component of dust -- has debilitated several workers in cement and brick factories and sandstone mines in the country, recent research reveals. In its later stages, the disease can lead to respiratory or cardiac failure. The finding …
Can the high pollution levels in Delhi lead a person to commit suicide? A 40-year-old deputy secretary in the ministry of rural development, L Balachandra, had committed suicide at his Pragati Vihar residence in the Capital on March 29. Police suspect Balachandra was driven to this by the exposure to …
The multinational Hindustan Lever Ltd. (HLL) is facing the music from its employees for allegedly, issuing boots containing carcinogenic materials. In a legal notice served in January this year, employees of the Bombay unit of HLL demanded Rs 9 lakh as compensation to all workers who developed serious skin problems …
