-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Around 61 per cent of people prefer to buy medicines online, a survey has showed, highlighting a major change in consumer trend, even as the battle between offline and online chemists has intensified. Over 8 lakh chemists recently threatened to go on indefinite strike if the government failed to regulate online sales. The survey, conducted by Consumer Online Foundation and market research firm BRIEF (Bureau of...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The government has banned three popular medicines-the widely prescribed anti-diabetes drug pioglitazone, painkiller analgin and anti-depressant deanxit-in the wake of health risks associated with them. While it's believed that pioglitazone can cause heart failure and increases the risk of bladder cancer, analgin has been discarded the world over on grounds of patient safety. Deanxit, on the other hand is a harmful combination, which has been long...

-The Hindu Drugs Controller must be told of adverse events within 24 hours Under sharp criticism for inadequate monitoring of clinical trials in the country, the Union Government is contemplating major changes in the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940, and its Rules. These would make it mandatory for the Investigator to report all serious adverse events, including deaths, to the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI), as well as the sponsor and...

-Down to Earth Move comes a year after WHO said the test leads to misdiagnosis The Union health ministry has banned blood tests to detect tuberculosis while terming these tests useless. The ban came into effect on June 7, almost a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an advisory to countries to stop conducting these tests for TB. The international body said in July 2011 that these tests give inaccurate...

Questionable drug trials on mentally challenged persons by doctors in Indore emphasise the need for strict enforcement of medical ethics. IN what appears to be a page out of Robin Cook's medical thriller, government and private doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reportedly carried out clinical trials of various medicines on some 233 patients who had gone to them seeking psychiatric treatment. As in Cook's famous book Coma, in which a medical...