-The Hindu   Bill aims at making ethical committees looking into trials ‘robust' A legislation to monitor the entire research on human bodies by a single authority is likely to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, according to V.M. Katoch, Secretary, Department of Health Research. The Bill will seek to make the ethical committees, presently looking into clinical trials on human beings, ‘robust' by constituting a monitoring mechanism over them. It was felt...

-The Hindu   The inordinate delay on the part of the Congress-led UPA government in enacting laws to prevent sexual assault on women is taking a heavy toll and exposing them to various forms of violence, Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member and MP Brinda Karat said. Ms. Karat was here to participate in the 12th State conference of the All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) which concluded on Wednesday. Later,...

-The Times of India   Do not drink your bottle gourd ('lauki' in Hindi, and 'sorakaya' in Telugu) juice if it tastes bitter, it could kill you. This recommendation comes after some investigation by an experts' committee. The death of 59-year-old scientist, Sushil Kumar Saxena, a deputy secretary in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in New Delhi in June 2010, spurred an investigation into the effects of the consumption of...

A World Health Organisation agency evaluates electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones for carcinogenicity. THERE has been a dramatic increase in the use of the mobile phone worldwide since its introduction in the mid-1980s. According to the estimate of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), currently there are about five billion mobile phone subscribers globally. In the past decade or so, there has been growing concern about the possibility of adverse health effects,...

-The Hindu   Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat on Thursday demanded action against those responsible for allowing clinical trials of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat without following the guidelines and ethics. Speaking at a seminar organised by the All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) here on “Cervical Cancer Vaccine — Consequences” the CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member said the poor in the country were...