Tuberculosis re-emerges as a major threat as new drug-resistant strains develop because of mismanagement of the disease. At the beginning of the year, doctors at Mumbai’s P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre reported that they had 12 patients infected with TDR-TB, or totally drug-resistant tuberculosis, a condition in which the TB bacilli is resistant to all first- and second-line drugs used in the conventional treatment of the disease. Panic...

-The Indian Express The government will be analysing mortality figures during drug trials in India following WHO data showing that 2,031 people died between 2008 and 2011 in such trials in the country. That amounts to about 10 people per week, or more than one person a day. At the same time, the data shows that only 1.5 per cent of clinical trials held across the world so far (2,770 of 1,76,641)...

-Down to Earth   Punjab has been in the grip of cancer for over a decade but the government has ignored the threat.  It all started with a knot in her left breast. Within no time it grew to the size of a tennis ball. In pain, 40-year-old Raj Rani went to the doctor in her village in Punjab’s Ferozepur district. Finding no relief, she started doing the rounds of government hospitals in...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

Only 22 compensated in four years, admits drugs controller during RTI hearing As many as 2,031 people in India have died because of the clinical drug trials they were subjected to in the past four years. Only 22 of them have been compensated. What's more, no action has been taken so far against any pharma company, ethics committee that oversees clinical trials or contract research organisation that conducts the trials, which...