-The Telegraph A children’s vaccine against a stomach infection has triggered controversy with some doctors claiming there is not enough data to show it is effective in India and accusing a leading drug company of using a misleading advertisement to promote the vaccine. GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK) has stopped the advertisement for the vaccine intended to protect children from potentially life-threatening rotavirus infections after the advertising industry’s self-regulating body upheld a doctor’s complaint...

-The Times of India A once-a-week medicine for diabetics — a disease that affects nearly 63 million Indians — could soon become a reality. Studies on diabetes have seen a global upsurge, with the latest data showing that bio-pharmaceutical research companies across the globe are busy developing 221 innovative new medicines. The drugs, which will help around 347 million patients include new therapies that target key abnormalities of pancreatic cells, increase insulin secretion...

-The Times of India PARIS: The world's most effective vaccine candidate against dengue is all set for trials in India and if all goes to plan, the vaccine will be available globally by 2015. The vaccine will be tested on 120-odd adults in the beginning, the results of which should be available by 2013. Thereafter, a largescale study on children — the main target group — will be undertaken. In an exclusive interview,...

-Frontline There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.  JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS, or JE, has become endemic in many parts of the country, occurring repeatedly in epidemic form in many of them—for instance, in parts of Gorakhpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. One can expect JE-type epidemics year after year in States where prolonged drought-like conditions are followed by heavy monsoons. This leads to...

-Mainstream Weekly Dr Binayak Sen, an internationally renowned medical practitioner and social activist (a leading figure in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties), was incarcerated in Chhattisgarh and held in detention in Raipur having been branded as a Maoist for his activities in defence of poor tribals in the State. He is now out on bail. The following is the text of the Arvind Narayan Das Memorial Lecture he delivered in...