-PTI   India could prevent over nine million deaths due to cardiovascular disease over the next decade if it implements smoking bans and levy higher tobacco taxes, a new study has found. Smoke-free laws and increased tobacco taxes would yield substantial and rapid health benefits by averting future cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths, researchers said. "Smoke-free legislation has not been consistently implemented, one in three adults reported being exposed to smoking at work in 2009...

-The Telegraph The proliferation and sales of anti-diabetes combination pills that contain two Drugs to control blood sugar has stirred concerns in medical circles that a large proportion of diabetes patients in India are not receiving ideal treatment. A study by Indian and British researchers has shown that such two-drug combo pills accounted for more than half of the sales of all oral anti-diabetes medications in India last year, although doctors say...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: After the UK drug regulator, the Australian drug regulator has also said that the Drugs marketed by Ranbaxy Labs are safe. "At present, there is no evidence that any of the products in the Australian market manufactured by Ranbaxy are of an unacceptable quality or that there is a danger to consumers in Australia," a spokesperson for the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) told ET. The Australian...

-The Hindu That India, the pharmacy of the South, should find itself on the brink of a major TB-drug stock-out is at once shocking and shameful. The fact that an antiquated drug-procurement system and incompetent and irresponsible government departments - which dragged their feet for more than two long years to procure the Drugs - could have brought us to such a situation tells us how dangerously poised the national...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In yet another twist to the Ranbaxy scandal, the drug regulatory authority of the UK government has issued a statement clarifying that they have found no evidence of any Ranbaxy product in the UK market having been "of unacceptable quality". Last month, WHO had issued a similar statement. It had said that there was no evidence of any of the Ranbaxy products being of unacceptable...