Health

The ongoing battle of words between the health ministry and Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has taken yet another turn with Indian Medical Association (IMA) accusing Ramdev of misleading people about the cure of life-threatening diseases. According to IMA National President Ajay Kumar, people were dying at the Baba’s camps and were being administered ''wrong medicines'. ''People who do not belong to any of the four streams of medicine approved by the ... [full story]

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss is back again in another controversy as the battle of words between the health ministry and yoga guru Baba Ramdev hots up.. Anbumani, who has run anti-smoking and anti-cola campaigns like Ramdev, is at loggerheads with the guru on his claim that yoga can cure deadly diseases, saying the claim is not backed by proof. In response to the government’s notice, Ramdev ... [full story]

Caught on the back foot after an independent study conducted by NGO Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) confirmed presence of pesticide cocktail in 11 brands of soft drinks including giants Coca Cola and PepsiCo, the cola majors have decided to join hands to develop a scientific method to test pesticide residues in beverages and other products. The CSE’s report which came out originally in 2003 had led to a ... [full story]

A new study suggests that the methods used to estimate the number of people affected by HIV/AIDS in India are flawed. Which would make the staggering infection rate an overestimation. According to the latest estimates by the United Nations, roughly 5.7 million people in India are infected with HIV. However, a study in the British journal BMC Medicine contradicts the figure saying that the number of people with the infection ... [full story]

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and former US President Bill Clinton launched the first ever National Paediatric HIV/AIDS Initiative in New Delhi. Ten thousand children living with HIV/AIDS across the country are expected to benefit from the Initiative. Gandhi and Clinton toured Kalavati Saran Children's Hospital - the first centre to offer free anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for children and handed over a protocol booklet for administering the treatment to in-charge Dr A K ... [full story]

A Mumbai High Court ruled on Wednesday that it was not “compulsory” to get HIV tests done before marriage as the Indian society is not "technically equipped" to deal with the case. A division Bench of Chief Justice Harjit Singh Bedi and Justice V M Kanade said the court could not pass orders on the issue as it was not "technically equipped" to deal with the case. Disposing of a public ... [full story]

In the wake of saving nearly 80% on the cost of medical procedures, nearly 40 American corporations have signed a health plan which allows sending employees abroad, including to India, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. United Group Programs, a health insurer in Boca Raton, Florida, began offering the programme six moths ago. With medical costs skyrocketing in the United States where Americans spend an estimated 16 per cent of the GDP on healthcare and in ... [full story]

Startling the citizens with the number of people affected by chikungunya, the Central government on Monday said that the deaths in Kerala and other places might have happened due to the East African virus even as they put the suspected case figure at 1.3 million in the country.      "We are not ruling out chikungunya behind these deaths but we cannot give the actual death figures as we are still conducting investigations into ... [full story]

A US-based doctor Dr Kunal Saha who fought against the errant medicos in the Indian Medical system by filling the highest-ever case for medical negligence in a consumer court has requested President A P J Abdul Kalam and Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal to order an independent inquiry into possible collusion between the country's highest consumer court and the accused doctors. Saha's wife Anuradha died in May 1998 in ... [full story]

Just as the Delhi government refused to consider declaring Dengue outbreak as an epidemic, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's two grandsons Madhav and Rohan  have been diagnosed with dengue fever and undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).  So far eleven people including a resident doctor of AIIMS died in Delhi while there were reports that the disease was spreading to other states in North India but ... [full story]