Corporal lab - Clinical trials sustain Ahmedabad’s Riot Victims

Clinical trials sustain Ahmedabad’s riot victims

When her husband took chronically ill after communal riots drove them to Juhapura, a ghetto on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, poverty made life seem unmanageable. Free will then became a matter of Rs 8,000 for 40-year-old Zainab Bi. For a sum like that she was willing to swallow an unknown pill once in three months. It wasn’t much they were asking for really, so she gladly gave her thumb impression on the dotted line.

For companies researching new drugs the thumb impression was proof that Bi submitted herself to the experiment of her own free will. It was far more expensive to have such proof in countries where the multinational drug companies that sponsored the research had their headquarters. They were far more cumbersome, involved lengthy documentation and rigorous insurance plans. Clinical research organizations (cros) made the task far easier for these companies by carrying out their research in the ghettoes of India’s big cities. Drug trial was far less daunting; and inexpensive. People were more than willing to offer their bodies for bio-chemical experimentation. The official guidelines warned against monetary inducement. Continue reading »

[Research] Arsenic linked to diabetes

Even in low and moderate levels, the element is harmful

High inorganic arsenic exposure to diabetes has been established earlier by studies in Bangladesh, Taiwan and Mexico. But the effect of low and moderate levels of arsenic was unknown. A study in the US has found that inorganic arsenic, even at low levels, may cause diabetes. Found in mineral deposits in rocks and soil, arsenic leaches into groundwater, which when supplied for drinking, can be harmful, say researchers of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.

The researchers studied data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 2003-04 for 788 adults. They found that individuals with diabetes had higher levels of inorganic arsenic compared to those without diabetes. Apart from contaminated drinking water, flour and rice can also contain small quantities of inorganic arsenic, if grown or cooked in areas with arsenic contaminated soil or water.

The study says that 8 per cent of the public water supply system in the US may exceed arsenic levels of 10 micrograms per litre, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for arsenic concentration in drinking water.

“Estimated daily dietary intake of inorganic arsenic in the US ranges from 8.4-14 micrograms per day for various age groups,”

said the study published in the August 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

This study predicts a grim future for India where arsenic poisoning is spreading to new areas. India is also called the diabetes capital of the world. However, one problem with the study is that the direct linkage between arsenic exposure and diabetes has not been explored.

“This is a cross-sectional study. Two observations have been made on the basis of data available. Only the association can be claimed, not the causality. The two things may happen together, but it’s not necessary that one causes the other. Further studies need to be carried out,”

said Nikhil Tandon, professor in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, AIIMS, Delhi.

Shashank R Joshi, endocrinologist at Lilawati Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai, says,

“Arsenic related diabetes would form a very small percentage of the total diabetes in the country which is high, due to susceptible genes, bad diet and lack of exercise.”

15 Rules Of Life In Delhi

Today I got this interesting mail from one of my friends with 15 Rules about Living Life in Delhi.
Delhi is known for its multi-ethnic culture. Anyone can survive in Delhi by hard or easy way.

1. The Other Side Law:
   If my side of the road has a traffic jam, then I can start driving on
   the wrong side of the road, and all incoming cars will be rerouted via
   Meerut.
2. The Queue Nahin Rule:
   If there is a queue of many people, no one will notice me sneaking
   into the front as long as I am looking the other way.
3. The Mind Over Matter Law:
   If a red light is not working, four cars from different directions can
   easily pass through one another.
4. The Auto Axiom:
   If I indicate which way I am going to turn my auto rickshaw, it is an
   information security leak.
5. The In Spit Of Thing:
   The more I lean out of my car or

Continue reading »

Ten Difficult Ways to Save the Environment

So here is a list of 10 difficult (easy with practice) steps that you could learn and follow to make the environment green and friendly.

1. Take a bus and leave your car home. Don’t ever drive an SUV (sports utility vehicle). Say no to diesel cars.
2. Junk bottled water. Demand clean water for all.
   Insist water-free and as a right which is entitled to everyone but be ready to pay more if you use more.
3. Use less water, to discharge sewage.Think of the poluted river,every time you flush.
   Insist your colony recycles its waste-water, even reuses it after treatment.
4. Demand justice for both tiger and poor tribal people who coexist in the habitat
5. To make your beautiful home green, harvest rain, use water saving toilets, segregate garbage and compost kitchen waste.
   Use CFL bulbs and solar hot water heaters.
6. Impose economic sanctions against US for rogue climate behaviour .
7. Do not use any product which uses plastic to pack food or other stuff. This will put pressure on manufacturers to make recyclable packaging.
8. Levy a global “greenwash service” tax on Corporates. Make them fully liable for products that damage the environment today or tomorrow.
9. Do not first adopt wasteful and environmentally bad habits and then become GREEN. Think of the last parson. Do not first buy processed food and then ask for organic and home made food. Do not firs eat junk food and then go on a diet. Enjoy biodiversity in food and lifestyle. Boo MCDonalds.
10. Use less of everything that you use in your daily life.Not greed of some, but need of all is the only way ahead.

This post is dedicated to world environment day 2008
Download the copy of this article in pdf here.

Double Standards

While the Agarias wage a constant struggle with the forest department, the government has allegedly turned a blind eye to pollution by two soda ash-making units run by major industrial groups. At Mithapur in Jamnagar district’s Okha taluka there are charges of pollution against a salt-and-soda ash unit run by Tata Chemicals Limited (tcl).

The Dalmiya group-operated Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Limited (ghcl) unit in Junagadh district’s Sutrapada taluka faces more serious allegations: it has refused to comply with a high court order for more than a year, after violating salt lease conditions for about 20 years.

This is the cover story on salt in Down to Earth magazine that I talked about.
Here is the link to it.

http://www.downtoearth.org.in/

Its about how Conservation has become a ruse to evict Agarias, but so far as allegations of widespread pollution and environment destruction against big companies is concerned, authorities have chosen not to be strict. Local communities face a dual threat: they are dispossessed in the name of conservation and then large companies destroy farms forcing them to migrate.

Biometric Data to keep tap on Beggars

At the end of a daylong futile search for job, Mohammad Javed made his way to a temple in Old Delhi’s Meena Bazaar in the hope of getting some prasad. Little did he suspect a ‘raiding squad’ swooping down on him and bundling him off to Sewa Kuteer, a beggars’ home at Kingsway Camp. “I do not beg. I came here to work. But when there is no work we go to the temple to take the prasad. And if somebody gives a little money I don’t mind taking it, but I don’t ask for it,’ pleads the 26-year-old, who ran away from home in Sultanganj, Patna, six years ago. Javed will probably escape punishment for ‘begging’ this time but his data has been entered into a biometric identification system, which means he has been tagged a beggar by the government for the rest of his life.

At Kingsway Camp an experiment is under way. Delhi’s Department of Social Welfare (DSW) has installed a biometric machine at its classification centre there. It records the picture, fingerprint and the height of the person brought there by the department’s raiding squads, besides his/her address, begging history and health record. The system is part of a grand plan to rid the city of beggars by the 2010 Commonwealth Games. “We have increased the pace of raids. In 2005, we caught 1,000, while the number went up by 475 in 2006. In 2007, we apprehended 2,533; target is 5,000,’ says a DSW official. Continue reading »

Culprit Iron in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s - Cause

The cause of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases has long intrigued scientists. Researchers of University of Warwick and IIT, Kanpur, zeroed in on a protein, the malfunctioning of which, they say, could be a possible cause for the diseases.

The study noted that transferring, a protein that transports iron from the blood to the brain, may not be doing its job well. That may lead to exposure of other cells to iron, and their subsequent degeneration and the diseases. The protein binds iron on to its surface. It then curls around the iron and seals it. This prevents the iron from getting exposed to other cells till it reaches its destination organ—the brain.

In the experiment, transferring was placed on an open surface and observed over a period of time.

“We simulated conditions for ageing so that the existing molecules interacted with each other. We found the molecules self-assembled into fibres and iron that was earlier wrapped inside the protein started settling in bands along the length of the fibre,’

Continue reading »

Bring back the Cadaver - Organ Donation

“I understand it is not easy for the living to donate a kidney; but then why is the government not encouraging transplants from cadavers,’ asks esrd patient Nozeer H Canteenwala. This aspect of the problem has been obscured in the media spotlight over illegal organ trade. Most doctors believe that cadaver organ transplants hold the key to change.

“When the organ trade act came into effect in 1994, the focus was on banning trade in human organs and setting up of a system for cadaver donations. After the Amit Kumar expose, the media has been concentrating on illegal organ trade. But what about a control mechanism?’

asks Rana of the Indian Society of Nephrologists. Continue reading »