Positive, he brings smiles to other HIV-affected |  |
- Positive, he brings smiles to other HIV-affected
- Ensure Hepatitis-B vaccine in hospitals, Uttar Pradesh told
- British infertility clinic opens centre in Kerala
- Preserving a world favorite flavour
- India has world's highest number of still-births: Lancet
- Mount Sinai researchers present critical MS data at American Academy of Neurology meeting
- Free online tool aids decisions on fire sprinkler systems for homes
- New study identifies possible cause of salt-induced hypertension
- New global portal for cyber-physical systems research launched
- Older workers benefit from high-tech, high-touch health promotion
| Positive, he brings smiles to other HIV-affected Posted: 16 Apr 2011 11:15 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Maharajganj -, April 16 - When Dayanand Gupta, 30, tested positive for HIV four years ago, his world came crashing down. He even left his job. But today he is living not only for himself but also for others like him. A resident of Tarkulwa village in Maharajganj district, some 300 km from state capital Lucknow, Gupta heads a group of around 350 people who counsel AIDS/HIV patients and organise sensitisation programmes. 'I derive a unique sense of satisfaction from my work. I want to serve HIV/AIDS patients till my last breath. I have no regrets. I just thank the almighty for giving me an opportunity to bring smiles on the faces of the HIV/AIDS- affected,' Gupta told IANS. 'Though there is no permanent cure of AIDS, a few motivational words can bring a positive change in the lives of HIV/AIDS patients,' he said. 'Words have a deeper impact on patients if they are delivered by people like me who are themselves fighting the disease,' said Gupta. Maharajganj Positive Network, headed by Gupta, organises AIDS awareness programmes, counselling sessions in over 100 villages of different districts, including Maharajganj, Aligarh and Bulandshahr. 'Depending upon the incidence of AIDS/HIV, we select the villages for organising the programmes. Our group comprises both men and women, including those afflicted with HIV,' said Gupta. 'For holding the sensitisation programmes and counselling sessions, we sometimes seek assistance from medical professionals, NGOs and organisations working for the HIV positive,' he added. It was in 2007 that Gupta came to know about his HIV infection. 'I came to know about the infection at the Gorakhpur Medical College, where I had gone for donating blood for my relative,' recalled Gupta. 'My world came crashing down. I left my contractual job with the excise department in Madhya Pradesh and also dropped all my career plans...I just started living under the shadow of death,' he added. Gupta later came in... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Ensure Hepatitis-B vaccine in hospitals, Uttar Pradesh told Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:50 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Allahabad, April 15 - Taking serious note of a public suit filed by a fellow judge, Allahabad High Court Chief Justice F.I. Rebello Friday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure immediate availability of the Hepatitis-B vaccine in the main hospitals across the state. Conceding Justice Sudhir Agarwal's request to treat his complaint in this regard as a public interest litigation -, the chief justice also issued notice to the state government and sought its reply within ten days. He further directed the government to ensure that every patient requiring the Hepatitis-B vaccine was duly immunised. The complaint was made by Justice Sudhir Agarwal on account of the agony and disgust that he went through due to non-availability of the life-saving vaccine in any government or private hospital in Allahabad. In his complaint to the chief justice, the judge said that he procured the vaccine for his daughter from Delhi. After getting his daughter operated for multiple fractures at the state-run Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital here on April 9, the judge was informed the girl needed to be immunised against Hepatitis-B. Doctors said she was exposed to the grave danger as two patients operated upon in the same operation theatre a day earlier, were affected by the Hepatitis-B virus. Subsequently, two more surgeries were carried out in the same operation theatre. The surgeon confessed to the judge that the hospital had not cared to warn any of those four patients about the Hepatitis-B infection, nor about the dangers of exposure to the deadly virus or the need for them to get immunised against it. Justice Agarwal got further alarmed when he discovered that the operation theatre was neither sanitised nor was the usual immunisation protocol observed before his daughter was operated upon there. 'As per the guidelines of the WHO -, patients suffering from Hepatitis-B or from HIV needed to be either operated upon in complete isolation or it... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| British infertility clinic opens centre in Kerala Posted: 15 Apr 2011 05:54 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Britain-based Bourn Hall, the world's first in vitro fertilization - clinic established by pioneers Professor Robert Edwards and Doctor Patrick Steptoe in 1980, Thursday launched its first Indian centre in Kochi. The new assisted conception clinic here will provide a range of fertility treatment services to the same high ethical and quality standards set by Bourn Hall Clinic in Britain, said Mike Macnamee, chief executive, Bourn Hall Clinic. He said bringing the Bourn Hall treatment services here, is a step forward towards the dream of our founders, of making fertility treatment widely available to all who need it. 'Infertility is a universal problem. We will open more clinics in India in the next few years. Our second clinic will be in Delhi,' said Macnamee. Also present at the launch of the Kochi clinic was Peter Brinsden, group medical director, Bourn Hall International and president of the British Fertility Society. It was Edwards' pioneering work with Steptoe that led to the birth of the world's first 'test-tube' baby Louise Brown July 25, 1978. In 2010, Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the development of the IVF technique. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Preserving a world favorite flavour Posted: 15 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) It's one of the world's two best-loved flavours and demand for it is increasing all the time but now its future in the global food industry could be more secure, thanks to research at The University of Nottingham's Malaysia campus. Vanillin is a compound that comes from the vanilla bean, the 'fruit' of the flowering vanilla orchid. The orchid is a tropical, climbing vine originally cultivated by ancient Central American civilisations such as the Aztecs and is now grown worldwide with Madagascar, Indonesia and China by far the biggest producers. The uniquely scented flavour of vanilla is second only to chocolate in popularity on the world's palate. It's also the second most expensive spice after saffron. But highly labour intensive cultivation methods and the plant's temperamental life cycle and propagation mean production on a global scale is struggling to keep up with the increasing demand for the product. Scientists in the School of Biosciences on the University's Malaysia campus (UNMC) are working to create new and robust methods for the cloning of some economic species and some rare species of the orchid through tissue culture. The research is concentrating on the most common cultivated vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia, a perennial which produces the pods from which the natural vanillin is extracted. Traditionally the vanilla orchid is propagated by stem cuttings but this method is labour intensive, time-consuming and not economical because taking cuttings can cause the retardation of the mother plant and a reduction in yield. Tissue culture or 'cloning' of a high quality parent plant from somatic (non-reproductive) cells offers a viable and simple method for the large scale commercial production of vanilla plants, but the technique has a current flaw which the scientists are hoping to overcome. Problems arise when variations occur in the 'sub-clones' of one parental line, creating 'off-types' which are not of the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| India has world's highest number of still-births: Lancet Posted: 14 Apr 2011 08:24 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 14 - A total of 22 babies were born dead out of every 1,000 births in India in 2009, the highest number of still-births in the world, a study by British journal The Lancet said Thursday. According to the study, the first to present a comprehensive picture on still-births across the world, the phenomenon remains highly ignored and unaccounted even from the policy framework. The report said in India, 22 children were born dead among 1,000 births in 2009. This means, 6,06,523 children were born dead in India in 2009. This is slightly lower than 1995, when the rate was 25 per thousand, translating to 7,28,750 still-births. Globally, over 2.6 million babies were still-born in 2009, which brings the number to 7,000 per day. It says that 98 percent of the deaths occur in low or middle income countries. Of these, 60 percent - take place in 10 countries - India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Afghanistan and Tanzania. 'Still-births are not properly accounted like infant mortality. Even the Millennium Development Goals do not mention it. Its a highly ignored phenomenon,' said J. Frederik Froen, director of Lancet Stillbirth Series Steering Committee. 'In most countries, the babies are never named, nor dressed and they have no funeral. The body is just disposed off. Mostly, the blame is put on the mother, and evil spirits,' he said. According to the researchers, the main reasons for still-births are childbirth complications, maternal infections in pregnancy, maternal disorders -, foetal growth restriction and congenital abnormalities. 'Every year, the lives of more than 1.7 million women and neo-nates could be saved with interventions that are known to be effective during pregnancy and birth, and more that one million third trimester still-births could be prevented with the same care, providing triple return for every dollar invested,' the study says. Estimates from over 193... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Mount Sinai researchers present critical MS data at American Academy of Neurology meeting Posted: 14 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine will present several key studies at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting, including research providing critical insight into the prognosis and clinical treatment course of people with a certain subtype of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The meeting is taking place April 9-16 in Honolulu. In a study titled Evaluation of Progressive Relapsing MS Patients in the PROMISE Trial, Fred Lublin, MD, Saunders Family Professor of Neurology and the Director of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis at The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Michelle Fabian, MD, Neurology Fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, conducted a subanalysis of the PROMISE trial. The clinical trial is a multinational, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial evaluating the effects of glatiramer acetate treatment over three years in patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS). PPMS is characterized by steady disease progression, rather than attacks or exacerbations followed by remissions, which people with relapsing-remitting MS experience. We were able to analyze data from a well-controlled clinical trial to determine the frequency and clinical consequences of the occurrence of relapses in MS patients who initially have a progressive course, said Dr. Lublin. Our data indicate that baseline characteristics and disease progression in PRMS differ from those in PPMS. As such, clinicians should consider evaluating the PRMS subgroup differently from those with PPMS in assessing prognosis and clinical course. The research team evaluated differences in baseline characteristics and disease progression between patients with PPMS and patients with another subtype called progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis (PRMS) to help determine whether disease prognosis and treatment course should be evaluated differently in these subgroups. People with PRMS have steady disease... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Free online tool aids decisions on fire sprinkler systems for homes Posted: 14 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) For the many states, communities, new-home builders and prospective buyers now mulling over the pluses and minuses of installing residential fire suppression sprinklers, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a free online tool to help them sort through the costs and benefits of the technology. NIST's new, Web-based sprinkler use decisioning tool, developed by information technology specialist Priya Lavappa and economist David Butry, enables experts and non-experts alike to assess the cost-effectiveness of fire sprinklers for their particular jurisdiction, development, or dwelling. Fewer than 5 percent of U.S. homes are equipped with fire suppression sprinklers, but recent developments have moved the cost-benefit debate into the mainstream. The latest version of the International Residential Code calls for fire sprinklers to be installed in new one and two-family residential dwellings and townhouses, starting Jan. 1, 2011. Some other model building codes follow suit. More than 200 communities and a handful of states, including California, Maryland, and South Carolina, have adopted the code. So has Pennsylvania. But the Pennsylvania House of Representatives recently voted to repeal the mandate, sending the measure on to the State Senate for its consideration. Debate and disagreement over proposed sprinkler ordinances have flared in other areas as well. The NIST tool can help to inform these kinds of policy discussions, providing the means for apples to apples comparisons of different installation scenarios. It is based on the economic framework that Butry and other NIST researchers developed in their 2007 report, Benefit-Cost Analysis of Residential Fire Sprinkler Systems.* Users can input their own data to supply values for categories of costs and benefits in the model. They also can opt for a combination of user-defined data and national or local statistics. The NIST developers mined the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| New study identifies possible cause of salt-induced hypertension Posted: 14 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New research from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Kent State University shows that salt intake raises blood pressure because it makes it harder for the cardiovascular system to simultaneously juggle the regulation of blood pressure and body temperature. For decades, medical researchers have sought to understand how salt causes salt-induced high blood pressure to no avail. Some individuals, described as salt sensitive, experience an increase in blood pressure following the ingestion of salt, whereas others, termed salt resistant, do not. Until now, scientists have been unable to explain why some individuals are salt sensitive and others are salt resistant. This inability to explain why salt raises blood pressure in some individuals but not others has hampered the development of a comprehensive theory as to what causes most cases of high blood pressure. Since the cardiovascular system is responsible for maintaining normal blood pressure and also helps control body temperature by conducting heat from the muscles and internal organs to the skin's surface, a team of researchers led by Robert P. Blankfield, MD, MS, clinical professor of family medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and a member of the Department of Family Medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Ellen L. Glickman, PhD, professor of exercise science at Kent State University, tested whether these dual roles of the cardiovascular system might help explain how salt ingestion leads to salt-sensitive hypertension. The researchers examined the effect of salt and water consumption versus just water upon a group of 22 healthy men without high blood pressure. The study participants' blood pressure, rectal temperature, cardiac index (the volume of blood pumped by the heart per minute), and urine output were monitored at one, two, and three hours after the men ingested either salt and water or water alone. Changes... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| New global portal for cyber-physical systems research launched Posted: 14 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Vanderbilt's Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) has built and will operate a Web-based collaboration platform for the new National Science Foundation-funded Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization. The CPS-VO aims to bring together researchers, educators and students working in academics, industry and government agencies in a kind of virtual brain trust to foster progress, develop priorities and quickly distribute information in the rapidly emerging field of cyber-physical systems. In the virtual community, CPS researchers and stakeholders, such as government agencies and industry developers, could post problems and challenges, publish and share results, perform on-line experiments, provide educational materials and tools, and exchange ideas. While ISIS will build and maintain the site, individual users provide and drive the content. CPS researchers are on the cusp of developments that are revolutionizing everyday life. For example, while today's cars have computer chips that perform specific functions (e.g. anti-lock braking), tomorrow's cars using CPS innovations could potentially interact with one another to improve traffic flow and prevent accidents, he said. What if cars could meet up with each other on the interstate and form communication networks, thus creating a kind of virtual train? vanBuskirk asked. It's the type of grand question that leads to future CPS innovation and one that VOCYPHER would hope to foster and encourage. There's a huge social aspect to this, he explained. We have lots of little communities with their own expertise. But there's not as much cross-interaction as there should be to solve big, complex problems. While industry drives the development of products, researchers are working on the basic platforms, innovations and understandings that could provide stepping-stones to all types of development. The idea is to find out who's out there working on techniques that can be applied to... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Older workers benefit from high-tech, high-touch health promotion Posted: 14 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Older workers benefit most from a modest health behavior program when it combines a web-based risk assessment with personal coaching. University of Illinois at Chicago researchers conducted a randomized trial to evaluate two worksite wellness interventions assessing older workers' health behaviors and outcomes. The findings are available online and will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The health behaviors that were examined were physical activity, diet, stress reduction and smoking cessation, says Susan Hughes, professor of community health sciences, co-director of the UIC Center for Research on Health and Aging at the Institute for Health Research and Policy, and principal investigator of the study. The researchers enrolled 423 participants into three study groups: the COACH intervention, a Web-based risk assessment with personal coaching support; the RealAge intervention, a Web-based risk assessment with behavior-specific online modules; and a control group that received printed health-promotion materials. Participants ranged in age from 40 to 68 and were staff at UIC. Measures of healthy behaviors and weight, body mass index and waist circumference were assessed at baseline, six months after baseline and 12 months after baseline. What we found is that there were real differences in uptake between the two groups, Hughes said. Ninety-five percent of people in the COACH program actually used the COACH intervention, as compared to 59 percent of people in the RealAge arm. Both COACH and RealAge use websites to provide standardized risk assessments, develop risk appraisals, and give participants suggestions for pursing health-related behavior change. The COACH intervention also incorporates individualized counseling -- by phone and in person -- with a public health-educated coach to assist participants with their health-related goals. RealAge participants were sent one email message to... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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