Debate over benefits of diet
For people with high blood pressure who have to take pills, recent studies have offered good news: Changes in daily routine can lower blood pressure enough to let some people with mild hypertension postpone the need for medicine or avoid it altogether. Bolstering previous research, new experiments suggest that people …
A close call over Thalidomide
Thalidomide finally won Food and Drug Administration approval to be sold in the United States. Its use will be highly restricted in an effort to avoid the birth defects it produced in the 1960s.
Parthenium alarm in Salt lake
Growth of parthenium, a poisonous plants, that reportedly causes asthama and skin ailments, has alarmed Salt Lake's residents.
Marijuana magic
Marijuana, the ostracised drug thought to produce abnormal brainwaves, may soon be used by neurologists to prevent cerebral strokes. Cannabidiol--a compound extracted from cannabis--has been found to protect braincells by acting as an antioxidant (molecules that mop up oxygen), without producing the characteristic high. The surprising results came from an …
Conference on radiology in Sept
An international congress of radiology is being held in India for the first time, from September 19 to 23 , with the participation of 1,500 delegates from overseas and 2,500 from within the country. The 20th International Congress of Radiology, billed as the largest meeting on medical science ever held …
Naidu to send MP's team to PM on Alamatti
The Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, today announced that he would be sending to the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, an MPs' delegation to put across him the arbitrary manner in which the Karnataka Government was incresing the height of the Alamatti dam much to the detriment of AP …
Pre-feasibility study for dam on sea
To effectively deal with the water crisis in the State, the Gujarat government has undertaken a pre-feasibility study on its controversial but ambitious Kalpasar project across the Gulf of Khambat - the first dam in the country to be constructed over sea.
Goa's plans to privatise water may not materialise
Goa's plans to privatise water have come crashing to the ground, as diverse lobbies and vested interests have kept pushing in different directions. Nothing is likely to come out of an ambitious Rs 300 croe plan.Earlier, this plan had evinced interest of over a dozen firms, including multinationals. This plan …
OECF rejects TN plea to stop water project financing
Tamil Nadu's effort to stall a drinking water project to Bangalore has failed. Karnataka Chief Minister J.H. Patel said that the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan rejected Tamil Nadu's appeal to stop financing the project. The funding agency of Japan has said that it was committed to finance the …
Centre to submit formula in SC
The government is hopeful of arriving at an amicable settlement of the Cauvery issue and is likely to file a petition before the Supreme Court on July 21 incorporating the possibility of "enhancing" the supply of water to Tamil Nadu.
DU chemists produce tiniest oral drug
In a major breakthrough, chemists in Delhi University have produced for the first time the tiniest "polymeric nano-particles" which they claim, can revolutionise oral drug delivery system and potentially render the existing method of making pills and tablets obsolete.
Country's second food irradiation plant to begin operations at Navi Mumbai
The Board of Radiation And Isotope Technology (BRIT), a division under the department of atomic energy, will soon inaugurate in Navi Mumbai the country's second food irradiation plant for commercial application. Built at a cost of Rs 5 crore , the plant will offer irradiation facilities for spices. The first …
Secondhand smoke finding struck down
A federal judge has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency wrongly declared secondhand tobacco smoke a dangerous carcinogen in a landmark 1993 report in US.
Action plan to prevent polio resurgence
With its Global Polio Eradication Initiative progressing on target, the WHO is now preparing for "life after eradication". It is getting ready particularly to avoid a resurgence of the disease on account of any leakage of polio virus from laboratories and other facilities where they have been kept for research …
Panel wants water in concurrent list
The Parliamentary standing committee on water resources has urged the Government to come forward with a legislation to transfer the subject of 'water' from the State List to the Concurrent list within a year, to give teeth to the Ministry of Water Resources.
Pollution leading to 25% increase in preventable illness
Poor environmental quality is directly responsible for around 25 per cent of all preventable illnesses and constitutes as much as two-third of all preventable illnesses in childhood, say experts. Women and children and the poor are most vulnerable to environmental health risks.
Like the sabre-tooth sweet-tooth better be extinct
The withdrawal of the controversial excise duty on sweetmeals may be music to the ears of the traditionally sweet toothed people of Gujarat, but they had better watch out against the dangers lurking around their food. Diabetes Mellitus, rated the second highest killer disease in the chocolates and pastry-loving US …
Ex-ministers to be tried in France in AIDS case
Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and two other former ministers will be tried by a special tribunal on charges of contributing to the deaths of patients who received transfusions from government blood stocks contaminated with the AIDS virus in 1985, a special commission ruled.
Anti-drug program in Afghanistan is in danger
An anti-narcotics program begun in Afghanistan late last year is in danger of being dismantled, a top UN official said, citing reports that opium poppy production may be increasing in areas under control
Tk 4752 cr project to combat malnutrition
A special-priority project involving a cost of over $ 1.01 billion, is being undertaken by the Bangladesh government to combat malnutrition, a multifaceted health hazard.
