Clinical Trials

Multiple vaccines associated with increased infant mortality

As pentavalent vaccine has already created widespread controversy with reports linking increased morbidity and mortality to multiple vaccines in low-income countries, including Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and India, a new study published in the journal Vaccine has diametrically opposed to the extensively held conviction that more vaccines administered to infants the better.

The new observational study titled, ‘Co-administration of live measles and yellow fever vaccines and inactivated pentavalent vaccines is associated with increased mortality compared with measles and yellow fever vaccines only’ is a result of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted during 2007-2011 in the West African country Guinea-Bissau. The study has questioned the belief that vaccination is always a life-saving intervention.

Sayer Ji, “My personal belief about the expanding vaccination schedule, as well as increasing the number of vaccine antigens per vaccine, is we are engaging in unprecedented mass experimentation on our children, as there are simply far too many variables to control and understand now in order to make the determination that they are effective, much less safe. It is likely — and research bears this out — that the ultimate result of employing so vaccines, along with the known dangers of excipients and adjuvants, is increased morbidity and mortality in exposed populations.”

As the finding hold importance when one considers that pentavalent vaccines, with the efforts of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), aims to reach millions of children in several developing countries, he said, “Global vaccination campaigns are based upon a fundamental error in thinking. You can’t vaccinate away undernourishment, poor living conditions, or lack of water sanitation. Let these charitable programmes and the wealthy nations and corporations put their money where their mouths are and provide ‘first world’ solutions for third world problems.”

“India stands today as the mother to one of the most advanced, while also ancient, medical systems in the world, Ayurveda, and must consider the implications of casting its inheritance to the wind in favour of strictly Western medical interventions, many of which are being aggressively championed for reasons that are as much political and economic as they are humanitarian in nature,” he said.

“The primary suggestion I would give is to not ignore the significant body of peer-reviewed research that now exists showing the unintended, adverse health effects of vaccination which may in some cases far outweigh their purported benefit. Also, these are not strictly academic matters but the lives of our children and future generations are on the line,” Sayer Ji opined.

In the light of the study, Dr Jacob Puliyel, head of paediatrics at St Stephen’s Hospital, New Delhi, told , “I do not think international agencies will do anything till we highlight every death as unacceptable.”

Source; Green med info

Hand, face transplants regulated like other organs

Sure your liver or kidney could save someone’s life. But would you donate your hands, or your face? Signing up to become an organ donor may get more complicated than just checking a box on your driver’s license.

The government is preparing to regulate the new field of hand and face transplants like it does standard organ transplants, giving more Americans who are disabled or disfigured by injury, illness or combat a chance at this radical kind of reconstruction.

Among the first challenges is deciding how people should consent to donate these very visible body parts that could improve someone’s quality of life — without deterring them from traditional donation of hearts, lungs and other internal organs needed to save lives.

”Joe Blow is not going to know that now an organ is defined as also including a hand or a face,” said Dr. Suzanne McDiarmid, who chairs the committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, that will develop the new policies over the next few months.

Making that clear to potential donors and their families is critical — ”otherwise we could undermine public trust,” said McDiarmid, a transplant specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

”The consent process for the life-saving organs should not, must not, be derailed by a consent process for a different kind of organ, that the public might think of as being very different from donating a kidney or a heart or a liver,” she added.

These so-called ”reconstructive transplants” are experimental, and rare. The best estimates are that 27 hand transplants have been performed in the U.S. since 1999, and about seven partial or full face transplants since 2008, said Dr. Vijay Gorantla, of the University of Pittsburgh reconstructive transplant program.

But they’re gradually increasing as more U.S. hospitals offer the complex surgeries, the Defense Department funds research into the approach for wounded veterans — and as transplant recipients go public to say how the surgeries have improved their lives.

”These hands are blessed hands to me,” said Lindsay Aronson Ess, 30, of Richmond, Va., who received a double hand transplant in 2011. She had lost her hands and feet to a life-threatening infection in 2007.

Until now, deciding who qualifies for a hand or face transplant, and how to find a match and approach a potential donor’s family all have been done on an informal, case-by-case basis.

There has been no way to tell which hospitals’ techniques work best and how patients ultimately fare.

There have been reports of two deaths related to face transplants in other countries, and some transplanted hands have had to be amputated.

Source: Teleram news

850 foreign doctors allowed to practice in India this year

Under the modified provisions of the Indian Medical Council Act 1956, which removed the restriction for granting temporary permission to foreign doctors only for the purpose of teaching, research and charitable work, 850 foreign doctors were granted temporary permission this year to practice in the country.

Foreign doctors are granted temporary permission by the Medical Council of India (MCI) on the basis of their applications received through the inviting institutions.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad informed the Lok Sabha on December 13 that 1289 foreign doctors sought permission between January 1 and December 10 this year, out of which 850 have been granted permission.

Maximum number of temporary permission was granted to foreign doctors to practice in Maharashtra (172) and Delhi (125). Tamil Nadu, an emerging medical hub, also received a huge number of permissions with approval to 114 foreign doctors.

The provisions of the Indian Medical Council Act 1956 allow temporary permission to foreign doctors for the purpose of teaching, research or charitable work for a specified period limited to the institution to which they are attached. Recently, the government, through the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Second Ordinance 2013, removed the restriction for granting temporary permission to foreign doctors only for the purpose of teaching, research and charitable work.

Source: India Medical Times

Neurosurgeon bases surgery simulator on daughter’s head

Neurosurgery is deemed one of the most complicated surgical techniques, and any tools that help train new neurosurgical apprentices are largely welcomed in the medical world. Now, a neurosurgeon has created a surgery simulator designed to teach basic surgery skills, and it is modeled on his daughter’s head.

The simulator, created by Richard Ashpole of the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, UK, is called the Realistic Operative Workstation for Educating Neurosurgical Apprentices, otherwise known as Rowena.

Rowena is coincidentally his 14-year-old daughter’s name, who Ashpole says was more than happy to help with his new creation – sitting still for 90 minutes while a mould was taken of her head.

Ashpole says he wanted the Rowena model to be as close to a real skull as possible, so it seemed logical to base the model on the head of a real person.

Rowena is made up of internal skull anatomy on a molded plastic base. The model consists of a fixed replaceable upper cranium with scalp, bone and Dural (a type of aluminum) layers. A realistic plastic brain is inside the skull.

How can Rowena be used?

Ashpole explains that a three-point headrest (skull clamp) can be used with Rowena in order to teach neurosurgeons anatomical positioning and landmarks. Raney scalp clips can also be used with the model, alongside burr hole and ICP (intracranial pressure monitoring) devices.

The model is able to withstand a variety of high-speed drills, as well as a hudson brace and a gigli saw and guide.

The dural layers – also complete with vascular markings – can be opened in different ways to expose the underlying brain. The model also allows bone flaps to be replaced and fixed with sutures (stitches) or a variety of screws and plates.

For a closure procedure, the dural layers can be sutured and the bone flaps can be replaced and fixed using any marketed fixation system. The scalp can also be stapled.

Source: Bartle Doo Articles

12 Worst Endocrine Disruptors Revealed

An environmental health advocacy organization has released a list of what it says are the 12 worst hormone-disrupting chemicals.

These chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors, interfere with the actions of hormones in the human body in some way — for instance, by imitating natural hormones, or increasing or decreasing hormone production, according to Environmental Working Group (EWG), the organization that put together the list.

The list includes some chemicals that have been scrutinized for their potential ability to interfere with hormones and affect reproduction, such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, although studies on these chemicals are not definitive.

Other chemicals on the list — such as arsenic, mercury and lead — may surprise consumers, as people may not be aware that these chemicals disrupt hormones, according to EWG.

And still other chemicals might be less familiar to consumers, such as glycol ethers, which are solvents in paints and cleaning products that have been linked to lower sperm count, among other health problems, in painters, according to EWG.

The list also includes: dioxin, atrazine, phthalates, perchlorate, fire retardants, perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) and organophosphate pesticides

Dr. Kenneth Spaeth, director of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Center at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., said the list was reasonable. “The larger value of a list like this is raising the discussion about endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” Spaeth said.

While it is generally accepted that there is no safe level of exposure to chemicals like lead, there is still a lot of work to be done in determining whether other chemicals, such as BPA and phthalates, pose a risk to human health at the concentrations present in the environment, Spaeth told LiveScience.

“Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are a work in progress in determining what levels are, indeed, hazardous,” Spaeth said. Still, “there’s enough evidence for many of these [chemicals] that it’s reasonable to have some concern about them,” he said.

Spaeth said he might not have included lead, organophosphate pesticides and perchlorate on the list, because use of these chemicals has declined considerably in recent years, significantly lowering people’s level of exposure to these chemicals.

The full list, which is intended for readers of all ages, includes ways for consumers to avoid exposure to these chemicals. However, EWG says that ultimately, the best solution is better regulation to prevent such chemicals from coming to the market.

Source:

Botox can help treat more than just wrinkles

Dr. Matthew Kircher of Loyola University Medical Center is giving patients Botox injections to treat facial nerve disorders that sometimes occur after Bell`s palsy

Botox, which is best known as a cosmetic treatment for frown lines, can also effectively treat the after effects of Bell`s palsy and other serious facial nerve problems.

Bell`s palsy results from damage to the facial nerve that controls muscles on one side of the face.

Ear-nose-throat surgeon Dr. Matthew Kircher of Loyola University Medical Center is giving patients Botox injections to treat facial nerve disorders that sometimes occur after Bell`s palsy, including unwanted facial movements known as synkinesis.

Botox injections work by weakening or paralyzing certain muscles or by temporarily blocking the nerve input into the muscles.

Facial synkinesis is the involuntary movement of one set of muscles when the patient tries to move another set of muscles. For example, when the patient blinks, the mouth smiles or grimaces.

Botox can improve the symmetry of the face and reduce muscle contractures and spasms.

Botox also is effective for platysmal banding – verticle lines that develop in the neck as a result of muscle contractions.

Kircher said that he starts out conservatively, treating patients with dilute doses.

After seeing how well the patient does, Kircher adjusts the dose if necessary.

Botox is not a cure. The drug wears off after three or four months, so patients need repeat injections.