Dr. Sudhir Paul is a scientist at the very forefront of HIV research. A graduate of AIIMS, Delhi, he is currently Professor and Director of the Chemical Immunology Research Center at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. Click here to link to an article that describes his research:
Scientists working to develop a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) report they have created the first antigen that induces protective antibodies capable of blocking infection of human cells by genetically-diverse strains of HIV. The new antigen differs from previously-tested vaccines by virtue of its chemically-activated property that enables close sharing of electrons and produces strong covalent bonding.
In The Guardian, Gareth McLean meets Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, India’s first openly gay royal, to talk about his luxurious upbringing, disastrous marriage and search for love.
Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, or to give him his full name, Yuvraj Shri Manvendra Singhji Raghubir Singhji Sahib, greets me with a weak handshake. Later, I wonder if this is because he isn’t used to shaking hands and is usually greeted with bows, curtsies and such. “We are treated as gods sometimes,” he explains. Later still, as I manhandle him into various poses at the photographer’s behest, I further wonder if you’re supposed to touch royalty at all, never mind as if they were some life-sized posable doll. But polite as he is, Prince Manvendra doesn’t complain. In fact, so serene is he, the photographer is compelled to compliment him on his composure. “Not everyone can stand so still,” she enthuses.
Last week, newspapers reported that 49 babies below the age of 12 months have died at India’s best known medical institute, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, better known by its acronym AIIMS. The babies have died since January 2006, following the administration of new drugs and therapies.
On Tuesday, August 26, AIIMS said that the drugs used for clinical trials were ’safe’. The institute also strongly refuted allegations that the children chosen for the drug trials were from a poor socio-economic background. Read the PTI report [via The Hindu] here.
News of the infants’ deaths was obtained under the Right to Information Act when Rahul Verma [pl read his comment to AW in the comments section] who is associated with a non-government organisation called the Uday Foundation for Congenital Defects and Rare Blood Groups applied for information on ongoing clinical trials at AIIMS.
What he found out: 4142 babies were registered by AIIMS for clinical trials; of these, 2728 were less than 12 months old. And 49 (or under 2 per cent) had died in the past 30 months. For the same period AIIMS conducted 42 trials in its paediatric department.
As with most things Indian, health minister Anbumani Ramadoss has called for an inquiry to be conducted by the AIIMS director. The findings are expected to be submitted within a week.
AIIMS doctors have been maintaining that the children who died were ’seriously ill’ and were not a part of the intervention programme.
Nevertheless, the deaths seem to have focussed attention on India’s booming outsourced clinical trial business. According to Rahul Verma there is urgent need to regulate India’s booming outsourced clinical trial business, which he pegs at $120 million for the last year and which he estimates is growing at a whopping 25 per cent annually. Continue reading ‘Babies or guinea pigs?’
The lyrics are absurdly simple but pack a punch in terms of its social message. The ‘condom, condom’ ringtone has been launched in India as part of the BBC World Service Trust’s mission to promote condom use in a country where 2.5 million people live with HIV. The central message of the campaign? ‘Smart men use condoms.’ IANS has the story [via Thaindian]
Imagine the expression on the faces of those around you when your mobile suddenly starts buzzing with an unlikely ringtone: “Condom, condom”.The “Condom a cappella” ringtone features in a new advertisement campaign launched earlier this year, as part of a two-year project of using the mass media to make condom use more acceptable.
The campaign has been produced by the BBC World Service Trust and funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) is also using the advertisement to support its condom promotion efforts.
My new column in Mint is on sex education, and why ignorance is not bliss. How did you learn to speak words we dare not speak? What’s your story? Tell me. I want to know.
My formal sex education at an all-girls convent school in New Delhi can be summed up in two words: woefully inadequate.
What passed for it was a brief interlude when one fine day in biology class in std IX, our NCERT-issued textbook opened with that tantalizing chapter, “Reproduction”. A frisson of expectation ran through the class as Mrs Ravindran began reading in her clear lilting voice. Towards the end of the first sentence, however, the voice became hushed as poor Mrs Ravindran (who had by then turned beetroot red) put down the book and said: “Girls, you can read the rest of the chapter on your own at home.”
“On your own at home” pretty much sums up our attitude to sex education. We still hesitate to ask questions, speak “forbidden” words or seek out information. A television ad for Naco (National AIDS Control Organisation) highlights this ingrained reticence as it urges men to boldly say “condom”, a forbidden word if ever there was one. New sexual awakening? Hardly. In India, the urgency for sex education is seen not in the context of sexuality, but of HIV/AIDS.
