Information shared by the three stakeholders — NEJM, NIAID and Gilead — on critical issues about whether the drug's ability to reduce mortality is statistically significant and which category of patients benefit and who don't stand to gain is both confusing and conflicting. The results of the much awaited randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled trial using remdesivir … Continue reading Remdesivir trial results: NEJM, NIAID and Gilead provide conflicting information
NEJM
NEJM study claiming novel coronavirus can be transmitted during incubation period flawed
Contrary to claims made in NEJM, the Chinese woman did not transmit the novel coronavirus to the German during the incubation period. She had symptoms during her stay in Germany but was tested for the virus only on her return to China. A Correspondence published on January 30 in the medical journal The New England Journal of … Continue reading NEJM study claiming novel coronavirus can be transmitted during incubation period flawed
NEJM retracts Chandigarh doctors’ image for plagiarism, case concoction
Indian doctors at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh have their 'Image in Clinical Medicine' photo published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) retracted. It is not only a case of image plagiarism, but concoction of a medical case they never came across. If by now researchers in India have become aware … Continue reading NEJM retracts Chandigarh doctors’ image for plagiarism, case concoction
FDA wants to prevent smoking addiction by limiting nicotine in cigarettes
Lower nicotine content in cigarettes is an idea whose time has come. On July 28, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration struck panic among tobacco companies by announcing a comprehensive proposal to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels. The level of nicotine that would be required to render cigarettes “non-addictive” … Continue reading FDA wants to prevent smoking addiction by limiting nicotine in cigarettes
Flat lying posture doesn’t do much for stroke treatment
There is no significant difference in the disability outcomes for patients who have suffered acute stroke, whether they received treatment lying flat on the back with the face upwards or in a sitting-up position with the head elevated to at least 30 degrees. This is the conclusion of a major trial that involved over 11,000 … Continue reading Flat lying posture doesn’t do much for stroke treatment
Artemisinin resistance dents the anti-malaria armour
The emergence of resistance to the artemisinin drug, a potent anti-malarial medicine, now threatens to affect the big gains achieved in recent years in reducing the global burden of malaria — an estimated 1.2 billion fewer malaria cases and 6.2 million fewer malaria deaths globally between 2001 and 2015. This resistance, to artemisinin, becomes all … Continue reading Artemisinin resistance dents the anti-malaria armour
First CRISPR trial on humans set to begin
On June 21, the National Institutes of Health gave permission for starting the first ever clinical trial using CRISPR genome-editing technology, Nature news notes. The trial, which will begin before the end of the year, will be carried out on 18 cancer patients to “help augment cancer therapies that rely on enlisting a patient’s T … Continue reading First CRISPR trial on humans set to begin
A ‘turning point’ in the Zika outbreak
More than 50 years after the infectious pathogen, rubella virus, was identified as the cause of an epidemic of congenital defects, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States confirmed on April 13 that Zika virus infection during pregnancy causes microcephaly and other severe foetal brain defects. The confirmation of causal … Continue reading A ‘turning point’ in the Zika outbreak
An Ebola cloud with a silver lining
At the height of West African Ebola epidemic in 2014, the medicine chest was all but empty; no approved drug was available to facilititate treatment. With no signs of the disease abating and the fatality rate hovering around 70 per cent, the World Health Organization (WHO) in August 2014 declared that it was not unethical … Continue reading An Ebola cloud with a silver lining
Cardiovascular risk factors low but mortality high in India
People living in low-income countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have the lowest risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) compared with those living in high-income countries like Canada, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. Yet, the rate of deaths from CVD is highest in the low-income countries, not in the high-income countries. The risk … Continue reading Cardiovascular risk factors low but mortality high in India
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