New-age error on vaccines - the perils of homeopathy

ALMOST one in four Australians think natural homeopathic remedies are an adequate substitute for vaccines, despite 94 per cent of people agreeing conventional immunisation is an effective way of preventing the spread of disease.
The belief was revealed in a Newspoll survey of 1200 people, carried out on behalf of the Australian Medicines Industry - which also showed that 15 per cent of people think vaccinations weaken the immune system and 7 per cent believe children do not need to be immunised because the placenta and breast-feeding adequately develop a baby's immune system.
The head of clinical research at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, Professor Robert Booy, blamed "new-age thinking" for the current confusion over the effectiveness of natural remedies.
"It is heartening to see that the vast majority of people understand the benefits of vaccination, but it is a bit surprising that so many people have the misconception that natural remedies can be beneficial when there is nothing in terms of evidence to support that belief," Professor Booy said.
"I think it's the result of new-age thinking and of people hoping that natural remedies are better, even though they have not been tested."
Professor Booy said although the nation's child vaccination rate had hovered around the 95 per cent level for several years, there was a danger of new parents becoming complacent.
"Vaccination has in many ways become a victim of its own success," he said.
"Our immunisation program has been so effective in controlling diseases from which children would once die, so people who become parents now have never seen the diseases and often don't understand how dangerous they can be."But these diseases are not eradicated, only under control so if immunisation rates were to fall children would die from these diseases again."
Australian Association of Professional Homeopaths president Dr Shenaz Morkas said she had noticed an increase in the number of parents choosing homeopathy for their children as an alternative to conventional vaccination.
"Particularly for children who have allergies, homeopathic vaccination is seen as a more natural option," she said.
The Australian Medicines Industry spokesman Dr Brendan Shaw said: "Every day, immunisation saves lives and makes it possible for many Australians to live free from the illness and disability caused by many infectious diseases."
Source:the telegraph.com.au

Rare transplant gives quadruple amputee two new hands

A 65-year-old quadruple amputee has received two new hands in a rare double transplant operation, Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said on Friday.
Richard Mangino got the two hands last week in a 12-hour transplant procedure by a team of more than 40 doctors, nurses and other medical staff, the hospital said.
Mangino said he's adjusting to the new hands gradually and said now he won't have to "perform a miracle" every day to do simple things like make coffee and get dressed.
Speaking at a news conference seated in a wheel chair with his arms and hands propped on stack of pillows, Mangino said he prayed for the ability to touch his grandsons' faces, stroke their hair and teach them to throw a ball
Mangino, from Revere, Massachusetts, lost his arms below the elbows and legs below the knees after contracting sepsis, a bloodstream infection, in 2002.
The complicated surgery included transplanting skin, tendons, muscles, ligaments, bones and blood vessels on both forearms and hands, the hospital said.
Doctors said Mangino independently moved fingers just days after surgery and called the results a "resounding success."
His recovery will take many months and doctors expect him to regain sense of touch in six to nine months with ongoing therapy to help him learn to grasp and pick things up.
The double-hand transplant is the second performed by Brigham and Women's, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
In May, a team performed a full face transplant and its first double-hand transplant on Charla Nash, a Connecticut woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009.
The hospital said the hand transplant was successful, but the hands did not thrive after complications from pneumonia and were removed.
There are a few other programs around the country that perform hand transplants.
The first hand transplant was performed in France in 1998, and the first in the United States was completed a year later.
Doctors said about a dozen hand transplants have been done in the U.S. and believe just four of those have been bilateral.
Courtsey:Reuters

Kerala govt to host six-day mega global Ayurveda festival in Feb

Kerala will host a mega the Global Ayurveda Festival, packed with buyer-seller meet, health expo, expert clinics, international seminar and students meet, from February 9 to 14, 2012 at Thiruvananthapuram.
The event, being organised by the Centre for Innovation in Science and Social Action (CISSA) in association with the Ayurveda Department of the State Government, Ayurveda Medical Association of India (AMAI) and Ayurvedic Medicine Manufacturers Organisation of India (AMMOI), aims at promoting the sector in the country and abroad.
The six-day festival is also an attempt to regain the old glory of Ayurveda in Kerala which is the cradle of this branch of medicine. The grand exhibition will also have medicinal plants, herbal products, food fete, apart from deliberations on regulatory and industry aspects, said CISSA general secretary Dr C Suresh Kumar in a statement.
Different universities, medical colleges and research organisations in the sector will put up programmes to ramp up the public awareness about this branch of medicine. AYUSH(Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, and Homoeopathy) clinics, consultation by traditional practitioners, stalls of resorts that are into Ayurveda medical tourism, Ayurveda food courts along with diet counselling, and display of medicinal plants for herbal formulations will be among other attractions, he added.
The preparations for the event were kicked off on Thursday with Kerala Health Minister Adoor Prakash releasing the brochure. The Minister, while urging the Ayurveda manufacturers not to be led by profit motives, disclosed that the State government was taking pro-active steps including across-the-table negotiations with the pharma companies and market intervention through government agencies to control the prices of essential drugs in the State.
Source:Pharmabiz

Treatment of Back Pain may be More Clinical as Well as Cost-Effective If Stratified Approach is Used

Back pain is a common symptom for which patients consult their primary care physician. Better treatment options of back pain at the primary health care level is likely to have long term benefits in reducing disability and improving work capacity.
The use of a stratified approach in the treatment of back pain has been suggested. Using this approach, patients are treated according to the likely outcome or prognosis of the condition. In this system of treatment, patients are categorized into low, medium and high risk groups depending on the likely prognosis, and are treated according to different modalities or pathways.
The stratified approach will possibly ensure better and more effective treatment to all types of patients. If this practice is not followed, there could be unnecessary excessive treatment in the low–risk group patients, which could definitely spike up the cost of treatment. On the other hand, it could also result in lesser than required treatment in the medium and high-risk groups and consequently less relief of pain and more chances of suffering from disability.
In a recently published study, researchers compared two approaches to treatment of patients with back pain. The patients were divided into two groups – one in which a stratified approach to treatment was being followed, and the second, which was being treated by the non-stratified approach that is usually followed in clinical practice. The cost effectiveness of the two approaches was also studied.
A total of 851 patients with back pain were included in the study. Their mean age was 50 years and they did not suffer from any serious ailments.
The patients were randomly divided into two groups – an intervention group with a total of 568 patients where the stratified approach was followed, and the control group comprising of 283 patients.
The patients in the intervention group were divided according to the likely outcome for their condition. Accordingly, 221 patients were classified as low risk, 394 as medium risk and 236 as high risk. A baseline assessment was made at the first visit. The patients were treated according to treatments specially designed for the particular group. The control group was treated according to the best practices usually followed at the clinic. The effect of treatment was recorded using a questionnaire at the end of 4 and 12 months. The economic evaluation related to treatment was also carried out.
The results of the questionnaire at the end of 4 as well as 12 months indicated that patients treated via a stratified approach responded better to treatment. The patients who following the stratified treatment appeared to be more satisfied with treatment and took a fewer days off from work due to back pain.
The stratified approach also appeared to be more cost-effective as compared to the non-stratified approach.
The study thus suggests that using a stratified approach in primary care towards treating back pain does improve patient’s clinical outcome. It is also cost-effective, and should be followed.
Source-Medindia

Weight-loss Plan Should Include Proper Protein Consumption

Proper protein intake is vital for moderating energy intake, while keeping obesity in check.
Obesity is a growing problem worldwide, but proper protein consumption can help keep it at bay, according to a paper published Oct. 12 in the online journal PLoS ONE. The researchers found that, when subjects were fed a 10% protein diet, they consumed 12% more energy over four days than they did on a 15% protein diet. Moreover, 70% of the increased energy intake on the lower protein diet was attributed to snacking. When the protein content was further increased to 25%, however, the researchers observed no change in behavior relative to the 15% protein diet.
It had previously been suggested that protein content plays an important role in determining overall energy intake, and thus affects obesity, but until this study, experimental verification had been lacking. To test the hypothesis, the researchers tested 16 female and 6 male participants, all lean and in good health. The subjects spent four days on each of the three diets, which were made as similar as possible in factors such as palatability, availability, variety, and appearance, and their intake was monitored.
According to Dr. Alison Gosby, "the results show that humans have a particularly strong appetite for protein, and when the proportion of protein in the diet is low this appetite can drive excess energy intake. Our findings have considerable implications for bodyweight management in the current nutritional environment, where foods rich in fat and carbohydrate are cheap, palatable and available to an extent unprecedented in our history."
Source-Eurekalert

Canada moves to update Chinese medicine rules

Federal health authorities in Canada have met with practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine as a first step towards modifying regulations covering the sale of imported Chinese herbal remedies.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq held roundtable talks on Friday with Chinese medicine professionals in Vancouver on Canada's west coast.
More than 1,300 traditional Chinese remedies are currently sold in Canada, but the government -- seeing a boom in the market -- says it wants to be sure the laws on sales and prescription reflect current best medical practices.
"We do have legislation in place that is 40 years old," Aglukkaq said
"Our government strongly supports enhancing Canadians' access to a wide range of safe and effective natural health products, including Traditional Chinese Medicines," she said.
Sales of medicines are regulated at the federal level, but health care is governed by the provinces.
Albert Fok, who represents a group of merchants in Vancouver's Chinatown area including several purveyors of traditional Chinese remedies, said federal and provincial authorities should work together to harmonize the legislation.
Source:AFP

Indian pharma firms to cut medicine rates in Pakistan by a third

Even as drug makers in Pakistan are reportedly cautioning against the plans of their government to grant Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India in the medicine sector, Indian pharmaceutical industry representatives say that it will bring down medicine prices (in Pakistan) to one-third of the current rates.

The Indian industry also rubbished the claims of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) of possible job losses, arguing that the domestic drug makers are unlikely to set up distribution and sales units in Pakistan and could route their supplies through existing pharmaceutical marketing and distribution channels.
Newspaper reports from Islamabad had stated that PPMA Chairman Khawaja Muhammad Asad had written to Pakistan leadership and industry chambers that expansion of bilateral trade with India under MFN with respect to pharmaceuticals was not positive.
PPMA feels that given the 10 times bigger size of Indian pharmaceutical industry as compared to its Pakistan counterparts, local industry in Pakistan will not survive if MFN status is granted to India. The association also wants all medicines to be in the negative list once India gets MFN status.
According to D G Shah, secretary general, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, MFN status to India will do more good to Pakistan patients than to the Indian drug industry.
“Pakistan is a good market as medicine prices there are three to four times higher than that of India. The local pharmaceutical companies in that country are also importers and suppliers of MNC (Multinational Corporation) medicines. If they start importing medicines from India, that may harm the MNC interests,” Shah said.
Stating that cross border trade of medicines is already happening in all areas neighbouring Pakistan borders, Shah said Indian drug companies have high sales in such districts. “The question is whether Pakistan drugs controller will seek fresh registration for each medicine that gets imported from India. Still, patients can get affordable medicines there,” Shah added.
Source:Business Standard