`Off-Label’ use of medicines… 24 November 2007

(about 300 words)

 

The medical condition for which a medicine is to be used as well as the recommended dosage are printed on the container of the medicine and/or on a sheet of paper enclosed with the medicine.

 

The medicine manufacturers have to disclose to a government regulatory authority the contents of the medicine and for what ailment it is intended. They can market the medicines only after getting the approval.

 

Use of a medicine for a purpose different from the ones for which it has been approved by the regulatory authorities is known as `Off-Label use of medicines’.

 

Use of `off-label’ medicines is widespread. One example: Neurontin, a drug approved for epilepsy is being used for the treatment of pain.

Pharmaceutical experts have expressed several opinions on the subject. They are:

 

· Most doctors do not know the meaning of the term.

· Many doctors do not read the labels and prescribe medicines based on anecdotes (what they hear from unauthorised sources) rather than on clinical evidence.

· Pharma companies promote and encourage such use to promote their sales.

· Antibiotics (anti-bacterials) are used against viral diseases, even though it is well-known that they have no effect on viruses per se.

· Insurance companies in developed economies like USA do not pay for the `off label’ use of medicines.

· Many a time `off label’ use of medicine becomes an important alternative when approved medicines fail to produce medical benefits.

· There are examples of many drugs which started as `off-label’, but were approved later for clinical use.

· There are are lakhs of prescriptions coming to pharmacies all over India. It would be impossible to monitor even a fraction of them for `off-label use’.

 

S. Gopal

….Keying in is better than idling

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose… 30 November 2007

Today is the birth anniversary of the great Indian scientist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, who was a physicist and a plant scientist rolled in to one.He

• pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics.
• is considered the father of radio science; in a public demonstration in Kolkata in 1895, he ignited gunpowder and rang a bell at a distance using millimeter range wavelength microwaves. This was before Marconi’s wireless signalling experiment.
• propounded the theory that electromechanical pulsations of living cells were responsible for the ascent of sap in plants.
• demonstrated the electrical nature of the conduction of various stimuli in plants, which were earlier thought to be of chemical in nature; he claimed that plants can “feel pain, understand affection etc” and showed that plants grew faster in pleasant music.
• laid the foundations of experimental science in India.
• is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction.
• was the first from the Indian subcontinent to get a US patent.

S .Gopal

….Keying in is better than idling

Doordarshan… 23 November 2007

Just the other day, I passed by the Doordarshan Kendra in Bangalore.

My memory took me back to the first television broadcast I saw. It was in the year 1959. A television was set up in the school in Delhi where I studied. I was one of the forty-odd students who watched India’s first ever television programme. I was an experimental English language programme.

Today Doordarshan is one of the largest broadcasting organsiations in the world in terms of the infrastructure of studios and transmitters, variety of software and vastness of the viewership.

Some data about the growth of Doordarshan

• 1965: Regular daily transmission was started.
• 1972: Service was extended to a second city – Bombay.
• 1975: Seven cities were covered.
• 1982: National programme was introduced.
• 2007:
• o Almost 90 per cent of population of the country can receive Doordarshan programmes.
• o Has a network of nearly 1 400 land-based transmitters.
• o Has 65 studios producing TV software.
• o Operates 19 channels

S. Gopal

…Keying in is better than idling

World’s fourth…… 22 November 2007

On different dates in the past one week, newspapers reported some interesting statistics. The coincidence in all these reports was that India was placed fourth in the world. Please read on.

India

• is fourth in International Cricket Council’s

- test ranking after Australia, England, and South Africa

– one day international ranking after Australia, South

Africa, and New Zealand

• is the fourth largest producer of eggs in the world with 44.5 billion eggs a day
• has the fourth fastest super computer in the world.
• is the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world after United States, China and Russia with release of 583 million tonnes annually. The corresponding figure for United States is 2.8 billion tonnes.

I hope India soon reaches the top position in the first three areas and a lower position in the fourth..

S. Gopal

……Keying in is better than idling

Asia’ fastest computer…. 21 November 2007

Computation Research Laboratories (CRL), a company of the TATA group of India has developed the Asia’s fastest (as also the world’s fourth fastest) supercomputer named the ‘Eka’ (Sanskrit for `One’).

Some important information about Eka:

• Developed without any government help
• Can perform 117.9 trillion operations per second
• Can store up to 30,000 full-length movies or 28 terabytes of data and can relocate the full content of a 40 GB iPod in just a second
• Incorporates 2.5 megawatt of power
• The amount of air conditioning it needs is sufficient to cool a medium sized hotel
• Has 35 kilometers of cabling inside it
• Costed just around US Dollar 30 million
• Can be used in the fields of weather prediction, oil, and natural gas exploration, automotive, drug discovery, nanotechnology, computer gaming, and animation.
• Developed in just 20 months
• Fabricated using off-the-shelf parts
• Done with a small workforce with global partners like Hewlett Packard, Intel and Mellanox.

I recount another memorable event in India’s science history. On this day in the year 1963, India’s first rocket soared in to the sky from Thumba (near Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala). It was a `sounding rocket’ used for gathering weather-related data. And do you know that this rocket was carried to the launching pad on a bicycle !

I am proud to be an Indian. Are you?

S .Gopal
….Keying in is better than idling

India’s rocket power… 20 November 2007

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) crossed another milestone with the successful test of the indigenously developed Cryogenic Stage at its Liquid Propulsion test facility at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu on 15 November 2007. It ran for a full duration of 720 seconds.

These engines are critical for boosting communication satellites and manned missions into space. These will be deployed as the upper stage of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The flight stage is getting ready for use in the next GSLV mission (GSLV-D3) in 2008.

Cryogenic rocket engines are those that use liquefied gases (like liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen) for rocket propulsion. In gaseous form, oxygen and hydrogen have such low densities that huge tanks would be required to store them aboard a rocket. But compressing them into liquids vastly increases their density, making it possible to store them in large quantities in smaller tanks.

With this technology ISRO should be able to reduce their heavy satellites launch costs from about US Dollars 20 000 per kg to about US Dollars 12 000 per kg.

S. Gopal……. Keying is better than idling

 

 

Safety….for whose sake? 19 November 2007

I asked the car driver: `Why have you not fastened your seat belt’ ?

`It is very inconvenient’.

`You have to use the seat belt for your own safety’.

`What safety, Sir, with such roads’?

`It is compulsory as per law’.

`What law Sir?; there is no police on this road’.

`If a constable spots you’?

`I will give him 100 rupees and drive off’

———

I asked the mobike rider: `Why are you not wearing a helmet?’

The conversation was similar to the one cited above.

—–

Such is the callous attitude towards safety, whether one is driving down the wrong side of the road, speaking on cell phone while driving a car or a two wheeler, working in a construction site, or using an un-insulated electrical wire.

It’s high time people start understanding the importance of following safe practices as laid down by experts after careful consideration. In fact, most of the rules are simple common sense.

Many of the violators are parents; what example are they setting for their young ones!

S .Gopal
….Keying in is better than idling

Space Treaties…… 18 November 2007

In the past fifty years, 6 600 man-made satellites have been launched into Space. Some 900 satellites operated by more than 40 countries are now in orbit around the Earth.

All activities in Space are regulated by international treaties concluded by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and the Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA):

• Outer Space Treaty
• Rescue Agreement
• Liability Convention
• Registration Convention
• Moon Agreement

The underlying philosophy of these treaties is that the domain of Space should be devoted to enhancing the well-being of all countries and all mankind. The treaties cover:

• non-appropriation of outer space by any one country
• freedom of exploration
• international responsibility for national space activities
• liability for damage caused by space objects
• safety and rescue of spacecraft and astronauts
• prevention of harmful interference with space activities and environment
• notification and registration of space activities
• settlement of disputes
• scientific investigation and exploitation of natural resources in outer space.

S .Gopal
…Keying in is better than idling

Eco-friendly technology….the Indian connection 17 November 2007

Veena Sahajwalla was born in Mumbai and educated in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. She is an award-winning material scientist working now at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

She has developed a `green’ steel technology that substitutes about 30 percent of coke and coal (required in producing steel using Electric Arc Furnace) with polyethylene waste plastic.

Plastic is simply another form of carbon. In making steel there is essentially no difference between the polyethylene plastic in shopping bags and a natural resource like coal.

Advantages:

• Millions of tonnes of waste plastic will be recycled into steel.
• Less space will be required for plastic landfill.
• Reduction in demand for coke and coal .
• Less power-on time and total power use.
• Drop in green house gas emissions

Commercial production using this technology is underway at the Sydney furnaces of OneSteel. There are 300 EAF steel makers in the world accounting for 40 percent of the world’s steel production. If all these use this new technology, the benefits will be immense.

S .Gopal
….Keying in is better than idling

Ecological Footprint… 16 November 2007

The term Ecological Footprint was developed by a Canadian ecologist named William Rees in the year 1992 to describe the impact that an individual has on his or her environment. An ecological footprint takes into account such things as car ownership, amount of garbage generated, how often the individual walks or rides a bicycle, and other things designed to gauge his or her land and water usage.

While the ecological footprint does have some inaccuracies, it is a starting point for a discussion about how humans use the environment.

It is estimated that there are 4.5 useful acres on Earth for each person. Most people in the West have an ecological footprint that is far larger; they would need multiple planets to sustain a population consuming at that rate. People in impoverished nations have a much smaller ecological footprint.

If Western nations work together, they could greatly reduce the amount of resources they are consuming. Individual citizens could also make a difference. Some changes require drastic life style alterations, while others are simple.

S .Gopal
….Keying in is better than idling