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April 01, 2011
The almost universal application of policies that promote integration of the globe through trade in goods and services and liberalised flow of finances - loosely termed “globalisation” - has also necessitated development of fairly elaborate global structures of governance. In the health sector th...
April 01, 2011
Health research is an important component of the process for reaching the goal of Health for All expressed in the Alma Ata Declaration. Today, 33 years after the Declaration, the goal is best expressed in terms of health systems that can provide universal access to comprehensive healthcare as wel...
April 01, 2011
In February 2011, the Department of Health Research (DHR), Government of India, came out with a draft National Health Research Policy. It is presumed that after due deliberation, the core of this document, with necessary amendments, will become the guideline for future medical and health resea...
April 01, 2011
George Thomas’s editorial , responds to the recent 2010 Indian court verdict on the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 . The court’s action, finding seven officials of Union Carbide (India) guilty, does not resolve many of the long-standing grievances against international corporations and their officer...
April 01, 2011
The relationship between orthopaedic surgeons and the device industry is one that is mutually beneficial and productive. However there are skeletons in the closet. The financial implications of this relationship have come under intense scrutiny. The sponsorships and the financial benefits of this...
April 01, 2011
This paper identifies some ethical concerns regarding the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP). Only 10% of those with chest symptoms visiting public health facilities get specific treatment as they are diagnosed with TB.The remaining 90% who suffer from non-TB diseases are not...
April 01, 2011
Vaccines are important preventive medicines for primary healthcare and critical for a nation’s health security. In India the Universal Programme of Immunization (UPI), launched in 1985, included six childhood vaccines. A well thought out immunisation schedule must be epidemiologically relevant to...
April 01, 2011
Brazil has established the largest public kidney transplantation system in the world.46.2% of transplants in 2008 came from living donors. The vast majority of these involved relatives of the recipient; less than 8% came from unrelated donors. In 2008, Brazil’s health minister proposed banning un...
April 01, 2011
This essay draws attention to violations of privacy and confidentiality in healthcare. It argues that such violations are experienced not only by rural women and beneficiaries of government health services but also by better-off women in private clinics in urban areas. It is possible that the occ...
April 01, 2011
Health-related travel, also referred to as “medical tourism”, is historically well-known. Its emerging contemporary form suggests the development of a form of globalised for-profit healthcare. Medical tourism to India, the focus of a recent conference in Canada, provides an example of the globali...