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Category: Letters
January 01, 1999
I am writing this for the information of those who plan to file or who have just filed medical negligence cases. You have a chance of winning if there is direct evidence in your favour: if a forceps was left inside the operated patient, the wrong part removed, the wrong blood group given, and so ...
January 01, 1999
From the time that India became signatory to the 1988 World Health Assembly resolution to commit the World Health Organization and all member nations to eradicate poliomyelitis worldwide by the year 2000, our efforts under the Universal Immunisation Program (UIP) have improved. This is evident fr...
January 01, 1999
On September 24, I attended a public debate on a draft consultative document entitled 'Ethical Guidelines on Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects.' produced by an ICMR-sponsored committee under the chairmanship of Justice MN Venkatachalaiah of the National Human Rights Commission.
October 01, 1998
In school, ethics was taught as part of Moral Science. I then believed that ethics was a way of living, a matter of right and wrong, where everything was black and white.
October 01, 1998
We were taught medical ethics in the second year of medical school, as part of forensic medicine. Not more than three or four hours was spent on the issue in my years at medical school.
April 01, 1998
I read with interest the article on the 'second opinion'. Unfortunately I am at a disadvantage in that I am not aware of the questions presented to various doctors, on whose responses this article has been based. Even so, I would like to express my views on the subject.
April 01, 1998
Modern medical systems thrive on their mythopoiesis. The January 1998 issue of Issues in Medical Ethics has two articles on the unethicality of denying multi-drug treatment to HIV-positive and AIDS patients. This is a classical example of the truism that the pathway to iatrogenic hell is...
July 01, 1998
Newspaper reports on medical issues are usually lopsided. They often give the impression that they have been planted by doctors to advance personal interests, with the help of friendly media people. It is rare to read well-researched medical information in the public interest.
July 01, 1998
The article by Ronald Bayer on placebo-controlled clinical trials for HIV is a thoughtful and well-crafted analysis of the ethical issues prompted by those trials. However, the article contains an error that should be corrected. Bayer writes that the placebo-controlled studies of HIV transmission...
July 01, 1998
As an M.Sc. student in public health for developing countries at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, I am currently working on a dissertation which examines the management of tuberculosis in countries experiencing prolonged armed conflicts. The choice of topic is based on personal...