Brighterkashmir, 20 June 2017
Source: Brighter Kashmir
“Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today said that doctors in Kashmir lack training in medical ethics. Describing it as an essential component of patient care, President DAK Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a statement said that doctors are not taught medical ethics during their training. Medical ethics are moral principles in the practice of medicine to which a physician has an obligation. But this need is often not met.”
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Category Archives: Asia
China vows to clamp down on academic fraud amid medical journal scandal
BMJ 2017; 357: j2970
Author: Jane Parry
“China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has said that it is investigating the case of 107 papers from China retracted by the journal Tumor Biology in April this year and that it has “zero tolerance” for academic fraud. The papers were retracted after the journal’s publisher, Springer, conducted a manual screening that showed that the authors had submitted papers with fake email addresses for reviewers.”
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Abbott, Novartis and Sanofi Targeted in NPPA Clampdown on Drugs Sold Without Price Approval
RAPS, 23 May 2017
Author: Nick Paul Taylor
“The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) of India is taking action against drugmakers including Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Sanofi. These top pharmaceutical firms allegedly introduced drugs without seeking price approval and may have to pay back what they overcharged. In a letter to the companies the director of enforcement at NPPA, accused the businesses of altering scheduled formulations, either by changing the dose or combining the drug with a non-scheduled medicine. To NPPA, such changes represent the introduction of new drugs. As such, the companies should have obtained approval from NPPA for the prices of their new products before introducing them to the market.”
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India passes HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination law but stigma endures
SMH, 18 April 2017
Author: Amrit Dhillon
“To counter this treatment, the Indian parliament passed a new law last week that makes it illegal to discriminate against those with HIV/AIDS in jobs, housing, education, or in public life.”
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Why Assam’s two-child policy plan is being criticised by public health experts
ScrollIn, 13 April 2017
Author: Arunabh Saikia
“India: Assam’s health minister unveiled the draft of a new population policy for the state. It proposes, among other things, to penalise people who have more than two children. If the draft were to become law, they would be ineligible for government jobs and benefits, and be barred from contesting all elections held under the aegis of the state election commission.”
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Who will own your data when your electronic health records are linked to Aadhaar?
Scroll.in, 6 April 2017
Authors: Anumeha Yadav, Menaka Rao
“After making Aadhaar necessary to access a number of services, the government is now ready to start linking health records to the biometrics-based identity number system. “Patients’ Aadhaar numbers will be linked to a second health ID and these will be used in electronic health records,” The health records will contain all the information related to the patient including name, address, and the health records produced during his or her visit to the hospital such as X-ray reports, blood test reports among others.”
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China says it has stopped harvesting organs, but evidence belies its claim
The Conversation, 15 February 2017
Author: Wendy Rogers
“The Chinese government has claimed the country no longer harvests organs from prisoners. But recent revelations about two leading Chinese researchers indicate this may not be true.”
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Human rights violations in organ procurement practice in China
BMC Medical Ethics 2017 18:11
Authors: Norbert W. Paul, Arthur Caplan, Michael E. Shapiro, Charl Els, Kirk C. Allison, Huige Li
“Over 90% of the organs transplanted in China before 2010 were procured from prisoners. Although Chinese officials announced in December 2014 that the country would completely cease using organs harvested from prisoners, no regulatory adjustments or changes in China’s organ donation laws followed. As a result, the use of prisoner organs remains legal in China if consent is obtained.”
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China may still be using executed prisoners’ organs, official admits
The Guardian, 8 February 2017
Author: Stephanie Kirchgaessner
“An official in charge of overhauling China’s organ transplant programme has said the country may still be using organs from executed prisoners in some cases, even though there is technically zero tolerance for the practice.”
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Urgent need for reform in Nepal’s medical education
The Lancet, Volume 388, No. 10061, p2739–2740, 3 December 2016
Authors: Bipin Adhikari, Shiva Raj Mishra
“Nepal is a low-income nation with a population of nearly 26·5 million. The doctor–patient ratio is 0·17 per 1000 population—substantially less than the WHO recommendation of 2·3 doctors per 1000 population. Nepal has seen a burgeoning of medical institutes in the past 10 years. However, this rapid surge in the number of medical colleges—with increases in fees and corruption involved in student admissions—has not aided undergraduate and postgraduate medical training, deteriorating the quality of medical education. The financial motives involved in these private medical colleges have further incurred political meddling, often resulting in disproportionate and unregulated licensing and affiliation to such colleges, which are not instructed to establish themselves in rural areas.”
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