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Global Update Indian Pediatrics 2000;37: 1408-1409 |
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News in Brief |
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What’s hot and what’s not: It is a characteristic of this age, that every act especially when perpetrated in the name of science or development unleashes a vociferous public debate about it’s moral and ethical justifica-tion. In such a scenario, the recent release of ethical guidelines for medical research by the Indian Council of Medical Research can only be welcome. All research institutions must have their research committees, but the green signal for fetal research, gene therapy and international research collaborations will need a green signal from the national ethics committee. Work on human cloning, germline therapy, embryos older than 14 days and genetic manipulation to enhance or modify normal human traits are a definite no-no. But the fear is that without legislation, these guidelines will lack punch ( eBMJ 28 October 2000). Lifelong learning: After the unseemly confusion over the cause of Kumara-mangalam’s death, the Health Ministry has decided to introduce legislation, which will make re-registration for doctors every 5 years compulsory. The Delhi Medical Council has already started it with every doctor needing to complete a CME module of 100 hours over 3 years before applying for re-registration after 5 years. Legislation for minimal standards of infrastructure, manpower and equipment are also on the cards. The patients’ medical record will also be available to patients on request based on a presidential ordinance, which will soon come into being. The Indian Medical Association has in turn produced a charter of patients’ rights and duties. Situations when a doctor can refuse medical aid have been listed which include a personal night call, aggressive or abusive patient, when he is attending to another patient, when the patient has defaulted in payment of fees earlier or if the patient is a family member (Lancet Interactive 14 October 2000). Cyber Watch Dot health: Websites are classified according to their domain names such as ".org" for organizations, and ".com" for commercial start ups. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) has offered to sponsor a new top level domain (TLD) called ".health" to improve the standards of health related websites on the web. ICANN or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers a non-profit organization, which manages domain names, is considering the proposal. This would mean that the WHO as sponsor would have the right to refuse registration for websites lacking high quality or those not maintaining quality on random checks (Lancet Interactive 11 November 2000). Genetics Getting what you want: The story seems pure science fiction. Molly Nash is a 6-year-old girl with Fanconi’s Anemia in Colorado, USA. Her parents are carriers for the disease. To get the perfect bone marrow recipient, in vitro fertilization and preimplantation genetics was used to choose the embryo which was both negative for the disease and HLA compatible with Molly. Of 14 embryos 2 fitted the bill. Of these one was successfully implanted and a healthy baby boy was born to the parents. Umbilical cord stem cells from this baby were transplanted into Molly, which she has successfully engrafted. Whatever the prophets of doom may say about the moral turpitude of the act of choosing traits in one’s offspring, this story surely has a happy ending (eBMJ 14 Oct, 28 Oct 2000). Gouri Rao Passi,
Department of Pediatrics, Hawaii Uni-versity - www.hawaii.edu/medicine/pediatrics/welcome.html. A collection of radiology cases including radiology images in Pediatrics and Neonatology are available online. This is being regularly updated and is presently in its fifth volume, with each volume containing 20 cases. The cases can be downloaded from their site free of charge. Online Medical Diagnosis - www.medical-library.org/mddx_index.htm. This is an online medical diagnostic software. It generates a diagnosis based on individual symptoms, and it provides treatment options. The user has to click on symptoms and follow the instructions to reach a diagnosis and receive treatment options. This software has been developed by the Medical library using a team of physicians and after analysis of over 500,00000 patients. Harrriet Lane Linkbook - http://162.129. 72.40/poi/. The Harriet Lane Links (formerly Pediatric Points of Interest) provide an edited collection of pediatric resources (5082 links) on the World Wide Web, maintained and edited by physicians at the Johns Hopkins University. This is one of the largest collections of links available presently. The links are classified into various categories, and a rating of the various websites has also been done. This site is also available in other European languages. A search facility has also been provided for. Pediaindia - www.pediaindia.net. Pedia india is a Pediatric Electronic Discussion Group started by a Delhi based Pediatrician, Dr. Vipul Jain. Various clinical cases are posted and discussed by members. The cases are updated fortnightly. Membership is free. Members can post their responses and send contributions online. A team of prominent Pediatricians from Delhi is on the panel of this discussion group.
C. Vidyashankar, |
