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Indian Pediatrics 2000;37: 116-117 |
Global Update |
| News in Brief Genetics Chromosome 22: It may be the second smallest human chromosome, but now it is the longest fully sequenced piece of genetic material in any organism. Scientists from Cambridge have achieved the honor of publishing the full sequence of the chromosome 22 in the December 2 issue of Nature. This is the first human chromosome to be fully decoded and probably holds the key to atleast 27 diseases of which 8 are yet to be identified. The most exciting gene of them (as yet undiscovered) is considered to be that for schizophrenia (Nature, 2 December '99). Playing God: Clyde Hutchinson III, Scott Peterson, and Craig Venter from the Institute of Genomic Research are trying to find out the smallest number of genes required to allow an organism to survive in laboratory conditions. They took the organism Mycoplasma genital-ium which has the smallest fully sequenced genome of 580 kilobase pairs and found that only 65% were common to another related organism M. pneumonia having 816 kb pairs. Of these common 480 genes only 300 were found to be essential. Their next plan is to create an artificial chromosome with the minimal number of genes and see whether it multiplies in the laboratory (Science 1999; 286: 2165). This historic event dubbed as the artificial creation of life has ignited a lively debate on the ethically explosive, legal, biomedical, and environmental outcomes. Technology Designer babies: With the improvements in artificial reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization and intra cytoplasmic sperm injec-tion, the opportunity for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has opened up. So far 200 embryos have been tested in UK and 20 babies born. To streamline the legalities and ethics involved the UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority and the UK Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing issued a con-sultation document on preimplantation genetic diagnosis (http://www.hfea.gov.uk). Currently specific genetic diseases are tested for. But where does genetics end and eugenics begin. Will this be the first step towards the manu-facture of tailor made babies (Lancet 20 November, 1999)? Public Health State of the Nation: UNICEF's State of the World's Children released globally in December, ranks India as number 49 with an under five mortality of 105 as against 108 last year. Internationally, poverty, armed conflicts and HIV/AIDS are the 3 major threats to children. Though India's efforts with the polio eradication campaign and reservation of seats in the panchayat for women has earned praise, there is not much else to celebrate. Discrimina-tion against women starting from in utero is widespread, deep seated and pushing women deeper into degradation. Female foeticide is reported in 27 of India's 32 state's. Bihar and Rajasthan have birth ratios of 60 females to 100 males. Maternal mortality is unchanged and 50% of children are underweight. Access to safe water is denied to 200 million Indians and proper sanitation to 700 million. In Y2K 360 million Indians will be unable to read or write (The Times of India 15 December, 1999). Labor pains: Child labor has become an explosive issue in international trade circles. Jha and Mitra's enlightening article in the Economic Times clarify that it is not noble thoughts which prompt developed coutries to restrict trade with countries where child labor is prevalent. It is probably because child labor is cheap, it provides economic advantage to under-develop-ed countries. Whenever child labor has been banned, under pressure from international organizations, severe consequences resulted. In Bangladesh, 50,000 children lost their jobs when garments made by them were boycotted. These children were pushed into lower paid jobs, extreme poverty and even prostitution. Historically when the Industrial revolution started, 95% of children had to work. Domestic economic reforms, including free market and free trade, has been the best tool to improve all round development and hence automatically remove the need for child labor. International economic sanctions and legislation may not be the ideal way to eradicate deep rooted socio-economic problems (The Economic Times, 7 December 1999). Blunders Illegibily yours: Bad handwriting cost a US based cardiologist, Dr. Ramachandra Kolluru. as well as the pharmacist $ 225000 each. The doctor had prescribed Isordil (isosorbide dinatrate) 20 mg 6 hourly but the pharmacist read it as Plenodil (felodipine) a calcium channel blocker. The patient had a massive heart attack and died subsequently. The Texas jury attributed the death to illegible writing and hence the punitive action. Doctors with bad writing are advised to print in capitals or use computer typed prescriptions. Many medical errors are preventable with a little care (BMJ 4 December 1999). Gouri Rao Passi, Pedscapes GeneClinics - www.geneclinics.org/index.html. GeneClinics is a medical knowledge base on genetic disorders, relating genetic testing to the diagnosis, management and genetic counseling of individuals and families with specific inherited disorders. It is an exhaustive online source of information on genetic disorders. The access to this site is free. This site is funded by the NIH and developed at the University of Washington, Seattle. General Pediatrics.com - www. generalpedia-trics.com. According to the webmasters, General Pediatrics.com is the general Pediatrician's view of the Internet. General Pediatrics.com identifies high quality World-Wide Web sites using recognized standards. Their collection of websites is exhaustive and updated regularly. Pediatric Pulmonology - www.interscience. wiley.com/jpages/8755-6863/. This peer review-ed journal from Wiley Interscience is published monthly. The table of contents and abstracts are available free, while the full text is accessible online to subscribers. The new URL of this journal is given above Medslides.com - www.medslides.com. This is an easy way of making medical slides. The slides can be picked up for free from this site from a collection of slides on various topics. It requires a free registration. The site requests users to post their slides on this site for the benefit of others. Pediatric Pain Newsletter - http://is.dal.ca/~pedpain/pplet.html. This Quarterly news letter reviews the literature in pain on infants, children and adolescents by presenting series of structured abstracts accompanied by critical commentaries. Current articles are reviewed and there is a section for announcements and book reviews. The Pediatric Pain Letter is published by Pediatric Pain Research Laboratory at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Sickle Cell Anemia WebServer - http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/ - This site from Harvard University provides a source of current information on sickle cell disease and thalassemia, including basic information, clini-cal research, management, and new develop-ments in the field. This is one of the most extensive sources of information on Sickle cell anemia and Thalassemia. Martindale's Health Science Guide - Pediatrics - www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Medi-calPed.html. This is another web directory on Pediatrics. It contains a large number of Pediatric links which are well classified into categories like journals, teaching files, etc. Heart.org - www.theheart.org. This nearly designed portal on Cardiology contains latest news, abstracts from various journals, links, case reports, clinical trials, references and teaching files. This site requires registration, which is free. Note: These websites have been verified on December 20, 1999. In case of any difficulty in accessing the URL's, readers are requested to check the elec-tronic version of the journal or contact the author. C. Vidyashankar, |
