Telangana man dies of ill-health in Israel
Representatives of the Israel Telangana Association confirmed the passing away of Revella Ravinder on Monday and pointed out that the deceased had been ailing for the past few months due to heart-related ailments.
He was admitted to hospital three weeks ago and died while undergoing treatment earlier this week, the representatives said, adding that the body has been preserved in mortuary. 'All related formalities have been completed and the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv has been informed about the death of the individual,' the ITA office-bearer said.
The ITA leader said since flight operations were completely stopped, it was uncertain when the mortal remains would be sent to India. The ITA also denied reports that the deceased had died of suffocation after taking shelter in a bunker after sirens blared during the missile attack on Tel Aviv.
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Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
Maker of GLP1 pens scales up for generic debuts
As weight-loss drug sales surge with semaglutide's patent expiration, Gujarat's Shaily Engineering Plastics, an injector pen manufacturer, anticipates significant growth. Its stock has nearly doubled, and the company is doubling its production capacity to 80-85 million pens by fiscal year-end to meet rising domestic and export demands. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Mumbai: With sales of weight-loss drugs surging and set to go up even more as semaglutide goes off patent early next year, a low-profile manufacturer of injector pens, Gujarat-based Shaily Engineering Plastics , is set to reap a windfall. Its stock has nearly doubled over the past 12 months. Manufacturers of the pen-like devices that make it easy to self-administer metered doses that would otherwise need to be injected with a syringe are the unnoticed beneficiaries of weight-loss drugs becoming is doubling capacity in line with plans of top pharma companies to launch generic versions of GLP1 weight-loss drugs early next year in India and overseas, said a senior company executive. It will be increasing capacity to 80-85 million pens by this fiscal year end from 40-45 million currently to cater to domestic and export demand, Sanjay Shah, chief strategy officer, told ET."We will look at further expansion and ramp up (in FY27). Currently, we are working with multiple players who are looking to launch generic semaglutide in different markets," he to Shah, various estimates suggest global demand for injector pens is likely to reach 500 million per year in the next two-three years and about 2 billion by is leading industry insiders to predict a looming supply crunch for pen leading drugmakers like Sun Pharma , Dr Reddy's, Cipla and Lupin are expected to be a part of the first-day launch wave in several international markets and India as soon as the patent is investing about '125 crore in FY26 on capacity expansion of its IP-led pen platform."We will be expanding (capacity) going forward to cater to the global as well as domestic market," said drugmaker Novo Nordisk 's weight-loss molecule semaglutide, branded Ozempic and Wegovy , will go off patent in March next year, opening up the gates for Indian and overseas drugmakers to launch cheaper generic expect an immediate price reduction of 50% and further by 60-80% over the coming years. This will boost affordability, potentially spurring sales of the drug and consequently, injector the past, shortages of both Eli Lilly's tirzepatide and Novo's semaglutide in the US were largely due to lack of devices and fill-n-finish capacities after demand for the drugs far outstripped supply.
The Hindu
9 hours ago
- The Hindu
The medical boundaries for AYUSH practitioners
The recent controversy on X between a hepatologist and an Indian chess Grand Master, on whether practitioners of traditional medicine can claim to be doctors, has sparked much commentary on the role and the status of practitioners of traditional Indian medicine systems such as Ayurveda and Unani, in India. Committees, governments, perspectives The burning issue here is not merely whether practitioners of Ayurveda can refer to themselves as doctors, but rather the scope of medical activities permitted under Indian law. This is an issue which has consequences for public health. A starting point for this discussion is to understand the framing of the debate over the last 80 years, beginning 1946, when the Health Survey and Development Committee, better known as Bhore Committee, batted in favour of modern scientific medicine based on evidence. The committee had pointed out that other countries were in the process of phasing out their traditional medicine systems and recommended that states take a call on the extent to which traditional medicine played a role in their public health systems. The Bhore committee's lack of enthusiasm for the traditional medicinal system did not go unnoticed by practitioners of traditional Indian medicine who mounted a vocal protest. They managed to convince the Government of India to set up the Committee on Indigenous Systems of Medicine, which submitted its report in 1948. This committee unabashedly wrapped up its conclusions in communal language, framing the issue in terms of Hindu nationalism by linking Ayurveda to the Vedas and its decline to 'foreign domination'. While the Nehru government took no action to formally recognise these practitioners of traditional medicine, the Indira Gandhi government in 1970 enacted a legislation called The Indian Medicine Central Council Act recognising and regulating the practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani. This law was replaced in 2020 with a new law called The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act. The syllabus for aspiring practitioners of Ayurveda is an absolute mish-mash of concepts that span everything from doshas, prakriti, atmas (which includes learning the difference between paramatma and jivatma) with a sprinkling of modern medical concepts such as cell physiology and anatomy. These are irreconcilable concepts — the theory of tridosha attributes all ills to an imbalance of doshas, while modern medicine locates the concepts of some diseases such as infections in 'germ theory', among others. There is no middle ground between both systems of medicine which is why concepts such as integrative medicine make no sense. Point of friction Nevertheless, the legal recognition of this new class of practitioners led to questions on the exact boundaries between the practice of traditional and modern medicine. The major point of friction has been the prescription of modern medicines by the practitioners of traditional medicine. Ayurvedic practitioners, in particular, while claiming the superiority of their art over modern medicine, have consistently demanded the right to prescribe modern medicines developed by evidence-based modern science. Pertinently, this dispute revolved around the interpretation of Rule 2(ee) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 which defined the class of 'registered medical practitioners' who can prescribe modern medicine. This definition is complicated since it is not limited to doctors with a MBBS degree. It delegates a certain amount of power to State governments to pass orders declaring medical practitioners on their State medical registers as persons 'practising the modern scientific system of medicine for the purposes of ….' the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940. Many State governments have used this power under Rule 2(ee) to allow registered practitioners of Ayurveda and Unani to prescribe modern medicine such as antibiotics. The constitutionality of these orders was challenged before the courts and the first round of litigation concluded in 1998 with the judgment of the Supreme Court of India in Dr. Mukhtiar Chand & Ors vs The State Of Punjab & Ors. The Court concluded that 'the right to prescribe drugs of a system of medicine would be synonymous with the right to practise that system of medicine. In that sense, the right to prescribe allopathic drug cannot be wholly divorced from the claim to practice allopathic medicine'. Simply put, Ayurvedic practitioners had no right to prescribe modern medicine. That judgment never stopped the lobbying by Ayurvedic and Unani practitioners with State governments for the promulgation of orders under Rule 2(ee) allowing them to prescribe modern medicine. Several State governments have continued passing these orders in defiance of the Court's judgment. This inevitably leads to litigation before the High Courts, usually by the Indian Medical Association, which often wins these cases. Unsuspecting patients too have often sued practitioners of Ayurveda before consumer courts on the grounds that they were deceived into believing that they were being treated by a doctor with a MBBS degree who can prescribe modern medicine. While much of the litigation has revolved around the right to dispense modern medicine, there is also the issue regarding the medical procedures that can be conducted legally by practitioners of Ayurveda and Unani. For example, can a registered Ayurvedic practitioner 'intubate' a patient? This is an important question to ask since it is an open secret that many hospitals purporting to practise modern medicine are hiring Ayurvedic practitioners with Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree at lower pay in place of graduates with a MBBS degree. Further, a notification by the Indian government in 2020 has allowed Ayurvedic practitioners (post graduates) to perform 58 minor surgeries, including the removal of the gall bladder, appendix and benign tumours. The constitutionality of this notification is pending before the courts. If the notification is upheld, the question that arises is whether these Ayurvedic practitioners can now use anaesthetic agents and antibiotics required to conduct surgeries. The stakes are high for public health in India since the likely strategy of Ayurvedic practitioners will be to argue that these surgeries were known in traditional Indian medicine. In these times of heady Hindutva, it will be difficult to find a judge who will ignore these claims. The political factor The larger political backdrop to this entire debate regarding Ayurvedic practitioners is 'Hindu pride', which has fuelled claims of fantastical achievements by ancient Indian civilisation, be it the pushpaka vimana or the claims of the Kauravas being test tube babies. When a policy issue such as Ayurveda is cynically draped in the language of 'Hindu pride', it is not just the Bharatiya Janata Party but also the Indian National Congress which feels compelled to support an obviously dangerous approach to public health. The last election manifesto of the Indian National Congress, in 2024, promised that the party would 'support' all systems of medicines instead of a promise to support only rational, evidence-based medicine. This blind faith in traditional medicine is going to cost every citizen in the future since the government is actively considering the inclusion of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) treatments under the Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme funded by tax-payers. This is in addition to approximately ₹20,000 crore of tax-payer money spent on research councils functioning under the Ministry of AYUSH with a mandate to research AYUSH. They have very little to show for in terms of scientific breakthroughs. Twitter outrage notwithstanding, the joke at the end of the day is on the tax-payer. Dinesh S. Thakur is the author of 'The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India'. Prashant Reddy T. is the coauthor of 'The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India'
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
What procedure did Stalin undergo? It doesn't matter
If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin has been in hospital since July 21. Newspapers, including The Times of India, quoting medical bulletins from the hospital, said he underwent investigations, including a diagnostic angiogram and a therapeutic procedure to correct variations in his heartbeat. Soon, there were discussions in some circles about why we hadn't specified the therapeutic procedure (as a Tamil daily had). Some said newspapers didn't have the 'guts' to report the details. I beg to differ. We knew exactly what the procedure was. It was an informed decision not to go into the details, following guidelines on patient confidentiality. Would we have followed the same guidelines if the patient were not a VIP? The answer is yes, unless the procedure is news (here, again, the patient's identity would be revealed only with consent and if it adds value to the story). Has the media always followed these guidelines? No. In the early 2000s, a news magazine had A B Vajpayee on the cover, with the headline that read something like this: How healthy is our PM? It had a photograph of Vajpayee – as in an anatomy textbook – with a dozen body parts marked with specific ailments. I don't remember Vajpayee protesting. He lived another 15 years or more. Things have changed. Today, the mainstream media follows internationally accepted guidelines while reporting on the health status of people. Shouldn't the public know about the health of public figures, especially those who make decisions that impact public life? I believe we should know how healthy our lawmakers are, but we aren't entitled to their diagnosis sheets. And here comes the importance of official health bulletins that give out ample and accurate information without breaching patient confidentiality. The medical bulletins on Stalin kept this promise. It said the results of the procedure were normal and the chief minister would resume work in two days. Not all medical bulletins are forthcoming when the patient is a high-profile person. Senior journalists who have covered former chief minister M G Ramachandran's health remember the hospital putting out regular health bulletins that gave necessary information. But after his return from the US (where he underwent treatment) in Feb 1985, information dried up and speculation ran high. MGR made several more visits to the US for treatment and died two years and 10 months later. Medical bulletins during J Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation were sometimes inaccurate and misleading. On September 22, 2016, a bulletin said she was hospitalised with complaints of fever and dehydration (it turned out that she had fainted at home); two days later, it said she was on a normal diet. On September 29, the hospital said the CM was recovering well. On Oct 6, a bulletin said she was on respiratory support. Her condition see-sawed between then and her death on December 5, 2016 (On November 13, Jayalalithaa released a statement saying she had 'taken rebirth because of people's prayers'), but probably on orders from the patient or her caretakers, the hospital sometimes played down the criticality of her condition. The worst a bulletin can do is give inaccurate information. We don't expect the hospital to go on record when a public personality undergoes such a critical procedure as, say, ECMO (when machines take over the functions of the heart and lungs), but it is imperative that the media is informed about the seriousness of the condition. A good health reporter has no difficulty in keeping track of a VIP's condition in a hospital. What a newspaper does with the information depends on how responsible it is – to the patient and the public. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
