Category: health

  • Doctors influenced by Rest and Fluids Industry

    This physician enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Aspen, just for telling his patients to “relax.”

    I have noticed that medical satire from theonion.com is awfully good. Hats off to the writers(?writer). In keeping with the current flaying of pharma-physican backslapping ties; The Onion investigates and finds ulterior motive in prescription of just fluids and rest for common cold rather than antibiotics ;-0

    The investigation—the full details of which will be disclosed in this newspaper over the coming months—documented thousands of instances in which sick patients were repeatedly instructed, often verbatim, to “lie down and drink plenty of liquids.” This treatment, recommended a staggering 4 out of 5 times on average, was in each case prescribed by a physician known to have recently enjoyed a golf vacation courtesy of Big Rest and Fluids.

    “You have no idea how deep this goes,” said Dr. X, a physician who wished to remain anonymous. “They’ve got everyone, from the pediatricians and family doctors, right on down to the school nurses. We’ve had the cure for the common cold for nearly 40 years, but it’s still ‘rest and fluids, rest and fluids.’ Why? Because these guys are getting paid through the nose, that’s why.”

    The ending of the article is pretty good too…

    h/t

    The complete article from The OnionTechnorati Tags: ,

  • Reversible Vasectomy

    At present Vasectomy is the only reliable method of male contraception. While it is relatively simple procedure and quite cheap besides the fact that the government pays you to get it done, yet it is not that popular. 

    The reasons for that is the irreversibility of the procedure and the perception of loss of ‘manhood’. Male desiring further children have to undergo recanalization which are not always successful and is expensive ( vas may block again, antibodies to sperm may develop etc.). So any reliable alternat e  method  is bound to be popular and in the  news. from rediff.com

    Once upon a time, a scientist, rather an engineer-cum-doctor, toyed with an idea — what if there were a male contraceptive? What if a simple injection to a male prevented unwanted pregnancy?

    His ever-active brain started thinking and years of research followed. And after 30 long years, RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm under Guidance) was born.

    The credit goes to Indian biomedical engineer Dr Sujoy K Guha and his group at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur,

    In this situation a method of reversible blockage or sperm inhibition would be a wonderful thing; increasing the usefulness and acceptance of male contraception. This is where the method of RISUG comes in. Though still in advanced trial stages it is quite promising. It consists of partial blockage of the vas deferens lumen(the conduit passing sperm from the testes to the ejaculate) using polyelectrolytic compound and can be effective upto 8-9 years. The block can be reversed when desired by flushing using solvent or local stimulation.

    The method is pioneered by Dr. Guha at IIT Kgp. In case you need to know more you can visit the Risug site or

    Reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

    (Pic from iitkgp )