Health officials have revoked Johnson & Johnson's license to make cosmetics at a plant outside Mumbai after they discovered the company had used an unauthorized process for sterilizing its baby powder.

J&J said in a statement on Friday that it is in "ongoing discussions" with regulators.

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Mohammed Zubair Ashmi’s dil is now Hindustani. The 40-year-old Pakistani arrived in Chennai over two months ago with a body close to giving up, hoping against hope that he would be able to put pieces of his life back together. He wasn’t disappointed.

Ashmi, who was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy — a condition in which the heart becomes so weak and enlarged that it begins to affect the supply of blood to lungs, liver and other organs — was saved, thanks to a prompt heart transplant at a Chennai hospital.

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My Dear ones', a book penned by late American neurologist and psychiatrist Abraham Low on self-help movement for persons with major psychiatric disorders and their families will soon be available in Marathi language.

City-based NGO Schizophrenia Awareness Association (SAA) in association with Persistent Foundation has come out with translated version of the book, to be released on the occasion of World Schizophrenia Day on Thursday. Translated by writer Kamalini Phadke, the book is being published by SAA itself.

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A new treatment for various neuro-psychological disorders promises to improve the quality of life of those suffering from these conditions and also help them respond better to conventional medical therapies. Called trans-cranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), doctors claim the technique is safe, non-invasive, painless, easy to administer and also relatively inexpensive.

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Although prediabetes has no symptoms it is not benign, according to an expert.According to statistics from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control, about 79 million adult Americans (one in every four over the age of 20; and one of every two Americans over age 65) are walking around with prediabetes.

This means they have blood glucose levels that are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.

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‘A two year old baby needs ‘A’ blood, immediately. Call XYZ to donate blood and save her life.’

Most of us are no stranger to such messages and have often responded by mass forwarding it to friends. A new service started by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) hopes to make such frantic SOS messages, a thing from the past.

The FDA’s new move to go paperless and introduce all licensing, renewal and inspection reports through its newly developed website, has several ‘public friendly’ measures.

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To safeguard the interests of patients participating in clinical trials, their informed consent will soon have to be audio-visually recorded. The move will ensure unsuspecting patients are not recruited without adequate information and counselling about the pros and cons of a drug trial.

The Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) that advises the Centre on scientific matters recently gave its nod for incorporating the change and making it a law.

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The Union health ministry’s move to set up three more yellow fever vaccination centres in the state, including one in Pune, has run into trouble. The centers are meant for the people travelling to some countries in Africa and South America which require people entering their land to carry a yellow fever vaccination certificate.

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The government on Thursday issued the long-pending Drug Price Control Order, paving the way for the implementation of national pharmaceutical pricing policy, which will lead to a reduction in prices of medicines on an average by 20-25%, and in some lifesaving ones, by up to 80%.

Prices of 652 formulations under 27 therapeutic areas like anti-allergic (cetrizine), cardiac (aten), gastro-intestinal medicines (ocid), pain-killers (paracetamol) and anti-diabetic drugs (insulin) are expected to come down. Others in the list include anti-fungal, anti-tuberculosis, anti-leprosy, anti-hypertensives and cancer drugs. In certain cancer drugs, prices may come down by up to 80%.

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The department of pharmaceuticals on Thursday notified the Drug Price Control Order 2013 that would reduce prices of 348 essential medicines.

The new order authorises the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to regulate prices of essential medicines as listed in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2011.

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In astrology and janampatri-crazy India, a Hyderabad-based company called Mapmygenome has launched GenomePatri, a scientifically-validated personal health horoscope charted by mining one's genetic profile.

Mapmygenome's cleverly-named GenomePatri is only one of a rash of recently-launched personal genetic mapping services. In the past months, a proliferation of Indian companies are offering prognostic tests to decode DNA based on a simple saliva sample and lay bare the health risks a person could have inherited from parents and ancestors. For a fee ranging from Rs 9,999-25,000, these companies analyse a person's predisposition to diseases, risks accrued from diet and lifestyle factors and drug responses.

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Even as there are reports of apps attacking data on smartphones and siphoning them off, there is the other side of the matter — they can also save lives and increase health awareness.

When Dr Keerti Tewari, a bureaucrat, got breast cancer in 2007, she fumbled through mind-boggling information on the internet for guidance. Today, she’s a survivor who has given inputs for a breast cancer app. She says, “If there was an app in 2007, it would have saved me a lot of anxiety.”

As more people opt for mobiles, the world is on the cusp of a medical revolution. Companies are making medical apps to analyse urine, measure sleep patterns, diagnose ear infections, see glucose levels and even do ultrasounds.

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An effective model on providing home-based care to newborns, which was devised by a doctor from Maharashtra and is showing good results in other countries, is yet to be implemented in entirety in the state. Initiated by public health expert Dr Abhay Bang, the model has shown success in the remote Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region.

Now, the ‘State of the World’s Mothers’ which is yet to be released by international non-profit organisation, Save the Children, has lauded this model.
It has stated that some of the world’s poorest countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Malawi have adapted Dr Bang’s model and achieved remarkable results. However, India, which recognised the model as being worthy of implementation in 2008, is dragging its feet in implementing it.

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India has the dubious distinction of recording the most first-day deaths of children. Every year, 3,09,000 children die on the day they are born in India. It accounts for 29% of all the first-day deaths globally, the highest for any country, according to the latest ‘State of the World’s Mothers’ report released by Save the Children, an NGO.

Early neonatal mortality comprises of child deaths within the first seven days of being born. Two thirds of all early newborn deaths occur in just 10 countries — Nigeria, DR Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and China. Four of these are in South Asia. “India, with both a large population and a high early neonatal mortality rate, is home to more than 3,09,000 first-day deaths,” the report said.

According to the government of India’s sample registration survey in 2011, for every 1,000 live births in India, 24 children die within the first seven days of birth. Madhya Pradesh surpasses the national average with the early neonatal mortality rate standing at 32. Uttar Pradesh and Orissa are next at 30. While Maharashtra has managed to duck the national average with its early neonatal mortality rate standing at 15, it still has a long way to go to reduce the burden. Kerala with 5 newborn deaths per 1,000 live births has by far the most ideal rate of early neonatal mortality.

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Putting proven helpful information into the hands of caregivers for children with cerebral palsy, autism and other neuro-developmental disabilities is the goal of a Goa-based project that was awarded a Canadian $100,000 seed grant last month.

Dr Vivek Vajaratkar of NGO Sangath in Goa was awarded an international Stars in Global Health grant by Grand Challenges Canada for the innovative idea 'Inform', a mobile health (or m-health) platform for improving functional outcomes for children with impairments through community health workers in India.

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The Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI) has launched a nationwide initiative to check the rise of hormonal imbalance-related diseases among Indian women.

A study has found a fivefold increase in disorders related to the endocrine system among Indian women when compared to the worldwide data. The endocrine system is a collection of glands that secrete hormones.

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Shwaas, a support group for parents of asthmatic children initiated by city-based Chest Research Foundation, is helping parents address their worries. World Asthma Day is observedon May7.

“To see one’s child gasping for breath or coughing incessantly, losing out on sleep, missing school, missing games and the little pleasures of life is heart wrenching for a parent,” said Monica Barne, head, training programme division, Chest ResearchFoundation.

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Patients suffering liver failure may not have to wait without end to get a matching donor anymore.

Transplant surgeon claim those with mismatched donors can also undergo the life-saving procedure now with the help of a novel technique involving suppression of antibodies responsible for rejection of incompatible organs with the help of plasma exchange and drug therapy.

It has been used successfully to treat three patients at Medanta Medicity, Gurgaon. Now that all the three patients are doing fine, many others in the hospital want to follow suit.

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The number of mobile health (mHealth) initiatives in India is likely to grow thanks to the robust mobile technology infrastructure and the launch of 4G. Changing disease profiles, increased adoption of smart phones, advancements in mobile technology and greater focus on health and wellness are factors that will contribute to the growth of mHealth in India, says a report by Frost & Sullivan.

Currently, there are more than 20 initiatives for mHealth in the country. It is still a fledgling concept and most of the initiatives undertaken are only a couple of years old. The market has very few successful business models and it will be at least two to five years before a successful model emerges. This is due to the large disparity in mobile infrastructure in rural and urban India, the report said.

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Though Maharashtra leads in the number of corneas taken from the deceased due to the high number of donations, almost 70% of the corneas taken are of no use to the visually challenged in the state, health minister Suresh Shetty said in the state legislative council in a written reply to a question posed by MLCs.

Replying to a question on whether the government didn’t have the machinery to harvest corneas to help the visually challenged, Shetty said the state had enough machinery but all of last year and till January 2013 as many as 5,587 corneas were taken of which only 2,033 (37%) could be transplanted. Around 1,622 were used for training and research, and around 1,932 were of no use for various reasons.

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