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Indian Pediatrics 1999;36: 957-958 |
Global Update |
News in Brief Law Courting merit: A 5 judge constitution bench has ruled that there shall be no reservation at the level of admission to super specialty courses in medicine and engineering. Merit alone shall be the deciding factor. In post graduate courses so far, the minimal qualifying marks in UP has been 20% and in MP it was 20%(for SC's), 15% (for ST's) and 40% (for OBC's). The Bench also noted by a 4:1 majority that unacceptable disparities between the minimum qualifying marks of general versus reserved candidates must be curbed and has asked the Medical Council of India to examine whether a standard minimal qualifying marks for reserved candidates can be fixed (The Times of India 14 August 99). War Big brother: For the past 9 years the international community spearheaded by the United States has imposed crippling sanctions on Iraq. UNICEF's recent study has clearly shown the terrible toll this has taken on the health of the people of Iraq. Malnutrition has crossed 20% and more than half a million children have died. But the US maintains that "it is a price worth paying." (The Times of India 17 August 99). Vaccine Watch Meningitis: The United Kingdom becomes the first country to start routine vaccination against meningococcus C from October this year. This is a protein conjugate of the polysaccharide antigen of the Meningococcal surface antigen. Three doses are given below 4 months, 2 between 4-12 months and 1 above that. Meningococcus C accounts for 40% of meningococcal infections and more than 50% of the deaths (BMJ 31July 99). Rota Virus: The use of the Rota virus vaccine in the US has been put on hold till November 99 after the spurt in cases of intussusception in vaccinated children. The results of a case controlled study to check this will be available by then. Fifteen cases of intussusception were noted since July and 13 of them were within a week of receiving the rota virus vaccine (The Lancet 24 July 99). Marketing Hospitality: An interesting and unusual experiment is on in Thailand. To blunt the edge of the 2 year old Asian economic crisis, Thais are now into marketing their hospitals to international consumers. They are targeting South West Asia and even planning a travel cum medical package deal with Thai airlines (The Times of India 12 August 99). Cyber Watch Suicide cells: There are more than 100,000 sites on suicide in the internet. Many are involved in actively promoting suicide and providing more information about it. This may prove to be quite dangerous especially considering the psychological make up of the pathological internet user. In UK this is clearly illegal since it involves aiding and abetting in suicide though suicide per se is not illegal (BMJ 7 August 99). These complex issues of right to information, defining misinformation and difficulties of censorship in the world wide web are unique problems which are only going to increase as the use of the internet goes from strength to strength. The truth in the net: Biermann et al. from Ann Arbour in The US, in their study to analyze the accuracy of medical data from the internet were pleasantly surprised to note that 58% came from peer reviewed journals though 6% was clearly wrong. They tested it by searching by data on Ewings sarcoma using 4 search engines. Of the 27,000 pages found, 400 were randomly chosen and further analyzed. Hence the call for doctors to refrain from being digitally challenged, to master the internet and yet not follow it slavishly (BMJ 7 August 99). Gouri Rao Passi, Pedscapes Atlas of Medical Parasitology -www.cdfound.to.it. This site contains a well-illustrated Atlas of Parasitology with photomicrographs of the various parasites, including peripheral smear pictures and tissue sections. Brief descriptions of the various diseases are also illustrated in this site. However, the preponderance of images on this site makes the viewing slow. Cardiac Auscultation on the Internet - www.westernu.edu/lib_hrtsound.html. This website from the Western University is a comprehensive online guide to cardiac auscultation with links to sites where heart sounds and murmurs can be heard online. Johns Hopkins Infectious Diseases - www.hopkins-id.edu/. A part of the Johns Hopkins University website, this is a good source of information on infectious diseases. There is a weekly feature about the latest development in infectious diseases, and sections on malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and travel medicine. Pediapedia Pediatric Imaging Encyclopedia - www.vh.org/Providers/Teaching Files/ PAP/PAPHome.html. This site, a part of the Virtual Hospital, has a good collection of Neonatal and Pediatric radiographs of chest diseases, Neonatal and Pediatric clinical/radiographic presentations and imaging procedure technique descriptions. Google - www.google.com. Developed in the Stanford University, this is a fast and accurate search engine especially for medical and scientific information on the net. Information on any topic is searched for in less than a second. This is a search engine in the true sense and unlike Yahoo and others, does not contain a directory. Google uses a sophisticated text-matching technique to find pages that are both important and relevant to the search. Vaccine Weekly - www.newsfile.com/072699vs.htm. This is a weekly newsletter on vaccine development. This newsletter gives information on news regarding new vaccines and abstracts of the week's journals on articles on vaccines and vaccine development. New Vaccines - www.cdc.gov/nip.newvac.htm. This is a part of the CDC's (Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA) website. Comprehensive information about newly introduced vaccines and vaccines under development are displayed here. Links to other resources on vaccines are also displayed. The PDF versions of various documents on immunization are also available from the CDC site. Neuromuscular Diseases Center - www.neuro.wustl.edu/neuromuscular/. This site from the Washington University Neuromuscular Diseases Center, gives information on the various neuromuscular diseases, including myopathies, neuropathies, neuromuscular junction disorders, motor neuron dis- orders and the latest on diagnosis and management. Features of interest to students are notes on various neuromuscular diseases, mnemonics and wallet websites-webpages containing examination oriented information on a disease, which on printing fits into a single page. Internet Grateful Med. - http://igm-01.nlm.nih.gov/index.html. This is the Medline site from National Library of Medicine, which in addition permits search of other databases like AIDSLINE, AIDSDRUGS, AIDSTRIALS, BIOETHICSLINE, ChemID, OLDMEDLINE and TOXLINE. Among the other features in this site is a detailed Internet Grateful Med User's Guide to Medline and Internet. MCQ's com - www.mcqs.com. For those interested in multiple choice questions, this is the site. Multiple choice questions in Pediatrics and other specialities can be accessed from this site. The MCQ tests can be taken online with an immediate assessment of the results. The tests can also be downloaded for easy use. The assessment of results is detailed, with a system wise assessment of weak and strong points. C. Vidyashankar, |
