Junior Digest

Nearly half of women and one in three men are at risk of developing stroke or degenerative neurological diseases such as dementia and Parkinson’s during their lifetime, according to a study published Monday.

Dutch researchers considered all three conditions “in order to grasp how big the problem of incurable brain diseases in late life really is,” said the study’s senior author Arfan Ikram.

“We grouped these diseases together not only because they are common but also because there are indications that these often co-occur and might share some overlapping causes,” Ikram, of the Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands, told AFP.

This could mean there are also overlapping ways to delay or avoid getting the diseases, and the research found that some preventative strategies may cut the risk by between 20 and 50 percent.

For the study, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, researchers tracked more than 12,000 healthy people over the age of 45 from 1990 to 2016.

Over the 26 years, 5,291 people died. Nearly 1,500 were diagnosed with dementia — 80 percent with Alzheimer’s — while 1,285 had a stroke and 263 developed Parkinson’s.

The results indicated that the likelihood of women aged 45 years or older getting the diseases was 48 percent, while it was 36 percent for men.

The gender split is mostly due to the fact that men die earlier than women, Ikram said.

“Our study does not show some sort of protective effect for men,” he said. “Instead it is merely due to fewer men surviving to old age.”

Because they live longer, women have an increased risk of such diseases, and the study found women were twice as likely as men to develop both dementia and stroke.

While there are no cures for these diseases, a healthy lifestyle — a good diet, not smoking or having diabetes — can protect against stroke and help prevent the onset of dementia, Ikram said.

There are also indications that a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of Parkinson’s, he added.

The cost of the three neurological diseases is believed to be more than two percent of the world’s annual economic productivity (GDP), the researchers said in a statement.

However while the dangers of other illnesses such as breast cancer and heart diseases are well known, “the same can’t be said of dementia, stroke and Parkinsonism”, the statement said.

The researchers noted that as the study only included people of European ancestry with a relatively long life expectancy, it “might not be applicable to other ethnicities/populations”.

Worldwide, about seven percent of people over 65 suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia, a percentage that rises to 40 percent above the age of 85.

The number afflicted is expected to triple by 2050 to 152 million, according to the World Health Organization, posing a huge challenge to healthcare systems.

Salt consumption exceeds national and World Health Organization guidelines in most countries, but only the highest-sodium diets, such as in China, are linked to clear health risks, researchers said Friday.

Only individuals with a daily salt intake of at least 12.5 grammes– about two-and-a-half teaspoons — were associated with increased blood pressure and a greater risk of stroke, they reported in The Lancet, a medical journal.

WHO recommends capping salt consumption at five grammes per day, but this target is not known to have been achieved at a national level anywhere in the world, the survey of more than 90,000 people spread across 300 distinct communities in 18 countries found.

“We should be far more concerned about targeting communities and countries with high average sodium intake — above five grammes (equivalent to 12.5 grammes of salt), such as China — and bringing them down to the moderate range” of 7.5 to 12.5 grammes of salt, said lead author Andre Mente, a professor in the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Canada.

One gramme of sodium equals 2.5 grammes of salt.

Four-fifths of the groups examined in China had average daily salt intake of 12.5 grammes, whereas in other countries 84 percent ingested between 7.5 and 12.5 grammes.

“Our study adds to growing evidence that, at moderate intake, sodium may have a beneficial role in cardiovascular heath, but a potentially more harmful role when intake is very high or very low,” he said in a statement.

The Human body needs essential nutrients such as sodium and many vitamins, but the ideal amount remains subject to debate.

The study, which stopped short of calling for WHO recommendations to be relaxed, examined urine and blood samples, along with health records, for 95,767 women and men monitored over an eight-year period.

Nearly 3,700 of the participants died during that time and 3,543 had “major cardiovascular events”.

Experts not involved in the study were sharply critical of its methodology, and said its findings should be taken with more than a few grains of salt.

The technique for collecting urine samples in notoriously unreliable, they noted. And the fact that it was an observational study — as opposed to clinical trials — means that no firm conclusions can be drawn as to cause-and-effect.

Most controversial was the suggestion that low sodium intake may, in fact, provoke heart disease.

“There are no known mechanisms that could explain this observation,” commented Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London.

“Sodium is an essential nutrient but the requirement is very low at about 0.5 grammes (1.25 grammes of salt) per day.”

Ageing populations, he added, should still be advised to restrict the addition of salt to food.

New Delhi, July 28 : The government will soon provide free drugs and diagnostics for Hepatitis B and C, Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda said.
Launching the National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme to mark the World Hepatitis Day, 2018, here on Saturday, Mr Nadda said, “This initiative will provide laboratory testing and management of viral hepatitis with a de-centralized approach”.
He said the government was strongly committed to work towards elimination of viral Hepatitis by 2030.
The Minister said that under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry was aggressively addressing the preventable diseases. Adding that there had been a paradigm shift in designing the programme.
“Programmes are now designed at the ground level and all stakeholders are taken into consideration. We are now making sure that the last person gets the benefit out of it,” he added.
The Minister further said that his Ministry had already launched a campaign to end TB by 2025, five years ahead of global target. The Government now has more than 1100 CBNAAT machines for rapid diagnosis of TB and provides daily regimen with fixed dose combinations and the programme had also initiated active case finding to screen more TB patients.
Speaking at the function, Communication Minister Manoj Sinha stated that the Department of Posts (DoP) had released several stamps to generate awareness about various programmes of the government.
He further informed the participants about various initiatives of DoP.
Mr Sinha released a commemorative stamp and Mr Nadda released the Operational Guidelines for National Viral Hepatitis Control Program, National Laboratory Guidelines for Viral Hepatitis Testing and National Guidelines for Diagnosis and Management of Viral Hepatitis.
Ministers of State Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Anupriya Patel along with others were also present at the launch function.
Mr Choubey, said that awareness was very important component of the programme. As disease burden was very significant in India, this would help all to find the disease carriers and towards their diagnosis and treatment.
“This exemplifies India’s commitment to providing universal health coverage and meeting SDG targets for the country,” he said.
Ms Patel, stated that National Viral Control Programme marks the beginning of the nation’s journey to control viral hepatitis thereby reducing mortality and morbidity attributed to it.
“It is envisaged that this programme will reach large number of people possibly harbouring the infection, she said.
Integrating the intervention within the existing health systems framework under NHM rather than adopting a vertical approach would further complement the efforts in providing more comprehensive care till the grass-root level, she added.
The Health Ministry had launched the ‘National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme’, with the goal of ending viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030 in the country.
The aim of the initiative is to reduce morbidity and mortality due to viral hepatitis.

Hard to spot and harder to collect, they can seriously harm marine wildlife and are believed to pose a significant risk to human health as they move through the food chain and contaminate water supplies.

Now researchers of the University of Reading believe they have proof for the first time that microplastics can enter our ecosystem by air via mosquitoes and other flying insects.

The team observed mosquito larvae ingesting microscopic plastic beads — similar to the tiny plastic balls found in everyday cosmetic products — before monitoring them through their life cycle.

They found that many of the particles were transferred into the mosquitoes’ adult form, meaning whatever creatures then ate the flying insects in the wild would also ingest the plastic.

“The significance is that this is quite possibly widespread,” Amanda Callaghan, biological scientist at Reading and the lead study author, told AFP.

“We were just looking at mosquitoes as an example but there are lots of insects that live in water and have the same life-cycle with larvae that eat things in water and then emerge as adults.”

The animals known to eat such insects include several species of birds, bats and spiders, all of which are hunted in turn by other animals.

“It’s basically another pathway for pollution that hadn’t been considered previously,” Callaghan said.

Although the team observed the mosquitoes in lab conditions, she said it was “highly possible” the process was already happening in the wild.

Several countries including Britain have banned products containing microbeads, but Callaghan said the scale of the problem was still being discovered.

“It’s a major problem and those plastics already in the environment are going to be with us for a very, very long time,” she said.

Even an occasional glass of wine or beer increases the risk of health problems and dying, according to a major study on drinking in 195 nations that attributes 2.8 million premature deaths worldwide each year to booze.

“There is no safe level of alcohol,” said Max Griswold, a researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington and lead author for a consortium of more than 500 experts.

Despite recent research showing that light-to-moderate drinking reduces heart disease, the new study found that alcohol use is more likely than not to do harm.

“The protective effect of alcohol was offset by the risks,” Griswold told AFP in summarising the results, published in medical journal The Lancet on Friday.

“Overall, the health risks associated with alcohol rose in line with the amount consumed each day.”

Compared to abstinence, imbibing one “standard drink” — 10 grammes of alcohol, equivalent to a small beer, glass of wine or shot of spirits — per day, for example, ups the odds of developing at least one of two dozen health problems by about half-a-percent, the researchers reported.

Looked at one way, that seems like a small increment: 914 out of 100,000 teetotallers will encounter those problems, compared to 918 people who imbibe seven times per week.

“But at the global level, that additional risk of 0.5 percent among (once-a-day) drinkers corresponds to about 100,000 additional deaths each year,” said senior author Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washington and a director at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Less is better, None is best

“Those are excess deaths, in other words, that could be avoided,” she told AFP.

The risk climbs in a steep “J-curve”, the study found.

An average of two drinks per day, for example, translated into a 7.0 percent hike in disease and injury compared to those who opt for abstinence.

With five “units” of alcohol per day, the likelihood of serious consequences jumps by 37 percent.

The “less is better, none is best” finding jibes with the World Health Organization’s long-standing position, but is at odds with many national guidelines, especially in the developed world.

Britain’s health authority, for example, suggests not exceeding 14 drinks per week “to keep health risks from alcohol to a low level”.

“There is always a lag between the publication of new evidence and the modification and adoption of revised guidelines,” said Gakidou, who admitted to being an “occasional drinker” herself.

“The evidence shows what the evidence shows, and I — like 2.4 billion other people on the planet that also consume alcohol — need to take it seriously.”

Overall, drinking was the seventh leading risk factor for premature death and disease in 2016, accounting for just over two percent of deaths in women and nearly seven percent in men.

The top six killers are high blood pressure, smoking, low-birth weight and premature delivery, high blood sugar (diabetes), obesity and pollution.

But in the 15-49 age bracket, alcohol emerged as the most lethal factor, responsible for more than 12 percent of deaths among men, the study found.

The 95 percent club 

The examination of impacts drew from more than 600 earlier studies, while a country-by-country tally of prevalence — the percentage of men and women who drink, and how much they consume — drew from another 700.

Both were grounded in new methods that compensated for the shortcomings of earlier efforts.

Among men, drinking alcohol in 2016 was most widespread in Denmark (97 percent), along with Norway, Argentina, Germany, and Poland (94 percent).

In Asia, South Korean men took the lead, with 91 percent hitting the bottle at least once in a while.

Among women, Danes also ranked first (95 percent), followed by Norway (91 percent), Germany and Argentina (90 percent), and New Zealand (89 percent).

The biggest drinkers, however, were found elsewhere.

Men in Romania who partake knocked back a top-scoring eight drinks a day on average, with Portugal, Luxembourg, Lithuania and Ukraine just behind at seven “units” per day.

Ukranian women who drink were in a league of their own, putting away more than four glasses or shots every 24 hours, followed by Andorra, Luxembourg, Belarus, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and Britain, all averaging about three per day.

The most abstemious nations were those with Muslim-majority populations.

The World Health Organization (WHO)  published its first Essential Diagnostics List, a catalogue of the tests needed to diagnose the most common conditions as well as a number of global priority diseases.

“An accurate diagnosis is the first step to getting effective treatment,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “No one should suffer or die because of a lack of diagnostic services, or because the right tests were not available.”

The list concentrates on in vitro tests – i.e. tests of human specimens like blood and urine. It contains 113 products: 58 tests are listed for detection and diagnosis of a wide range of common conditions, providing an essential package that can form the basis for screening and management of patients.

The remaining 55 tests are designed for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of “priority” diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis B and C, human papillomavirus and syphilis.

Some of the tests are particularly suitable for primary health care facilities, where laboratory services are often poorly resourced and sometimes non-existent; for example, tests that can rapidly diagnose a child for acute malaria or glucometers to test diabetes. These tests do not require electricity or trained personnel. Other tests are more sophisticated and therefore intended for larger medical facilities.

“Our aim is to provide a tool that can be useful to all countries, to test and treat better, but also to use health funds more efficiently by concentrating on the truly essential tests,” says Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines, Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals. “Our other goal is to signal to countries and developers that the tests in the list must be of good quality, safe and affordable.”

 Washington, May 21  : According to a new study, babies with inherited intolerance of fructose face a risk of acute liver failure, if they are fed with certain formulas, containing fructose.
Baby formula manufacturers should remove fructose or sucrose, or explicitly label their products to allow parents to avoid those sweeteners if necessary, the doctors have demanded.
In a recent paper in Molecular Genetics and Metabolism, Emory Geneticists Hong Li, MD, PhD and Michael Gambello, MD, PhD together with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Paediatric Hepatologist Miriam Vos, MD and colleagues reported four cases of hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI), all diagnosed in early infants.
All had acute liver failure that resolved when the infants switched to formula without fructose, the report noted. HFI is estimated to occur in one out of 20,000 live births. It comes from mutations in the aldolase B gene, resulting in an inability to metabolise fructose, said the medicos.
Early symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and failure of an infant to gain weight. If unrecognised, HFI can result in liver and kidney damage, seizures or death, they warned.
HFI-related problems do not appear if an infant is being breastfed exclusively. It is normally recognised when fructose-containing solid foods, such as fruit, are introduced into the diet several months after birth, the doctors explained.
However, some baby formulas, often soy-based, contain sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose (table sugar), which is made of fructose and glucose linked together. Sometimes, the label only says ‘sugar,’ instead of sucrose.
“In some of the cases we describe in this article, the treating physician had to call the formula manufacturer to confirm that sucrose was a component. It underlines why accurate and explicit labeling is necessary,” said Dr Li, assistant professor of human genetics and pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine.
In babies with digestive problems or allergies, parents or paediatricians may seek to avoid formulas based on cows’ milk. However, in alternative formulas, there is a higher chance the manufacturer will add sucrose or fructose as a sweetener and carbohydrate source.
HFI is, in a sense, a mirror image of galactosemia, an inherited intolerance of lactose, which Li said, is better known.
“Most paediatricians are aware of galactosemia, and the liver symptoms that may bring an infant to see a doctor actually resemble galactosemia, even if they come from a different origin,” she said.
“In case of HFI, choosing formulas that avoid lactose, like soy-based formulas containing fructose or sucrose, can make things worse. Once parents switch formula, improvement happens very fast,” Dr Li told the Science Daily.

The World Health Organization has recognised “compulsive sexual behaviour” as a mental disorder, but said Saturday it remained unclear if it was an addiction on a par with gambling or drug abuse.

The contentious term “sex addiction” has been around for decades but experts disagree over whether the condition exists.

In the latest update of its catalogue of diseases and injuries around the world, the WHO takes a step towards legitimising the concept, by acknowledging “compulsive sexual behaviour disorder”, or CSBD, as a mental illness.

But the UN health body stops short of lumping the condition together with addictive behaviours like substance abuse or gambling, insisting more research is needed before describing the disorder as an addiction.

“Conservatively speaking, we don’t feel that the evidence is there yet… that the process is equivalent to the process with alcohol or heroin,” WHO expert Geoffrey Reed told AFP Saturday.

In the update of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD), published last month, WHO said CSBD was “characterised by persistent failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges… that cause marked distress or impairment”.

But it said the scientific debate was still ongoing as to “whether or not the compulsive sexual behaviour disorder constitutes the manifestation of a behavioural addiction”.

Reed said it was important that the ICD register, which is widely used as a benchmark for diagnosis and health insurers, includes a concise definition of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder to ensure those affected can get help.

“There is a population of people who feel out of control with regards to their own sexual behaviour and who suffer because of that,” he said pointing out that their sexual behaviour sometimes had “very severe consequences.”

“This is a genuine clinical population of people who have a legitimate health condition and who can be provided services in a legitimate way,” he said.

It remains unclear how many people suffer from the disorder, but Reed said the ICD listing would likely prompt more research into the condition and its prevalence, as well as into determining the most effective treatments.

“Maybe eventually we will say, yeah, it is an addiction, but that is just not where we are at this point,” Reed said.

But even without the addiction label, he said he believed the new categorisation would be “reassuring”, since it lets people know they have “a genuine condition” and can seek treatment.

Mumbai: The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday that there was minimal risk of children contracting the polio virus in India from a tainted batch of vaccines.

The public health scare, which potentially affected thousands of children, put a renewed spotlight on lax pharmaceutical quality control procedures in India.

The latest concerns emerged over the weekend after vaccines produced by privately-held Bio-Med Pvt Ltd and distributed as part of a free government drive to eradicate polio were found to have a strain of the virus that had been eradicated around the world and phased out of vaccines.

However Shamila Sharma, a spokeswoman for the WHO, said any risk to children was “minimal” due to the high routine polio immunization coverage in India. The WHO funds and supports India’s polio-control programme.

Health officials in New Delhi said they were investigating why and how Bio-Med was still producing such vaccines, and that the affected lots were being recalled. The Indian government had ordered this type of vaccine to be discontinued in 2016.

Local media reported on the weekend that police arrested the managing director of the northern India-based Bio-Med Pvt Ltd, after routine testing revealed it had made and shipped some 150,000 lots of oral polio vaccines that contained the type 2 polio vaccine virus.

 New Delhi, June 13 : India, as a global leader, is committed to eliminating Lymphatic Filariasis (LF)
transmission and disease burden so that future generations are free from the debilitating disease.
Asserting this, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda told participants during the inauguration
of the 10th meeting of Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GAELF) here on Wednesday that
significant progress towards the filariasis elimination had been made by India.
‘With the concerted efforts of the Government, state governments and development partners, 100 districts out of
total 256 endemic districts have achieved elimination target and stopped Mass Drug Administration after
successful validation by Transmission Assessment Survey (TAS) and are under post-MDA surveillance.’
He assured that ‘India will always welcome newer initiatives and research to translate into the Filariasis
elimination programme.’
Lymphatic Filariasis (LF), commonly known as Elephantiasis, is one of the oldest and most debilitating neglected disease, which is currently endemic in 73 countries of the world, including India. It is caused mainly by Wuchereria Bancrofti and spread by Culex mosquito.
The strategy to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis in India was based on twin pillars of Mass Drug Administration
(MDA) once a year for interruption of transmission — that is, no new case and to cater to the patients already
afflicted with the disease with morbidity management. Stressing on the urgent need for total integration
of different departments for mobilising the community, he expressed confidence saying that ‘I am sure
“Accelerated Plan for Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis 2018” released today will also expedite the last
leap for elimination of LF.”
Mr Nadda later gave away the GAELF awards to 11 countries — Cambodia, Cook Islands, Egypt, Maldives,
Marshall Islands, Niue, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Togo, Tonga and Vanuatu — for successfully interrupting the
transmission. He also released the Accelerated Plan for Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) 2018 for India.
Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey said it was critical to enhance
awareness among the affected communities about the disease and its treatment. ‘I am sure during three
day’s deliberations, experts will come out with pragmatic approach towards elimination of LF. There is a
need to all stakeholders to work in integrated manner in order to eliminate lymphatic filariasis as public
health problem,” the minister said.
Dr Karen Cummings, Minister of Guyana, Professor Balram Bhargava, Secretary DHR & DG-ICMR, Professor
Charles Mackenzie, Chair GAELF, Dr Promila Gupta, Director General of Health Services and Dr Jonathan
King, WHO head quarters, were among those present.
The diseases mainly affects the poorest population in society, particularly those living in areas with poor
water, sanitation and hygiene. LF does not kill the affected people, but can cause permanent disfigurement,
reduced productivity and social stigma.
GAELF is an alliance of partners from 72 LF endemic national country programmes, NGOs, private sectors,
academic and research institutes and international development agencies that assists WHO’s Global Programme
to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis and was formed in year. Since then the meeting are held biennially. The second
meeting was held in 2002 in Delhi and India is again hosting the 10th meeting which recognizes that India has
highest burden of Lymphatic Filariasis and there is need of taking leadership role to Eliminate lymphatic filariasis. Participation of LF programme managers in this meeting will provide an insight of larger global programme and enable them join discussion and contribute to solutions, an official release here said.

London:  Teenagers, and particularly girls, are bearing the brunt of the global AIDS epidemic with around 30 adolescents becoming infected with HIV every hour, according to a report by the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF.

Of those 30 new infections each hour among 15 to 19 year-olds in 2017, around 20 – or two-thirds – were in girls, UNICEF said, representing a “crisis of health as well as a crisis of agency”.

While there has been substantial progress in the fight against AIDS in the last two decades, the failure to prevent so many new infections among children and teenagers is slowing this down, the report said.

It said the epidemic’s spread among adolescent girls is being fuelled by early sex, including with older men, forced sex, powerlessness in negotiating around sex, poverty and lack of access to confidential counselling and testing services.

“In most countries, women and girls lack access to information, to services, or even just the power to say no to unsafe sex,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s executive director. “HIV thrives among the most vulnerable and marginalized, leaving teenage girls at the centre of the crisis.”

Cancer-stricken Dewayne Johnson vowed to fight to his death in a David versus Goliath court battle against agrochemical giant Monsanto, whose weed killer he blames for robbing him of his future.

“I will fight until my last breath,” Johnson, a 46-year-old former school groundskeeper, said while testifying at a potentially history-making civil trial.

Jurors began deliberating on Wednesday after a month of hearing testimony in a San Francisco, California state court.

Despite terminal cancer and bouts of chemotherapy, Johnson — known to friends as “Lee” — managed to smile at times as he told jurors of his life and his struggle to hold Monsanto accountable.

He moved and spoke slowly, appearing older than his years, but his voice was strong while testifying during the last week of July.

His bearing defied the fact he has been told he has only a couple more years to live.

“It’s very hard,” said Johnson, his head shaved but a slight goatee on his face.

– “Pesticide professional” –

Photos shared in court showed Johnson with lesions over much of his body. Jurors were told of his open sores, some even on Johnson’s eyelid causing pain every time he blinked.

“I’ve been through a lot of pain,” Johnson testified.

He told of people staring at him in public, and of avoiding sunlight due to his skin being too sensitive.

Johnson looked strong despite his ordeal. He walked carefully in and out of court, politely holding the door for others at times and softly exchanging pleasantries.

The father of two boys, ages 10 and 13, spoke of enjoying writing and making music before he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014.

The incurable cancer affects white blood cells.

After being promoted in 2012 to groundskeeper in a Benicia, California school district, Johnson’s job came to include spraying Roundup, and more often a professional version from Monsanto called RangerPro.

The active ingredient in both products is glyphosate, which has been at the center of a debate regarding whether it poses a cancer risk.

Monsanto, recently acquired by Germany-based Bayer in a deal valued at about $62 billion, has held firm that there’s no link between the weed killer and cancer — especially not the kind suffered by Johnson.

Johnson’s job included vanquishing rodents, weeds or other non-human schoolyard pests in Benicia, a small city near San Francisco.

He underwent training as a “pesticide professional” to safely handle chemicals used to do the job, according to testimony in court.

“I liked my job a lot,” Johnson testified.

“I took my job very seriously.”

He proudly explained that he learned most of his work skills on the job, prompting smiles in the courtroom as he told of doing away with “30 skunks; 25 raccoons, and one squirrel.”

Johnson also killed weeds, and for that he was armed with Roundup or RangerPro. As per instructions, he diluted the solutions with water before spraying.

He was adamant that had he known the chemicals might cause cancer, he “would never have sprayed” it anywhere.

Johnson decided to file a lawsuit against Monsanto two years ago, backed by lawyers from the Miller Firm, which specializes in these kinds of cases.

Johnson said he had no idea about the controversy around glyphosate until rashes set his skin fiercely itching and he took to the internet in search of answers.

– “Not getting better” –

Johnson said he took meticulous care at work, following product label instructions and wearing protective gear while spraying weed-killer. There is nothing on Roundup or RangerPro labels warning of a cancer risk, something that the lawsuit charges was so negligent it amounted to Monsanto putting profit over people’s health.

Johnson twice was drenched with RangerPro when spraying gear malfunctioned. Attorney Brent Wisner argued in court that chemicals in the mix enabled glyphosate to penetrate Johnson’s protective suit and soak his skin, causing or exacerbating the cancer.

Johnson said he “panicked” after getting soaked the second time with RangerPro and a rash broke out on his skin.

“I was in denial until this case,” Johnson said. “But, now it’s pretty scary. I am not getting better.”

Johnson’s wife, Araceli, testified that her husband’s job meant everything to him, and that he was “sexy” and happy before his illness.

The couple took walks, went out to dinner. Johnson kept the house organized. But now, all that has changed.

Johnson is no longer able to work. To support the family and pay medical bills, his wife works two jobs — one in a school and another in a retirement home.

Johnson told of cancer treatments so painful they made him weep.

Jurors are being asked not only to side with Johnson against Monsanto, they have been urged by his attorney to award him more than $400 million in a verdict that would punish the giant.

The case is the first alleging a cancer link from Roundup, one of the world’s most widely used herbicides, to reach trial. A Monsanto loss could open the floodgates for hundreds more similar cases in the pipeline.

 

Bhubaneswar, Aug 26: Union Health Minister J P Nadda today said 22 new AIIMS are coming up across the country and admitted that there was a shortage of skilled human resource in the health sector.

He also said ensuring the highest standards of medical education was a top priority for the government.

“Twenty-two new AIIMS are coming up across the country under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Surakhya Yojana to reduce regional imbalance in the healthcare and tertiary fields,” Nadda said while addressing the first convocation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar.

Admitting that there was a shortage of skilled human resources in the health sector at all levels, the health minister said the Centre has planned for a rapid expansion of medical education.

Nadda said as medical education forms the apex of the healthcare pyramid, it is the quality of graduating doctors and specialists that will determine the quality of services in the country for generations to come.

Many initiatives such as increasing the retirement age of doctors to 65 years, setting up of more medical and nursing schools, multi-skilling of doctors to overcome the shortage of specialists, have been taken by the Centre to improve medical education, he said.

To ensure better standards of medical education, the Centre has undertaken suitable amendments in the Graduate Medical Education Regulations and the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations for making common counselling for admission in medical colleges mandatory, Nadda said.

Since 2014-15, post-graduate seats have been increased by over 8,500 and under-graduate seats by over 16,000, Nadda said, adding that 70 existing medical colleges are being upgraded by setting up super speciality blocks.

“We are expanding the network of our medical colleges in a big way by upgrading 58 district hospitals to medical colleges.

“Twenty-four new medical colleges have been announced in this year’s budget. Twenty state cancer institutes and 50 tertiary cancer care centres are also being set up,” he said.

The health minister said the AIIMS will soon introduce campus recruitment in order to retain students passing out of the institutes.

He said AIIMS pass-outs are acquainted with the culture of the institute. The attempt is aimed at retaining the best brains of AIIMs in the institute, Nadda said.

“Dear students, young doctors and faculty, I invite you all to join my ministry in further building upon this commitment of our prime minister to upgrade the healthcare access of the common man, thus taking the well being of our nation to greater heights,” the Union minister said.

Noting that it is a great challenge to produce high quality healthcare providers at all levels, Nadda said “We need the teachers and academicians to develop such human resources in health. In this regard, the country has a lot of expectation from all of you.”

No patient should be denied treatment on account of being poor or belonging to lower strata of society, he said, adding that the Centre has recently launched the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Abhiyan’ programme to provide assured universal healthcare to over 50 crore people from the vulnerable sections.

“My message to the graduating students on this occasion is that you should always keep in mind that medicine is not just a profession, but a vocation. Never forget your humanity, or that of your patients…,” he said.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, addressing the gathering, urged the health minister to install a statute of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the premises of AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, to which Nadda readily obliged.

Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal and Odisha’s Health and Family Welfare Minister Pratap Jena also addressed the gathering.

Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and Nadda laid the foundation stones for two buildings at the AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, campus.

One 560-bedded night shelter building (Rs 26 crore), funded by the National Aluminium Company Limited (Nalco), will be constructed in the AIIMS premises for the requirement of patients and their attendants.

Similarly, a foundation stone was also laid for construction of a Burns Treatment Centre at the cost of Rs 14.82 crore funded by the NTPC. It will have comprehensive treatment for burns patients.