Category Archives: Health and Medicine

Cockfight

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Man with rubber fetish keeps the hits coming: Would it surprise you to learn that the world’s leading condom designer is Indian?

Dr. Alla Venkata Krishna Reddy is the designer of at least three successful specialty condoms (the Pleasure Plus, the Inspiral and the Trojan Twisted Pleasure) and one female condom (the V-Amour). The tragedy of his head-onistic genius is that he’s completely wrapped up in I. Pee litigation (via Boing Boing). He’s getting shafted by his own patents — it’s autolitigious stimulation.

Reddy’s great contribution to the universe of condom design… [was that] Reddy viewed them as devices that could help enhance male pleasure…

… Reddy’s first condom company failed in the mid-’90s and he lost control of his patents in a bankruptcy auction… He returned to his native India and continued to tweak his innovative designs, and with the help of partners in the United States, soon reentered the American market, first with the Inspiral, and then with the [Trojan] Twisted Pleasure… So, tragically, Reddy is being sued for violating his own patents. [Link]

Randy Reddy [was] dubbed the ‘Leonardo’ of condomsReddy started with a condom with a pouch at the end, progressing to an unholy spiral and then two in the latest incarnation. It’s like Gillette razors, pretty soon there’ll be five spirals with built-in vibration They’ve sold well and won awards from such paragons of hard news as Cosmo, Men’s Health and Maxim:

“When I rolled it on, my penis looked like Marvin the Martian,” says a staffer. “But when I took a look in the middle of things, the extra fabric had twisted itself into a pinwheel shape. It actually lives up to its name…” [Link]

Dr Reddy [was] dubbed the “Leonardo” of condoms by Adam Glickman, president of Condomania… [Link]

(NSFW after the jump) Continue reading →

Bird Flu, Indian Reverse Engineers and Mangosteens, Oh My!

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I sometimes hang out at Brad DeLong’s blog, where apparently Razib thought I was a dude. Yesterday DeLong wrote a Cipla's Chief, Yusu Hamiedpost about Tamiflu, the Roche patented drug which is the one of the only plausible defenses against the dreaded Avian influenza or Asian Bird Flu. DeLong was mostly concerned with the domestic policy and economic ramifications of nationalizing a patent in times of emergency and stockpiling a drug ahead of time, but as with Sepia Mutiny, the comments can be most educational–and that’s how I found out that clever Cipla is at its Robin Hood reverse engineering tricks again. Bird flu is, of course, a global issue:

Cipla, an Indian producer of generic drugs, is preparing to become an alternative producer of oseltamivir phosphate, an antiviral drug better known by the brand name Tamiflu.Cipla plans to offer Tamiflu in the Indian market and in 49 less-developed countries where the company already sells AIDS treatments, Hamied says. The legality of the introduction in India, where pharmaceutical patents started to be recognized this year, is uncertain.

Hamied says he will withdraw Tamiflu from the Indian market if Roche’s patent is recognized.  (Link.)

A Roche spokesman, Terry Hurley, said that the company ”fully intends to remain the sole manufacturer of Tamiflu.” . .Making the drug involves 10 complex steps, he said, and the company believes that it’ll take another company ”two to three years, starting from scratch,” to produce it. Hamied dismissed that claim, saying that he initially thought it would be too hard but that his scientists had finished reverse-engineering the drug in his laboratories two weeks ago. He said he could have small commercial quantities available as early as January 2006. Asked if he thought Hamied was making an idle boast, Hurley declined to comment. Hamied said he would sell generic Tamiflu ”at a humanitarian price” in developing nations and not aim at the US or European market. ”God forbid the avian flu should strike India,” he said. ”There is no line of defense.” (Link.)

What does this have to do with mangosteens? I’m glad you asked!

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No sex please, we’re Indian

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As in all things, advertisements depict a rosier world than the one we actually live in. The Kama Sutra references in Manish’s post below make it seem like India is becoming more sexually liberal, but a recent story from the BBC points out that India is still quite repressed. In this case, a couple was threatened with jail for public indecency.

What did they do? They kissed … at their wedding:

An Israeli couple being married in India have found that you may not kiss the bride – the pair were fined $22 for indecency for their wedding embrace. A court in Rajasthan imposed the fine after Alon Orpaz and Tehila Salev had decided to get married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Pushkar. Priests were offended when the couple kissed and hugged during the chanting of religious verses. The apologetic couple said they were unaware public kissing was banned.

The couple, who had met in India while travelling separately, paid the 1,000-rupee fine for “committing an act of indecency” to avoid a 10-day jail sentence. [Link]

[UPDATE: Reader Dhaavak points us to a recent AFP file photo of a young couple making out in a Delhi park. Check out their body language: he has his hands on his hips, and she’s fixing her dupatta.]

Nor is this the only case of legal action for absurdly minor PDA. Three years ago, Pune university enacted a ban on kissing, hand-holding or even cuddling on campus:

Action will be taken against couples found holding hands!

An Indian university has declared its campus a strict “no love” zone, declaring a ban on kissing and hand-holding on its grounds. The vice chancellor of western India’s Pune university, Ashok Kolaskar, says courting couples could damage the reputation and social values of the 100-year-old institution.

“Action will be taken against couples found holding hands, kissing or indulging in any form of public display of affection,” warns a notice signed by [sic] the Mr Kolaskar.  [Link]

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Update on Jayant Patel / Dr. Death

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In Australia, an inquiry is slowly proceeding into the actions of Dr. Jayant Patel who has been accused of causing some 80 deaths amongst his patients. He arrived in Australia after he had gotten into trouble in both New York and Oregon. There he:

[performed] unnecessary operations, removed healthy organs and “revealed a lack of up-to-date knowledge in many aspects of medical practice.” Eight of his patients died after he performed complex operations that he had been ordered not to perform in Oregon …
An anesthesiologist referred to Dr. Patel as “Dr. Death,” and another doctor told nurses not to allow Dr. Patel to operate on his patients. One surgeon who had examined about 150 of Dr. Patel’s former patients told the commission that all surgeons have problems with patients, but he said of Dr. Patel’s problems: “They’re not 10 times what you might expect. They’re more like 100 times what you might expect,” [NYT]

How did he get hired in the first place? He lied about his history, had good recommendations, and nobody bothered to check his story:

A simple inquiry would have discovered Dr. Patel’s disciplinary problems, the report says. They were found, and made public, by a reporter at The Courier-Mail of Brisbane on the basis of a Google search. [NYT]

[Can you imagine? An organization not checking the credentials of its employees?] Continue reading →

Mad Cow’s Desi Origins?

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Now here’s a topic that’s guaranteed to make folks squirm.   A group of Brit scientists think they’ve discovered the root cause of their country’s recent bout with Mad Cow disease.   Cynics, upon hearing the proposed theory, might argue that this whole thing amounts to a massive deflection of blame to the brown nether world –

LONDON – Mad cow disease may have originated from animal feed contaminated with human remains washed ashore after being floated downriver in Indian funerals, British scientists said on Friday.

…Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent in England says it may have been caused by the tons of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed which also may have contained the remains of humans infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

…In a report in the Lancet medical journal, Colchester and his daughter Nancy, of the University of Edinburgh, explained that many human and animal corpses were disposed of in rivers in India in accordance with Hindu custom.

The remains washed ashore in poor areas where bone collectors work.

“We are aware of a considerable risk of the incorporation of human remains with the animal remains that are collected. They are processed locally and some have been exported. In 10 years, more than a third of a million tons of material from these areas was imported into the UK,” Colchester said.

Needless to say, other scientists advise that these are waters upon which one should tread lightly –

“Scientists must proceed cautiously when hypothesizing about a disease that has such wide geographic, cultural and religious implications,” Shankar said.

Your old, crazy aunty from back in da homeland may have found yet another way to haunt her Western son from beyond the grave.    

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Birth tax

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SM tipster Olinda (followed by several others) sent us this depressing article from the New York Times highlighting corruption at its worst.  Behold:

Just as the painful ordeal of childbirth finally ended and Nesam Velankanni waited for a nurse to lay her squalling newborn on her chest, the maternity hospital’s ritual of extortion began.

Before she even glimpsed her baby, she said, a nurse whisked the infant away and an attendant demanded a bribe. If you want to see your child, families are told, the price is $12 for a boy and $7 for a girl, a lot of money for slum dwellers scraping by on a dollar a day. The practice is common here in the city, surveys confirm.

Mrs. Velankanni was penniless, and her mother-in-law had to pawn gold earrings that had been a precious marriage gift so she could give the money to the attendant, or ayah. Mrs. Velankanni, a migrant to Bangalore who had been unprepared for the demand, wept in frustration.

“The ayah told my mother-in-law to pay up fast because the night duty doctor was leaving at 8 a.m. and wanted a share,” she recalled.

Cynic that I am, I could actually imagine a man whisking a kid away and demanding a bribe.  When a woman (who may have children of her own) does it, all hope seems lost.  The article goes on to describe the fact that this sort of corruption has infected basic services that stretch from the cradle to the grave.  The following quote also caught my eye because it sounds like a thing you sometimes hear about the U.S. healthcare system:

“The poor not only are paying much more of their incomes to get the same medical services as the middle and richer classes, but they are also discouraged from seeking basic medical care because they can’t afford it,” said Daniel Kaufmann, director of global programs at the institute.

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They got married the next day

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My mom, who works for a department store in the D.C. suburbs, asked me if I would be willing to write a post on SM about her co-worker Smita. My dad sent me an email: AbhiandSmita2.jpg

You may want to post this on “Sepia Mutiny” i.e. if this type of things are accepted per your protocols……

SmitaÂ’s husband (whose name is Abhi) will die within about two months unless he gets a bone marrow match. The story is particularly sad. My mom told me that the night before their wedding they received a call from the doctor for Abhi, who wasnÂ’t home at the time. Smita told the doctor she was his fiancé and that she would relay the message. The doctor told her Abhi was dying of Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. They went ahead and got married the next day. The two are desperately seeking a bone marrow match and have made this flyer (click on the picture) appealing for help. Many of you reading this post may end up at the annual NetIP conference in Atlanta next weekend to find a love match. If you do attend make it priority #1 to give just 5 drops of your blood for the database. Even if you can’t help save Abhi you might make a difference for someone else. Click the image below for the schedule at NetIP.

NetIP.jpg
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Finding her match

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Some time ago we posted about a young woman, Pia Awal, who needed a bone marrow donor to fight her leukemia. A 20-year-old Pakistani woman from London matched and saved her life.

Awal and her fiancé, Apratim Dutta, just had their long-delayed wedding. I can’t imagine what they’ve been through in the meantime. The NYT reports:

On June 30, 2002, Mr. Dutta’s 31st birthday, Ms. Awal was feeling feverish and bone tired. They went to the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, expecting that she would be given some antibiotics for the flu… she was found to have acute myelogenous leukemia…

… weeks before their July engagement party, Ms. Awal’s doctor said the leukemia had returned… Mr. Dutta began searching for a South Asian donor whose white blood cells were a genetic match for Ms. Awal. He started a Web site, matchpia.org, to find donors. He made a DVD about Ms. Awal’s situation and tried to get television stations to broadcast it. Finally, through an international donor registry, they found a match in a 20-year-old Pakistani woman living in London.

Mr. Dutta, who loves steaks and red wine, began to eat vegetarian meals with Ms. Awal… As part of her recovery this time, she started eating meat, which gave her the sense of being fully fused with Mr. Dutta…

They were finally married on July 30 in Manhattan at the Tribeca Rooftop… Ms. Awal, who cannot have children because she has had so much chemotherapy, is working on a children’s book about cancer.

Congrats to the newlywed couple.

Click here to add yourself to the South Asian bone marrow registry. There are several booths at India Day parades in the next ten days. In NYC, go to 27th & Madison on Sunday, Aug. 21, from 12-6pm for a simple, painless blood test.

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Private Health Care Is Higher Quality

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Indians love to boast about the quality of Indian doctors. “The best in the world! And now India is becoming a center for world class health care, even Americans are flying to India now!” But just between us brown folks, we also know the other side of the story. Many of the best doctors leave the country, and if they come back, they come back only to some high end establishment. The quality of the average doctor in India is … well … rather hit or miss.

As a matter of public policy, what should be done? A study of doctors in Delhi finds that increased training helps, but even then the quality of health care remains sensitive to the right incentives:

The quality of medical care received by patients varies for two reasons: Differences in doctors’ competence or differences in doctors’ incentives.  We find three patterns in the data.

First, what doctors do is less than what they know they should do-doctors operate well inside their knowledge frontier.

Second, competence and effort are complementary so that doctors who know more also do more.

Third, the gap between what doctors do and what they know responds to incentives: Doctors in the fee-for-service private sector are closer in practice to their knowledge frontier than those in the fixed-salary public sector. Under-qualified private sector doctors, even though they know less, provide better care on average than their better-qualified counterparts in the public sector. These results indicate that to improve medical services, at least for poor people, there should be greater emphasis on changing the incentives of public providers rather than increasing provider competence through training. [cite]

Although doctors love to tell you that they work out of a sense of seva, and that the quality of care has little to do with the fee structure, it simply isn’t true. Surprising as it seems, the researchers find that you’re better off with a less trained private doctor than a better trained public doctor. Why? Because the private doctors try harder. The difference in quality was significant:

Public sector doctors did less than a third of what they knew to be important in terms of diagnosis, taking about fifteen percent of the time required to fully diagnose complaints. Over-prescribing and mis-prescribing were also rampant. [cite]

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Prison Yoga may be bad for your health

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I have long flirted with the idea of attending a Yoga class.  I have heard that once you approach your 30s you should stop lifting weights as often, and concentrate instead on maintaining your flexibility and cardiovascular health.  Plus, everyone says that Yoga is supposed to be relaxing.  Well…not everyone.  Norwegian prison officials have another take.  The BBC reported earlier this week:

A prison in Norway has stopped holding yoga classes after it found that instead of calming inmates, they were actually making some more aggressive.

High-security Ringerike jail near Oslo offered the classes to eight inmates on a trial basis earlier this year.

Prison warden Sigbjoern Hagen said some of the inmates became more irritable and agitated and had trouble sleeping.

He said the prison did not have the resources to treat emotions unleashed by the deep breathing exercises.

Yeah, I don’t know.  Call me a prude but I am not sure it is wise to practice something like a Dog Pose, Spread Leg Forward Fold, or a Bridge Pose in a prison anyways.  I would definitely not want to be on the receiving end of “emotions unleashed.”  I kid, I kid.  A sample of eight prisoners is pretty unscientific to say the least.  Maybe they just had an incredibly annoying instructor.  I have long believed that both Andy Dufresne and the Count of Monte Cristo probably had to perform Yoga in order to remain sane and escape.  Determination to both stay sane and escape will more than likely be my ultimate motivation for dropping in on a Yoga class as well.

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