AIDS stigma: Father forced to deliver baby

A man was allegedly forced to deliver his own baby when doctors refused to attend to his HIV positive wife in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut district.
Sunita, who has been undergoing treatment at the Meerut Medical College, was taken to the hospital when she went into labour on Wednesday night.
But doctors and other staff refused to attend to the 28-year-old and did not even allow her to be taken to the labour room.

''The baby could have died or I could have died but the doctors were not bothered. We did not get blankets, food or milk. There were no facilities. Doctors asked us to go to Delhi or else, they said they would hand us over to the police. They said that we would spread HIV here,'' said Sunita.

Prejudice over duty?
As the situation became critical, her husband, Rahees Abbas, was forced to deliver the baby himself as doctors stood aside giving him instructions. ''I told the doctors that my wife is about to deliver the baby. They said they will come along. They came but simply stood in a line and asked me to pull out the baby and cut the umbilical cord.
They even asked me to clean up the all the blood and burn the waste. ''Even after the delivery, not a single doctor came and asked about my wife's health. It was only yesterday that we got some medicine and that too from the store outside,'' said Abbas.A baby boy was born to the couple who have three daughters.

Although the hospital has demanded an explanation from the doctors and staff on duty, it is treating the couple's complaint with some skepticism.''How can I believe what he said? These days those who have HIV think they will get media sympathy by blaming others. So how can I blindly believe what he said?'' argued Dr Abhilasha Gupta, Head, Gynaecology Department, Medical College, Meerut.

Probe ordered
The incident highlights the shocking extent of prejudice against the disease even among doctors and has sparked off outrage in the medical community.The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered a state level enquiry into the incident.

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Fighting Cancer with Video Games

Check out the positive impact video games like Re-Mission can have on patients fighting cancer.
Parents struggle, strain and stress out trying to get sick children to take their medicine. Typically, this involves insidious tactics like crushing pills into pudding and playing endless hours of "Aspirin Airplane," but judging by the piles of strained peas covering kitchen floors, it's clear the kids usually win.
When it comes to fighting cancer, however, coercion takes a back seat to innovation. Instead of tricking patients into taking their pills, a joint effort by Cigna Healthcare and HopeLab is helping afflicted youth better understand their illness through an action-packed computer game.
Re-Mission is a third-person shooter that lets users fight cancer as a perky nanobot named Roxxi. Each of the game's 20 missions drops the player into the body of a patient afflicted with a specific form of cancer, ranging from common diseases like Hodgkins to rarities like Ewing's sarcoma. Featuring weapons like the Chemo Blaster, the Radiation Gun, and the Antibiotic Rocket, the game encourages users to zap malignant cells while enlisting the aid of helpful characters like Dendritic cells, T-cells and Platelets.
Unlike most educational gaming efforts, Re-Mission was designed from the start to be a viable, challenging action game. High-end 3D graphics, multiple weapon upgrades, and a variety of meters to manage have helped stave off the dreaded "edutainment" label that many gamers equate with a distinct lack of fun. By way of its visceral punch and frantic action, the product has even earned a "Teen" rating.
Most importantly, the game seems to be working on a medical level. The results of a 2006 Re-Mission study indicate that most of the respondents showed an increase in cancer knowledge and an improvement in their ability to manage treatment.
Re-Mission is being distributed to cancer patients for free at http://www.cigna.com/Re-mission. Further information can be found at http://www.re-mission.net/, which also houses the product's community site.

Bush vetoes embryonic stem cell funding

As he rejects such a bill for the second time, the president calls for study of tissue that would not 'destroy human life.'

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation that would have allowed the use of federal funds to support embryonic stem cell research, the second consecutive year he has blocked such a bill. Proponents say embryonic stem cells — which can turn into cells for many different kinds of human tissue — offer the best chance of treating or curing many debilitating or fatal diseases.

But opponents, like Bush, argue that research on the cells, which can be derived from human embryos created during in-vitro fertilization treatments, effectively destroys a human life.In announcing the veto, Bush said he took heart from studies released this month that suggested it may be possible to grow stem cells from sources other than human embryos. "Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical — and it is not the only option before us," Bush said in remarks in the White House's ornate East Room after the veto. "Researchers are now developing promising new techniques that offer the potential to produce pluripotent stem cells without having to destroy human life." "Pluripotent" stem cells can become any of the three layers of cells from which all organs and tissues develop.At the same time, Bush issued an executive order to the National Institutes of Health, asking scientists to pursue research on stem cells that "are derived without creating a human embryo for research purposes or destroying, discarding, or subjecting to harm a human embryo or fetus."

Critics accused the president of using the executive order, which does not need congressional approval, to give the appearance of supporting stem cell research when in fact he has been holding it back. "Last year, the Republican-controlled House and Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to open up the hope of stem cell research to the millions of Americans who suffer. That was a proud day," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)."Now a year has passed, and our best scientists continue to work with one hand tied behind their back. A year has passed, and countless thousands more Americans have been diagnosed with cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, heart disease and ALS" — a reference to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said that the president has always advocated ethical research on stem cells and that the executive order will make sure that continues. "The policy change is that when you're taking a look at pluripotent stem cell lines, it is no longer limited strictly to embryonic stem cell lines. So that is a change in the law," Snow said. The stem cell bill passed both houses of Congress this spring with strong majorities, but overriding the veto would require a two-thirds vote in each chamber. The Senate appears to be one vote shy of the two-thirds mark, and the House is about 35 votes short.

Stem cell research has been a tricky issue for Bush since the first year of his administration, when he made a decision to permit scientists to continue to use several existing strains of embryonic stem cells but denied federal funding that would create new ones. Opponents of that policy say that research efforts have been hampered by myriad factors, including the limited amount of funding available through private sources and contamination of the existing cell lines. Wednesday's veto was only the third Bush has cast. In addition to two stem cell vetoes, the president in May vetoed a war funding bill that included a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Study: Ratings of Sunscreens

Environmental Working Group Tells How Well They Ward Off Various Harmful Rays
(CBS) A Web site that assesses the effectiveness and safety of almost 800 sunscreens was unveiled Tuesday morning. The sunscreen screening site, put together by the Environmental Working Group, gives detailed information about all the products and groups them by the types of harmful rays they're meant to protect against.

The EWG has cautioned the public in the past about health concerns involving certain cosmetics and seafood. It unveiled the sunscreens site on Early Show Tuesday. Jane Houlihan, the EWG's vice president of research, supervised the site's construction. She explained to co-anchor Julie Chen that there are two things people need from sunscreens more than anything else. One is broad spectrum coverage, from both UVA and UVB rays. The other is stability in sunlight. It's important to note, she said, that SPF numbers on sunscreen packages only cover UVB, the type of ray most responsible for burns.
UVA is far less responsible for burning, but still can raise skin cancer risk, and only one sunscreen in five has effective UVA protection, Houlihan pointed out. There is no number that quantifies UVA protection, which depends on several factors. There are ingredients that protect well against UVA, but sunlight can break them down and make them ineffective if they're not formulated well. Also, when sunscreen ingredients break down, they can penetrate the skin and trigger allergies.
The ingredients are actually designed to break down; that's part of the function of absorbing energy and keeping it out of the skin. But some break down more quickly and easily than others. The two ingredients Houlihan likes most are zinc and titanium, which don't break down in sunlight as others do, and offer longer lasting protection as a result. They also work by reflecting sunlight, rather than absorbing it.
Consumers should look for both SPF numbers and zinc and titanium when buying suncreens, Houlihan observed. High SPF protects best against UVB. Zinc and titanium offer maximum UVA protection. Several ingredients are far less desirable although, depending on how they're blended and what else the products contain, they're not automatically undesirable. They are avobenzone, oxybenzone and padimate O, a relative of PABA, which has come into disrepute in recent years.
The Web site's rankings show that a sunscreen being popular doesn't necessarily mean it's among the best. Coppertone, for instance, has some items in higher categories, but also makes a number whose stability could be better. One problem with sunscreens is that this country is behind the curve, Houlihan notes. European regulators have approved several effective products that the Food and Drug Administration hasn't gotten around to testing. So, Americans are limited in our choices. Even if your sunscreen is good, Houlihan stressed that you still need to take all the standard precautions against the sun, such as staying out of the sun during peak hours, wearing protective clothing and hats, and reapplying sunscreen often.