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Showing posts from December, 2008

As we rush through life!

In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. About 3 minutes: The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. At 45 minutes: The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.  After 1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He played one of the most intricate pieces eve

Blood transfusion and Hepatitis B part -II

The studies observed that more than 300 million people all over the world are infected by hepatitis B virus. This virus belongs to Hepadnaviridae family, a non-cytopathic hepatotropic DNA virus. Though there is a prophylactic vaccine deemed to be effective still the high prevalence of this virus is found in continents like Africa and Asia (Lok,. & McMahon, 2001). Hepatitis B virus induces the liver ailments, the degree of which varies from person to person ((Ganem & Prince, 2004). The effects of infections by hepatitis B virus are controlled efficiently and cleared from the blood without any symptom or clinical evidence of liver disease by some persons. They may have inflammation severely in the liver i.e. acute hepatitis but after being resolved leave no long term squeal. There are others who cannot clear the virus and likely to develop a chronic infection but most of them may remain without any symptom and any acute liver disease, around 10 to 30 per cent of them con

BLOOD TRANSFUSION - 1

Blood transfusion is not always safe for the recipients. In most of the countries , standard tests those are conducted to detect any infection in donor's blood are not full proof. I wrote an article on this for someone but the article remained with me for some reason. I would like to share the information it has with you. Since the article is long enough , I am going to publish it in few installments. INTRODUCTION Hepatitis B is the dreaded disease, especially when it is transmitted through blood received from donation. The detection of hepatitis B in blood became easy when hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was discovered. This helped decrease the occurrence of hepatitis in post-transfusion scenario. As such this has been a major breakthrough to arrest the spread of hepatitis B through blood transfusion. This helped the detection of hepatitis B ‘e’ antigen, hepatitis B core antigen (anit-HBc) and HBsAg as well. The common method of detecting hepatitis B infection is scr

A "Bullet proof" of our trueself !

The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai has raised another question. It is not from the public in general;in India public,s voice is not suppressed but simply ignored. Our great politicians with their hide that could put Rhinos ashamed have learnt the best art of governing in a way that can match a dictator but unfortunately with democracy! This time it is no lesser than a cabinet minister Anatuley; who raised the question about those bullet proof jackets , what mocked its name presenting us the bullet ridden bodies of it's wearers. That too, a man like Karkare, a man of principal and unearthed the skeletons of Malegaon massacre masterminds, digging the moral grave of our politicians. The other question is who the man was to order all the three of them together, who were shoveling the Malegaon episode! That too, they were sent to a comparatively far less hazardous terror spot. Who killed them? It reminds me inscriptions on the back of highway trucks "My India is great"