No organ donation
unless it’s a relationship of ‘love, affection and attachment’: High Court
The
Delhi HC has asked the Centre to explain what its policy was concerning organ
harvesting from cadavers. “Director General of Health Services is supposed to
file an affidavit before the court on the policy which has been put in place by
the ministry of health and family welfare with regard to organs harvested from
cadavers,” Justice Rajiv Shakdher said in an order on Monday.
”The
affidavit will also disclose whether information with regard to swapping
requests and donation of organs from cadavers is uploaded on official
website…there is an urgent need to inculcate complete transparency,
accountability and general awareness in the citizenry at large by the state”,
the court added, giving the Centre a week’s time to file the affidavit.
The
need to give this direction came up in a case concerning Agra resident Pawan
Anand who had sought the court’s permission for liver transplant for his mother
from a close family friend. The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act
however doesn’t allow this – in fact only near relatives are allowed to donate
their organs and it can’t be allowed if a relationship of ‘love, affection and
attachment’ is not established.
Citing
provisions of the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, Justice
Shakdher said the Act “permits donation by a person, other than a ‘near
relative’, for reasons of affection or attachment towards a recipient…”
prohibits “commercial dealings” of human organs and there “will rarely be a
direct evidence with regard to commercial dealings” which have to be inferred
from the facts in each case.
Anand,
in his petition, had challenged Director General of Health Services’ refusal to
allow liver donation for his ailing mother by his family friend. Pawan’s
62-year-old mother, suffering from liver cirrhosis, had been advised urgent
liver transplantation and had sought the sanction under the Act to receive the
organ from Gulab Devi, 42, stated to be a family friend who was a tenant in her
premises at Agra.
Apollo
Hospital’s authorization committee however denied permission claiming that the
relationship between donor and recipient was akin to one of a master and
caretaker and there was gross financial imbalance between the two.
Could proper
sleep prevent diabetes?
A
new study suggests that more sleep could improve teenagers’ insulin resistance
thus preventing the onset of diabetes.”High levels of insulin resistance can
lead to the development of diabetes,” said Karen Matthews, who teaches
psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. “We found that if teens that
normally get six hours of sleep per night get one extra hour of sleep, they
would improve insulin resistance by nine percent,” added Matthews, who led the
study.
Insulin
resistance is a set of metabolic dysfunctions linked with or contributing to a
range of serious health conditions that include type 2 diabetes (also called
adult-onset diabetes), metabolic syndrome, and obesity, among others.
The
study tracked the sleep duration and insulin resistance levels of 245 healthy
high school students. Participants provided a fasting blood draw, and they kept
a sleep log and wore a wrist actigraph for one week during the school year, the
journal SLEEP reported.
Results
show that higher insulin resistance is associated with shorter sleep duration
independent of race, age, gender, waist circumference, and body mass index,
according to a Pittsburgh statement.
The
study is the only one in healthy adolescents that shows a relationship between
shorter sleep and insulin resistance that is independent of obesity, added
Matthews
03.10.2012
Well done is better than well said
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