Abacavir and Autoimmunity

        Recently FDA led team has discovered Autoimmunity caused by Abacavir in at-risk patients on ART.Abacavir acts on HLA B*5701 which helps the immune system to distinguish between the 'self' and the 'foreign' antigens. By acting on HLA B*5701 the body starts recognizing its own tissues as foreign and thus autoimmunity comes into picture. This discovery is a break through discovery  in the knowing, why certain drugs cause allergic reactions in certain patients.

Source: http://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/pages/default.aspx
          
            http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm305067.htm

Life se panga mat le yaar...

Life is so precious.... Shaan being brand ambassador for anti tobacco campaign sings 'Life se panga mat le yaar'

Tobacco industry interference

     31st May is world No Tobacco Day. People consume Tobacco under status mania, peer pressure or depending on the environment where the person lives. Govt agencies have taken initiative to discourage people from using tobacco products. But in the age of marketing and commercialization , the efforts by lawmaking authorities and few NGOs is being negated by the aggressive interference of tobacco industry by means of ads and marketing.So theme of this year's World No Tobacco day is 'Tobacco industry interference'.
       According to a recent research smoking could cause 40 million excess deaths among smokers, who also suffer from tuberculosis (TB) by 2050. The study, led by Sanjay Basu from the University of California, San Francisco, used a maths model to determine the effect of smoking on future TB rates, the BMJ (British Medical Journal) reports. Tt shows that from 2010 to 2050 smoking could lead to 40 million excess TB deaths worldwide – from 61 to 101 million.
They also conclude that if current smoking trends continue, the number of excess TB cases could rise from 256 to 274 million – 18 million new cases in total. “Aggressively lowering the prevalence of tobacco smoking could reduce smoking attributable deaths from tuberculosis by 27 million by 2050,” Basu said, according to a California statement.
    Nearly one-fifth of the world’s population smokes and that most cigarettes are smoked in countries with high TB prevalence. Given this, the authors wanted to predict how much impact smoking will have on future TB rates. Researchers found that smoking may have a substantial impact on future TB rates because a moderate increase in individual risk translates into a large population-level risk.