The Lancet & HIV

I have come across ‘The Lancet’ on the Imperial College London website. An Imperial-based research paper on HIV treatment published online in The Lancet  was voted a must-read research paper in 2009. The Lancet is one of the world’s most prestigious medical research magazines whose mission it is to gather and grow evidence that shows how the global medical community should combat burdens of diseases that span continents.

The bespoken research paper entitled “Routine versus clinically driven laboratory monitoring of HIV antiretroviral therapy in Africa (DART): a randomised non-inferiority trial”, showed how thousands more people in Africa could be treated for HIV if routine lab tests which are very expensive were reduced to clinically necessary cases or even abandoned. The study was related to the Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), involving approximately 3,000 Africans in remote areas who had not had ART before. ART is basically necessary to keep the HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) at a low level, which keeps the immune system from further weakening. Ultimately, patient live with HIV without AIDS really breaking through. (Source of image: Wikipedia.org)

The study found that ART can be delivered effectively without routine laboratory tests on toxic effects. Saving costs on expensive tests would free money for more actual ART treatments, reaching more patients. The DART study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation and the UK Department for International Development, and officials in politics and health organisation now hope that existing HIV policies and programmes incorporate the findings of the study since it has shown how simple, but effective measures can be undertaken and delivered by health workers in even remote areas of Africa. Primary care for HIV positive patients becomes a key issue, allowing them access to ART.

Thubron on Why Russians Drink

"Many Estonians and Russians drank away half their salaries. They drink because they are bored-they've nothing else to think about. They've nowhere to go, nothing to do. When they remember the emptiness of their lives, they drink." (Quote from Among Russians-From the Baltic to the Caucasus, 1984, p.110)

Bulgakov about Vodka

'In my time', began the editor [...], 'when I worked on Vanya Sytin's Russian Word, people used to drink themselves into seeing elephants.' (Mikhail Bulgakov, The Fatal Eggs,1925, Chapter X)

Bulgakov is referring to Ivan Sytin (1851-1934), who became one of the greatest entrepreneurs Russia's when he started publishing books on a large scale, for the first time in Russia. This was extraordinary considering Russian population being predominantly illiterate and his own background, him coming from the class of unlettered peasants (90% of Russia's people that time). His printing plant as well as Moscow daily newspaper were called Russian Word.

"Vodka-the colourless innocence!"

Already back in 1984, Colin Thubron commented in his book Among the Russians-From the Baltic to the Caucasus on the famous Russian drink as follows: "Vodka-the colourless innocence! It's the curse and the liberation of Russia, a self-obliterating escape from tedium and emptiness, from interminable winter nights, and the still longer, darker nights of the soul." (68, Vintage, London) (Image: Amazon)

2010-The Year of Earthquakes?

It seems, Earth has been shaking itself relentlessly this year. Only 2 months after the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, Chile was struck by a seism of a magnitude as strong as 8.8. It was one of the most powerful ever recorded in this country. Those who survided the actual quake, had to face the killing tsunami. Overall death toll: up to 800. This happened at the beginning of March 2010. Just yesterday, 8 March 2010, another earthquake struck. It struck in eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people, according to officials. Its magnitude was 6.0. The region which is scarcely populated is, nonetheless, heavily affected since resources are limited. (Images by BBC Online News)

A Good Man's Life

"According to Wordsworth, the best portion of a good man's life is his little, unremembered acts of kindness and love." (Bill Clinton, My Life, 2002)

Mother Teresa

I wondered whether todays' youth get to know about Mother Teresa? I have not heard anybody or the news talk about her in ages. She died in 1997, leaving a massive legacy in form of her Charity established to continue to help the poor, suffering and children throughout the world. Shewas awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

(Picture: nobelprize.org)

Mother Teresa & Confidence

"Mother Teresa's famous observation that she knew God would never giver her a heavier burden than she could carry, but sometimes she wished He didn't have so much confidence in her." (Bill Clinton, My Life, 2002)

Advocating Social Justice

Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, restlessly advocating social justice, said: "A dying person does not have time for the peripheral or the accidental ...it is wrong to waste the precious gift of time given to us on acrimony and division." (from Clinton's book My Life, 2004)