The following will appear in the Sept 27 issue of The Lancet:

China’s milk scandal More than 54 000 children have been taken ill in China after drinking milk made from powder contaminated with melamine. Four children have died, and 13 000 are in hospital, most presenting with kidney stones. This scare is the latest in a string of scandals arising from  tainted food products in China.

Generic roadblock The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has moved to block the import of more than 30 drugs, including antiretrovirals, produced in two plants in India by the generic manufacturer Ranbaxy. The FDA cited concerns about manufacturing prac-tices, but emphasised that there was no evidence of harm having been caused to patients by drugs from Ranbaxy.

Multiple sclerosis The number of people worldwide with multiple sclerosis could be many more than the estimated 1·3 million, according to a new study by the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation and WHO. Many people with this disease are unaccounted for, especially in developing countries, where specialist equipment for diagnosis is scarce.

Australian HIV/AIDS spike Australia’s mining boom might be causing an alarming rise in the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the country. A 68% increase in infections in heterosexual men over the past 3 years has been linked to wealthy miners and businessmen visiting southeast Asia and having unprotected sex. The Government is working with mining companies to implement education programmes for workers.

Ineffective vaccine The Indian Government sent a large batch of ineffective vaccines for Japanese encephalitis to the impoverished northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The error cut short the immunisation programme for a disease that has killed at least 234 children younger than 15 years since June this year. Health Minister Anant Kumar said that tests showed the vaccines to be “unfit for human use” but it is not yet known how this debacle happened.

Gardasil hope Gardasil, Merck’s cervical cancer vaccine, has been approved by the US FDA for protection against vaginal and vulval cancers that are caused by types 16 and 18 of the human papilloma virus, in women and girls aged 9-26 years. In 2004, the latest year for which data are available, 1130 and 3631 women were diagnosed with vaginal and vulval cancer, respectively, in the USA.

Afghanistan’s death toll 330 civilians were killed by fighting in Afghanistan in August this year, according to the UN. This figure is the highest number of civilian deaths in a single month since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001. From January to August this year 1445 civilians were killed–an increase of 39% on the same period last year.

Disability rights upheld The US Congress has unanimously passed a bill to protect disabled people from discrimination in the workplace. The new bill will enhance the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and ensure that employers make appropriate arrangements for workers who are disabled.

Safety move Pfizer has launched a new website to provide health-care professionals, patients, and the wider public with more information about treatment options and the safety of medicines. The website is the first by a pharmaceutical industry to include a clearly marked link for reporting side-effects from all medical products overseen by the US FDA.

License to clone An Australian company, Sydney IVF, has been licensed to use human eggs–obtained for in-vitro fertilisation but not now needed–to produce preimplantation blastocysts in the laboratory. The blastocysts will be used as a source of pluripotent embryonic stem cells, with therapeutic cloning, the generation of genetically and immunologically compatible replacement cells, or tissues for patients who need them, being the ultimate goal.

Online activity 3 billion people in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East could have high-speed internet access by 2010 once a new global-satellite system is up and running. The development could bring  a series of health-related advantages to developing countries, including widespread e-learning, easier access to medical research, and telemedicine.

Disease day Sept 28, 2008, marks the second annual World Rabies Day. The Alliance for Rabies Control and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sponsors of the awareness-raising day, report that 55 000 people die every year from rabies, an average of one death every 10 min.

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