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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A thirteen-month-old Canadian infant dying from a unknown neurological condition was transferred Sunday night from a Canadian hospital, where he had received treatment since October 2010, to a U.S. hospital. In January, a Canadian Superior Court judge had ruled that the Canadian hospital could remove the infant’s breathing tube against the parents’ wishes and issued a do-not-resuscitate order.

According to court documents, Joseph Maraachli, known as “Baby Joseph”, has been repeatedly diagnosed as in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery after suffering an episode of “seizure activity” at age six months. At that time, an MRI showed “a reduction in brain size associated with cells dying from metabolic stress.” He stopped breathing in October and was hospitalized at Ontario’s London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) where he remained until Sunday. A panel of five pediatric clinic and three neurology physicians subsequently concluded that “there will be no recovery and no treatment options exist for this progressive neurodegenerative disorder.”

The infant’s parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, wanted Joseph to receive a tracheotomy, which combined with mechanical breathing devices, would allow him to be transferred home, his family acting as care givers. Several years previously, the Maraachli’s daughter had died of a similar neuro-degenerative condition. They used their daughter, Zina, as an example. After doctors performed a tracheotomy on her, she returned home for several months before returning to die at the hospital. This time hospital refused to perform a tracheotomy on Joseph because there was no hope of recovery. After the judge ruled in the hospital’s favor in January, pressure against the hospital intensified and the hospital received threats.

The case has generated controversy primarily from groups such as the Terri Schiavo organization, Priests for Life (PFL), and the American Center for Law & Justice who represents the parents. The parents transferred the infant to the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri to obtain a second opinion. PFL nation director, Father Pavone, traveled to Canada Sunday night to aid in the transfer. He said in a press release: “After around-the-clock negotiations, this really became a race against time.”

After successfully moving Joseph to the St. Louis hospital, Father Pavena said, “Now that we have won the battle against the medical bureaucracy in Canada, the real work of saving Baby Joseph can begin.”

Friday, April 15, 2005

The last British-owned volume car manufacturer, MG Rover, has closed down, with the loss of 5,000 jobs.

International accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCooper was brought in last week to put the company into administration. Today PwC announced that MG Rover’s only hope, the Chinese car company SAIC, had no interest in buying the ailing firm. With no further source of revenue, PwC has closed the company’s factory in Longbridge, Birmingham and has laid off 5,000 workers.

Some 1,000 workers will continue for a while to complete the remaining cars left on the production line.

The BBC reported PwC joint administrator Tony Lomas as saying “We’ll explore what we would describe as the break-up of the business, we will carry on with the interested parties who want to talk about pieces of the business.”. PwC said around 70 offers for various parts of the company had been made but no serious offers of money made.

Recent efforts to save the company had been centered on convincing SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.) to buy the company as a going concern, but the Chinese company stated it would only buy the company if it’s financial position could be guaranteed to be secure for at least two years. The British government could not make such a commitment due to European Union trade and competition rules.

The SAIC company did buy the designs for the 75 and 25 models and for the K-Series engines for £67m.

The Rover car company has a long but troubled history. It was formed in 1968 after a series of mergers of existing car manufacturers, and was nationalized in 1975 after it ran into financial difficulties. In 1979 a long-running deal to collaborate on developing new vehicles was established with the Japanese company Honda. In 1988 the company was privatized and was bought by British Aerospace. In 1994 British Aerospace sold the business to BMW, who then sold the Land Rover brand to Ford and finally sold the company in 2000 for just £10, retaining the well-known Mini brand for themselves. The MG Rover company was run by a private group until its collapse.

MG Rover has not launched a new model since the 75 was introduced in 1998 during the period of ownership by BMW. Their next newest model was the 25, originally launched as the 200 series some ten years ago. Rover also produced the 45, which dates from 1990, and the ZF sports car first launched in 1995. Sales of Rover cars accounted for just 3% of the UK car market in 2004.

Tony Blair announced a £150 million support package for the recently unemployed workers of the MG Rover plants, though it has been claimed that his generous offer may be more as a result of the nearby marginal seats in the upcoming elections than compassion on his part.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

A bill passed by India’s Parliament put an end to the manufacture of many cheap generic drugs copied from products protected by foreign company patents. A Patents Amendment Bill (2005) has been condemned by foreign aid groups who expect a significant rise in drug costs as a result of the bill.

Drug compounds in India were previously not protected by patents, meaning that research and developement costs borne by the originating manufacturers were avoided by generic drug producers. The new bill “will move India toward the patent mainstream and support and encourage innovation and investment in research and development in India,” said Ranjit Sahani, managing director of Novartis India.

As the world’s fourth-largest manufacturer of drugs by volume, the pharmaceutical industry in India is valued at US$5 billion – but ranks as only 13th by value, reflecting the low costs to consumers of the products. “Because India is one of the world’s biggest producers of generic drugs, this law will have a severe knock-on effect on many developing countries which depend on imported generic drugs from India,” said Samar Verma, regional policy adviser at Oxfam International.

Around half of African, Asian and Latin American HIV patients needing anti-retroviral drugs rely on low-cost drugs from India, which are sold at one twentieth the price of similar drugs produced in the West.

More than 90 per cent of drugs listed as essentials in India are either unpatented or expired. Drugs patented before 1995 — when the World Trade Organization [WTO] set a 10 year deadline to enact protection — will not be eligible under the bill.

Some degree of protection was mandated by WTO in order for India to have greater access to international markets. Opposers of the bill say it goes too far.

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights [TRIPS], under WTO, allows developing countries to not provide patent protection for uses of known drugs, new dosages and formulations, or combinations of known drugs.