Image from abrinsky

"Given that our results are backed by numerous experimental studies showing that incense is a powerful producer of particulate matter and that incense smoke contains carcinogenic substances, I believe incense should be used with caution," said study author Dr. Jeppe Friborg, of the department of epidemiology research at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. "That is, frequent use in rooms where people live should be minimized, or at least sufficient ventilation should be secured. In our study, we find the increased risk of cancer to be present in individuals reporting frequent use of incense for many years, thus, repeated exposure for years should probably be avoided."

While the study was conducted in via face-to-face interviews with 61,000 people. The only difference is that that study was on Singapore Chinese and not Indians.

The problem seems to be with the particles floating around

"Certainly I think bathing yourself in particles is probably not the smartest thing in the world . . . but I think very few people fill up their room with incense," said Dr. Arthur Frankel

Besides incense, South Indians in particular are notorious for the religious fires, fed by oil, ghee, food and even clothes, often seen as an offering to the gods. The amount of chemicals, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, in my opinion, far exceed what the human body could take.

Prolonged exposure should cause some kind of health hazard, cancer could be one of them.

Cancer being one of the many diseases that are not regularly screened for in India, which would explain the lack of statistics from there.

In any case, if you do burn incense, the authors suggest ventilating the room and avoiding excess exposure.

Study suggest incense burning could lead to cancer - Über Desi

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India’s mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices

The article goes on to discuss the various ethical and moral issues surrounding surrogacy including the very real possibility that third-world women may potentially be exploited and get into surrogacy without being fully informed of the medical and other issues. Yet, one may counter- argue that such surrogacy allows the surrogates to earn money for the betterment of their own and their families’ lives while at the same time allowing childless folks to have children whom they will presumably cherish.

I try not to be judgmental about the whole issue of assisted reproduction. As a parent myself, I cannot imagine life without my son and can empathize with those who cannot have children but want to. Yet, I am disturbed that current regulation and legislation - especially in India- are not enough to cover the myriad ethical and legal issues that some forms of assisted reproduction present. I said so here

Here comes a case in India that kind of underscores my unease. An 11-day old baby is at the center of a huge issue . (link)

She’s only 11 days old, and already her fate is tied in legal knots and international complications. Her biological parents are Japanese. When her mother, Yuki Yamada, could not conceive, she chose a surrogate mother in Ahmedabad to carry her child.

The child was born on July 25 in Anand, Gujarat. But a month before that, Yuki divorced her husband, Dr Ikufumi Yamada, and disowned the child. And that, it seems, is the root of all trouble for the infant who still does not have a name.

The surrogate mother gave up the baby after birth exactly per the terms of the surrogacy agreement.The biological father of the infant and his mother want to take the little girl back to Japan. But the article states that Indian adoption laws, some of which were written 120 years ago, do not allow a single man to adopt a child.(While the article is not clear on this, I suspect his single status is an issue because the child is being adopted to be taken out of India. From what I know, single parents have successfully adopted children in India). Whatever the reason the little girl is in danger of becoming India’s first surrogate orphan. Her to be - adoptive mother( who is also the biological mother as egg donor) evidently changed her mind after divorcing her husband. She is unwilling to travel to India to complete the adoption procedures.

While its great that Science and Technology pushes the frontiers of reproductive limitation allowing older and infertile couples to become parents, I do feel that it needs to be tempered with some regulation and legislation. Else the price will be paid by innocents like this little 11 day old girl.

In all the debates over the rights of surrogates vs rights of the adoptive /biological parents - who is fighting for the rights of the child?

UPDATE: CNN has picked up the story TODAY much after we did. The article can be seen here .The baby is called Manjhi and looks like the immediate obstacle for the father is that the Indian government will not allow grant an Indian passport to the child unless both Mother and father are present.Add to that the fact adoption by a single father is not possible ( see above) and the baby is stuck in legal limbo.

The 70-year-old grandmother, Emiko Yamada, (ed: mother of the child’s biological father) has stayed put[in India]

Uneasy about how the baby was created, she comes to the hospital to cradle her granddaughter day and night, and has become so attached, she says, she cannot imagine going home without Manjhi.

“I am very worried and stressed. Why can’t they let her father take his child?” the grandmother says

UPDATE 2: Baby Manjhi (sp?) may finally be allowed out of India. One major hurdle towards getting travel documents was cleared when a birth certificate was issues with the father’s name

Anand municipality has issued a birth certificate in her name late on Friday[Augut 10]. The baby will now have to either get an Indian passport or Japanese visa issued in her name before she heads to Japan. (link)

Meanwhile, true to the adage of personal business being everyone’s business in India, an NGO SATYA for no discernable logical reason, filed a petition stating that alleging that in the absence of any surrogacy law in the country, the surrogate child could not be kept in the custody of her Japanese grandmother Emiko.(link)

Luckily , justice of some sort is alive in India and the Supreme Court of Rajasthan made a ruling:

The Supreme Court on Thursday [August 14]granted the custody of surrogate baby Manji to her Japanese grandmother Emiko

All is not decided,however.The Court has issued a directive to the  Union and the State Home Departments asking them to produce the Japanese surrogate baby Manjhi in court within four weeks and explain why the baby was being allowed to be taken to Japan

Suffer the little children(UPDATE 2) - Über Desi

A spokesperson for the family has this to say [Via SAJA]

“Vinay was an amazing soul who inspired all of us with his will to live. We take some comfort in knowing his journey may have saved lives through the campaign, and in all the lives he touched with his love and spirit.”

I cannot imagine the pain his family, friends and others who worked hard for the cause are going through, but everyone needs to take solace in the fact that Vinay galvanized a lot of us to register at one of the bone marrow drives. Even the normally lazy person like me, took time to register.

If you are not already in the registry, please take some time to get yourself registered.

Thursday:
Viewing is from 5:00 - 7:00 PM ET
Folks will be saying a few words around 5:30 PM
Location: Mann and Rodgers Funeral Home
Located in JP on the corner of South Huntington and Centre Street

Friday:
Rites/Service will be held in the morning from 9:30 AM onward for about an hour.
Location: Mann and Rodgers Funeral Home
Located in JP on the corner of South Huntington and Centre Street

A private cremation for family members only will be held at 10:30 in the Forest Hills area.

Some of you have inquired if you could do something in Vinay’s memory. We request that you do not send flowers or other gifts. If you would like to make a donation in Vinay’s memory, we would suggest that you donate to the National Donor Marrow Program.

Feel free to also donate in Vinay’s name.

Vinay’s commitment to finding other South Indian’s a match has been made evident to the work that him and the group, helpvinay.org have done thus far for the South Asian Community.

Vinay is no more. - Über Desi

Anonymous balding guy with hair blowing in the wind

Send similar anonymous combover horror story snaps to our Flickr account at 1000words (at) uberdesi.com.

A hairy proposition - Über Desi

A Nepali woman who was on a flight from New Delhi to Chicago and then onto San Francisco was diagnosed with a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, prompting fears she might have infected fellow passengers. [link]

The 30-year-old woman, a native of Nepal who now lives in Sunnyvale, Calif., had been diagnosed with drug-resistant TB in India, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says. She was a passenger on Flight 293 from India to Chicago and flew on to San Francisco on Dec. 13.

CDC has launched a massive 17-state search for passengers who may have come in contact with this lady.

She was seated in row 35; 44 people sat close enough for possible exposure. From Chicago, they traveled to California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, elsewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.

Here’s the catch in reactions like the above one to a singular case of tuberculosis. 1 in 3 humans worldwide has come in contact with some form of tuberculosis.

A third of the world’s 6.6 billion people are infected with TB, and more than 1 million international travelers arrive here each day.

So is the US is overreacting for something that is so widespread and prevalent that efforts and money might be better spent developing medication to fight the disease? Or does the old adage of “Prevention is better than cure” still hold?

Nepali woman in TB scare - Über Desi

The desire for younger women has been around for a long time, but my fear reached stratospheric heights when I read this

Desire for younger women is not the prime reason. The growing fear of catching sexually transmitted diseases from older women and belief that having sex with younger women is a cure for many diseases had caused this increase in demand. “Many believe having sex with young virgin girls would cure them of diseases. For others, chances of catching STD from younger girls is less,” Lewis said.

In a recently released survey report, the UN claims that human trafficking syndicates are now targeting younger women, I was thinking late teens, but I was shocked to see that in some cases girls are young as 5 years old.

Lewis said that a recent study of trafficked women in Nepal to India had revealed that there is an increased demand for younger women. In 1980s, women between 14-16 were preferred, then the age in 1990s went down to 10-14 and now it is even less than 10 years. “I have come across cases where even five year-old girls have been trafficked for sexual exploitation,” Lewis told HT but added that such cases are not very rampant.

Human trafficking is the third most profitable illegal activity in South Asia worth a few Billion dollars and the UN Office of Drug and Crime is launching a campaign called UN gift to help combat this atrocity.

The State governments are trying to do their part. Andhra Pradesh, Goa and West Bengal have all set up anti-human trafficking cells, but there is a long way to go before results are seen.

Ministers and Bollywood personalities are likely to attend the launch of the UN Gift program, this will hopefully draw some media coverage and public attention.

Stories, suggestions, charities that you know of related to human trafficking, enlighten us and our readers.

Human trafficking grows, thanks to HIV. - Über Desi

I’m sure most NRIs, DBDs, ABDs - whatever you designation be, have come across numerous horror stories of health issues desi people encountered when they were on a short visit to India. I’ve been fairly lucky that I managed to dodge that bullet over the last 8 years. But the law of averages caught up bigtime this trip.

A few quick notes from my recent trip to an emergency room in India:

- When your stomach starts hurting so bad you take yourself to the E.R. be afraid, be very afraid.

- Why the f@#k, do doctors insist on pushing hard on a spot you told them hurts like hell?? Where’s the f@#king trust??

- When the hospital staff tells you the only available accomodation this late at night is in the general ward, be afraid, be very afraid.

- Bed bugs are the least of your problems in the general ward.

- Also a question to the guy in the bed across from me, why does your whole f@#king family have to stay there with you? Granted the hospital has a western-ishtyle toilet and running warm water to shower. But still, seriously dude/uncle, please leave your hordes of wives, sons, daughters, grandchildren, in-laws, mamas, bhanjas, chahcis - at home, or even better ask them to visit separately if possible, out of respect for your fellow patients.

- Sticking needles in your veins is no fun. I can’t believe some people do it just to get high.

- Healthcare is really affordable and flexible in India. When the doctor suggests CT scans and ultrasonograms without having to utter “have to check with insurance“, you know its the patients and doctors that are running the show and not some scumbag insurance companies.

Anyway after having a few breathless moments in anticipation of the test results, turns out it was some gastrointestinal thingy - no ruptured appendicitis(sic??) or spleen. I get to hang out at home over the next few days, eating bland food. So much for my dreams of “obligatory visits to relatives’ and friends’ homes which will be accompanied by copious amounts of kaapi, dosai, chai, samosas, chivda, jalebis, gulab jamuns and soft drinks enough to feed a few families in some sub-Saharan famine struck nations“.

Since I’m not really accustomed to the programming on the local cable channel, I guess I’ll be stuck watching naach-gaana clips on MTV and V, and reruns of blockbusters on Zee and Sony.

By the way, I made an absolutely amazing discovery on one of the TV channels - there are cowboys in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, no kidding. Evidence shall be presented soon. Stay tuned. Jai Hind.

Sick in India: When urban legends come true - Über Desi

20% of the couples, where both work in the IT industry seem to be the target clients here.

At least two out of every 10 ‘double-income-no-sex’ or DINS couples working in the IT industry are resorting to this Assisted Reproductive Technique (ART) because they have no time for sex or because the wife or the husband is away on official assignment, says Dr Kamini Rao, medical director of BACC. The number is steadily rising, she adds.

The story also goes on to add that stressful work schedules and spending too much time in front of the computer results in impotency. I would like some real scientific proof for a statement like that, before I stop blogging.

Rough estimates show that the trend has risen to about a 1000% in the last three years.

The number of patients visiting the Institute of Sexual Medicine in Bangalore has gone up by 10 times in three years. “About 30 patients visited my clinic in a week three years ago but now the number is 300,” says its director, Dr Padmini Prasad.

A 2004 study conducted shows that 25% of about 2000 people interviewed reported sexual disfunction in one form or the other.

A study conducted by BACC in 2004 on the sexual proclivities of 1,920 techie couples in Bangalore found that one out of four couples reported sexual dysfunction. “The couples didn’t have any medical problem. The culprit was hectic life that resulted in reduced libido,” says Dr Rao. “The situation is no better today.”

“Erectile dysfunction is more common than common cold in India.”

I for one would consider a sperm bank, more as an insurance rather than a primary option. Besides, I think the physical interaction goes a long way in helping one’s relationship, physically and emotionally. If you can’t find the time to get it on, how are you going find time to actually raise a child?

Is this another classic case of science going wrong in India? What do you think?

Indian couples now save at Sperm Banks - Über Desi

Some 160 miles south of Mumbai, one Catholic priest and the Indian Red Cross have created what some say is a model for AIDS care in the developing world.
The combination hospital and community center provides charity care without depending solely on charity itself.
Bel-Air Hospital is an old tuberculosis sanatorium, once famous for its advanced care. It was started in 1912 in a thick forest on top of a mountain.
When Father Tomy Karyilakulam, a Catholic priest widely recognized as “Father Tomy,” came upon it about 15 years ago, Bel-Air’s 50 or so buildings were crumbling; trees were growing through windows and rooftops.

This story comes across as a breath of fresh air after a HIV +ve pregnant woman was denied care by the Meerut Medical Center.

Fresh Priest of Bel-Air - Über Desi

You can still help Vinay - Über Desi