Kolkata Breast cancer cases in India have more than doubled over the past three decades, experts said at an international oncology conference in Kolkata on Friday (March 7, 2026), while warning that gaps in access to treatment continue to affect many patients. Experts participating in the India edition of the St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference said that there is...
Tag: Health
‘Free’ vaccines, single-dose nudge pushes India-made HPV vaccine to back of the line
A relaxation by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the prescribed dosage for the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine and ‘free’ doses may have pushed back the inclusion of an India-made vaccine into the national programme to inoculate children against HPV. This, despite the Health Ministry in 2023 committing to preparing the India-made vaccine for...
How the next major breakthrough in cancer could come from India
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, nearly 20 million new cancer cases were recorded in 2022, with the figure projected to surpass 35 million annually by 2050. The surge in India is just as stark. While the Indian Council of Medical Research has estimated the incidence of cancer in 2024 at 1.5 million,...
Can white matter changes in the brain determine our ageing trajectory?
Ageing is a major risk factor for most neurological and psychiatric disorders. As populations worldwide continue to grow older, the burden of brain- and cognition-related disorders is expected to rise substantially. There is, therefore, an urgent need to understand the normal trajectory of brain ageing and to develop scientific methods that can determine and predict...
FDA will drop two-study requirement for new drug approvals, aiming to speed access
The Food and Drug Administration plans to drop its longtime standard of requiring two rigorous studies to win approval for new drugs, the latest change from Trump administration officials vowing to speed up the availability of certain medical products. Going forward, the FDA’s “default position” will be to require one study for new drugs and...
What sleep deprivation does to your brain and body
Fatigue, brain fog, irritability, headaches, and palpitations are not isolated symptoms. Doctors report seeing these especially among young professionals who stay up past midnight juggling project deadlines and household responsibilities, working long shifts, where restorative sleep feels impossible. Over time, this continuous lack of rest gradually alters the brain and body, affecting cognition, mood, metabolism,...
58 genetic variants, not single gene, shape anxiety risk: Study
Researchers have found 58 genetic variants linked to an increased risk of anxiety, suggesting that the disorder is not driven by a “single anxiety gene”. The researchers, led by those from Texas A&M University in the U.S., said that anxiety disorders are influenced by genetic variants from across the human genome, with each variant inherited...
Why did the U.S. FDA decline to review the new mRNA influenza vaccine?
On February 3, 2026, the US FDA issued a ‘refusal to file’ (RTF) letter to Moderna Inc. regarding their new mRNA vaccine developed against influenza. This decision generated considerable controversy worldwide, particularly given the current direction of vaccination policy in the United States towards a more conservative approach. However, that does not necessarily mean that...
When institutional reliability matters: the story of di-ethylene glycol
The government of Tamil Nadu’s Directorate of Drug Control recently issued a public notice against a specific batch of Almond Kit syrup, after laboratory tests detected adulteration with ethylene glycol. This finding emerged during routine surveillance. It comes barely five months after India lost over 20 children in Madhya Pradesh last year due to contaminated...
Review by Indian researchers notes that body’s immune cells ‘betray’ it to help breast cancer spread
A growing body of research is reshaping how scientists understand breast cancer—not just as a disease of rogue tumour cells, but as one that cleverly recruits the body’s own immune system to survive and spread. A recent review by researchers from two Indian universities explains how macrophages, a type of white blood cell meant to...
