health-in-india

"The act was used in large parts of the plague-affected localities of Bombay and Pune, to demolish dwellings and clear the cities of so-called ‘vagrants’, beggars, and migrant labourers. These measures continued to be the mainstay of the colonial state's anti-plague campaign well into the first part of the twentieth century. The government used the acts to prohibit immigration from India, particularly from the infected areas; to to suspend railway travel to certain areas, and to obstruct of the pilgrimage to Mecca. After the plagues ceased, the Epidemic Diseases Act was employed rarely, perhaps because there were few such sudden pandemic outbreaks."

"The outbreak of the plague epidemic in Bombay in 1896 fundamentally changed the relationship between the colonial state and its subjects. This was the first instance when the state acquired special legal and judicial powers for an apparently humanitarian cause: to prevent the spread of the epidemic. To do so, it specifically targeted the poor and the migrant workers, seen as the carriers of the disease, restricting their movements, demolishing their homes, and subjecting their bodies to medical experiments. This became the model for subsequent governments to use disease or epidemics to justify authoritarian measures, all the way into the current pandemic."

"The Epidemic Diseases Act gave the colonial government the right to inspect and isolate anyone suspected of being infected with plague, in public places, trains, ships and inside their homes. It simultaneously protected the state or the government officials from any legal action while acting under the act. Prior to this, the colonial government had in 1895 introduced the Pilgrim Ships Act to control the movement of Haj pilgrims from South Asia on health grounds. This gave local authorities in India new powers to board the pilgrim ships at any time to carry out inspections and apprehend any passenger in the name of disease prevention. The two acts combined to provide the colonial authorities almost unrestricted power to restrict the movements of the poor, migrant workers, and Muslim pilgrims."

"The process of vaccination consists in injecting into the skin the liquid that is obtained by applying the discharge from the body of a small-pox patient to the udder of a cow… Vaccination is a barbarous practice, and it is one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time, not to be found even among the so-called savage races of the world. Its supporters are not content with its adoption by those who have no objection to it, but seek to impose it with the aid of penal laws and rigorous punishments on all people alike. ... (Part II, Chapter VI Contageous Diseases: Small-Pox)"

"“PHFI is a private society cleverly disguised as a public-private partnership since some of the people in the governing body are or have been senior civil servants or public servants,” adds Supreme Court lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan. Bhushan points out that PHFI appears to have several connections with the big pharma companies and their consultants. “The PHFI appears to have a conflict of interest in advising the government of India and directing the immunization programme.”"

"PHFI is India’s largest public health nonprofit organization. Although the Indian government set up PHFI, the Gates Foundation largely funds it."

"It would be far more productive to understand and strengthen the reasons behind this trend [of decreasing cervical cancer rates] than to expose an entire population to an uncertain intervention that has not been proven to prevent a single cervical cancer or cervical cancer death to date... [A] healthy 16-year-old is at zero immediate risk of dying from cervical cancer but is faced with a small but real risk of death or serious disability from a vaccine that has yet to prevent a single case of cervical cancer. . . . [T]here is genuine cause for concerns regarding mass vaccination in this country."

"In 2012, the British Medical Journal wryly noted that polio eradication in India “has been achieved by renaming the disease.” That year, the disillusioned Indian government dialed back Gates’s vaccine regimen and evicted Gates’s cronies and PIs from the NAB. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously. After squandering half of its total budget on the polio epidemic—at Gates’s direction—the WHO reluctantly admitted that the global polio explosion is predominantly vaccine strain, meaning it is happening because of Gates’s vaccine program. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, the Philippines, and Afghanistan are all linked to the vaccines he promoted. Polio had disappeared altogether from each of those nations until Gates reintroduced the dreaded disease with his vaccine... As the British Medical Journal reported in 2012, “the most recent mass polio vaccination programs [in India], fueled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, resulted in increased cases [of polio].”"

"To overcome such meddling from India’s prying medical community, in 2005 Gates funded, through GAVI, a four-year, $37 million study of mass vaccination with Hib jabs in Bangladesh intending to showcase the vaccine’s benefits. GAVI’s Bangladesh study backfired, showing no advantage from Hib vaccination. In response, a formidable coterie of superstar international health experts—all of them, coincidentally, from Gates-funded organizations WHO, GAVI, UNICEF, USAID, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and CDC—issued a deceitful proclamation that fraudulently claimed that the Bangladesh study proved a Hib jab protects children from “significant burden of life-threatening pneumonia and meningitis.” … Based on Gates’s orchestrated guile, WHO in 2006 took the official position that the “Hib vaccine should be included in all routine immunization programmes.” Once again, the Indian government caved in to Gates and mandated Hib vaccines in India, where Hib invasive disease was nearly nonexistent. In self-congratulatory articles, GAVI boasted triumphantly of its role in rescuing the Hib vaccine project in India after the Bangladesh study proved the vaccine a worthless waste of money. GAVI’s article notes that, since there was little burden from Hib disease in India, it had been a great challenge to gin up support for WHO’s recommendation. GAVI bragged—in technocratic argot—that it twisted WHO’s arm to revise WHO’s Hib vaccine policy from a weak permissive statement to a firm recommendation calling for universal vaccine introduction in all countries. WHO’s volte-face dragooned reticent Indian health officials to recommend the useless vaccine."

"In 2009 and 2012, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by Gates’s partners GSK and Merck, on 23,000 girls 11–14 years old in remote provinces of India. ... At least 1,200 of the girls in Gates’s study—1 in 20—suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died—about 10x the US death rates for cervical cancer, which almost never kills the young. India’s Federal Ministry of Health suspended the trials and appointed an expert parliamentary committee to investigate the scandal. Indian government investigators found that Gates-funded researchers at PATH committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying illiterate parents, and forging consent forms. Gates provided health insurance for his PATH staff but not to any participants in the trials, and refused medical care to the hundreds of injured girls. The PATH researchers targeted girls at ashram paathshalas (boarding schools for tribal children), to dodge the need to seek parental consent for the shots. They gave the girls “HPV Immunization Cards” that were printed in English, which the girls couldn’t read. They did not tell the girls that they were part of a clinical trial and instead hoodwinked them with the lie that these were “wellness shots” that would guarantee “lifelong protection” against cancer. That was not true. PATH conducted the trials in impoverished rural areas that lacked mechanisms for tracking the adverse effects and had no system for recording major adverse reactions to the vaccines, something legally mandated for large-scale clinical trials...."

"In 2010, the Indian Council of Medical Ethics found that the Gates group had violated India’s ethical protocols. In August 2013, a special parliamentary committee excoriated PATH, stating that the NGO’s “sole aim has been to promote the commercial interests of HPV vaccine manufacturers who would have reaped windfall profits had PATH been successful in getting the HPV vaccine included in the UIP [universal immunization program] of the Country.” According to Dr. Colin Gonsalves, senior counsel of the Supreme Court of India, The Indian Parliament formed a committee, and it was to be a rather surprising move, because you generally don’t often have such a high level inquiry into matters affecting poor people. And that was such an extraordinary report. I don’t think the Indian Parliament has ever come out with such a scathing report. And the government officials came out and said, “We shouldn’t have authorized this, were sorry, and we’re not going to allow them again”—and now they are back, doing their same old tricks again."

"Similar controversies on proximity with pharma companies and conflict of interest have been raised about PHFI. While PHFI is engaged in public health and is also partnering the government in UIP, it has accepted grants from a number of pharma companies, including vaccine manufacturers. In all, PHFI has accepted grants worth around `57.65 crore from pharma companies, including Merck Sharp and Dohme, Pfizer and Sanofi, which manufacture vaccines. Sanofi is one of the many manufacturers of the controversial Pentavalent vaccine around the world. PHFI head K Srinath Reddy asserts that the grants “that the PHFI has received from pharmaceutical companies are meant for broader educational activities, and are not intended to benefit PHFI, a pharma company or any other specific organization.”"

"I have no doubt in my mind that vaccination is a filthy process, that it is harmful in the end and that it is little short of taking beef."

"I cannot also help feeling that vaccination is a violation of the dictates of religion and morality. [Pg 108]The drinking of the blood of even dead animals is looked upon with horror even by habitual meat-eaters. Yet, what is vaccination but the taking in of the poisoned blood of an innocent living animal? Better far were it for God-fearing men that they should a thousand times become the victims of small-pox and even die a terrible death than that they should be guilty of such an act of sacrilege. (Part II, Chapter VI Contageous Diseases: Small-Pox)"

"Puliyel protests that the Gates Foundation has privatized and monetized international public health policy, transforming WHO recommendations into effective mandates and compelling poor countries to pay annual tribute to foreign Pharma overlords. Puliyel told me that India and other Asian nations are now effectively compelled to administer the vaccine and to increase Hib uptake targets, “irrespective of an individual country’s disease burden, notwithstanding of natural immunity attained within the country against the disease, and not taking into account the rights of sovereign States to decide how they use their limited resources.” He adds that “The mandate and wisdom of issuing such a directive, for a disease that has little potential of becoming a pandemic, needs to be questioned.” Dr. Puliyel’s commentary in the BMJ denounced Gates and GAVI for pushing Hib vaccine in developing countries and for falsifying the characterization of the research data in their press release: “The directive has come after a number of failed attempts to convince the scientific community of the need for this vaccine in Asia.” Puliyel described the HiB saga as “a case study on the visible and invisible pressures brought to bear on governments to deploy expensive new vaccines.”"

"In 2012, McKinsey published a report titled “Transforming India’s vaccine market” in association with the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India. The report suggests that India’s vaccine market is much smaller and underpenetrated than its global peers and discusses impediments that have hampered growth of the vaccine market. The report also features a scenario as per which the optimistic case would be that the market would have hit a value of around $3.2 billion in 2020, growing at 30-35% year-on-year from 2012 onwards. “In all likelihood, there will be five “mega” vaccines of over $250 million each in size, constituting 60% of the market, namely the anti-influenza, anti-typhoid, HPV, pneumococcal and Hepatitis A,” the report said."

"In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. In regions where children are vaccinated multiple times, the non-polio acute flaccid paralysis rate is up to 35 times higher than international norms. The non-polio acute flaccid paralysis rate in a given year correlates to the cumulative doses of oral polio vaccine received in the previous 3 years."

"Notwithstanding such concerns about the high costs and meager benefits of the vaccine, Gates, through his surrogates at GAVI, PATH, and WHO successfully arm-twisted the Indian government in 2007–8 into introducing the hepatitis B vaccines. GAVI pushed WHO to change the official policy to a universal recommendation, meaning that even countries with low disease burdens would be required to vaccinate. GAVI hoped this would reopen the Indian markets. WHO obligingly changed its recommendation to include universal immunization with hepatitis B vaccine for all countries, even those where HCC was not a problem. The Indian government obediently adopted WHO’s recommendation."

"If children get eggs to eat even unintentionally when at school, there are chances that they will not abide by the pure vegetarian diet culture that their families have been following."

"Despite the annual embarrassment of India scoring a poor rank on the , nutrition and hunger hardly merit a mention in the budget speeches of our finance ministers. The last time there was anything related to tackling malnutrition among women and children was in 2014-15 – the first budget of the Narendra Modi government – where Arun Jaitley announced that a national nutrition mission would be launched. [...] Notwithstanding its positioning, budget 2020 in effect fails on many counts to respond to the nutrition challenge in India. The direct programmes which address the multidimensional nature of malnutrition including the ICDS, mid-day meals, PMMVY and Poshan Abhiyan are underfunded and at the same time PDS which contributes to basic food security is sought to be undermined. The government seems to be oblivious to the situation of hunger in the country. It further seeks to create an illusion of plenty by arguing in the Economic Survey in its chapter on 'Thalinomics' that food affordability has increased in the last few years. This chapter is based on a flawed methodology where it compares food prices as a proportion of incomes of workers in organised manufacturing who comprise less than 5% workers in India and does not take into account that wages for the majority have been stagnating and unemployment is at its peak."

"Today, whichever CM will be able to source and vaccinate their entire state will become a national star. Great political opportunity that will save lives too!"

"Pfizer and Moderna are the best vaccines. They have been out since Dec-2020. Why don't we have them in India yet? Do we not deserve the best? Don't we buy defense equipment from abroad? Is this not a war like situation? Why does the vaccine have to be made here and only here?"

"The Pfizer vaccine, one of the best ones, used in most developed countries, applied for permission in India in Dec-2020. India instead asked them to do more studies here. Pfizer withdrew its application in Feb-21. Imagine lives saved if we allowed the vaccine from December itself."

"It is the vaccine or vaccines that will win the war against COVID-19, not the government or mythological beliefs."

"Even though Pfizer has created a promising vaccine, the logistics for making it available to every Indian need to be worked out. GOI has to define a vaccine distribution strategy and how it will reach every Indian."

"What is the problem in giving Pfizer and Moderna vaccines approvals for use in India?"

"Government must immediately provide funds to ramp up production in India and increase supplies. Government must also authorise the use of more approved vaccines and allow their manufacture or import."

"We have a duopoly of two vaccines, but they are hardly sufficient to vaccinate a nation of 138 crore people."

"Remember, we need global help right now to get the vaccines. The person who needs the help cannot have ego. Ego never served anyone anyway, but if we keep ego or fake pride now, when we need help, we won't succeed. Heads down, get to work, source and administer the vaccines."

"Oh but why couldn't Pfizer agree to our terms, some say. Well, we needed Pfizer's vaccine more than they needed us. We could have saved lives if we kept our ego down and said 'how can we make it work Pfizer' rather than 'why can't you listen to us.' Lives could have been saved."

"The moment that the Chinese scientists and doctors announced that the coronavirus could be transmitted between human beings on Jan. 20, 2020, the socialist governments went into action to monitor ports of entry and to test and trace key parts of the population. They set up task forces and procedures to immediately make sure that the infection would not go out of control amongst their people. They did not wait till the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic on March 11. This is in stark contrast to governments in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, India, and other capitalist states, where there has been a hallucinatory attitude towards the Chinese government and the WHO. There is no comparison between the stance of Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and U.S. President Donald Trump: the former had a sober, science-based attitude, while the latter has consistently laughed off the coronavirus as a simple flu as recently as June 24."

"Overall, during the last couple of months, the hate-filled atmosphere has taken a sharp upturn and the popular talk is veering towards shun Muslims and boycotting their trades. This does remind some of the boycott of Jew traders before the "" was put into action in Germany. Already the myths, stereotypes and biases against Muslims in particular and partly against Christians abound in the society. A hate-creation mechanism is already in place. This mechanism has become robust during last few years. The roots of this mechanism are fairly deep and it has been actively nurtured by communal elements. That a human tragedy like Covid-19 could have boosted divisive processes was unthinkable a few years ago."

"A drug to treat head lice and worms will now be administered to Covid-19 patients and those at high risk of infection in Uttar Pradesh. The anti-parasite drug, ivermectin, has been used in clinical trials in Delhi hospitals but Uttar Pradesh is the first to approve its statewide use in the Covid-19 prevention protocol. .. The idea is that its immunomodulation properties — activating the immune system — could help stave off Covid-19. “Ivermectin has been used for several years to treat many infectious diseases … It has low adverse effects. We have been providing the drug to Covid-19 patients in our isolation ward. Positive results were achieved,” said Dr Sanjay Kala, principal of SN Medical College. And the range of its use has been considered worth exploring. “It has antimicrobial, antiviral and anti-cancer properties. It has shown effective results in Covid-19 studies,” said Dr Prashant Prakash, professor of pulmonary medicine at the college."

"Why has clearance been denied to Pfizervaccine ? Let all vaccines become available in the market and let consumers decide. “ Atmanirbhar” should not become 1970s style protectionism."

"We need 70% entire population to get herd immunity. Not just adult population. Virus doesn’t check your Adhaar card. It maybe more than 70% even as the vaccines we’ve used have lower overall efficacy than mRNA vaccines. Define the problem properly to solve it."

"The Satan is using this opportunity as it has always done to lead us astray from our religious duties in the name of precautions, treatment and protection. Whenever a calamity strikes, Satan makes the victims of calamity commit such acts which destroy their rewards and add to their woes. This is the time to populate the mosques and to invite the ummah towards repentance. As I have already said, this is the time to make our supplications effective. This is not the time to pay heed to false remedial measures…."

"Responses cannot be one-size-fits-all and will need to be tailored to local needs."

"I request all, both in India and abroad, to strictly follow the guidelines and instructions of the local or national governments and till the time restrictions are in place and please observe prayers at home. And even in this, we should not invite people from outside"

"As is true for the world at large, India's near-term macroeconomic outlook is also vulnerable to disruption of trade with China and second-round effects arising from expected slowdown in global growth. However, the latest available data on trade and domestic output indicators do not suggest any adverse impact on the economy. Additionally, a positive impact on India's economy may arise from decline in global oil prices triggered by the outbreak of COVID-19."

"There are moments in the life of every nation when its leaders are tested. A true leader would be completely focused on averting the massive crisis about to be unleashed by the virus on India and its economy."

"On March 22, at 5 pm stand on your doors and windows for 5 minutes and clap, ring a bell to salute people who are serving the nation tirelessly."

"Today, the poor are bearing most of the burden of India’s lockdown, one of the harshest in the world. The policies are made or influenced by a class of people who pay little attention to the consequences for the underprivileged. Just think, for instance, of how all sorts of basic services have been shut down without batting an eyelid: outpatient health services, child immunisation, school meals, MNREGA worksites, the lot. For good measure, the policies are often enforced in an authoritarian manner. Ideally, people should be empowered to face this crisis together, instead of being treated like sheep. Here in Jharkhand, I have been struck by so many people’s readiness to help in one way or another. But this good will is not being tapped. This mirrors India’s long-standing failure to foster and mobilise human resources for development. Kerala is one exception, and sure enough, it is handling this crisis in an inspiring manner."

"Today, a pandemic. Tomorrow, a natural disaster, a chemical spill or some . There’s always some disruption around the corner. So for as long as informal jobs are the norm in our economy and as long as we cannot practically lockdown the entire country, the way ahead is to install measures to improve social security. [...] The government’s advisories about restricting social contact are indeed important but such measures are economically risky for so many who face a choice between the devil and the deep-sea. Social distancing is impractical for the tens of millions without social security."

"All leading experts say 21 days is the minimum we require to break the coronavirus transmission cycle. If we are not able to handle these 21 days, the country and your family will go back 21 years and many families will be destroyed. I am saying this not as the Prime Minister but as your family member."

"Applying mathematical models used in the US or UK to India points to a possible 300 million (30 crore) cases, according to Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP). Is there a best-case scenario? "200 million," Laxminarayan said in an interview with India Today TV's Rahul Kanwal... "The problem here is that the ten million severe infections will all happen within a two or three-week window, and will require a lot of intensive care -- and we don't have the systems to handle that much in a short period of time.""

"On 5th April, we must challenge this darkness. Therefore us 130 crore Indians should at 9 p.m. on April 5 switch off all lights and stand at the door or balcony light up a candle, diya, torch or mobile flashlight for nine minutes. If you switch off all lights at that time, and light these objects, the experience of light and going towards it will be concentrated."

"Mere courage and collaboration between our regular citizenry – the medical professionals, researchers and scientists — is insufficient by itself to combat a pandemic such as COVID-19. It is equally important that our governments take quick and robust decisions and implement effective policies."

"After the outbreak of Covid-19, one was hoping that the global calamity will be combated on top priority without any consideration of race, ethnicity and religion. But matters took such a turn in India that even the United Nations had to state that race, ethnicity and religion should be no consideration in dealing with the crisis. Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, said late in the day that the Novel Coronavirus does not see the barriers of religions or caste. Even the RSS Chief, though very late in the chronology of events, also said that whole communities should not be targeted for the mistakes of a few. By this time the damage was already done."

"The health care system will soon be placed in a very difficult situation where they have to make a choice between who to provide care to and who to simply say, 'sorry, we can’t do anything for you'."

"Migrant workers, dismissed by employers, enjoying no protection from their governments, often thrown out of their accommodation by their landlords, in urgent need of food, transport and money, driven by desperation to walk home. It is a scene many have described as reminiscent of the migration at Partition. This is the outcome of the largest and one of the strictest lockdowns in the world enforced during the coronavirus disease crisis — a lockdown that has been widely applauded internationally. Why has the outcry against this suffering inflicted on men and women who are more than 90% of India’s workforce been so muted? It is, I believe, in part at least, because those in a position to raise their voices have not identified themselves with those who are suffering."