Nims cardiologist in ACB net for taking bribe

Hyderabad: Eminent cardiologist Dr D Seshagiri Rao, head, department of cardiology, Nizam's Insititute of Medicine (Nims), was on Monday caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 1.6 lakh from a stent supplier.
    Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths recovered the tainted amount from his office and arrested him. A case was registered against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
    Nims director Dr A Dharmarakshak told ‘TOI’ that Dr Sheshagiri Rao would be suspended. “There is a criminal case and automatically Dr Rao is suspended,” Dr Dharmarakshak added.
    The Nims cardiologist demanded Rs 1.6 lakh bribe from a former Member of Parliament (MP) for doing an official favour.
    On Monday morning, former Nizamabad MP Atmacharan Reddy, who runs a stent and pacemaker distribution company (Charan Medical & Cardiac Devices Pvt Ltd), approached ACB sleuths with a complaint against the cardiologist. Atmacharan Reddy had first approached the cardiologist in August 2012 asking him to purchase stents supplied by his firm. “The complainant alleged that the doctor was willing to use the stents supplied by him provided he gives Rs 10,000 commission per stent,” an ACB official said.
    The former MP then agreed to pay the commission. After a deal was struck, the cardiologist implanted 16 stents supplied by the former MP's firm in patients between September and November 2012. As the complainant did not pay him the commission, the doctor stopped using his stents from January, 2013, the ACB officer said.
    On January 21, the former MP met Dr Seshagiri Rao at the hospital to sort out the issue, but the cardiologist sternly told him to pay the commission to get further purchase orders, forcing him to approach the ACB.
    Based on a complaint, ACB sleuths booked a case under the PC Act against Dr Seshagiri Rao and laid a trap to nab him. As per the plan, the complainant went to Seshagiri Rao’s chambers at the hospital and gave him the bribe amount. As soon as Seshagiri Rao accepted the bribe and placed it in his table draw, ACB sleuths entered the room and informed the doctor that he was being arrested for demanding and accepting bribe. The tainted bribe amount was recovered from the possession of the cardiologist and chemical test conducted on his hands yielded positive result.
    Seshagiri Rao would be produced before the ACB special court on Tuesday. Following the trap, a team of ACB sleuths landed at Dr Seshagiri Rao’s residence in Jubilee Hills and searches were on till late in the night.

Has PepsiCo bowed to 15-yr-old girl? Beverage giant says, ‘No’

    PepsiCo Inc is removing a controversial chemical from its Gatorade drinks following concerns from consumers and an online petition by a Mississippi teenager.
    Gatorade said the change was not a response to the petition, although the 15-year-old girl claimed victory.
    The ingredient, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), is a chemical containing bromine, which is found in fire retardants. Small quantities of BVO are used legally in some citrus-flavoured drinks in the US to keep the flavour evenly distributed. It was present in Gatorade Orange and Lemonade and other flavours.
    Molly Carter, a spokeswoman for Gatorade, said BVOfree versions of those drinks will roll out across the United States in the next couple of months. She said the move to replace BVO has been in the works for some time, and was
not a response to the petition by Sarah Kavanagh, the 15-year-old girl from Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
    Kavanagh started a petition on Change.org, an online petition platform, to ask PepsiCo to remove BVO from Gatorade. It received more than 200,000 signatures, and on Friday, the teenager declared victory.
    “When I went to Change-.org to start my petition, I thought it might get a lot of support because no one wants to gulp down flame retardant, especially from a drink they associate with being healthy,” the girl said. “But with Gatorade being as big as they are, sometimes it was hard to know if we’d ever win.”
    According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food safety watchdog group, BVO is a “poorly tested and possibly dangerous food additive and there’s no reason to use it in Gatorade or other drinks”. REUTERS