Piece of man's skull falls off, draws crowds

Last Updated: 2006-07-05 11:25:23 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA, India - Hundreds of people are thronging a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata to see a patient holding a piece of his own skull that fell off.

Doctors say a large, dead section of 25-year-old electrician Sambhu Roy's skull came away Sunday after severe burns starved it of blood.

"When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burned and within months it came off exposing the skull," Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay, the surgeon who treated Roy told Reuters Wednesday.

"Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases."

The piece came off Sunday and hundreds of people and dozens of doctors now crowd around his bed, where he lies holding the bone.

Bandyopadhyay said the skull's inner covering and the membrane which helps produce bone was miraculously unaffected, allowing fresh bone to grow.

"When the skull came off, I thought he will die, but we noticed a new covering on his head forming and that might have pushed the 'dead skull' out," he said.

While possible, such cases are extremely rare.

Roy was injured and almost killed when he was electrocuted while repairing a high-voltage wire last October.

"Doctors say a new skull covering has replaced the old one, but I am not letting go of this one," he told Reuters.

He intends to keep his prized possession for life and not hand it over to the hospital when he leaves: "My skull has made me famous," he says.

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British smokers big buyers of cheap cigarettes

Last Updated: 2006-07-05 12:00:29 -0400 (Reuters Health)

LONDON - Twenty percent of British smokers get around the high cost of cigarettes by buying them at discount prices, according to a poll.

That compares with just 6 percent of Americans, 3.7 percent of Canadians and 1 percent of Australians.

Michael Cummings, of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York and an author of the survey, said cheap cigarettes may undermine the public health benefit of high taxes.

"The higher rates of low/untaxed purchases in the UK is likely a function of high cigarette prices that fuel unregulated cigarette resellers," he said.

Cigarettes cost about 5.20 pounds for 20 in Britain -- about twice as much as in the United States. The charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) estimates that a 20-a-day smoker in Britain will spend about 1,800 pounds a year on cigarettes.

The telephone survey of nearly 9,000 smokers published online by the journal Tobacco Control also revealed that smokers with higher incomes tended to seek out bargain cigarettes on the Internet, from military bases and other outlets, more than those with lower salaries.

Cummings and his colleagues believe low rates of buying discount cigarettes seen in Australia are due to the country's relative isolation and national-level taxation policy.

"In Canada and the USA, cross-provincial state sales and low/untaxed cigarette purchases from Indian reservations that are unique to these nations contribute to this behaviour," Cummings added.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.