Dangerous Drugs - Office Of The Director Of Public Prosecutions: Fill & Download for Free

Warning: Graphic ContentThe Thalidomide Tragedy/Disaster is the biggest man-made medical disaster to date and the victims were children.This horrifying event is the reason that the drugs that pregnant women can take is so strictly monitored now. We now understand the concept of a ‘Teratogenic’ drug, which is a drug that is harmful to an unborn fetus and causes deformities. Now people are far more educated in this area[1]. There are drugs that say pregnant women shouldn’t even handle them now.Our story begins in the 1950s when a German pharmaceutical company[2] accidentally creates what they think is a great cure for morning sickness. They were aiming at creating a tranquilliser, but Thalidomide, as well as being a fantastic sleep aid was an even better anti‐emetic (prevents vomiting). Since the product was near impossible to overdose on, it quickly became a smash hit with the populace.It was released in 46 countries under different names. In the UK it was called DistavalIt was believed to help with everything from depression to headaches. No one suspected the events that unfurled. It was one of the worlds top selling drugs at the time since it was considered so safe.It wasn’t until 1961 that the drug was banned thanks to the work of two clinicians Lenz and McBride. Unfortunately, by then over 10,000 children has been born with disabilities as a result of the drugs influence.The main impairments caused by thalidomide as you can see, are the wasting of the limbs, and is usually bilateral (It’ll affect both arms or both legs etc). Some impairments included phocomelia:This resulted in the victims being called ‘Flipper Babies’[3]It’s also believed that Thalidomide increased the rate of miscarriage in womenLuckily for America, Thalidomide was not released there during this time, despite heavy pressure from William S. Merrell who stood to make millions if Thalidomide was approved. Fortunately, Dr. Frances Kelsey refused, citing concerns about peripheral neuropathy in patients taking the drug and possible negative effects during pregnancy. Merrell tried to sabotage her for this by contacting her bosses and calling her a ‘petty bureaucrat’. She didn’t care and stood firm bravely. With her bravery she single-handedly spared America from the tragedy[4] and was rewarded:“Her exceptional judgment in evaluating a new drug for safety for human use has prevented a major tragedy of birth deformities in the United States,” -JFKShe received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President John F. Kennedy. If only we had more people like her today to prevent dangerous products like addyi getting onto the market.Fortunately Dr. Frances Kelsey of the US Food and Drug Administration was more alert and would not accept that the drug had been adequately tested for manufacture and distribution. As a result only about 20 thalidomide impaired babies were born in America and these were a result of the limited clinical trials that were carried out.-https://www.thalidomidesociety.org/what-is-thalidomide/She went on to work for the FDA (Food and Drug Administration in the USA) for a total of 45 years. Rising through the ranks like a shooting star she was quickly put in charge of a new branch for regulating drugs and later became the director of the Office of Scientific Investigations.She died in 2015 at the age of 101, and who said only the good die young?“I had the feeling,” she wrote after a meeting with company executives, “that they were at no time being wholly frank with me, and that this attitude has obtained in all our conferences, etc., regarding this drug.” - Frances Kelsey as Quoted from the New York Times [5]Dr.Kelsey is now in the Women’s hall of Fame:Kelsey, Frances Oldham - National Women’s Hall of FameThis event and Dr.Kelsey’s work went on to shape how we deal with drug testing for this day. Her rules have been adopted worldwide.There is a lot of debate as to whether the company that produced Thalidomide could have known prior to the disaster. Either way, everyone involved evaded prosecution. Many people turned instead to try and sue the distributors.To this day, there are survivors of the Thalidomide disaster.My thalidomide family: Every time I went home I was a stranger“Louise’s father, David, spearheaded a bitter legal battle from November 1962 to April 1973 against Distillers on behalf of all the families affected by thalidomide. Eventually the company was forced to take public responsibility for the scandal and to adequately compensate the families involved.The settlement package of £26m, distributed between 370 families and the creation of the Thalidomide Trust, was 10 times Distillers’ original offer of compensation but Louise feels that her father’s obsession with the case, no matter how well-intentioned, succeeded at the expense of his relationship with her. “Thalidomide took up the best part of my dad’s life,” admits Louise. David and Vicki went on to have three other children unaffected by thalidomide: Claire, Lindsey and David.”In the UK, this led to the creation of the Committee of Human Medicines (CHM) and ‘Black Triangle Medicines’A upside down triangle meaning that a medicine is new. The mark doesn’t go away until it has been established as perfectly safe. These drugs are closely monitored and side effects no matter how minor are reported.Let the tragedy never be repeated.Update: By popular demand, there is now even more Frances Kelsey in this answer :-pRelated Reading:Stephanie Smith's answer to What are DES daughters? discussing the Diethylstilbestrol tragedy.Footnotes[1] AboutKidsHealth[2] Chemie Grünenthal GmbH[3] flipper baby - Wiktionary[4] Frances Oldham Kelsey - Wikipedia[5] Frances Oldham Kelsey, Who Saved U.S. Babies From Thalidomide, Dies at 101

I’m coming to believe that Trump has to fire Mueller — and it will have almost nothing to do with “collusion” — or even the election. The simple math is that there’s no real downside — only upside. If Trump fires Mueller …Worst case — Congress moves rapidly to impeach. That’s not a conviction (see Clinton and Monica Lewinsky) — and it would take time.Bad case — process is delayed while another special prosecutor is secured — more time.Best case — Trump gets to argue his case of a “witch-hunt” in the court of public opinion again — and wins. Remember, this is the guy who famously said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any support! This is definitely a long-shot — but Trump’s a gamblin’ kinda guy!Options #1 or #2 are the most likely — and in both cases he gets to delay his pending interrogation (currently on a dangerously fast track through Mueller). He can’t (ultimately) avoid it, but he HAS to delay being interviewed by investigators at all costs (and that’s the legal advice he’s getting).Even though this first salvo from the special counsel’s office does not directly relate to Russia or activities of the campaign, if this action today says anything, it is a warning to the president’s lawyers to somehow make sure Trump is never interviewed by investigators, or to delay that as long as possible. Given Trump’s history with legal matters, especially depositions, the danger for him to create criminal liability for himself seems astounding. [1]Firing Mueller would result in a delay — though not the end of the investigation (or any of the results of the investigation to date). Mueller’s first indictment’s (Manafort and Gates) are around the periphery, but make no mistake, the real target is Trump.And there’s another need for a delay.The charges against Manafort and Gates are very typical drug-cartel/crime-family stuff. Here’s the gist of it:Conspiracy against the United StatesConspiracy to launder moneyUnregistered agent of a foreign principalFalse and misleading Foreign Agent Registration Act statementsFalse statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.In effect, Manafort and Gates (allegedly) “laundered money through shell companies and foreign bank accounts in Cyprus, Seychelles, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In all, the indictment says, $75 million flowed through these accounts, and they funded Manafort and Gates’s lifestyles in the U.S.” [1]Owning shell accounts and foreign bank accounts isn’t illegal, but where it is illegal is when the shell accounts and foreign banks are used for the express purpose of evading taxes — and that’s exactly what the indictment alleges Manafort and Gates did.But U.S. citizens with foreign bank accounts with more than $10,000 at the start of the year they are filing taxes must, under U.S. law, report those accounts to the U.S. Treasury. They must also declare any foreign accounts to the Internal Revenue Service while doing their taxes. Manafort and Gates are alleged to have done neither. [1]Mueller’s investigation is likely to lead to charges against Trump that would subpoena his taxes — and that would be tilt, game-over type stuff because Trump — like Manafort (and Gates) has been laundering money to avoid taxes for decades. This is why he can’t disclose them. If he did — they would result in immediate criminal prosecutions.Now, remember this event? Where he *supposedly* turned over all his “investments” to his sons? No one was actually allowed to see inside these folders. It was a complete charade. Having created the illusion of “paperwork” for decades, one Hollywood producer went as far as to say the folders were just filled with blank paper (which definitely looks plausible). The only way the American public will ever see any of Trump’s real finances is by subpoena.In some cases, Trump himself was the launderer for Russian oligarchs. At the level of tens/hundreds of millions of dollars, this is how the quid-pro-quo works.“What do I have to do with Russia?” he replied to reporters’ questions at a press conference in Doral last summer (2016). “You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach … for $40 million, and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million.” [2]Sidenote: This is what the property looked like — before it was completely torn down — and sold as 3 separate parcels. That’s right — the highest price ever paid for Palm Beach real estate ($95 million at closing) was subsequently torn down and sold as 3 ocean-front parcels. It’s unlikely that the original $95 million was (or will be) recouped on the sale of the 3 parcels (the largest of which sold for $34.34 million — smaller parcels would likely be less).But I digress …The history of the property is pretty amazing — and not atypical of the way Trump does real-estate deals. What Trump has learned is that on the global stage, there are wealthy buyers who aren’t always interested in the “value” of real estate as land, bricks and mortar — or what other neighborhood properties are selling for per square foot. If you’re a Russian oligarch, there are a myriad of legitimate needs to “park” huge sums of money in non-liquid assets — around the globe. Some of this is typical tax avoidance stuff and sometimes it’s a messy legal matter like divorce. Other times it’s just — hey — I can afford it and I want it. I don’t care about price.This is also why we’ve never seen Trump’s taxes — and short of a subpoena — never will. And there’s more.Turns out there are some other intersects with that same oligarch (the one who paid $95 million for the Palm Beach property) both during Trumps’s 2016 campaign — and earlier this year after Trump’s inauguration.Federal Aviation Administration records reviewed by The Palm Beach Post and other news outlets have tracked Rybolovlev’s private plane to cities where Trump has traveled, both during his campaign and into his presidency.In October, for example, Trump appeared at a campaign rally in Las Vegas. Rybolovlev’s plane arrived in that city an hour after the campaign event started.A month later, FAA records show Rybolovlev’s plane, an Airbus 319, also landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, 90 minutes before Trump’s plane arrived. Trump was scheduled to host a campaign event there that day — Nov. 3 — five days before the presidential election.The latest juxtaposition of Trump’s and Rybolovlev’s aircrafts occurred last month, the weekend of Feb. 10-12 (2017), when the oligarch’s plane landed at Miami International Airport while Trump was at Mar-a-Lago entertaining Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. [3]Back to the money laundering.Russian oligarchs have been using banks in Cyprus (and other countries) for decades. The biggest bank in Cyprus is the Bank of Cyprus, PCL. Since 2014, Wilbur Ross has been the vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus. Just who is Wilbur Ross? None other than our new Secretary of Commerce — and his history with Trump dates back to Atlantic City and Trump’s [failed] casino ambitions.In the late 1970s, Ross began his 24 year career at the New York City office of N M Rothschild & Sons, where he ran the bankruptcy-restructuring advisory practice.In the 1980s, Donald Trump was in financial trouble because of his casinos in Atlantic City. His three casinos in Atlantic City were under foreclosure threat from lenders. Ross, who was then the Senior Managing Director of Rothschild Inc., represented investors in the casino. Along with Carl Icahn, Ross convinced bondholders to strike a deal with Trump that allowed Trump to keep control of the casinos. [4]But this is all conjecture — speculation — and while it’s easy to connect the dots logically, there’s no legal proof. Which is where Mueller is hard at work. He’s taking all of these disparate threads and building the legal case with sufficient testimony and evidence to indict. Given this short thread, it’s easy to see the likelihood of a Trump indictment on one of possibly many legal charges — and while Trump can’t avoid an indictment — he can delay it — and firing Mueller would absolutely result in a delay. The ensuing media frenzy and political circus would chew up valuable time.Also, unlike Nixon, Trump isn’t the kind of person who would be comfortable leaving his fate in the hands of a Pence pardon. The larger question then remains — can Trump pardon Trump? I think we’re about to find out, and either way, it likely means that Mueller needs to go overboard first in the likely sequence ahead. Whatever Trump’s ultimate future is — I’m convinced it will need a pardon to avoid jail. Tax evasion isn’t sexy, but it’s often how big whales get busted — and it’s a whole lot easier and quicker than proving (beyond a reasonable doubt) that Trump colluded with Russia to swing the election. Those dots are there too — they’re just harder (and longer) to prove.[1] Where Is Bob Mueller Headed Next?[2] Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king[3] Why did a Russian pay $95M to buy Trump’s Palm Beach mansion?[4] Wilbur Ross - Wikipedia

Preity Zinta-She was born in a Rajput family of Rohru in Simla on 31st January. Her father Lieutenant Colonel Durganand Zinta, was in the Indian Army and had a transferable job, so they were constantly shuttling throughout India. She has two brothers –older brother Lieutenant Colonel Dipankar and Manish.ChildhoodShe was a complete tomboy, had a crew cut and would constantly beat up the boys. When her parents would gift her dolls and girly toys, she would be busy dissecting their eyes or breaking their limbs. She would play with marbles, climb trees and invariably return home with bruises, scratches and broken limbs. She says-“I even learnt snake handling at the army cantonment. And for days on end I’d strut around thinking I was the cat’s whiskers, until somebody actually spilt the beans that the fangs of the snakes had been taken out so it wasn’t really dangerous.”Once while going to school, her elder brother had a fight with another boy. The feisty young Preity who was only 7, went and slapped the boy (who was much older than her) for hitting her brother.She once also had a fight with her elder brother and hit him on the head with a stone. He started crying. As a child whenever she cried, her father used to say that Rajput’s don’t cry. So she said the same thing to him. He was bleeding but he stopped crying. Now she knew that her mother would not spare her, so she just went under a table and hid. The whole night she slept under the table. Her parents thought that she had run away from home. They sent people to look for her and even called the police. In the morning, when the maid came to clean the house, that is when she saw her!“Among other things, it was my father who taught me to be strong, to do guy thing. In fact, he was the one who taught me how to handle firearms. I must have been seven. 
We were in our farm and Dad gave me an air gun and basic lessons in handling and using it,” she says. “We used to aim at empty cans lined up on a wall and he used to praise me when I could knock one off. It was the most unusual thing for a parent to teach a daughter, particularly in India, because firearms are normally used only by men. But I still remember my dad saying ‘I want you to do everything that your brothers can’.School and EducationShe studied at the Jesus and Mary Simla Convent School, and then went to St Bedes College. She was always involved in elocutions, dramatics, debates, basketball. Whenever she came across something that influenced her, she wanted to be that. It varied from an astronaut, airhostess, army girl, to truck driver!“Once, I wanted to be a nun - my mother wanted me to change schools after that.”In school they had a group of 4 girls and they called themselves the “Smudgies”. They wanted to form a band as they had an interest in music. Her best friend Shagun wanted to be the lead singer and Preity wanted to be the drummer!Though a good student, she wasn’t very studious. In the 10th standard, she had the exam of English the next day and she did not even have the book of the subject. Preity wasn’t nervous but her mother was, so she went to the market and bought the book. Finally when the results came out, she had come first in the subject in the state of Himachal Pradesh!When she was around 11, this is what she had written in her friend’s slam book (Which according to her was inspired by all the Mills and Boon books that she read):What would you have inscribed on your grave stone?Come One Come all but Only handsome hunks.Your favorite motto?Life is too Short to dance with Ugly Guys, bloom where you are planted.Describe your real hunk.“He should be sexy, hot, smart, well built, with piercing romantic eyes. He should be a damn rich person. He should live in style and also keep me in style. His presence should send shivers in my body, he should be generous, no bad habits, he should dress smartly and love me DEARLY.”Her psychology teacher Neelam Bali said- It seems like yesterday when you used to come to my Psychology class with smiling, mischievous eyes and dimpled cheeks. And when I asked for the practical files, you used to stand up and with an innocent face used to say- I could not do it because yesterday till 12 I was dancing in a party!An embarrassing incident was when she was 12. Her father being in the army, they used to have army parties and children below 18 were not allowed. She was really intrigued to know what was happening in the party. She asked her mother to allow her to come but she said no. So she went to her mother’s cupboard, took out her bra, stuffed it up with oranges and went outside to the club, stood there with hands on her hips and said, “I am 18, can I go in?”They called her father and her mother got really upset with her!Tragedy in the familyWhen she was just 13, her parents met with a horrific road accident. The steering wheel got locked and she lost her father and her mother Nilprabha had 22 broken bones. She was in and out of coma and in a vegetative state for a long time.Interestingly she had a sort of premonition, a feeling that something was going to happen. In her school, in one class, she used to read the news everyday in school and she told her best friend Shagun that she had a feeling that she was going to read some news about her father. For 6 months after the accident, she did not cry and then broke down later on!Further EducationAfter finishing school, she briefly joined a college in Delhi and exited almost immediately.“For someone as feisty as me, I refused to put up with eve-teasing and have my butt pinched, and I very vociferously objected. But when I was threatened bodily harm, I decided to go back to Shimla and joined St Bede’s College to do English Honours.”After college, she came to Mumbai and decided to do criminal psychology. She had to painstakingly go through lots of research and was always busy reading thick books.She also had a pact with her good friend Arjun Saigal from Delhi that if both of them did not marry by the time they were 30, they would marry each other!Modeling and CommercialsOnce a very close friend’s brother who was an ad filmmaker called her from Famous Studio. His model had run away and they wanted to show her legs.He asked me, ‘Are your legs waxed?’ I was shocked! I asked him, ‘Dude, what kind of question is this?’ He then told me that he needs to show a very sexy pair of legs in a commercial and begged me to help him out.She finally agreed and for that they gave her Rs 5,000. She then bumped into another ad filmmaker friend who called me for a shoot. It was an ad for ‘Cadbury Perk.’“What was great about the shoot was that there was such a lot of yummy street food. I am a BIG foodie and stuffed myself to the gills with vada pao and misal pao and whatnot, until I couldn’t eat any more. And then they gave me the Perk to shoot with. I had eaten such a lot… I was like, ‘Yuck! I can’t eat any more!’ Finally, they gave me an option to either take a bite of the Perk or look really happy holding it. I looked really happy, and the rest is history. From there, the ‘Liril’ people saw me and I became the frisky ‘Liril girl’.The first time she got cash in hand (her hard earned money), that Rs 50 note, she signed and gave it to her best friend in Mumbai- Suzanne.Career decision by the flip of a coinShe had returned from the Fort library after lots of research and with a lots of books including one titled ‘Male Sexuality’ (She also used to study about drug abuse and alcohol abuse). Her friend was doing a film audition at the Taj and she went there to pick him up.Shekhar Kapoor was doing the film auditions at the Taj. She was just going out with her friend when Shekhar suddenly came up and introduced himself.“I got really nervous as I had seen him in the serial ‘Udaan’ and he was the first celebrity I had ever met in Mumbai. He actually grabbed my hand to shake hands with me. And out flew my books, and I got more nervous. Looking at the titles of the books, he raised an eyebrow and asked me if I had come for the auditions. I stammered a ‘no’.He then pulled me in the middle of the group, and grandly announced to all that I was a typical case of cold feet. I stuttered that I hadn’t come for the audition. But he told me rather coolly, ‘You say you are scared and I’ll let you leave’. However, my Rajput ‘Zinta’ pride reared up and I refused to say anything. He insisted that I do the audition. I told him very airily that I’d be ready as soon as I turned around. I finally turned around and faced the camera and just pretended that I was talking to my friend Shagun and went on chattering. And then, a phone rang somewhere. I said, ‘Just a minute’, gathered my books and without looking at the guy I was supposed to pick up, just walked out of the room, out of the Taj, and into a cab. Can you believe it? I was shaking all over with fright. And I promised myself there and then that I’d never go for an audition again.But Shekhar somehow found me later on and offered me his film ‘Ta Ra Rum Pum Pum’. I again rattled the same spiel about belonging to a very strict Rajput family, and we didn’t do things like films blah blah. But Shekhar insisted that I was destined for films. And then the drama queen that I was, I told him that I’d flip a coin and if it was heads, I’d said yes! It was heads! Hurrah!Incidents with her co-actorsFarhan AkhtarShe had done a screen test with Akshaye Khanna years ago at Farhan's house for some film. I remember when Farhan was narrating the script of Dil Chahta Hai to me, there was a huge cockroach in the room. I ran out, Farhan ran after me. He returned only after the cockroach was killed.Aamir KhanAamir is really really wicked. All this intense actor thing is just an eye-wash. Once I was sleeping in the bus with my mouth open, he emptied a bottle of mineral water into my mouth. No seriously, he's just an amazing actor. He's not narcissistic.While we'd party every night in Australia, Aamir would stay in his room and play chess on the internet. Finally, once I managed to drag him to the disco. He rushed back to his room in half an hour.Sunny DeolI was shooting for this film with Sunny Deol and there was a scene where I was getting married to him. I was fully decked up and was taken to the mandap. The pandit was chanting shlokas in front of the fire. I got really nervous and I begged the panditji not to recite the correct shlokas, else I’d find myself married to Sunny. The panditji glared at me and said, ‘Madam, I’m not a real panditji, I’m an artiste too’. Gosh, that was embarrassing!Bobby DeolWhen I first met him, he was one of the guys in the group and I had to look for someone between 23-28. I needed five subjects for the psychology study.He says, “She would be with us. We would all go out in my dad's van every night and she would be sitting right at the back, quietly to herself. One day, she came up to me and said 'Okay, I'm doing criminal psychology. Can I make you my subject?' And I said to her, look Preity, I would love to but I'm from this family and if I talk about myself and if you say my subject Bobby Deol, I can't do it!”Salman KhanThe only actor I used to be scared of before I worked with him was Salman Khan. I don't know why but I was. “I used to love to see Salman squirm and get embarrassed hearing my dialogues in ‘Chori Chori Chupke Chupke.’ He actually is kinda shy.”Hrithik RoshanI came to know Hrithik through his wife (Suzanne Khan). Suzanne and I have been best friends for the last 10 years. I remember the first time Hrithik and I met. He was the guy Suzanne was seeing and came with a cake on my birthday. I found him very thin. I remember he told Suzanne, "What kind of a friend do you have? She comes late on her own birthday!FilmsShe has always made very bold decisions in terms of her films be it her first one Kya Kehna where she played an unwed mother or a surrogate mother in Chori Chori Chupke Chupke.According to Kundan Shah the director of her first movie- Kya Kehna, when they both first met, the meeting was for 3 hours out of which she spoke for 2 and half of those!In that movie at the interval point, there was a scene with rain. Preity did the scene twice, the third time Mr Kundan Shah came to her in anger and said,“I do not want a brilliant take, I want an ok take!”LakshyaPhysically, it was the toughest. I can work 25 hours a day. I have that energy. But everything is against you sometimes -- the weather, the terrain. It was tough because I had to do two pages [worth of] dialogues in one take because I was reading the news out liveWhen I went to Ladakh that night, when I came out of my room after three days, I saw this guy in a monkey cap, with a beard, fully sun burnt face, lots of sweaters, with two other people standing next to him. And he saluted me. I looked at him and gave him a dirty look. I was like who's this trying to be extra-friendly with me. And then he goes, "PREITY." I am like, "FARHAN?" [laughs]. That was my introduction to the crew. The whole crew looked like pigs. Their beards had grown. Their faces were burnt. That's when I realised, "Oh my God, where have I come?"Regarding another movie:This was also the one film where I didn't know half of my co-stars. There were so many guys playing army characters, I didn't know them. Then I was meeting the real army [officers] also.At one stage, when somebody would say, "Hi, I am Captain so and so," I would ask, "Real or fake?" Everything was so real, I couldn't figure out. When I think about it [in retrospect], we have come out so tougher from this film.Some more trivia from her movies:“In Kya kehna I slapped the Vice principle so hard that when the director said cut he screamed-even if it's not ok Its ok. Have you seen her hand!”“I chipped my teeth & broke my leg in the climax scene of ‘Sangharsh’. It was awful! I did beat him in the second take for revenge though.”Ishkq in ParisWith my maiden venture, I think I got an indication of where I was heading. I never had so much of bad luck in one film. Firstly, when we landed in Paris, it was 2 degree Celsius, and when we started shooting, it became minus 23 degrees! Post that, somebody committed suicide on the train tracks, because of which the shooting had to be stopped. This was followed by the train breaking down. Then the film's director got cancer and then, his father passed away. And then I did a deal to sell the film to a gentleman. Two days later, he and his brother shot themselves! My promos came back four times in a row. My film, which was supposed to take 6-8 months, took almost 2 years to come out! And ultimately, when it was released, I simply looked up and said, "Thank God!" After that, we even partied irrespective of the film's fate at the BO! It was a really great learning curve for me.Near death experience-She has had 2 close calls with death. Following are the incidents:It’s strange that I seem to have an overdose of ‘extraordinary’ incidents in my life. I actually went through two near death experiences. One was a bomb blast in Sri Lanka. I had gone there for our ‘Temptation’ tour. And it was horrible. I saw a woman with her arms blown off and blood spurting all over, kids lying dead. There was so much pain and chaos. It was traumatic to say the least.Another terrible experience was when I was holidaying in Thailand and the ravaging tsunami occurred. I lost many good friends to the tsunami. There was a stench, trees uprooted, people dead – it was horrible. And I couldn’t sleep at night for days and felt terribly guilty about being alive. In fact, that was the first time that I visited a psychologist. And I worked out like crazy. Each time the nightmares would occur, I would rush to the treadmill and work out for hours. So if you see me in ‘Salaam Namaste’, I had washboard abs. I also developed this horrible fear of water after that. However, later on, I learnt scuba diving just to overcome this fear. These extraordinary experiences have actually made me realize the importance of life, and today, I am not apologetic about being alive.Preity Zinta’s portrait that I made:Others-She was once stuck in the toilet of the airport!"Spent 10 minutes stuck in the toilet at the airport...Finally had to climb the wall and jump over... People were calling out my name. Thought I was going to die as I am claustrophobic. Pulled a muscle in my arm. Being a tomboy when I was younger definitely helped. Trying to climb a wall is never easy. Phew! Happy to go home now," she said.Preity is one of the first actresses that testified against the underworld.Bharat Shah, the producer of her film ‘Chori Chori Chupke Chupke', was arrested in 2000 for having connections with underworld don Chhota Shakeel. Unlike most of her colleagues in the film industry (including Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan) who succumbed to the pressure of the underworld, Preity Zinta was the only one who did not turn hostile to the prosecution. Zinta told the session court in Mumbai that she received a call from a man who said, "Main bhai ka aadmi Razak bol raha hoon aur mujhe 50 lakh chahiye". She accepted that she had received extortion threats from the mafia during the shooting of the film. This bravery of hers got her appreciation from the entire nation. Preity Zinta became the first recipient of the Godfrey's Mind of Steel Award at the annual Red and White Bravery Awards.In October 2010, Preity Zinta, received Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of East London.The citation described her as “an international actress, pioneering star of Hindi cinema and devoted humanitarian. Preity Zinta has carved a path for women to follow worldwide."Preity also adopted 34 girls from the Mother Miracle orphanage in Rishikesh in 2009. She took up the responsibility to give financial assistance to these girls by providing them food, education and clothing.Preity is also brand ambassador for the Loomba Trust, a charity that works to help improve the lives of widows and their children. She is also Goodwill ambassador for the UN Programme on HIV and Aids to raise awareness on prevention 
and treatment of the diseases.Besides her acting, Preity Zinta has also written a series of columns for BBC News Online of South Asia.In 2009, Preity was the youngest owner in the league to own an IPL team. In 2014, Preity accused Ness Wadia (her ex boyfriend and co-partner of KXI Punjab team) of allegedly molesting her and filed a case against him. Despite the public tiff, she continued to hold her stakes in the team. Way to go girl!So there you have all the stories that exist on the internet about her life. She has been my biggest crush growing up. Let us wish that the bubbly, spontaneous, charming and beautiful Preity Zinta with a spark in her eyes and the mischievous smile always stays this way.Sources:https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Preity_Zintahttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006689/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_trv_sm#triviahttp://www.revertown.com/some-unknown-facts-about-preity-zinta/http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/celebrities/features/type/view/id/6266/https://tanqeed.com/blast-from-the-past-preity-zinta-filmfare-interview-after-dil-chahta-hai/http://www.magnamags.com/savvy/i-believe/preity-zinta-i-walked-out-of-my-relationship-with-ness-wadia/80http://in.rediff.com/movies/2004/jun/16preity.htmhttp://www.rediff.com/movies/2004/jun/17preity.htmhttp://www.rediff.com/movies/report/koffee/20070607.htmhttp://fridaymagazine.ae/features/the-big-story/preity-zinta-on-why-she-believes-girls-should-have-fun-too-1.1333104http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/11/talkasia.zinta.script/http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/i-was-scared-of-salman-khan-says-preity-zinta/http://www.msn.com/en-in/entertainment/news/7-things-you-must-know-about-preity-zinta/ar-AAbqRnC#page=2http://www.mid-day.com/articles/preity-jumps-off-toilet-wall-at-delhi-airport/70508 and some videos.