June 30, 2007
A 65-year-old St. Louis man is missing after Amtrak personnel, mistaking his diabetic shock for drunk and disorderly behavior, kicked him off a train in the middle of a national forest, according to police in Williams, Ariz.Police said Roosevelt Sims was headed to Los Angeles but was asked to leave the train shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday at a railroad crossing five miles outside Williams.
"He was let off in the middle of a national forest, which is about 800,000 acres of beautiful pine trees," Lt. Mike Graham said.
Police said there is no train station or running water at the crossing, which is about two miles from the nearest road, at an elevation of about 8,000 feet.
If he was truly "drunk and unruly", the correct approach is to restrain him as would be done on an airplane, not dump him in the middle of a forest. That this could happen is sufficient reason for this diabetic to steer well-clear of any AMTRAK train.
Fortunately, Williams has been found dazed and disoriented -- four days after being unceremoniously dumped from the train. Here's hoping for criminal charges and a lawsuit against AMTRAK and the employees as individuals.
H/T Texas Fred
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June 21, 2007
GOOD FOR YOU, MR. PRESIDENT!
President Bush yesterday vetoed legislation to expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research, saying that scientific advances now allow researchers to pursue the potentially lifesaving work without destroying human embryos.Bush followed his veto -- his third since becoming president -- with an executive order aimed at encouraging federal agencies to support research that offers the promise of creating medically useful stem cells without destroying human embryos.
This story, however, overlooks the more basic point -- nothing in current law makes it illegal to do research on fetal stem cells. There are a number of approved stem cell lines that can still be funded, and there is absolutely nothing to prohibit any fetal stem cell research using private money. What this veto does is simply prohibit the use of federal money to facilitate the taking of any more innocent lives for scientific research.
There are some points to consider -- some practical, some moral.
1) If fetal stem cell research is so promising, why isn't private industry funding it to the level that these breakthroughs will be made quickly. After all, a cure for diabetes of Parkinsons would be immensely profitable. Could it be that Big Pharmaceutical (the drug equivalent of Big Oil) is so unsure of the potential that it won't put up the money for research -- or that it simply feels that federal subsidies are its right?
2) Large numbers of Americans have moral objections to the methods for obtaining fetal stem cells. Is it appropriate to take their money to fund something that offends their values at such a fundamental level? Do their values and policy preferences matter less than those of researchers and (some of) those with medical conditions that could be cured by such research -- and why?
So I applaud the stand by the president in this case. Just because Dr. Mengele some research scientists seek government funding to destroy Jewish prisoners in a concentration camp embryos n a laboratory does not means that government should facilitate such work -- or that it is morally acceptable if they get such funding.
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June 18, 2007
Not to worry, though -- the government is committed to make sure she is bedridden and in constant agony.
Ronald McIver is a prisoner in a medium-security federal compound in Butner, N.C. He is 63 years old, of medium height and overweight, with a white Santa Claus beard, white hair and a calm, direct and intelligent manner. He is serving 30 years for drug trafficking, and so will likely live there the rest of his life. McIver (pronounced mi-KEE-ver) has not been convicted of drug trafficking in the classic sense. He is a doctor who for years treated patients suffering from chronic pain. At the Pain Therapy Center, his small storefront office not far from Main Street in Greenwood, S.C., he cracked backs, gave trigger-point injections and put patients through physical therapy. He administered ultrasound and gravity-inversion therapy and devised exercise regimens. And he wrote prescriptions for high doses of opioid drugs like OxyContin.McIver was a particularly aggressive pain doctor. Pain can be measured only by how patients say they feel: on a scale from 0 to 10, a report of 0 signifies the absence of pain; 10 is unbearable pain. Many pain doctors will try to reduce a patientÂ’s pain to the level of 5. McIver tried for a 2. He prescribed more, and sooner, than most doctors.
Some of his patients sold their pills. Some abused them. One man, Larry Shealy, died with high doses of opioids that McIver had prescribed him in his bloodstream. In April 2005, McIver was convicted in federal court of one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and eight counts of distribution. (He was also acquitted of six counts of distribution.) The jury also found that Shealy was killed by the drugs McIver prescribed. McIver is serving concurrent sentences of 20 years for distribution and 30 years for dispensing drugs that resulted in ShealyÂ’s death. His appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court were rejected.
McIver’s case is not simply the story of a narcotics conviction. It has enormous relevance to the lives of the one in five adult Americans who, according to a 2005 survey by Stanford University Medical Center, ABC News and USA Today, reported they suffered from chronic pain — pain lasting for several months or longer. According to a 2003 study in The Journal of the American Medical Association, pain costs American workers more than $61 billion a year in lost productive time — and that doesn’t include medical bills.
Contrary to the old saw, pain kills. A body in pain produces high levels of hormones that cause stress to the heart and lungs. Pain can cause blood pressure to spike, leading to heart attacks and strokes. Pain can also consume so much of the bodyÂ’s energy that the immune system degrades. Severe chronic pain sometimes leads to suicide. There are, of course, many ways to treat pain: some pain sufferers respond well to surgery, physical therapy, ultrasound, acupuncture, trigger-point injections, meditation or over-the-counter painkillers like Advil (ibuprofen) or Tylenol (acetaminophen). But for many people in severe chronic pain, an opioid (an opiumlike compound) like OxyContin, Dilaudid, Vicodin, Percocet, oxycodone, methadone or morphine is the only thing that allows them to get out of bed. Yet most doctors prescribe opioids conservatively, and many patients and their families are just as cautious as their doctors. Men, especially, will simply tough it out, reasoning that pain is better than addiction.
Are there unethical doctors who over-prescribe medication? Certainly. Are there patients who abuse and/or sell their medication? Without a doubt. However, most severe patients take their medication in accordance with their prescribed dosages, so that they can continue to have a life. But what that also means is that my wife and I are on a 30-day leash -- during certain times of the month we cannot leave town or make plans because the doctor will not give refills without an office visit. She once had to go to the office with pneumonia because she was nearly out of her pain medication and was told that she would get no more unless she was seen by the doctor -- despite a phone call from our family practice physician's office confirming her condition. Why? Because the pain management doctor, following the latest regulations from the state and the latest court decisions will not open himself up to any more legal jeopardy than necessary by giving refills without actually seeing the patient, even if their condition is irreversible and unchanged.
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June 14, 2007
A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coronerÂ’s office.
Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
And I know just how bad any sort of bleed in the gastric system can be. Paula had one back in November, and received excellent care from the medical staff when we arrived at the ER on Thanksgiving morning. Indeed, it was a very close thing, with them telling me that even an hour's delay would have been fatal. That is why we have both shuddered as we have viewed news coverage of this horror -- Rodriguez could have and should have survived this emergency.
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June 09, 2007
Doctors at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital came across something highly illogical when they tried to put an arterial line into a patient about to undergo surgery: his blood was dark green.The green blood — reminiscent of the Vulcan blood found in Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame — came as a bit of a shock to Dr. Alana Flexman and her colleagues, who report on the unusual case in this week's issue of the journal The Lancet.
* * * As surgical staff prepared the man for the middle-of-the-night emergency operation, Flexman and a colleague attempted to insert a line into a wrist artery.
Arterial lines are used to monitor blood pressure during an operation; any blood that flows when the line is inserted into the artery should be vivid red, the sign it has been oxygenated.
But in this case, which occurred in October 2005, it was not.
"During insertion, we normally see arterial blood come out. That's how we know we're in the right place. And normally that blood is bright red, as you would expect in an artery," Flexman said in an interview Thursday.
"But in his case, the blood kept coming back as dark green instead of bright red.
"It was sort of a green-black. Â… Like an avocado skin maybe."
The reaction in the room? "We were very concerned, obviously," said Flexman, who is training in anesthesia at the hospital.
Doctors suspect a reaction to the patient taking a larger than prescribed dose of a prescription medication.
Still, wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on the wall when the blood started flowing out green? The response of the medical team must have been priceless.
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