“Repurposing” off-patent drugs offers big hopes of new treatments – Cross purposes
hmmmm
Category: Science and Stuff,
Maternal death is rising. This data could help moms but it’s secret.
For years, hospitals have blamed rising maternal deaths and injuries on problems beyond their control. Almost universally they’ve pointed to poverty and pre-existing medical conditions as the driving factors in making America the most dangerous place in the developed world to give birth.
…The data, medical records and lawsuits suggest a complicated mix of misdiagnoses, delayed care and a failure to follow safety measures [are contributing factors.]
…These kinds of life-threatening childbirth complications are happening at Touro more often than at most hospitals. It is one of 120 hospitals where mothers suffer severe complications at far higher rates, USA TODAY found by examining billing records from 7 million births in 13 states.
Women at these outlier hospitals were more than twice as likely to have had blood transfusions, hysterectomies, seizures, heart attacks, strokes or other indicators that their deliveries turned deadly.
…Studies have found half of mothers’ deaths and severe injuries could be prevented or reduced with better medical care.
…Of the 120 high-complication hospitals identified by USA TODAY’s analysis, at least 56 are training sites for OB/GYN residency programs, and 22 of them have accreditation histories that include warnings, probation or both.
…While many hospitals with the highest rates pointed to patients’ poverty, the USA TODAY analysis identified plenty of hospitals serving high concentrations of poor women or black women with far lower complication rates.
…Hospitals, Main said, too often respond defensively instead of using the data to evaluate their care practices.
…Childbirth safety advocates called the hospital’s response troubling, particularly because a majority of women who deliver at Touro are black. Nationally, black mothers are dying from childbirth at three to four times the rate of white mothers; they suffer severe complications twice as often.
…Looking more deeply at New Orleans shows the kinds of differences among hospitals the analysis exposed. Seven hospitals deliver all the city’s babies. Of them, Touro’s maternity patients were far more likely to face serious complications.
…No matter how USA TODAY sliced the data, moms delivering at Touro experienced worse outcomes than women in similar situations who went to other hospitals.
Compare the births of poor mothers at Touro with poor mothers at other area hospitals – Touro’s moms had more complications. Compare black mothers. White mothers. Mothers with private insurance. Touro’s patients fared worse.
The pattern held true with patients coming from individual ZIP codes.
…Over the years, the OB/GYN training program at Touro has drawn concern from a national accreditation group that oversees medical education. Four recent lawsuits accused trainee doctors at Touro of failing to order the right tests, being slow to recognize emerging complications and making surgical or medication mistakes.
Maternal death is rising. This data could help moms but it’s secret.
Dayum, Touro…
Republicans are the real threat to hamburgers, not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
One of the most common Republican attack lines since the Green New Deal resolution was introduced last month is that Democrats, namely Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), “want to take away your hamburgers.”
…But the truth is, the real threat to hamburgers — and to food supplies in general — is Republican inaction on climate change.
Republicans are the real threat to hamburgers, not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – ThinkProgress
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Plastic Mardi Gras Beads Could Soon Be A Thing Of The Past
His discovery — that algae processed in a centrifuge could form a biodegradable, plastic-like material — was actually a mistake. A lab student tasked with processing algae samples in a centrifuge and then placing them in a freezer forgot to freeze the algae one night.
…Kato’s algae-based beads break down naturally over one to two years, while plastic beads can last for dozens or hundreds. Two years is a sweet spot in terms of shelf life, he said, because “you don’t want to have beads that melt on your hands or in the rain.” The lifespan of these beads may change, depending on what kind of chemicals he uses to add colors that can match the allure of bright conventional Mardi Gras beads. He said he’s still figuring out this aspect of production.
Plastic Mardi Gras Beads Could Soon Be A Thing Of The Past | HuffPost
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Measles outbreak: Anti-vaxx Texas lawmaker wrongly cites ‘antibiotics’
“They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in Third World countries they’re dying of measles,” Zedler said, the Texas Observer reports. “Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they’re not dying in America.”
…There is no treatment for measles, a highly contagious virus that can be fatal. Antibiotics treat bacterial infections and can’t kill viruses.
Measles outbreak: Anti-vaxx Texas lawmaker wrongly cites ‘antibiotics’
jeezus….
Camp Fire: PG&E says it’s ‘probable’ its equipment will be found to have caused blaze
As a result of the blaze, which claimed at least 86 lives and destroyed 14,000 homes, the company said it recorded a $10.5 billion charge ahead of anticipated claims.
…The utility previously said it anticipated being found responsible for damages from the Camp Fire and other California wildfires. The expectation of huge losses led to the company filing for bankruptcy last month.
…Subsequent inspections of this transmission line identified equipment that should have been repaired or replaced, the company said.
Camp Fire: PG&E says it’s ‘probable’ its equipment will be found to have caused blaze – CNN
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Embracing a community’s practice to promote the measles vaccine
Mimicking a news-sharing custom common among ultraorthodox Jewish communities, two Penn Nursing students created and placed large posters around a Jerusalem neighborhood, deriving content from a mystical technique that assigns a numerical value to each Hebrew letter.
…They used their background and what they’ve learned in nursing school to create an outreach program promoting the measles vaccine geared at an ultra-religious Jewish group called Haredi. Because many in that community get their news from black-and-white posters called ‘pashkevilim’ hung around the neighborhood, the Penn students decided to make one.
….“From our fieldwork, we learned that, especially in insular communities, it’s important to understand what they value. This is something they place high value on.”
Using gematria, they calculated a numerical value of 500 for the Hebrew word for “measles,” then looked for other words and phrases with the same value. They came up with the Biblical phrase for “spiller of blood.”
Embracing a community’s practice to promote the measles vaccine | Penn Today
Very cool.
Ford investigating possible problems with fuel economy, emissions tests
Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it had hired outside experts to investigate its vehicle fuel economy and testing procedures after employees raised concerns, and did not know whether it would have to correct data given to regulators or consumers.
UPDATE 1-Ford investigating possible problems with fuel economy, emissions tests
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Darla Shine, wife of White House chief, tweets on measles, vaccination
Darla Shine, wife of White House chief, tweets on measles, vaccination
Fucking vapid, irresponsible moron.
Washington measles outbreak: Why Roald Dahl urged parents to vaccinate
“In my opinion parents who now refuse to have their children immunised are putting the lives of those children at risk,” he wrote.
Washington measles outbreak: Why Roald Dahl urged parents to vaccinate
mmmhmmm
Growing Up Unvaccinated
This kids mom sounds more concerned about her kid not respecting her choices than she is his health. Really hard to be sympathetic to someone who views it that way.
Year in space put US astronaut’s immune system on high alert compared to his Earth-bound twin
Nearly a year in space put astronaut Scott Kelly’s immune system on high alert and changed the activity of some of his genes compared to his Earth-bound identical twin, researchers said Friday.
…’I’ve never felt completely normal in space,’ the now-retired Kelly said in an email to The Associated Press, citing the usual congestion from shifting fluid, headaches and difficulty concentrating from extra carbon dioxide, and digestive complaints from microgravity.
…A number of genes connected to the immune system became hyperactive, Mason said. It’s not a change in DNA but in what’s called ‘gene expression,’ how genes turn off and on and increase or decrease their production of proteins.
Mason also spotted a spike in the bloodstream of another marker that primes the immune system. Yet at the same time, Kelly’s blood showed fewer of another cell type that’s an early defense against viruses.
…Most everything returned to normal shortly after Kelly got back on Earth in March 2016. Those immune-related genes, however, ‘seemed to have this memory or this need to almost be on high alert’ even six months later, Mason said.
…Immune issues sound familiar to Dr. Jerry Linenger, an American astronaut who spent more than four months on the Russian space station Mir. He said he was never sick in orbit, but once he came back to Earth ‘I was probably more sick than I was in my life.’
Astronauts launch into orbit with their own germs and get exposed to their crewmates’ germs and then after a week with nothing else new in the ‘very sterile environment’ of a space station ‘your immune system is really not challenged,’ Linenger said.
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Attacking plastic waste and single-use, throwaway culture
The reality is that much of the plastic tossed into bins ends up in landfills, or it gets shipped overseas to countries that lack infrastructure to deal with it properly.
…Plastic was never recycled at a high level, and it’s even worse since 2018, when China closed its doors to imported mixed plastic waste. U.S. recyclers have shifted exports to countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, but those countries lack the capacity to handle the volume we’re sending, which has brought them new environmental problems.
Moreover, despite our willingness to move plastic waste around the world, only about 9% of the plastic ever made has actually been recycled. We just keep making more of the stuff. If your bathtub was overflowing, you wouldn’t immediately reach for a mop — you’d first turn off the tap. That’s what we need to do with single-use plastics.
…It’s not that there isn’t still a role for recycling in efforts to reduce trash. Cans, bottles, paper and cardboard are highly recyclable.
But we need to be more realistic about the kinds of plastic that can be effectively collected, processed and then reused. Single-stream recycling, which co-mingles different materials for collection, is convenient, but it leads to increased contamination and thus lower quality recyclables.
Even with increased investment in sorting, recycling will never be able keep up with all of the new types of plastics on the market or the ever-increasing flow of plastic waste.
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