Joan Rivers died during what appears to be a biopsy of her vocal cord lesion, and it appears no one was monitoring her during her light anesthesia.
This happens: I have seen deaths or near deaths from tooth extraction and tonsillectomy because of bad anesthesia. And you might want to keep it in mind when liberal judges nix laws that require decent standards of medical care for abortion clinics. I suspect a lot more deaths are occuring than reported? Why? Because I read an article years ago that the NY abortion law was a success, because no one died and there were few complications.
At the time the article was written in the early 1970's, our gyne ward was full of complications from NYCity abortion clinics on poor black women, and I know of at least one patient who died of renal failure because she signed out of the hospital who was monitoring her high risk pregnancy to get an abortion, and promptly died because the renal failure wasn't monitored anymore, and lupus nephropathy often exacerbates after delivery, even when it is done at 28 weeks (it was a viable baby, but never mind. And I suspect the death, which occured three days after the abortion, was never reported as abortion related, even though back then they usually aborted these kids with high salt injections of the amniotic cavity, which would have exacerbated the problem).
This was in the days before dialysis was paid for by medicaid, of course. Poor women died of renal failure back then.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
de plague de plague
no, not ebola that is trying to spread around the world (uh, ever hear of Quarantine?)
but the medieval one.
For later reading (via Medievalnet)
the treatment of the plague by Arab physicians.of moorish Spain.
full report here.
for later reading.
Most reports on the black plague are about Europe or England: Somewhere I heard a lecture however about how the drop in population meant that the irrigation system of Egypt collapsed causing more deaths.
And of course, the latest epidemic of black plague was in 19th century China.
then there is this report on medieval dutch nuns.
link
again for later reading...seems that the plague was weaker in that part of the world and it notes that in the high middle ages there were more women than men, which explains why all those girls were put into convents for lack of husbands and why there were so many prostitutes.
but the medieval one.
For later reading (via Medievalnet)
the treatment of the plague by Arab physicians.of moorish Spain.
full report here.
for later reading.
Most reports on the black plague are about Europe or England: Somewhere I heard a lecture however about how the drop in population meant that the irrigation system of Egypt collapsed causing more deaths.
And of course, the latest epidemic of black plague was in 19th century China.
then there is this report on medieval dutch nuns.
link
again for later reading...seems that the plague was weaker in that part of the world and it notes that in the high middle ages there were more women than men, which explains why all those girls were put into convents for lack of husbands and why there were so many prostitutes.
Friday, July 18, 2014
de plague! de plague!
conspiracy page Newsmax reports that there are three more cases of pneumonic plague in Colorado. wapost article here
Originally there were two cases: A man and his dog, and the dog probably caught it from the fleas.
I should really not call the paranoid right wing Newsmax a "conspiracy site" since their article doesn't attribute the plague to escaped biowarfare stuff. Indeed, recent reports of (HORRORS) ANTHRAX being found in unmarked refrigerators shows how these thing tend to get exaggerated.
Hello: Anthrax is present in half the barnyards of the US middle west. It's spores live in dirt. But unless you eat it (which is why elephants died in Zimbabwe and had conpsiracy theorists blaming the west) or get it into an open cut in your hand, it just isn't that infectious. You have to process the spore to make it small enough to enter the lungs. Which is why a lot of us think the blaming of the anthrax letters on a rogue scientist was a cover up: he did have access to anthrax, but NOT to the machines that would allow him to weaponize the stuff. Nor did he know how to use the machines without killing himself.
as for plague, this is alas found in local prarie dogs in the moutain states. When I worked for the IHS, we had to keep this and hanta virus in the differential diagnosis of our patient, since an Indian who had hunted would come into the ER once or twice a year.
Tony Hillerman even has a mystery thriller on it, although in his book, the plaugue was superplague.
Originally there were two cases: A man and his dog, and the dog probably caught it from the fleas.
I should really not call the paranoid right wing Newsmax a "conspiracy site" since their article doesn't attribute the plague to escaped biowarfare stuff. Indeed, recent reports of (HORRORS) ANTHRAX being found in unmarked refrigerators shows how these thing tend to get exaggerated.
Hello: Anthrax is present in half the barnyards of the US middle west. It's spores live in dirt. But unless you eat it (which is why elephants died in Zimbabwe and had conpsiracy theorists blaming the west) or get it into an open cut in your hand, it just isn't that infectious. You have to process the spore to make it small enough to enter the lungs. Which is why a lot of us think the blaming of the anthrax letters on a rogue scientist was a cover up: he did have access to anthrax, but NOT to the machines that would allow him to weaponize the stuff. Nor did he know how to use the machines without killing himself.
as for plague, this is alas found in local prarie dogs in the moutain states. When I worked for the IHS, we had to keep this and hanta virus in the differential diagnosis of our patient, since an Indian who had hunted would come into the ER once or twice a year.
Tony Hillerman even has a mystery thriller on it, although in his book, the plaugue was superplague.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
When quacks attack, take two
Dr OZ is a quack, but no one has gone against him, because the Medical societies are too busy sending us emails about how to figure out the new paperwork requirements of Obamacare, or emails hailing the wonderfulness of the new program.
But now, a medical student dares to take him on.JB: Was there a particular patient who inspired this crusade against TV quackery?
Me, I'm still wondering why no one is taking on the new age types infiltrating the profession.
Yes, I told patients to spend time in meditating: but for a Catholic that might mean saying the rosary, or christian it might mean thinking about what the bible says when they read it. For a grandmom, knitting works too. When they push "mindfulness", they not only risk panic attacks and psychotic breaks in a small number of people, but they are introducing Buddhist prayer techniques into a non Buddhist population.
But now, a medical student dares to take him on.JB: Was there a particular patient who inspired this crusade against TV quackery?
BM: The patient who inspired the policy I wrote was an older woman in her 60s who had a lot of the classic, chronic health problems we deal with in America. She was overweight, she had diabetes, heart disease. And so the physician I was working with was recommending these oral diabetes medications that are pretty standard fair. She had watched the Dr. Oz Show featuring green coffee-bean supplements—and how it was great to lose weight—and she was convinced this was going to be a huge impact on her weight.
We tried to politely express concerns that this probably wasn't going to be effective because there's no evidence for it. She refused the diabetes medications. The hope she had placed in the green coffee-bean extract was part of that.
JB: What do you think is the impact of Dr. Oz's sometimes dubious health advice?
BM: I think these things impede the doctor-patient relationship. These doctors are actually doing a great job. But the trust people are placing with Dr. Oz—when their family physicians even nicely try to contradict him—disrupts their relationship.
JB: As a physician, what are you thinking when you hear Dr. Oz say he believes in magic?
BM: The movement in medicine has been toward evidence-based medicine because physicians had done things by their gut and belief for hundreds of years. Most physicians would agree it's only through the scientific process and evidence that we were able to make huge differences in medical care. It's insulting to talk about important medical issues and drugs as if it they were a matter of belief. It degrades all that work that has been done.
Me, I'm still wondering why no one is taking on the new age types infiltrating the profession.
Yes, I told patients to spend time in meditating: but for a Catholic that might mean saying the rosary, or christian it might mean thinking about what the bible says when they read it. For a grandmom, knitting works too. When they push "mindfulness", they not only risk panic attacks and psychotic breaks in a small number of people, but they are introducing Buddhist prayer techniques into a non Buddhist population.
When Quacks get a microphone
years after the vaccine hysterics hit the UKGuardian and ABC's the view, some mullahs picked up their advice third hand, and the result is a polio epidemic in west Africa and Pakistan....
and just to make sure no parent, seeing paralyzed neighbors, tries to let their children be vaccinated, the Taliban types are killing health care workers (mainly Muslim health care workers, and some of them women).
The UKGuardian and other liberal rags are blaming the doc who helped identify Osama (it's the CIA's fault) but that's a bunch of bull: The jihad against health care workers in the area started at least two years earlier, when the Taliban killed a Pakistani doc in charge of the local health care workers.
and now it is spreading to Syria and you need to renew your polio shots if you visit Israel.
Why shots? Well, in 7 out of a million cases of oral vaccine (I will check the numbers later, but it's about that low), the oral polio virus, which is a weakened form, will mutate back to the real thing.
So if you give oral vaccine to a kid, and his siblings have no immunity, his mom is pregnant, or his grand mom hasn't had her shots, those in contact with the kid could catch the real thing. Indeed, in some areas with spotty vaccinations, (e.g. India) half the polio cases are from this (and in the US, the reason they stopped giving the sugar cube and give your kid the shot nowadays is that nearly all cases were from this problem).
When 90 percent of the population is covered with either vaccine, well, that is not a real problem. But when the vaccine program is interrupted, there are lots of kids who could catch the disease, either from local polio or the rogue vaccine polio virus.
The irony is that polio, like Smallpox, is a human disease, and a couple of years ago the public health docs were hoping that we could wipe it out just like smallpox.
No way.
and just to make sure no parent, seeing paralyzed neighbors, tries to let their children be vaccinated, the Taliban types are killing health care workers (mainly Muslim health care workers, and some of them women).
The UKGuardian and other liberal rags are blaming the doc who helped identify Osama (it's the CIA's fault) but that's a bunch of bull: The jihad against health care workers in the area started at least two years earlier, when the Taliban killed a Pakistani doc in charge of the local health care workers.
and now it is spreading to Syria and you need to renew your polio shots if you visit Israel.
Why shots? Well, in 7 out of a million cases of oral vaccine (I will check the numbers later, but it's about that low), the oral polio virus, which is a weakened form, will mutate back to the real thing.
So if you give oral vaccine to a kid, and his siblings have no immunity, his mom is pregnant, or his grand mom hasn't had her shots, those in contact with the kid could catch the real thing. Indeed, in some areas with spotty vaccinations, (e.g. India) half the polio cases are from this (and in the US, the reason they stopped giving the sugar cube and give your kid the shot nowadays is that nearly all cases were from this problem).
When 90 percent of the population is covered with either vaccine, well, that is not a real problem. But when the vaccine program is interrupted, there are lots of kids who could catch the disease, either from local polio or the rogue vaccine polio virus.
The irony is that polio, like Smallpox, is a human disease, and a couple of years ago the public health docs were hoping that we could wipe it out just like smallpox.
No way.
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