High for the Holidays
November 30, 2004
Marijuana | Target | 11.29.04
Before…
After…
via Instapundit and GruntDoc
The link wasn’t there for long, but then there’s the image captures…Ho, Ho, Ho.
Common Good
November 27, 2004
Common Good
Restoring Common Sense to American Law
Mission
Americans today are afraid the law won’t protect sensible decisions. Doctors practice defensively instead of using their professional judgment. Teachers cannot maintain order in their classrooms, or even put an arm around a crying child. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Bipartisan
A diverse group of important leaders from across the political spectrum support Common Good: George McGovern, Newt Gingrich, Griffin Bell, and others.
Media
Common Good op-eds regularly appear in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other leading publications.
Health Courts
- Health Courts for Fair and Reliable Justice (PDF)
- The Case for a Reliable Health Court (PDF)
- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist Calls for the Creation of a Special Health Court, 7.19.04
Something must happen…this looks like it may have legs.
Sweetbread
November 27, 2004
Protein May Prevent Damage After Heart Attack | WSJ | 11.26.04
In a potential alternative to stem-cell therapy, researchers said a protein found to be important in prenatal formation of the heart shows promise as a treatment to prevent damage caused by heart attacks. …
“If it works in humans, it will be very useful for protecting the heart after a heart attack,” said Deepak Srivastava, professor of molecular biology and pediatrics at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Dallas. He is senior author of a paper on the experiments, which appears in the current issue of the journal Nature. …
Thymosin β4 activates integrin-linked kinase and promotes cardiac cell migration, survival and cardiac repair | Nature | 11.25.04
…These findings suggest that thymosin β4 promotes cardiomyocyte migration, survival and repair and the pathway it regulates may be a new therapeutic target in the setting of acute myocardial damage.
The thymus, other than being that very large radiographic shadow on pediatric x-rays, it’s nice to see another potential clinical application for thymosin—beyond the thymus’s gustatory application…
Sudden Taser Death Syndrome
November 26, 2004
Claims Over Tasers’ Safety Are Challenged | NYT | 11.26.04
Taser International, whose electrical guns are used by thousands of police departments nationwide, says that a federal study endorses the safety of its guns, but the laboratory that conducted the research disagrees. …
But the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study now says that it actually found that the guns could be dangerous and that more data was needed to evaluate their risks. The guns “may cause several unintended effects, albeit with low probabilities of occurrence,” the laboratory said last week in a statement released after a symposium on Tasers, as the company’s guns are known, and other weapons intended to incapacitate people without killing them. …
Tasers are pistol-shaped weapons that fire electrified darts up to 21 feet, shocking suspects with a painful charge. More than 5,500 police departments and prisons now use Tasers, compared with only a handful five years ago. …
Taser International says the deaths resulted from drug overdoses or other factors and would have occurred anyway. But coroners have linked several deaths to the weapons, and independent scientists who are authorities on electricity and the heart say that the company may be significantly underestimating the weapon’s risks, especially in people who have used drugs or have heart disease.
Taser has performed only minimal research on the health effects of its weapons. Its primary safety studies on the M26, its most powerful gun, consist of tests on a single pig in 1996 and on five dogs in 1999. The company has resisted calls for more tests, saying that it is comfortable with the research it has conducted. …
Ventricular fibrillation is a disturbance of the electrical circuitry of the heart that causes cardiac arrest in seconds and death in minutes. Taser says that its weapons do not produce enough current to cause ventricular fibrillation, but scientists who are authoritative on fibrillation say that the company has not done enough research to know whether that contention is accurate. …
A Taser International employee tests an X26 weapon, which fires a smaller charge than earlier models. Some critics say the company’s weapons have led to deaths and can constitute mistreatment of suspects.
TASER International Announces that 1,000 Law Enforcement Agencies Now Deploy the ADVANCED TASER® M26 | Press Release | 11.20.01
TASER International, Inc. Announces Revolutionary New Shaped Pulse™ Technology | Press Release | 5.1.03
ADVANCED TASER® M26
Electro-Muscular Disruption (EMD) technologyTASER® X26
Shaped Pulse™ technology
Stun gun deaths raise drug-link questions | Sacramento Bee | 11.13.04
Ricardo Zaragoza and Gordon Rauch suffered from mental illnesses. Both men fought when they were confronted by Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies. Both were shot at least twice with a Taser, a stun gun considered nonlethal by police. Both died.
The similarities surrounding their deaths place Zaragoza and Rauch on a growing list of those on medication or other drugs who died after being hit with 50,000 volts of electricity from a Taser, a relatively new weapon used by law enforcement officers.
The M26 is classified as a
Man shot by stun guns dies
Deputies were subduing the Elk Grove resident, who was acting erratically | Sacramento Bee | 11.9.04
An Elk Grove man died early Monday in a confrontation with Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies after officers used pepper spray and shot the man twice with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns.
A family photo shows Alicia Zaragoza with son Ricardo Zaragoza, 40, who died Monday after being shot with stun guns in a struggle with deputies in Elk Grove.
73 cases of death following stun-gun use | The Arizona Republic | 10.12.04
The Arizona Republic, using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser’s own records, has identified 73 cases in the United States and Canada of death following a police Taser strike since September 1999. In eight cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone’s death. In 18 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor. Below is a synopsis of each case. The Republic requested autopsy reports for all of the cases and so far has received 27.
27. Gordon Rauch, 39, Citrus Heights, Calif.
Aug. 17, 2003
Rauch’s father called to report that his son was threatening to kill him. Police officers said Rauch charged at them. Two officers shot him with Tasers. He fell to the ground and went limp as officers put him in cuffs. He died about an hour later. The autopsy report is unavailable. Police said Rauch’s prescribed psychotropic drugs might have contributed to his death. …
Taser | Wikipedia
Tasers
The name comes from “Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle.” It was designed in 1969 by Arizona inventor John Cover. Most modern Tasers fire small spear-shaped electrodes with attached wires that lead back to the device, propelled by a small gas charge as in some air rifles. The range is about 6 metres (20 feet). On firing they shoot out and imbed in the skin and then deliver a jolt of electricity, but they cannot penetrate much thickness of clothes. Some police forces use them. They are single-shot weapons and take a long time to reload, but most are fitted with conventional electrodes and can be used as an electric shock prod if necessary.
I had missed Mr. Zaragoza’s arrival at my hospital by about 30 minutes—so these articles have a very real world feel. In residency, PCP was a very popular recreational drug—fortunately it was during the waning ingestion days and the waxing smoking days (a titrated inhalational PCP intoxication is much less violent). We saw lots of “PCP’ers” with the almost pathognomonic vertical nystagmus—very commonly they came in dangling several “spear-shaped electrodes with attached wires” from the early tasers. I’m beginning to think, that with so many associated deaths, it is not the “tasing” per se—but the arrhythmogenic potential of psychiatric medications. The medications themselves create an arrhythmogenic substrate. Perhaps if Taser International had tested with a “single pig” and “five dogs” that were taking antidepressants, antipsychotics, cocaine, methamphetamine, ethanol, or combinations thereof the M26 and X26 would not have had so wide spread acceptance and adoption.
The M26 is classified as a high power (PDF) taser (14-26 Watt). A Watt is one Joule per second. We electrically cardiovert around 100 Joules (4 seconds of an M26) and defibrillate anywhere from 100-360 Joules (4-14 seconds of an M26).
Perhaps these devices are not truly “non-lethal,” but have a potential lethality that was never sufficiently studied or considered. I suspect as the cases mount these devices are going to be pulled in mass—the potential litigation nightmares for local governments is only starting to ramp up. I really feel for law enforcement personnel trying to do a very difficult job and to preserve life whenever possible—the irony is that these non-lethal devices may end up being lethal to their careers. There are so many victims—the decedant, decedant’s family and friends, law enforcement officers, and the greater community—no one wants these deaths, they’re striving to prevent lethal interactions!
Happy Thanksgiving
November 25, 2004
Rabid Survival
November 25, 2004
Girl Is First to Survive Rabies Without a Shot | NYT | 11.25.04
A Wisconsin teenager is the first human ever to survive rabies without vaccination, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday, after she received a desperate and novel type of therapy.
Last month, doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee, put the critically ill girl into a drug-induced coma and gave her antiviral drugs, although it is not clear which, if any, of the four medicines contributed to her surprising recovery. …
Jeanna, of Fond du Lac, was bitten by a bat at a church service on Sept. 12. She did not visit a doctor and so was not vaccinated, as is standard medical practice for such an exposure. …
On Oct. 18, she was admitted to the hospital with fluctuating consciousness, slurred speech and other symptoms typical of full-blown rabies.
Rabies is caused by a virus in secretions, like saliva, from an infected animal. The vaccine, which stimulates antibodies to the virus, eliminates the chance of getting the disease if it is administered within days after the initial exposure. Once symptoms develop, generally after a few weeks, the shots are much less effective. They are useless when the rabies is advanced, so doctors opted in Jeanna’s case for the experimental treatment. …
Rabies at eMedicine (Consumer, Professional)
Anatomical Beauty
November 25, 2004
“The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman” | EchoJournal | 11.24.04
The Insider | Wired | November 2004
In 1543, Andreas Vesalius stunned the world with detailed woodcuts that graphically revealed the inside of the human body. Some 460 years later, Alexander Tsiaras takes a much closer look in his new book, The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman. Vesalius based his images on crude dissection, but Tsiaras employs a more intricate technique: He layers 3-D high-resolution data - ultrasounds, CT and MRI scans, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and x-ray crystallography - to produce realistic and telescoping representations that burst through the skin and isolate the tiniest cells. While all the composites are scientifically correct, Tsiaras used software, built by his company Anatomical Travelogue, to add light and color. “My responsibility as scientist and journalist is to provide accurate information,” says Tsiaras. “My desire as artist is to make the images beautiful.” This release is the second installment in his four-part series on human development, which will culminate in 2008 with a look at how systems change from infancy to advanced age.
- Jenn ShreveAlexander Tsiaras has a website: Anatomical Travelogue.
Also see Anatomical Travelogue’s Conception to Birth (Amazon).
Constitutional Wining
November 25, 2004
Small Wineries Seek To Ship Across State Lines | WSJ | 11.24.04
MIDDLEBURG, Va. — Juanita Swedenburg’s fight for the right to sell wine over the Internet began several years ago as she chatted with customers around the oak bar of her 15-acre vineyard here.
Juanita Swedenburg, owner of a Middleburg, Va.,
winery, is challenging Internet-trade laws.Next month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Ms. Swedenburg’s lawsuit, along with a similar Michigan case. Mr. Bolick, of the Institute for Justice in Washington, wrote her legal brief. The court is expected to rule on the matter before its current term ends in June.
The case pits a new breed of small winemakers against the old guard, the politically potent Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, and has created some odd alliances. Former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr has filed a brief in support of the wineries (as an advocate of free markets).
Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition who now runs a public-relations firm with offices in Washington and Atlanta, was hired by the wholesalers. Even the normally abstemious National Association of Evangelicals is backing the wholesalers, united in their opposition to underage drinking. …
The case centers on a clash between the constitution’s commerce clause, which empowers the federal government to regulate interstate trade, and the Twenty-First Amendment, passed by Congress in 1933 to repeal Prohibition and authorize states to regulate alcohol within their borders. The lifting of Prohibition led to a three-tier system to regulate alcohol. Producers sell only to state-licensed wholesalers, who in turn sold only to licensed retailers, who controlled and monitored sales to consumers. …
The justices will consider two questions. First, they’ll decide if New York’s law restricting direct interstate shipping violates the commerce clause. If it does, the New York law still could be “saved” if the high court finds it advances the goal of the Twenty-First Amendment — to regulate alcohol in the public interest. …
Hat tip The Volokh Conspiracy
The Twenty-First Amendment § 2, “the transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited,” has historically allowed “dry” states to remain dry and “wet” states to be free from economic competition from other wet states. This is Constitutional weight for the market participant exception to the dormant commerce clause. Will the commerce clause prevail? Should internet commerce follow the FCC on spectrum (shared common market v auctions)?
Keyhole
November 25, 2004
Keyhole has got to be the most fantastic consumer software I’ve seen this year. Check-out the free trial.
Traumatic Sacrifice
November 25, 2004
King/Drew’s Trauma Unit Ordered Shut | LAT | 11.24.04
Supervisors say the closure will help them save the troubled hospital, and they adopt the goal of eventually reopening the unit.
Despite impassioned protests, Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to close the trauma center at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, saying the unit had to be sacrificed as part of a larger strategy to save the troubled hospital. …
Many of the patients who would have been treated at King/Drew’s trauma center will now be sent to a new trauma unit at the private California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles. That unit, subsidized by the county, is scheduled to open Dec. 1 …
Trauma volume is being moved eight miles north through an extremely heavy Los Angeles traffic corridor. This is a major blow to the tatered safety net of EMS and trauma care in Los Angeles.