The Good And The Bad
The Nobel Committee as made another practical decision:
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to a trio of researchers for improving the resolution of optical microscopes.
Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner used fluorescence to extend the limits of the light microscope.
…
The Nobel Committee said the researchers had won the award for “the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy”.
They developed a system that allows researchers to see minute details at the cellular/molecular level without using an electron microscope. This makes it less expensive to do all kinds of basic research.
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CNN reports on the death of Thomas Eric Duncan:
(CNN) — Several Ebola patients treated in the United States have survived, but the first person ever diagnosed with the deadly virus on American soil didn’t.
Thomas Eric Duncan died Wednesday at a Texas hospital, 10 days after he was admitted.
“Mr. Duncan succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola. He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing,” hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in a statement.
When they reported that Mr. Duncan had been put on dialysis, I knew he was dying. The end stage of Ebola involves the failure of the body’s organs. The people who survive generally have strong and healthy immune systems that will eventually conquer the virus, if the victim can be kept hydrated and protected from secondary infections.
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Jon was interviewing Dr. Atul Gawande a couple days ago. Very interesting! He said that because of Ebola, US Hospitals are beginning to realise that their basic hygiene practices really suck! Which kills more people in the USA than ebola will. he spoke about aging and death. It was very interesting. I wish more Doctor’s were like him.
TDS: October 6, 2014 – Atul Gawande
It was a good program. 🙂
Yes, Mr. Duncan died of EBOLA. The virus sought active allies who dismissed Mr. Duncan’s concerns until 4 days later when he was brought in by ambulance. If the first two survivors in the US received such cavalier treatment would they have survived?
No ambulance jets for Mr. Duncan.
I think the economic status and ethnicity had a lot to do with his treatment.
Economic status, the ability to pay for health care, Shirt, was the most important factor in this case. My Mother had great insurance and rarely waited very long to be seen. She was also hospitalized more often than she or I felt was necessary for “monitoring”. OTOH, I was out in the waiting room hoping not to be infected with something while other people, including people who were bleeding or otherwise in obvious distress waited. The law said they had to be seen, but economics is more important than medical necessity in the US health care system.
The other cases evacuated to the US were detected early and kept hydrated. They were also people who had access to medical care prior to contracting the disease, and were screened by professionals looking for any signs of infection on a frequent basis.
Kryten, a US hospital is a good place to catch something, not to be cured. A friend sliced his foot and got a major infection in the wound. He needed an IV cocktail of antibiotics for treatment, but the first thing the specialist who treated him did, was to get him out of the hospital. He got the IVs on an out-patient basis because the specialist told him that his house was a hell of a lot more sanitary than the hospital.
At no time when my Mother was in the local hospital did I ever see anyone cleaning anything other than the offices. We were in the military and both know how to clean things, and I’m telling you that I have never seen a patient’s room at that hospital that ready for an inspection. I spent a lot of time washing my hands and face whenever I visited to avoid problems. I would have been more comfortable in a hazmat suit.
I’ve said a while back what it was like when my Mom had cancer and was in Hospital as a private patient (had expensive private insurance cover). It meant nothing. The place was less clean than a pigsty! And yeah, agree with shirt. I kicked up such a stink, even a letter from a top lawyer I knew who visited Mom, that they moved her to the maternity ward near the Nursery, as that was the only place that was reasonably clean.
That TDS episode was good for other reasons also. They spoke to various UN members about the UN, and other stuff. 🙂
It is kind of scary to think that a barracks is more sanitary than a hospital ward.
I’m choosing my Mother’s house over any medical facility in the area. Mother and the lady who is still keeping it clean use chlorine bleach whenever possible. I’m not asking for bleach, but soap and water would be nice.
The thing that is annoying is that Ebola and AIDS are not airborne diseases, i.e. they aren’t that easy to catch unless you making contact with blood or body waste, yet they scare the hell out of people. In a normal year 50,000 people die from the flu in the US, but people don’t freak out about it. SARS was a hell of a lot easier to catch and harder to contain, but people tended to ignore it. Weird…
It’s basic ignorance, and the media. Fear is good for business. *shrug* The only cure is real education.
Don’t know about when you were in the Mil., but if our barracks were not so spotless you could (literally!) eat off the floor… there would be much pain involved! And every single item in it had a precise place! And there was hell to pay if it wasn’t exactly where it was supposed to be! (and we had surprise inspections where they would sometimes actually measure placements, especially during the advanced training)! If one was sloppy in the small things, they would be sloppy when it mattered most! And you or your comrades could die. The military knows it takes 3 weeks to make or break habit’s. And it’s all about habit’s! They have to break all the bad habits, before they can teach good ones. 🙂
The problem our *systems* have today is simple. Ignorance (even in the supposedly highly educated today) and lack of any responsibility or consequences!
I think cost-cutting and low wages play a big role in hospitals. They push a lot of things on to RNs [Nurses] that should be done by lower-trained workers, then they cut out the people who once did those jobs. We have a huge turnover in the nursing staff at the local hospitals because of the working conditions. Working 12-hour shifts with minimum staffing and no overtime [36-hour weeks] leads to rapid burn-out. The wages suck too, so people stop caring and do enough to get by. No one gets fired because they quit and move on.
This is what for-profit health care is all about – profits, and the health care be damned. The staffing goes to accounting because the insurance companies are the real ‘customers’, not the patients. Patients are profit centers, not people who need help.
Yeah, the spacing of the coat hangers and the clean soap dishes used to drive me up the wall.
Speaking of Nurses… I just signed this Aus petition. It’s despicable, yet unsurprising of the Catholic Church. They show their true colors, only care about money!
And you think this only happens in the USA? Hah! The USA may have started it, but it’s gone viral everywhere now!
The health care providers don’t even provide health care to their own employees, so why should the public be surprised by the poor quality of care. The insurance companies want to collect premiums, not pay claims and they ultimately control the system. They dope this woman up until she quits or dies, and then chalk it up as another ‘win’.
This is why universal health care is a better choice than any employer based system for all of the people, including those who work in the health care field.
The petition is gaining good numbers, but still crickets from the Catholics (unsurprisingly). Reinforces what I think of them: Greedy hypocritical sociopaths.
This was curious… You know I like Medium and post a few things occasionally. Seems the Whitehouse have joined and began a group (Think of Medium like a group blog). 🙂
The White House Joins Medium
It’s a smart move actually (surprisingly). Be interesting to see where it goes.
A more important group on Medium is by Malala (for the Malala Fund). 😀 She has this about the Peace prize:
Courage and Hope – What the Nobel Peace Prize means to me.
The Catholic Church is no different than any other large multinational corporation – it always boils down to money. They want people to generate profits, not expenses. Money has been behind every major upheaval that the Church has faced over the centuries, but they still don’t get it.
The White House understands the power of the online world, it’s people they don’t understand.
Oh, Malala has the makings of a diplomat in that carefully worded response to the Nobel. She should loosen up a bit, but that would be difficult given her situation. It certainly puts Pakistani politicians in a bind – they have to celebrate the first Pakistani Nobel without alienating the religious whackoes too much.
Yeah, I know (RE: Catholic Church). I’ve known that since I was 14. 🙂
Malala is driven! And with good reason. I wish more *good* people were like her. The World would be a far better place. It seems that the only ones driven these day’s are the crazy bastards!
I laughed when an Indian an Pakistani were both awarded a Nobel peace Prize! I do love irony! I wonder if the Committee had that in mind? 😉 😀
I just published my first short story on Medium! LOL I was reading this one:
You can’t stop Real-time
I felt the need to respond:
Real- Time has always been critical!
I was bored. 😉 LOL
Based on their choices this year I think the people on the committee are a great deal more aware of the world than has been the case for some time. Given that they chose an Indian and a Pakistani for the prize they have shown that both have more in common than they often want to admit. Now if someone could convince their politicians to start thinking with what is above their neck, instead of what is below their belt, we might get some peace in the world.
The problem with expecting everything to be Real-Time is that you miss the anticipation before it happens and the ability to savor the moment afterwards. That’s why ADHD is classified as a problem and not an ideal.
Two-day shipping from Amazon isn’t free, you have to join their ‘club’ for a $100/year. By doing it annually, Amazon knows the ADHD crowd will forget about it.
The problem with corporations controlled by a lot of ADHD executives is that they want their profits now, and don’t care about what happens in a year. The product gets shipped on time even if it’s broken. 😉
My point is that ‘real-time’ is necessary in machinery and in some human interactions. But it’s become the cry for people everywhere for everything. It’s all part of the whole ‘instant gratification’ culture. It’s like recreational drugs, and poses similar problems. As with everything, real-time is wonderful when used appropriately, and it’s a disaster when it isn’t! *shrug*
Neil DeGrasse Tyson touches upon it in this address:
Neil deGrasse Tyson rips startup culture: “Society has bigger problems than what can be solved with your next app”
Here’s some good news for a change… Sanity from a conservative Fed Judge! LOL
GOP voter ID law gets crushed: Why Judge Richard Posner’s new opinion is so amazing
Judge Posner is a real conservative, not a political poseur. He is very consistent, and very well-respected. He won’t expand or limit rights without a really fabulous and logical case being presented, and the new voter laws are not justified. He is convinced that he was misinformed in the original case as to the justification, and blasted the people who essentially lied to him. The people who were fighting the change in the 2008 case obviously didn’t prepare as well as they should have.
Obviously things like process control and ignition spark in engines have to be real-time or they are worthless. Tyson is correct – people want to be entertained rather than actually doing something useful. A machine has to be real-time or the internal bits tend to go airborne at inconvenient times. 🙂
Oh, I looked into the Uber that was talked about and it is essentially share-cropping. The service uses and abuses people by making the drivers independent contractors who have to provide the car and cover all of the associated expenses and pay Uber a percentage of the fares collected to act as the dispatcher. Uber is another way of saying pimp.