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In the last two years in some of USA cities, trauma patients on the ambulance during the trip to the hospital were given blood subsitute as part of research without their knowledge or consent. This raises an ethical controversy. Imagine that you’re in need of an emergency care and all of a sudden you’re part of an experiment without your consent.

A blood substitute could be life-saving providing vital organs needs of nutrients and oxygen. Furthermore, most ambulances and paramedics can’t carry real blood and give it the patients. However, previous studies have suggested that fake blood may increase the risks of heart attack or stroke, while standard saline does not. Whether the blood substitute is harmful or beneficial is yet to be determined.

Benefits of Blood Substitute:

• Reduced risk of infectious diseases
• Longer shelf life than perishable blood
• Can be carried on the ambulance for urgent need

Risks of Blood Substitute:

• Heart attack
• Stroke
• and others???

Without waiting to get consent, paramedics will inject a fake blood product into half of the eligible patients chosen to take part in a new study. The other half will get a routine treatment of transfusion with saline solution until they reach the hospital.

For now, the artificial blood, known as PolyHeme, isn’t approved for general use. But it will still slip into the veins and arteries of unconscious patients who won’t be able to say no.

“Emergency research in general creates a special set of circumstances,” said Kelly Fryer-Edwards, a University of Washington medical ethicist whose colleagues across the country are divided over the wisdom of the blood study. “In a way, all of our usual approaches to research ethics — to protecting human subjects, to trying to get informed consent — just go out the window.”

At stake is a product that could revolutionize emergency medical treatment and surgery.

It’s no secret that donated blood is often in short supply. Blood banks, often entangled in competition and internal politics, frequently launch desperate appeals for donations. And even when fresh blood is available, paramedics and surgeons can’t immediately pump it into a hemorrhaging patient.

First, they must check the patient’s blood type, a process that takes time, said Dr. Ernest Moore, chief of trauma surgery at Denver Health Medical Center, which has been testing PolyHeme for 11 years. “Most hospitals claim they can do it in 20 minutes, but practically, it’s a half hour, and at many institutions it’s 40 minutes to an hour.”

The “universal donor” blood, type O-negative, can be transfused into people of all blood types. However, only 7 percent of people have that blood type. “There’s always a shortage of (O-negative) in any type of hospital that does a lot of acute care,” Moore said. “It would be impossible to supply that throughout ambulances.”

When patients are bleeding heavily, paramedics try to replace missing blood with infusions of saline solution (salt water). But saline solution — the same stuff people use to rinse their contact lenses — doesn’t carry oxygen like blood and instead just acts as a space filler.

Enter modern artificial blood products, which have been under development since the 1970s. Researchers are trying to create products that transport oxygen like blood does, are compatible with all people, can be stored for long periods (donated blood expires after 42 days) and won’t transmit diseases, said Dr. Stephen A. Gould, chairman and CEO of Evanston, Illinois-based Northfield Laboratories, which manufactures PolyHeme.

According to Gould, only two artificial blood products — PolyHeme and Hemopure, by Massachusetts-based Biopure — are in the final phases of research. Hemopure, used in surgeries, is made from cow blood, while PolyHeme is derived from hemoglobin, a protein found in red blood cells. Hemoglobin lasts much longer than blood and is a one-size-fits-all solution because it doesn’t include the antigens found on red blood cells that can set off the immune system’s defenses against foreign blood types.

Source: wired.com

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E- rope is a modular power strip that enables users to add or subtract sockets as needed. In addition, to better accommodate large, bulky cords each socket can also be rotated 180 degrees, so adjacent sockets are not blocked. When electrical devices are not in use, simply twist the socket section 90 degrees to disconnect the flow of electricity. (Often referred to as vampire power, approximately 10 percent of a home’s electricity is used by appliances in standby mode.)

This innovative design is one of the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) in the category of Student Designs. Designer: Chul Min Kang and Sung Hun Lim

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Ever try eating scorpion??!! Aren’t they poisonous?! Here is the video clip taken in China where scorpion is a delicacy. Hmmm…yummy!
View this Chinese Fear Factor video clip.

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Here is the second article regarding the University of Alberta dental research in tooth structure repair with a miniature ultrasound device that is mounted on orthodontic braces or a plastic removable crown.

A tiny ultrasound device could help people regrow teeth, researchers at the University of Alberta say.

The prototype ultrasound device can be mounted on braces or a plastic removable crown.

The prototype device offers a way to reform human dental tissue for the first time, the team said Wednesday.

Everyone from hockey players to children who knock out a tooth could benefit.

The treatment, called low-intensity pulsed ultrasound, massages the gums to stimulate jaws, encourage growth in the roots of teeth and aid healing in dental tissue.

“If the root is broken, it can now be fixed,” said Dr. Tarak El-Bialy of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. “And because we can regrow the teeth root, a patient could have his own tooth rather than foreign objects in his mouth.”

El-Bialy discovered ultrasound could be used to form new dental tissue from his research on rabbit incisors, which was published in the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics.

He then tested the technique on people who needed to get their teeth pulled.

Source: cbc.ca

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Here is the Chinese Lunar Calendar 2006 for Mainland China (not for Taiwan; holidays are different).

Click here for year 2007.
Click here for year 2006.

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