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Many hospitals call it “code blue,” a signal given over the intercom when a patient’s heart has stopped. When code blue works well, a team speeds to the bedside and revives the patient. The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it happens after 11 p.m., when staffing may be lower or patients watched less closely. “Our findings should be a pretty big wakeup call to urge hospitals to critically evaluate how they are performing resuscitation,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Mary Ann Peberdy of the Virginia Commonwealth University health System in Richmond. “It may well be possible that there is a less effective and less efficient response at night.” The study, appearing in Wednesday’s Journal of the American medical Association, didn’t examine why days and overnights differed. But researchers found among the late night cases a higher portion of instances where patients were discovered with no heart electrical activity, that is, too late to deliver a lifesaving shock. Staff who are fatigued, less experienced or too few in number could be to blame, researchers speculated. Weekends had lower survival rates than weekdays, but the difference wasn’t as pronounced as between late night and daytime hours. Only in the emergency room was there no night-or-day difference in survival. The study was based on an analysis of more than 86,000 cardiac arrests in more than 500 hospitals over seven years. There were 58,593 cardiac arrests during the day or evening. Of those, 11,604, almost 20 percent, survived to leave the hospital. There were 28,155 cardiac arrests during the shift that began at 11 p.m. Of those, 4,139, fewer than 15 percent, survived for discharge. After taking into account other factors associated with survival, the researchers still…

Pattern of Malaria-specific T-Cell Responses in a Cohort of Ugandan Children
Malaria is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children in Uganda. The mechanisms whereby malaria parasites are eliminated, or how they may avoid the immune response remain poorly understood. We examined malaria-specific T-cell responses in a well-characterized cohort of African children in an endemic area where malaria transmission occurs throughout the year. In studies of asymptomatic children, we found a low frequency of malaria-specific T-cell responses (15/117), and these appeared to be clustered in older children (≥4 years old). Both CD4– and CD8-mediated T-cell responses were detected against circumsporozoite surface protein (CSP) and merozoite surface protein-1 (MSP-1). The presence of these T cells did not correlate with the frequency of prior episodes of parasitemia and 5 out of the 15 responders had no documented parasitemia within 8–12 months prior to immunologic evaluation. Our data supports focusing on high-risk children in future preventive vaccination efforts to ensure the generation and maintenance of effective anti-malarial cellular immune responses.

Zinc Status and Relation to Thyroid Hormone Profile in Iranian Schoolchildren
Zinc is an essential element involved in many basic biochemical reactions in thyroid. However, little is known about concentration of this mineral in goitrous Iranian schoolchildren. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of zinc deficiency and the current zinc status in goitrous schoolchildren. A cross-sectional study in which 1188 schoolchildren in the age group of 8–13 years were evaluated for goiter prevalence, urinary iodine and zinc status. Zinc measurement was performed by atomic absorption spectrometry apparatus and urinary iodine was measured by digestion method. Goiter was graded according to WHO classification and serum concentration of thyroid hormones and thyroid-stimulating hormone were determined by commercial kits. This study showed an adequate iodine supply. Eleven percent of all cases had low zinc levels and the mean serum zinc concentration was 84.1 20.7 g/dl with a significant difference between the boys and girls (86.6 22.7 g/dl vs. 82 18.7 g/dl, p = 0.017). The mean concentration in goitrous children was 85.1 23 g/dl and for those without goiters was 82.6 16.7 g/dl which was not statistically significant. No significant difference was noticed between those with low and normal zinc levels in the prevalence of goiter. In view of normal iodine status, other goitrogenic factors should be evaluated to explain the residual goiter prevalence.

Big Pharma Money Spent on Marketing Exceeds Drug Development Costs
(NaturalNews) Why are pharmaceuticals so expensive? This question has been asked for many years. In fact this was the question asked by Senator Estes Kefauver (D) in the late 1950s. Senator Kefauver was the first to put together an indictment against the business practices of the pharmaceutical industry. In fact he lobbed three charges at the pharmaceutical industry at the time.They were the following:1) Patents sustained predatory prices and excessive margins2) Costs and prices were extravagantly increased by large expenditures in marketing3) Most of the industry’s new products were no more effective than established drugs on the market(1).If you look at these charges they are much the same accusations that many people blame the pharmaceutical industry of practicing right now, fifty years later. Has anything changed in the past fifty years?The core of this debate, especially in the U.S. where direct-to-consumer marketing is legal, is the amount pharmaceutical companies spend on marketing vs. the amount spent on research and development (R&D). Aren’t we all lead to believe that the high cost of research and development is the reason that pharmaceuticals are so incredibly expensive? The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) uses data from IMS, a firm specializing in pharmaceutical market intelligence, to conclude that pharmaceutical companies spend U.S. $29.6 billion on R&D and U.S. $27.7 billion for all promotional activities (data from 2004). Even if these numbers can be trusted, and the pharmaceutical industry is altruistic, why are these expenses so close? An investigative article in the Public Library of Science (PLoS), who used proprietary databases to construct a new, and quite possibly more accurate estimate, states the money goes to marketing twice as often than R&D.Show me the money.It is important to note that the PLoS is an open source publication. In fact the publication states that you may use its articles and “download, copy, distribute, and use (with attribution) any way you wish.” This means that the PLoS is not taking money from anyone and so are free to publish articles that go against the mainstream. Most importantly, they are not taking money from pharmaceutical companies and can publish content like this without fear of reprisal. What was published in “The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States” does go against the mainstream , by clearly stating that the pharmaceutical industry is spending more on marketing, much more than most people would expect.As the U.S. represents 43% of global sales and global promotion expenditures, knowing the amount of money put into marketing is essential. It is also important to note that according to CAM, which is a global company that audits the promotional activities of the pharmaceutical industry, about 30% of promotional spending is not accounted for in their figures. The breakdown is not accurately known of unmonitored promotion, but CAM believes that approximately 10% is due to incomplete disclosure by surveyed physicians and 20% comes from promotion geared towards physicians not surveyed or unmonitored journals. Combining the information gathered from CAM, as well as IMS, the total amount of money spent on marketing by pharmaceuticals was U.S. $57.5 billion for 2004. The total spent on domestic industrial pharmaceutical R&D was U.S. $31.5 billion.There is quite a bit of difference between the money spent on R&D and marketing. If we exclude direct-to-consumer marketing, of the U.S. $57.5 billion, CAM estimates that 80% of this money is spent on physicians. This means that, with 700,000 practicing physicians in the U.S., the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly U.S. $61,000 in promotion per physician! It is interesting to note that according to the U.S. census the real median household income (2003) was $43,318.Is Kefauver right?While knowing that the pharmaceutical industry spends nearly U.S. $57.5 billion on marketing and U.S. $31.5 billion on R&D, those that believe the industry is promotion based, and not entirely altruistic as the industry claims, have some proof to this claim. How can we continue to pump money into, and grant legislation to, an industry that would rather hide the truth than be honest? How far are we from formally proving Kefauver’s other claims to be true? Whether or not we can all agree on the pharmaceutical industry’s place in our society , no industry should go fifty years without ethical restrictions, while claiming they are the champions of society.References:1) The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United StatesAbout the authorSarah is a Chemical and Materials Engineer by education. Through years of focused self-study, she has come to see the benefit of whole food nutrition and allowing the body to heal itself. A Field Center Certified Facilitator, Sarah is passionate about being helpful to others, in any venue, in their quest for a better life. http://www.serenesynergy.com

Pain Reduction of Heel Stick in Neonates: Yakson Compared to Non-nutritive Sucking
The purpose of this study was to test the effect of Yakson (i.e. a traditional Korean touching method) and non-nutritive sucking (NNS) on reducing the pain that neonates experience when undergoing the heel stick procedure for blood testing. Ninety-nine healthy neonates were recruited and assigned into three groups: Yakson (n = 33), NNS (n = 33), and control group (n = 33). Each intervention was provided to the Yakson and NNS groups from 1 min before heel stick until the completion of the heel stick. For the Yakson group, a researcher caressed the belly of a neonate with one hand while supporting the back with the other hand. For the NNS group, a pacifier packed with sterile gauze was put in the neonate’s mouth. The oxygen saturation levels in the Yakson and NNS group neonates were maintained significantly better than in the control group neonates. There was no significant difference between the groups with regard to heart rate and neonatal infant pain, measured using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale. Findings indicate that Yakson can be used during heel stick to help neonates maintain their oxygen saturation level following the procedure.

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