husmusen

JohnB and otehrs,

This is a link to the transcript pool of the inquiry.

You may have already found this by other means but if not,

I think you'll find it quite illuminating.

http://www.bhci.qld.gov.au/transcripts.htm

It's up to day four at present.

Day 1 is formalities and mainly Toni Hoffmans evidence.

Day 2 is legal argument and Toni Hoffmans evidence and I think

a little of the D of M. Dr Miach

Day 3 is Dr Miach

Day 4 is Dr Miach continued. and the beggining of

Dr Keatings evidence.

Husmusen, I believe in the old concept of "Ministerial Responsibility",

the Minister has the office, perks and salary, if his/her department

screws up royally like has happened here, they should resign.

JohnB, I do too, when I posted that I thought Qld. health was

a private company, like Mayne Health.

Now I have gained a better understanding, I withdraw the comment.

The minister should resign but Dr Keating should be serving time.

He gave that guy a "glowing" letter of reference?! WTF!!!

I'd like to reassure you that most medical professionals aren't maniacs.

Glider, I have been doing a bit of digging over the past few

days, so far I have found the commision transcripts to be quite

illuminating. Although a hard slog(I'm finished with day 1 and 1/4 way

through day 2) I'm not prepared to go slinging my mouth off yet, but

I am prepared to say that something stinks like crazy.

Dr Patel is a butcher, that much is beyond doubt, whether due to

reckless incompetence or evil malevolance I don't know.

Dr Keating(The director of health) to put the kindest of kindest

lights on it, seems to be a great believer in the class system, and

to have allowed his personal freindship with Dr Patel to utterly

compromise his already poor judgement.

However there are gaps and unexplained things, but perhaps some

of the hoarde of witnesses yet to give evidence will shed light on them.

Cheers

I'd be wary about that.

Most digestive enzymes are not produced/released on a constant

basis. They are only activated when there is a need for them, this is

done IIRC by sensor cells in the mouth, stomach, small and large bowels.

Even the composition of food seems to be important.

Bile for example would not be released in any great quantity, if at all,

if you drank some sugar cordial.

But if you eat a fat greasy hamburger large quantities would be realeased to go and emulsify all the fats.

The most important component of extracting nutrients

would I suspect be the relative surface area presented to the enzymes

combined with the permeability of the substance to those enzymes.

In other words, chew your food well.

Water would help I suspect, by softening the chyme and making it more permeable. (Within limits again obviously).

I'm not saying it will help much as saliva probably moistens it

sufficiently, but a glass of water with a meal isn't going to hurt your

digestion and may very well help, infact I would strongly recommend

tea, earl grey.

Cheers.

That depends on

1.)What you mean by too much.

2.)How much salt you take in.

3.)Health status.

If you are a cardiac patient water can kill you fairly easily.

There are some medical conditions that give you polydipsia,

(excessive desire for and/or intake of water) either primarily or as

a side affect of the medications that are used to treat them,

but Gilded would be the one to give you specifics on that more

than me.

But if you are drinking 15 litres a day(i.e. stupid amounts), you will have

electrolyte problems, and your kidneys will be saying "captain,

we canna take much more a dis", infact if your electrolytes got

too messed up you could go into cardiac arrest.

And (a few thousand) other things that can affect it too.

Cheers

Hmm, not my favourite, but the most recent,

Stargate Atlantis, it was fun watching all the lightning effortlessly

penetrating this invincible shield. (The tidal wave episode).

After all, no electricity no shield.

No shield, electricty but also a couple of billion tonnes of water.

Oops.

Not to mention how they effortlessly use and repair technology that

it was made well and truly clear(in the original series) was often

beyond many of the more advanced races who had been studing it for centuries. As well as the guy who made a stargate from a microwave

oven.

oh and

"I eat lots of fibre to keep my heart regular and in good health"

(ad that aired during a Sci-Fi show)

Cheers.

Chip's challange.

Is that the one about a nerdy little kid who has to collect

a huge bunch of chips, and he has to wander around this maze?

I used to play that on the old 64, that was fun(although it

could be frustrating too).

Hey on the topic of good old classics, what about sentinel?

Out of curiousity, how many patients is a doctor allowed to kill before your Health Dept. does something about him? In Queensland it seems 90 is a good round number. Then the govt pays for his one way fare out of the country.

Don't get me started, my anger over this is immense.

I feel it is important to note that it wasn't the government

that shipped him out.

It was the private executives of "Queensland Health", they merely

charged it to the taxpayer, under a government scheme.

It was not a routine or scheduled flight, they flew him out when the

story hit the newsstands. Thus removing a key witness whose testimony

(if the cops plea bargained) could have seriously damaged them.

This stinks worse than a fishmarket on a hot and humid day.

Also if myself a humble nurse, needs a full criminal history check.

Why the **** doesn't a surgeon? (I'd always assumed they did).

Didn't England have some problem with a maniac doctor who offed a

couple of hundred patients? Did they ever figure out how he got

away with it, why the death ratio didn't get picked up or drop any

red flags?

It is another layer of safety so that should a doctor make an error, the nurses don't just blindly follow incorrect instructions, but think for themselves and question them. Our nurses are qualified to know what is and what isn't an appropriate dose. They are just not allowed to presecribe.

I agree in part with serious reservations.

I have seen "stupid doses" that are perscribed for good reason.

I'm mainly thinking of opiates and end stage cancer sufferers.

I have seen insane levels of morphine being given to someone,

with no ill effects, and I have seen people on a quarter that amount

go into serious difficulties.

Now if it's an oncology nurse with 40 years experience, sure they should

have realised or queried.

If it's a 18yo Div 2 on their first unsupervised day, then

no it was soley the doctors fault, the nurse could not have been

expected to know.

In either case the doctor should also be held equally at fault

for their incorrect written instructions as it is neither acceptable

or professional to overlook mistakes simply because their is a failsafe,

it defeats the purpose of having a failsafe.

Cheers.

Understand that I am currently a learner in this language.

But to the best of my knowledge.

I would have written "baiorojii ga"

As for particles,

Ka = "?"

Ne = Don't you think, don't you agree, no? as in "that's true, no?"

Yo = Opinion marker.

Kyô wa samui desu yo.

"I think it is cold outside"

Kyô wa samui desu.

"It is cold outside."

Kyô wa samui desu ka.

"cold outside?"

Kyô wa samui desu ne.

"It's cold outside, don't you think?".

dak-san

baiorojii konomu desu.

Ekuserento desu.

Watashi ga naasu desu.

Baiorojii konomui nimo.

Nanno konomui desu ka

Cheers.

P.S How does that spoiler thing work.

I'm curious as to how slang usage translates.

Is ano onna ga atsui desu yo. An proper construct?

Or is there a much better usage.

Cheers.

Read as I meant xlation of above nihongo:

Excellent!

I'm a nurse.

I like biology too.

What field/s?

On contact with skin it sproduces deep difficult to heal burns.

That tend to scar baadly and disfigure.

I don't recall if this is Red or White P but one of them is also

a carcinogen I believe.

In reply to red alert:

Osama Bin-laden was an anti-russian terrorist.

Was the U.S. decision to get the CIA train, support and supply him, a wise one?

3000+ people in NewYork would probably disagree not to mention all the rest

affected. Probably a few sailors wives from the USS Cole(I think).

Cheers.

Oh yes, Ghost recon.

A 1st person shooter where you are just as vulnerable to bullets as all the

other characters.

Fun to play.

When humans began to walk upright and adopted the so-called missionary position for intercourse the males required a reminder of their general target area. This is what Richard was referring to. The idea was discussed by Desmond Morris in his book The Naked Ape, but I don't recall if he was quoting research or putting it forward as an original idea.

This reminds me of that fable that humans only used 10% of

their body that started(would you believe) in 18'93 IIRC and was

still being quoted in pop sci books into the 19'80's.

If the non-existant halfwit, can tell the difference between top

and bottom, it can surely figure out the difference between

front and back. Besides, even in modern humans the from behind

position works quite well I'm told.

To me personally it smells of fact free science.

Cheers.

Telling a rather racist and very offensive black joke while walking around walking down the streets of New York.

Cue, Die Hard 3: "Whaaat da f***!!! ".

Wow so much has happened, it's sorta taking off,

so lets keep it rolling.

I can advise in English and Swedish,

I'm so-so at German but could definately use conversation(rusty).

And I'm in the learners section on Japanese. But my Japanese

will improve once I dig up my old language kit.

dak-san.

asoo, anata ga butsurigaku nikumasu yo.

Oh I forgot to mention, regards German, that's o.k. at speaking, I cannot

spell german for nuts, so please correct spelling errors.

So here goes,

Ich heisse husmusen,

Ich besehendas fernsehprogramm Kommisar Rex.

Moser und Rex ist die besten.

Alles gute

I don't know if you could call him the greatest, but I think

Alfred Nobel has made some pretty big contributions.

Cheers.

Generally speaking this has been viewed as a good thing, because it means better reporting for emergency weather events.

If by emergency weather events you mena things like hurricanes,

then my resonse would be.

Such emergencies have an overriding human interest factor

that outweighs private profit.

The basic principle is that emergency weather event forecasting,

is a public good that should be provided to the public, by the public, for

the public, using public dollars.

Now if the private firms can do it better and cheaper than the

government, the government is free to buy from them, if they can't

then they perhaps they should find something else to do.

Cheers.

There are clusters of receptors at joints, but these are proprioceptive and provide feedback to the brain concerning the relative positions of the joints.

Ahh, grok.

The cortex keep track of internal location, i.e. which limb.

The nerve clusters keep track of angular joint displacement or

in other words, where *that* limb is in space.

Thanks.

That's mainly because they were learned series of fine motor actions controlled by the cerebellum.

This may be getting too detailed, but are the memories stored in

the motor cortex and sent as a stream, or does the cortex send of

a single signal which triggers a burst of chatter from the spinal

cord to the fingers.

Cheers

P.S.

In answer to one of the first posters questions.

I was told by a neurologist that the normal impulse speed for myelinated nerve fibers from toe to lumbar spine was 6-8 milliseconds if that's any help.

Glad you're feeling better.

After describing the symptoms to my doctor, he said that it could not be Salmonella or E-Coli poisoning. Those types of food poisonings are bacterial infections which take some time for onset and generally don't show symptoms until about 16 hours after consumption. The fact that I had no fever and had the symptoms come on only mere hours after eating the food ruled out a bacterial infection.

ehh?

I'm glad you posted that.

I was sure that salmonella produced toxins, I'll

have to check that with my lecturer. Assuming it's right however,

that has probably saved some exam points in the future.

Cheers.

Dak-san:

iv noticed a few people her are learning/know a foreighn language, and it could be cool to have a forum where we could chat and improve our foreighn language. might also b useful as the chat would consievably have a scientifical slant,

Yeah that would be absolutely neat.

But in the mean time why not use the GD forumn and make a few posts in

there? e.g. One for German, one for Nihongo etc. Create the volume

and the specialised forum will come .

Butsurigaku tanoshii desu ne.

Cheers.

Not necessarily, they use titanium screws to bind bones together, there

are several non-interactive substances that are chemically invisable to

the human body, if it's made from one of those, what the body can't

"see" it won't get anxious about.

I think the biggest problem would be a potential breech or weak

point that would allow microbes to penetrate the skin in significant numbers.

Or that the implants would act as a resevoir that bacteria could

safely colonise.

That said, I was quite amaxed that PEG tubes didn't have worse problems,

that's a sort of skin/implant fusion although not quite.

However microbe hostile suface coatings may be an improvement to that.

But that's getting OT a bit.

Cheers.

P.S. Just noticed your loc.

avagood weekend

I always thought that the spinal cord did a huge amount of

pre-processing before the signal got anywhere near the brain?

And that similarly, a signal leaves the brain as a high level instruction

and by the time it leaves the spinal cord has been translated into

a whole bunh of instructions to a whole bunch of muscles.

That's part of the reason why when using basic V2.0 yonks ago I could

type the words 'data' and 'poke' in about 1/10th of a second.

I also thought there were neural clusters at major joints that also

did some processing of the signal. Although I could be wrong on this.

But there is some pretty beefy neural hardware in the spine, that's second

only to the brain, I find it hard to believe it's just conducting a simple

signal from A to B.

Cheers.

Edit: Possibly related issue.

Regarding nerve pulses in the leg, what is a spinal echo?

I agree.

If you guess, and get it wrong you'll be held to blame and not the scribbler.

In a few .au hospitals residents and doctors have to wear locators, you

can't switch these off or remove them as it is a sackable offense.

So if you need someone(in an emergency say), you know exactly

where to find them.

It's also quite useful for bearding the rotters in whichever den they

happen to be hiding in.

Ofcourse you can have a doctor who then takes the sheet

with his own handwriting, and looks at it, screws up his

eyes and says "I think it's 200mg," looks up into distance , "Yes,

I remember, it's 200".

I don't know why we bother writing medications down.

Just remembering dosage schedules of the top of your head

would be so much more convenient

We are also(in many places) moving into a system, where we use

PDA's that auto-dld measurements directly from the instruments, and then update it the next time you dock the PDA.

It also has the added benefit of preventing radar observations.

And when we get labs-on-a-stick, I can see those just fitting in straight

into the PDA which will function also as a reader.

But a more pertinent question, when you see a chart note in

cursive, which consists of a horisontal line with a few indifferent

humps in it, can you even call that writing? Of any form?

Cheers.

Dave:

The point I was trying to make is that this virus isn't the super-virus

that everyone sees it to be. Some strains may be aerosol transmitted,

but it's still very delicate. You could kill it with some normal

household materials quite easily. It's not that easy to transmit.

I never said it was a super-virus, that may be a better label

for the ebola-pox hybrid. Chlorine will kill most things,

but it's not very injectable, the problem isn't Ebola on the bench.

The problem is when it gets into a human being.

I will stand by my claims that Ebola is a very nasty bug.

First of all, for this supposed terrorist attack to occur, it

would have to be done covertly. The reason? Well, if you just

walk into an airport/large public place with a large container

full of viral load, and assuming you're not caught and deploy

the virus, it's not going to be very hard for your average security

guard to see what's going on. The flights/trains will be grounded and

the entire area quarantined. Whilst a relatively small number of

people will escape, the resultant infection should be fairly small

if effective precautions are brought in elsewhere.

Uh huh, I'll post more on this.

All of this means the virus would have to be transported in fairly

small containers. Coupled with the fact that the virus has 1-2

minutes survival time, you'd probably only infect a handful of

people. The terrorists would be betting that the incubation period

is long enough to infect enough people before the authorities and

places like CDC realise what's going on. To this end, they would

have to target multiple facilities to maximize the outbreak.

1) Yes and surely terrorists have never demonstrated an ability

to target multiple targets in simultaneous strikes,

cough* Sarin attacks, 9-11* cough.

2) You don't need big containers to carry a large amount of

virus.

As for a handful that depends on how well your terrorist knows

what he is doing, it is possible to greatly amply the infectiousness

of an aerosol, I do not intend to go into this in detail

for fairly obvious reasons.

Put it this way, What if all those people in the Tokyo gas attack,

had instead of falling I'll immediately, had gone about their

day, and 10% of everyone they contacted also became poisoned

with the ability to poison others in turn.

I'm not saying it's a doomsday bug, but it's capable of being

much nastier than a chemical weapon.

I'm quite sure. Influenza is a totally different beast to Ebola.

It is and it isn't.

I was comparing the spread.

The great Spanish Flu epidemic, killed I think 10% of infected

people vs 95% with Ebola. So Ebola doesn't have to be as infectious

to cause the same amount of devestation.

Although I'm not sure if it can spread via phlem, it causes

bleeding into the lungs. This causes violent fits of coughing,

this coughing contains millions of microscipic blood/serum

droplets. All loaded with virus.

Flu spreads by irritating various linings causing the

patient to cough, spreading flu loaded droplets everywhere.

These two Xmission methods are quite similar.

Ebola has the additional means of causing the patient to bleed

everywhere. It comes out the eyes, in the urine, through the skin,

they vomit blood, it's in the feaces. And it's all infectious.

From the centre for disease control:

While all Ebola virus species have displayed the ability to be

spread through airborne particles (aerosols) under research

conditions, this type of spread has not been documented among

humans in a real-world setting, such as a hospital or household.

This is very interesting and new to me, I suspect this would be the

reason why Ebola hasn't run rampant yet and may yeild clues for

prevention.

From CDC

The incubation period for Ebola HF ranges from 2 to 21 days.

That's a real bitch, an avg of the two yields ten days,

that's an awful long time to be shaking hands and then rubbing

ones eyes face or nose.

The onset of illness is abrupt and is characterized by fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat, and weakness

Sufferer: "Ah sh1t I got the flu."

followed by diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain.

Sufferer: "Oh I've got a bad flu this time."

You see if your avg person just took his/her codral and soldiered

on, you could have a much higher toll.

I can tell you right now a patient presenting with the above

in a country that is not known for ebola, is not going to

have the doctor thinking, "Oh no! This is ebola HF!"

Care to quote your sources?

No source just a quick guestimate from the known toll in medium

sized villiages in Africa. Extrapolated to a city with a lot

of people living in very high density.

Hence the very wide range I gave.

I fail to see your point.

Well, you wrote,

It's much more effective (and, I daresay, easier) for a load

of terrorists to detonate a nuclear warhead than pull off a

feat like releasing a strain of Ebola into the country.

And I posted the story of the dead geezer on the train.

The point is that the safety and ease of building Nuclear-weapons

is almost as exadurated as the horror and danger of Bio-weapons.

You'd have to know your stuff in either scenario or you'd end

up very dead.

Cheers.

The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars.

Which given that there is no real threat of space being conquered,

or Osama bin Laden getting some kind of space program up is all

utterly unnescessary.

So that's hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been spent

on childrens health and nutrition, research towards a cure for dementia,

a cure for (the most common) cancers. Or novel means of peaceful conflict resolution.

Personally I reckon the above would be a better use of it.

Cheers.

On a more serious note I suspect that the U.S. realises the strategic

niceties of being able to take out a competitors comms satelites or

better yet the credible threat to do so.

I also think the Europeans are not blind to this, and will develop counter

measures. The Chinese will either develop it, buy it, or steal it, and they'll

sell to everyone else.

So in the end a new stalemate results and 100's of Billions go

down the shitter.