posted
We had a thread awhile back that sndrake started about a blood substitute trial in his area, and needing to wear a bracelet to opt-out. A report has been released claiming that these substitutes, across the board, have a 30% higher mortality rate than human blood and may cause heart attacks. One researcher claims that this has been known for at least 12 years.
Here's the article. The companies conducting the trails, of course, say that the study isn't valid.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Interesting. Total mortalities constituted 7.7% of the cases studied, and the difference in number of deaths between the two groups comes out to 1.1% of the cases.
The higher incidence of heart attacks is greater than the difference in deaths. That means that for mortality other than from heart attack, the fake blood is infinitesimally safer. If they can figure out what the heart attack link is, that would be good.
Though I guess not all heart attacks are fatal.
I thought the proposed mechanism of heart attack was interesting. The fake blood scavenges nitric oxide from bloodstream. I wonder if they can't just balance the nitric oxide to see if that fixes it or if nitric oxide is part of what makes blood go bad.
Mostly, I'd say this is a lot like the MMR question. Some people will die, but overall you've got to look at the impact of people being able to be treated with fake blood derived from expired blood. People who say not even one additional death is acceptable don't understand the exigencies of public health.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I am not opposed to the product. I am opposed to the method of conducting studies (having to opt out instead of opt in.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Yeah, that is weird. Do they carry blood in ambulances? I don't think they do since EMT's aren't allowed to administer anything besides, like, oxygen.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Thanks for the reminder of my earlier posts on this subject.
There's more on this that hasn't come out, and it's really ironic given the political news of the past couple of days.
Since most of the people who have posted on this thread follow politics pretty closely, y'all will have noticed that Jeremiah Wright has dominated the political news the past couple of days.
Among the many soundbites that endlessly looped was the charge that AIDS was created by the government and part of a plot. There are some promoters of this theory, and it's one that has a fair amount of believers, even though there's no credible evidence for it.
The more interesting question - to me - is *why* people would believe the "AIDS as a government conspiracy theory."
That brings me to an aspect of the substitute blood studies. A disproportionate amount of the research was conducted in areas with high African-American populations:
quote: "We are an African-American community that has been treated like guinea pigs."
In view of the findings by The Detroit Free Press (below) it is hard to argue with the Rev. Charles Williams, president of the National Council for Community Empowerment.
As the facts come tumbling down, the controversy surrounding Northfield Laboratories' unethical medical experiment conducted without informed consent, can only escalate. The Free Press reports that the subjects of that controversial experiment in which the artificial blood product, Polyheme, was tested were disproportionately African-Americans.
In one Illinois town where the product was tested, 83% of the population is black.
That small town referred to in the last sentence is Maywood - and it's the hospital near my work that was conducting the study.
Imagine if Jeremiah Wright had decided to preach about the targeting of African-American communities for this research - involving nonconsenting "enrollement" - instead of talking about conspiracy theories about AIDS - the Polyheme study was in his own backyard.
Even more to the point, he could have talked about the administration that authorized these exemptions to consent in research -- Bill Clinton's administration.
I expect to be blogging about this soon, but not until Friday at the earliest. I am visiting my parents for a few days and won't be back in the office until Friday.
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One of the big things that scares the MMR weirdos is that a bad batch was recalled, then picked up and sent back out to low income clinics. That's the story anyway. I don't even know where those books are anymore, since it was such a bone of contention between my in-laws and me.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
While I would like to think that an organization responsible for distribution of vaccines wouldn't do that, it's not too different (except in scale) from people who donate their expired and spoiled food to food pantries. And I've sorted through a lot of that.
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