The company also has access to a superb area in the Masai region, the area first made famous by the likes of Hemingway and Ruark who both hunted there. The Masai area is composed of dry thorn bush country, with some mountain areas, plains and dry riverbeds known as Mbugas. The species here include the classic “Masai” species of lesser kudu Hunting, gerenuk, fringe-eared oryx, Grant and Thompson gazelles as well as excellent buffalo, leopard, zebra, wildebeest, eland, Coke’s hartebeest, reedbuck, bushbuck, impala, warthog, bushpig, East African bush duiker, klipspringer, steinbuck and dik-dik. Bird shooting for species such as frankolin, guineafowl, spurfowl, ducks, geese and doves is excellent Gun Accessories.
wgowerg31 -
In Error
Errors, Errors: The sad story of a medical error and learning to deal with errors.
Power of the Gods
The Power of the Gods: Medical infallibility.
Talladega Germs
Talladega Germs: This was some overly cautious and politically foolish advice:
NASCAR fans might seem rabid, but are they actually contagious?
Getting a hepatitis shot is standard procedure for travelers to parts of Africa and Asia, but some congressional aides were instructed to get immunized before going to Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord and the racetrack in Talladega, Ala.
….Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending — hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza.
Some thoughts: 1) It isn’t influenza season, so getting a flu shot now to protect you in Alabama for the weekend is useless. (But not a bad idea if you’re thinking forward to January or February 2008.) 2) The hepatitis B vaccine is a series of three shots given over six months. They won’t be getting much protection from one shot given just before the trip. Unless the staff is travelling to Alabama with the expectation of one night stands and IV drug needle sharing, the hepatitis B vaccine seems a bit superfluous. (Even for international travel, it’s only recommended if a person is expected to have contact with blood or the sex industry.) 3) If there’s been an outbreak of hepatitis A among food vendors at the race track, then that makes sense, but evidently that isn’t the case. 4) Tetanus is everywhere. Always keep your tetanus booster (which comes included with diphtheria) up to date.
In defense of Congress, the organizers say that their staffers were going to be visiting hospitals and police stations where they had the potential to be exposed to hepatitis. Maybe. But unless they were planning to subdue the criminal elements and nurse the ill themselves, they didn’t really need the shots. As it turns out, what they really needed was carpal tunnel splints:
Walker said he hadn’t recommended the immunizations, nor were they necessary. He suggested a possible health risk to them was the voluminous notes they took.
“I’m sure they needed to soak their wrists, they wrote so much,” he said.
UPDATE: More on the thinking behind the advice:
Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said he never meant to offend or scare anyone about health risks at the races. The measure was advised to provide congressional staff with the same disease protection first responders get, especially as they head out on a series of fact-finding missions around the country.
“It’s not about whether the people have shots. … Our staffs as they go forward will be going into sterile areas, they will be working in public health facilities, they will be talking to many holding facilities where criminals are being held….
“The NASCAR event is just one date, but after that they will be doing a number of things,” said Thompson, adding that the World Series and Super Bowl are two other mass gatherings that are going to be researched for readiness.
During the trip to North Carolina, staffers were to visit a medical facility with patients at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway. They were also set to inspect an empty mobile hospital. After the House physician told Republican staffers that shots were not necessary to go to North Carolina, they didn’t get them. Democratic staffers reportedly did.
That explains the influenza shots, anyway.
Teen dead after being hit with Taser
Ottawa Sun Jul 24 2008 3:44PM GMT
Eliminating Cold Medicine
Take Some Tylenol and Call Me in the Morning: What will we do without cough and cold medicine? I can hear it now, that familiar refrain - “Tylenol doesn’t do anything.” And it doesn’t, at least not for runny noses, sneezes, and coughs, despite what the expert says:
Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Motrin, when sold by themselves, were excluded from the discussions because the medicines in those products, acetaminophen and ibuprofen, respectively, are safe and effective in treating fevers and aches even in young infants.
Tylenol and Motrin are sold in syrupy concoctions that help coughs because the syrup coats the back of the throat and calms cough receptors, said Dr. Ian Paul, a pediatrician at Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey, Pa., who consults for industry.
The committee skipped any lengthy discussion of antihistamines like Benadryl, because there is little debate that such medicines are effective for allergies. Benadryl, also known as diphenhydramine, also puts some children to sleep. But nearly all the experts said deliberate sedation should be discouraged.
The medicines that earned the most scorn were those commonly sold to treat coughs, runny noses and congestion, including dextromethorphan and phenylephrine.
None of them have any proven effect on children’s cold symptoms. All have risks.
The advisory panel is right, however, about the effectiveness of the medications. They are effective mostly in that they give a parent something to do so they don’t feel as if they’re standing by while their child suffers. The number of children injured by the drugs, however, has been exceedingly small:
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that at least 1,519 children younger than 2 had serious health problems from 2004 to 2005 after having been treated with common cold medicines. Three children died, the disease control agency found.
But the argument is, that if they don’t do any good in the first place, then why tolerate any risk? But, according to this story, the pharmaceutical companies say the issue is accidental overdosage, not inherent risk in properly dosed drugs:
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), which represents manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter medicines, said in a statement: “The data clearly show that these medicines are very safe when used as directed and that harm to this age group, while very rare, is attributable in most cases to accidental ingestion an issue of safekeeping that is best addressed through education.”
So what to do? My recommendation would be not to use them. Runny noses and coughs aren’t in the category of intolerable suffering, and these products aren’t likely to be much benefit anyway.
Taser reports drop in income, earnings in second quarter
Biz Journals Jul 24 2008 4:44PM GMT
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