Health care crippled as Ebola overwhelms hospitals in Liberia

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A banner reading: Ebola is real, Protect yourself and your family, warns people of the Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday Aug. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)

The two women came from opposite ends of Liberian society - one a beauty queen and daughter of a prominent lawmaker, the other an ordinary home maker from a remote northern town.

When they both needed urgent healthcare, however, these differences meant little. Neither had the deadly Ebola infection, but both were turned away from hospitals overrun by an outbreak that has killed more than 3,800 people, 2,200 in Liberia alone.

In the end, it was Comfort Fayiah, the ordinary 27-year-old, who survived, giving birth to twins in the street as passers by did what they could to provide some privacy.

Nikita Forh, 21, died at her father's plush Monrovia home, unable to secure the treatment she needed to fend off an asthma attack because doctors at the JFK hospital in the capital requested a certificate proving she did not have Ebola.

"I told them that if I carried my daughter home she would not make it through the night, but they did not listen," Edward Forh, a member of the house of representatives for Montserrado County, told national radio.

"My daughter died before my eyes like a dog. Those nurses killed my child," he said. "I will sue the government."

Liberia's Medical and Dental Council says it is investigating Forhs case and warned that any medical staff caught rejecting or refusing sick people would be investigated.

"We took an oath to restore or protect lives," Dr John Mulbah, the council's director, told a news conference.

With Ebola, that oath has become much more complicated. Medics lacking equipment and training fear unwittingly exposing themselves and other patients to Ebola in caring for other healthcare needs.

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Health care crippled as Ebola overwhelms hospitals in Liberia

Can Placebos Lower Health Care Costs?

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An enormous amount of research has been done on placebos. If the results are to be believed, we could save a great deal of money by substituting placebos for traditional medical care. But so far as I know, I am the only person suggesting this as a realistic possibility.

Estimates vary, but around one third of people taking placebos for complaints (including pain, headache and seasickness) will experience relief from symptoms. Here are some amazing facts about placebos:

Aaron Carroll has an excellent summary of the research on placebo surgeries at The Incidental Economist. Take arthroscopic surgery:

A total of 180 patients who had osteoarthritis of the knee were randomly assigned (with their consent) to one of three groups. The first had a standard arthroscopic procedure, and the second had lavage. The third, however, had sham surgery. They had an incision, and a procedure was faked so that they didnt know that they actually had nothing done. Then the incision was closed.

The results were stunning. Those who had the actual procedures did no better than those who had the sham surgery. They all improved the same amount. The results were all in peoples heads.

Carroll gives other examples:

Carrolss solution to all this: stop doing procedures that work no better than a placebo. My solution: substitute placebos and placebo surgeries. Theyre cheaper.

Photo Credit: Google Images

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Can Placebos Lower Health Care Costs?

Health care divides Stewart, Robles in congressional debate

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Rep. Chris Stewart and challenger Luz Robles meet for a debate at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Thursday September 25, 2014. The two are contending for Utah's 2nd Congressional District.

Trent Nelson,

SALT LAKE CITY Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, and state Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake, candidates for Utah's 2nd Congressional District, talked health care as they took questions from potential voters Thursday morning on KSL Newsradio.

Stewart, a Republican seeking a second term in Congress, repeatedly denounced President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act during the debate on KSL's "The Doug Wright Show," insisting the entire legislation should be scrapped.

"It sounds overly partisan, but this is the worst piece of legislation written in generations," said Stewart, who insists there are other options for helping Americans who can't access health care. "I just think we have to start over on this."

Robles, his Democratic challenger and six-year state senator, called the Affordable Care Act imperfect but said it took important first steps in helping Americans, including many people across Utah, to afford health insurance.

"It's moving in the right direction. More people are covered now than we have ever seen in this nation," she said. "There are issues with cost containment that I think Congress should be addressing but I don't know that just repealing, which a lot of people continue to speak on, is the solution."

Stewart voiced support for Gov. Gary Herbert's Healthy Utah proposal, an alternative to Medicaid expansion that would use federal funds available under the Affordable Care Act to help low-income Utahns. Robles said she believes accepting full Medicaid expansion would have been a more expedient solution, but in the absence of that option, she also supports the governor's plan.

Stewart went on to praise a "work effort" that will likely be necessary for Healthy Utah to pass the Legislature as a way for those receiving help to maintain dignity. Robles called the work element a difficult caveat to hold over people who aren't healthy.

The governor's plan also requires approval from the Obama administration.

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Health care divides Stewart, Robles in congressional debate

City council looks at health care costs 10-10-14

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City council members got a detailed briefing on the citys health insurance program during their work session Thursday.

The hour-long presentation was directed by Susan Smith, executive director of Texas Municipal Leagues Intergovernmental Employee Benefits Pool, which administers the citys health coverage through United Health Care.

Health care plans are very expensive, Smith admitted to councilmembers as she reviewed the citys medical cost experience since TML took over health coverage in June 2012.

During that period, the city had unusually high costs, largely due to higher than anticipated medical costs for several employees and retirees covered under the citys policy.

Weve experienced several bad years where weve had a number of catastrophic illnesses, Smith explained. And premiums from your current employees are subsidizing your pre-65 retirees.

For the period of June 2012 to May 2013, the citys health care program paid out almost $2.4 million in medical benefits while recovering $1.4 million in premiums. From June 2013 to May 2014, costs were almost $2.3 million while contributions were at $1.4 million. Since June 2014, projected costs have been almost $1.8 million with contributions of $1.4 million.

The number of covered individuals falling into the high reserve/high risk pool, who had medical charges at or near the $50,000 point where the citys stop-loss reinsurance coverage comes into play, has been unusually high in recent years.

In 2012-13, there were 32 in the high-risk category. That increased to 33 during 2013-14, including 11 that rolled over from the previous year. Thus far this year, there are eight individuals in that high-risk category, including four who rolled over from the previous year.

We are trending much better than we were the first two years, Smith notes. However, the administrative costs for health insurance programs in general will be increasing significantly under the federal Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. Currently about $1 per covered individual, those administrative costs will rise to $63 per person next year.

Health care coverage is not going to get any cheaper in the future, she said.

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Mankind’s Creation from Alien Genetic Engineering Full Length Documentary – Video

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Mankind #39;s Creation from Alien Genetic Engineering Full Length Documentary
Mankind #39;s Creation from Alien Genetic Engineering Full Length Documentary documentary, history, discovery, world, wild life, full length, nature, animal, mys...

By: Discovery TV

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Mankind's Creation from Alien Genetic Engineering Full Length Documentary - Video

New advances in additive manufacturing using laser solid forming to produce metallic parts

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

9-Oct-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ryan kryan@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News @LiebertOnline

New Rochelle, NY, October 9, 2014Laser Solid Forming (LSF) is an innovative method for direct fabrication of metallic components in additive manufacturing. Renowned researchers Weidong Huang and Lin Xin, from China's Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shaanxi, describe their progress and applications with LSF technology and the excellent mechanical properties of the metallic parts produced in a Review article in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing website until November 9, 2014. In the article "Research Progress in Laser Solid Forming of High Performance Metallic Components at the State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing of China," the authors review research advances toward the goal of developing LSFan additive manufacturing technique that uses laser cladding with synchronously feeding metal powdersfor obtaining fully dense metal parts with mechanical properties similar to those produced by casting or forging.

"Additive manufacturing technologies have a global reach that is impacting the manufacturing landscape worldwide, and it is critical that both technology developers and users across the planet keep abreast of each other's progress," says Editor-in-Chief Hod Lipson, PhD, Professor at Cornell University's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Ithaca, NY.

###

About the Journal

3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing is a peer-reviewed journal published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print. Spearheaded by Hod Lipson, PhD, Director of Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, the Journal explores emerging challenges and opportunities ranging from new developments of processes and materials, to new simulation and design tools, and informative applications and case studies. Spanning a broad array of disciplines focusing on novel 3D printing and rapid prototyping technologies, policies, and innovations, the Journal brings together the community to address the challenges and discover new breakthroughs and trends living within this groundbreaking technology. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative medical and biomedical peer-reviewed journals, including Big Data, Soft Robotics, New Space, Tissue Engineering, and Stem Cells and Development. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's more than 80 journals, newsmagazines, and books is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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New advances in additive manufacturing using laser solid forming to produce metallic parts

Visualitt ist der neue Text: Zukunft der Medien und Kultur (Futurist Redner Gerd Leonhard) – Video

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Visualitt ist der neue Text: Zukunft der Medien und Kultur (Futurist Redner Gerd Leonhard)
Note: this is a GERMAN-language video) Dies ist ein kurzer Ausschnitt von meiner Keynote beim Kulturnetzwerk-Treffen des Kantons Aargau (CH), zum Thema Zuku...

By: Gerd Leonhard

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Visualitt ist der neue Text: Zukunft der Medien und Kultur (Futurist Redner Gerd Leonhard) - Video

Ansel Elgort: A futurist playing actor

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HOWARD GENSLER, Daily News Staff Writer gensleh@phillynews.com, 215-854-5678 Posted: Friday, October 10, 2014, 12:17 AM

ANSEL ELGORT is having a year.

He broke onto the scene in "Carrie," co-starred with Shailene Woodley in both "Divergent" and "The Fault in Our Stars," and now is part of the ensemble cast of Jason Reitman's "Men, Women and Children."

In the film, about how the reliance on tweeting, messaging and Internet porn affects the lives of a group of suburbanites, Elgort plays an unhappy high-school football star who gives up the game and starts a relationship with a classmate (Kaitlyn Dever), who's being tracked 24/7 by cellphone and online by her obsessed mother (Jennifer Garner).

The Daily News spoke with Elgort last month at the Toronto International Film Festival, and found him to be one of the more thoughtful, opinionated young actors we'd ever met.

AE: This movie has that dark undertone that the world is screwed, but I don't think the world is screwed. The story line between Kaitlyn and I is positive, and I think that there are people that no matter what happens with technology are still going to be people. It's not going to completely destroy the world.

I'm not overly worried about humans. Right now is interesting because there are a lot of people in the world who were alive before any of this happened. But that's a very short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Very soon, everyone on the planet will be alive only when there was a smartphone, so people will really know how to handle technology and use it.

For example, there were all the iPad leaks, which someone hacked and got everyone's pictures. But in the future, people are going to know where to put the pictures and where to not put the pictures, so the hackers can't get them. People are going to become more technology-savvy because it's just going to be a part of human nature.

DN: But won't the hackers also get better at hacking?

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Ansel Elgort: A futurist playing actor