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Shrimp Bandages Clot Blood Faster
dwbryson writes "A new bandage technology uses ground up shrimp shells to instantly clot blood when applied to an open wound. These new bandages were developed and are being produced exclusively for the military (at $100 for a 4x4" square), but the company who makes them is hoping to mass market them to general consumers."
As someone who has been on blood thinners (due to a blood clot in my leg) for the past two years, exessive bleeding is always danger if I get cut. Bandages like these could literally be a lifesaver. I hope they make it to civilian applications soon.
I know that you've been able to buy a powder that does the same thing, I think called Insta-clot, for a while now. I read about it in use by our military - one soldier was shot through the neck, and his comrades applied Insta-clot along with other first-aid measures, and survived. I bought some for my dad, who is on blood thinners and is somewhat accident-prone. He hasn't had to use it yet, but that's a corollary to Murphy's Law: if it can't go wrong anymore, it won't.
I wonder if it's the same chemistry.
"Well, they won't have the cow, they'll treat it nicely."
Doubtful.
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/news.cfm
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
the article says the bandage chemically binds to the blood and skin. That must really be a B*t** to get off.
I'm pretty sure that they have been using these things in Iraq for a while.
what sig?
Read the articles. PETA "euthanized" healthy animals enroute from the vet's clinic, before heading back to PETA. Adoption placement there is about 14%. The SPCA's placement rate in the same area is 66-73% (depending on which SPCA location you compare). Now we know why.
"The PETA employees were caught allegedly dumping the carcasses on Wednesday, June 15, after other dead animals -- enclosed in plastic bags -- were found dumped in the same spot on at least three preceding Wednesdays."
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
My wife is deathly allergic to shellfish... even a drop of oil flicked off a lobster claw cracking open across the table will give her huge hives if it hits her skin.
Obviously she wears a Medical Alert bracelet for this... what are the effects of this bandage on allergies? Since it goes directly on a wound/into the blood, I'd assume it could be near-instantly fatal to some.
mindslip
At $100, this is too pricey for a first-aid kit unless you're in a really high-risk situation for major trauma -- the only place outside of the military which strikes me as obvious is a construction site.
What I wonder (I don't have a biology degree, and I'm actually really bad at it) is would this help hemophiliacs? Their blood doesn't clot nearly fast enough to seal an injury, but I wonder if this would help? Hemophiliacs don't necessarily lack the clotting agent, but are sometimes (often?) just deficient in it.
Then again, for that matter, does this even need a clotting agent? Perhaps the bandage serves as the clotting agent itself, and thus requires no such agent in the blood. If that were the case, then hemophiliacs could carry around a pack of these, and if they have an accident or somesuch, just slap one on and not worry about dying from a paper cut.
With the current bent, you can justify putting anything in a school first aid kit. Why do we have defibs in all the schools now? How many lives does that save, one or two a year? But it's for the children, so make the taxpayers spend all this money with minimal return
Monies would be better spent to drill into the kids some sense of traffic saftey or somesuch.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
Since the article is recycled, allow me to recycle my post from the last time this exact same subject was discussed on slashdot.
Read about some of the reasons why meds are so expensive [yarchive.net].
Apologies for the length of this quote from the above link, but I think it's worth reading (Steve Harris MD on medical costs and litigation):
"...You [Steve's correspondent] were complaining about the cost of American medical care not long ago. You are clueless as to the connection here. Drugs cost more here. Medicine costs more here. A lawyer costs more here. An artitect costs more here. Each of these things has reasons. Until you step away from medicine and see the big picture, you'll never figure it out...
T&K.
Political language
Actually, the Military is bound by the Geneva convention which states that we have to use full metal jacket rounds. They are designed to penetrate straight through the body leaving just a small hole. Hollow points and shrapnel rounds are illegal to use. They even make sure that the speed at which the round leaves the rifle is high enough so that the round doesn't start to tumble before a given distance. All the countries that abide by the Geneva convention follow these rules. Those countries that don't will fire anything they can get there hands on.
Now land mines and hand grenades are a different story.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
So completely incorrect you should be modded down.
.22 caliber fmj bullet that does not tumble, alter trajectories, or mystically wound the enemy using voodoo. They expand minimally if at all.
there are no hollowed out sections section on the xm193 bullet. It is a
The bullets used in wars governed by the Geneva Convention are less lethal than the bullets used by hunters (soft-lead nosed bullets that mushroom)
I dont know much about peta's conduct, but the CFC has been ID'd as a front group for the food, alcohol and tobacco industries.
US Humane Society: http://www.hsus.org/about_us/about_hsus_programs_a nd_services/eye_on_the_opposition/center_for_consu mer_freedom.html
A friend gave me a couple of these in 2004, and I added it to my camping/hunting supplies. Thought he was joking when he said they retailed for about $100 each, but put one in my med kit that I pack into the woods with me. Unfortunately, I had the opportunity to use it.
A couple days into the BWCA, one guy slips off a slope and takes a good size chunk of meat out of his leg due to a branch. Applied pressure and used a t-shirt to try to stop the bleeding, but recognized we were in serious trouble since we were a good day of hard paddling away from the car. (not arterial, but a real mess) Got him back to the campsite and pulled out my battlefield bandage. Did a fantastic job of stopping the bleeding, and stayed on as we paddled/portaged back to the car to take him to the hospital. Fantastic kit. Wish the costs were low enough to have it in every school, car, or any med kit that might find it's way into something ugly.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
"The damned things were steel core, hollow point rounds designed to penetrate body armor. "
"That's impossible. The whole purpose of a hollowpoint is to deform on impact and spread out, which is why they have an exposed lead core."
What the original post was describing sounds to me a whole lot like a "HYDROSHOCK" round. It is kind of a hollow point hybrid. It is a soft lead hollow tip, with a steel point in the center. This gives you the best of both worlds. Thanks to the lead surround, you get the expansion. Thanks to the steel core/point, you get penetration. it is a hollow point, but has a small point in the center. Looks like a donut around the point of a ball-point pen. (the point is hollow, but with a steel tip protruding from the center of the hollow tip)
"It seems that we are at the age where life stops giving us things, and starts taking them away..." Indiana Jones