The DIY Dialysis Machine

Millie Kelly was born with a condition that required an immediate operation. During this operation her kidneys started to fail and since she was too small for dialysis machines, doctors told her parents that she was unlikely to live. Luckily for Millie, Dr. Malcolm Coulthard and a colleague tried to build a much smaller kidney machine on their own and they were successful. Her mother said, "It was a green metal box with a few paint marks on it with quite a few wires coming out of it into my daughter - it didn't look like a normal NHS one." The girl was hooked up to the machine over a seven day period to allow her kidneys to recover. Two years later, her mother Rebecca says she is "fit as a fiddle." You should see what Dr. Coulthard can build using a postage stamp, a tuning fork, a lawn chair and a jellyfish.

Comments

this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuction

[Anonymous Coward]

what a cow!

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't put pictures with stories unless you're going to take being a news organization seriously, with you know, editing and responsibility.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they could at least be hot. Ew. She shouldn't have been allowed to breed in the first place. That would have saved us from having to look at her now.

Re:WTF?

[CRCulver]

Maybe this is Slashdot trying to compete with Digg, which has pulled some of the readership away?

Re:WTF?

[Steauengeglase]

And the "Think if the Children" image was born.

Re:WTF?

[Steauengeglase]

Sorry, of, not if.

Re:WTF?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Good riddance to 'em. Those MySpace weenies think that slashdot users should be able to IM each other -- within slashdot.

Re:WTF?

[lilomar]

I would like to nominate this as best sentence of the year.

Re:WTF?

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, but ever since Digg came along, I've had to say "get off my lawn" quite a bit less. All jokes aside, maybe we're better off without the people that would leave Slashdot for Digg. Nothing against Digg users, but the two sites are just geared at completely different audiences.

Re:WTF?

[iplayfast]

Actually, considering the story, "if" is appropriate. :)

Re:WTF?

[couchslug]

Rant mode on:

Better yet, don't post pictures at all. That's why we have LINKS.

If we wanted pictures cluttering up Slashdot we'd ask for them, and the pic in question isn't informative or interesting. If we wanted some housecow and her brat we'd go to an appropriate site.

This is a techy audience, not a herd of hambeasts looking for human interest fappery in a supermarket tabloid.

My apologies to any hambeasts reading this, but I AM an insensitive clod.

Re:WTF?

[Hatta]

Agreed. I set my user preferences to show categories as text, not images for a reason. Am I going to have to adblock images from /. now?

Re:WTF?

[bigsmoke]

I agree. If I do come by Digg occasionally, it's mostly to affirm that "Ah! This is why Slashdot is so much more fun to read these days!" And than I hurry back here. :-) This is even more true because I'm one of those people who mostly reads /. for the interesting, insightful and funny comments.

Re:WTF?

[catmistake]

the problem is the Digg hoard keeps coming back!

Re:WTF?

[Wandering Wombat]

What's a Digg?

Re:WTF?

[TheRaven64]

Most of them have UIDs over a million though, so they're easy to spot.

Re:WTF?

[32771]

Never mind the mods I love your choice of words. I mean this is educational.

Re:WTF?

[jacquesm]

hm... /me proposes something like a log(uid) modifier

Re:WTF?

[Auntie Virus]

Mod up for "Human interst fappery" and hambeast. Love it!

Re:WTF?

[Mathieu Lu]

There was a post about figure skating, then a post with a baby on the front page.. in the same day. I think there's a larger plan in the works here :-)

Re:WTF?

[Hal_Porter]

I just scrolled past it. I thought it was the flash advert for slimming products. Or babies.

Re:WTF?

[V!NCENT]

Yeah but what do you do when you have too much spare and you've already read all TFAs on /.? Digg is unhealthy though, because the stupidity sometimes makes my blood pressure rise and onces in a while it makes me want to bang my head against the wall, which, by each time I do it, kills 10.000 brain cells. Maybe this makes me stupid enough to go to Digg forever one day.

Re:WTF?

[AGMW]

I just scrolled past it. I thought it was the flash advert for slimming products. Or babies.

Or, better yet, a slimming product for babies! Right On Sister!

Hmmmm. How about a slogan for said product :-
"Don't let your podgy progeny hold you back!"

Re:WTF?

[Hal_Porter]

Actually it would be funnier if someone else was holding the baby and she was looking at it with the same expression. That way I could have captioned it "ARE YOU GOING TO EAT THAT" and used it to troll on other forums.

Yeah, I know. I'm not going to breed and that is probably for the best, all things considered.

Re:WTF?

[CastrTroy]

Yeah but what do you do when you have too much spare and you've already read all TFAs on /.

You start reading the comments, and going to stories that don't show up on the front page. Seriously, if you have enough time to go through all the Slashdot articles, as well as all the comments, you must be travelling at near light speeds.

Re:WTF?

[Lord Apathy]

Now that you mention it the cruft to crap ratio has gone down somewhat that I've noticed. It has started to remind me of some of the old days.

Re:WTF?

[V!NCENT]

I only read the articles that I'm interested in and their corresponding comments. It's not like I am going to read every single byte here in /.. Oh and lightspeed's way too slow: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2026317964203376008&ei=lh6bSK3WDpfcjQLF2pDWDw&q=space+balls+speed&vt=lf [flash video]

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has a Linux(more lately copyright) agenda but occasionally links right to the article for facts.

Digg has no agenda but goes straight to the facts, with a little chaos.

Slashdot wins for the civilized discussions but the moderation points around here just taint everything to not reflect real world situations but more wishful hoping.

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[parryFromIndia]

I love fat ladies you insensitive clod!

Unless

[Capt James McCarthy]

Chewing gum was used, he's got nothing on Macgyver.

Re:Unless

[monkeyboythom]

However, it DOES look like a series of tubes.

Re:Unless

[The_Rook]

and duct tape - don't forget the duct tape.

Re:Unless

[nospam007]

I'll wait until the MAKE magazine makes a dialysis weekend project out of it.

Re:Unless

[kalirion]

Duct tape makes things too easy. You don't rate a super hacker by coding an OS with vi.

Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[randyest]

Children of overweight parents are more likely to suffer serious health problems during infancy. Just sayin'.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought women put on weight during pregnancy?

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[randyest]

Before you flame me, yes, I know gastroschisis is usually (but not always) hereditary, but the point stands.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[AKAImBatman]

I thought women put on weight during pregnancy?

Only if you count the baby. This idea that women gain ten pounds during pregnancy is a fallacy that was propogated, in part, by an early belief in the medical establishment that women needed to gain weight for a healthy pregnancy. Once that idea was disproven, fewer women forced themselves to gain weight during pregnancy.

In fact, most women only experience a mild increase in food intake while pregnant. My understanding is that it's more important to pay attention to sudden food cravings, as those are often signs of missing minerals and vitamins. (e.g. my wife wanted bananas while she was pregnant)

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

but the point stands.

That doesn't make your point any less flamebait in this story. You might as well go to AIDS conferences and tell their speakers that it's their own fault for getting AIDS.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[aztektum]

[quote]my wife wanted bananas while she was pregnant[/quote]

And now you have a little chimpanzee bundle-of-joy!

Thanks everyone, be sure to tip your waitress!!!!

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[B Nesson]

It was my experience when I became a vegetarian that paying attention to cravings was just good practice in general. Not necessarily caving in to them all the time, but to this day, if I'm really craving a bean burrito, I know I could probably use more protein.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[geekoid]

That's not true.
A healthy woman who is the normal weight for her height can gain 25-35 pounds. This is normal.
Baby weighs 5-10 pounds.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[hansamurai]

What? When a woman is pregnant she is not only carrying a baby, but a very large uterus, enlarged breasts, and probably other stuff that I can't remember. Maybe your wife only gained the baby's weight but that honestly sounds unhealthy for the mom and child as she was net losing weight during the pregnancy due to other things adding necessary mass.

And if you could tell me what minerals and vitamins are in chocolate fudge brownies (my wife's latest craving at 7 and a half months) I'd love to know.

Maybe you have info to back your claims up, but none of this is in line with my current experience.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Jason Levine]

My wife, in fact, lost weight when she was pregnant with our first child. After the baby was born, she was 10 pounds lighter than she was before she got pregnant.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[quadrox]

And in some cases it just might be. Hardly anybody looks twice if you laugh at people "winning" darwin awards, let alone say that it was their own fault. Nobody minds if I say that some drunk driver killing himself in the car accident had no-one but himself to blame. But when it's a fat person or somebody getting AIDS because of having unprotected sex, suddenly it's a whole different matter. I call bullshit.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[sm62704]

Fat people got mod points? The above wasn't flamebait, it was fact.

That said, my "supersize me" diet hasn't paid off a bit. None of the weight has gone where I wanted it, but at a bar the other day some smartass asked "when is it due?"

Also, just because children of overweight mothers (the father's weight has nothing to do with the infant's health) often suffer health problems during infany doesn't mean that all do, or that fit women's infants don't. When my oldest was born, my ex-wife wasn't obese, yet Leila had health problems. Evil-X was big as a house when Patty came along, but aside from colic she was healthy.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Ross D Anderson]

Strangely, my mum craved the smell of petrol... To be honest, I'm kinda glad she didn't pay too much attention to it.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[ivan256]

As do the fluids and placenta.

A healthy woman gains weight during pregnancy. A healthy woman doesn't get fat during pregnancy.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[AKAImBatman]

When a woman is pregnant she is not only carrying a baby, but a very large uterus, enlarged breasts, and probably other stuff that I can't remember.

I'm counting that toward the baby weight as most of that stuff will be gone as soon as the baby is born.

Here's the Mayo Clinic page on weight gain during pregnancy.

Here's the breakdown:

        * Baby: 7 to 8 pounds
        * Larger breasts: 1 to 3 pounds
        * Larger uterus: 2 pounds
        * Placenta: 1 1/2 pounds
        * Amniotic fluid: 2 pounds
        * Increased blood volume: 3 to 4 pounds
        * Increased fluid volume: 2 to 3 pounds
        * Fat stores: 6 to 8 pounds

Here's the information on how much your caloric intake needs to increase:

If you start out at a healthy weight, you need to gain only a few pounds in the first few months of pregnancy. You can do this with an extra 150 to 200 calories a day, about the amount in 12 ounces of calcium-fortified orange juice or a serving of low-fat yogurt. A normal appetite will typically provide these calories.

Steady weight gain is more important in the second and third trimesters -- especially if you start out at a healthy weight or you're underweight. This often means 3 to 4 pounds a month until delivery. An extra 300 calories a day might be enough to help you meet this goal.

Emphasis is mine.

The expectation is that once the baby is born, the remaining weight will disappear on its own through a normal diet. Much of the extra fat put on supports breast feeding of the child. Once weened, many women actually find themselves slightly lighter than they were before, even if they were not overweight. (Which is also what happened to my wife. ;-)) I've heard some women refer to pregnancy as a good way to shed the pounds. I don't recommend it, but it does seem to work.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[randyest]

This is slashdot. Statistically speaking, some fat person always has mod points.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[element-o.p.]

The problem is that, what with the morning sickness, additional weight from the baby, and the bloated feeling from having a baby growing in your midsection, a lot of otherwise active women don't feel like exercising very much while pregnant. As a result, even if their eating habits don't change, they can, in fact, gain weight while pregnant (although this can be offset by the lack of appetite caused by morning sickness).

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ackk! It's Bush senior!

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Joe the Lesser]

Chocolate is a good mood stabilizer, helps against stress.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[jawtheshark]

My wife asked her gynecologist about this very issue. Her gynecologist said that when pregnant, you only need to eat about the caloric equivalent of an apple more per day. That's not exactly much....

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a post-pregnancy mom who hasn't gained 30+ pounds and I'll show you someone UN-AMERICAN.
Alert the DHS. This guy's wife/bf/sister is a terrorist!

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[EchaniDrgn]

I think the recoomended additional intake is around 500 calories a day, nowhere near the "Eating for two" you hear people talking about.

For some during pregnancy the added weight gain is due to the additional snacking and the change in diet that is necessary.

My wife gained about 15 lbs in addition to the baby during pregnancy due to having to snack to fight off nausea. Between the added carbohydrates (the only thing that got rid of her "Morning sickness" was pasta) and having to lay off the diet foods I was kinda surprised she was able to keep it in check that much.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[exi1ed0ne]

(e.g. my wife wanted bananas while she was pregnant)

My wife craved McDonald's breakfast sandwiches. If your theory holds true, I wonder wtf deficiency THAT was about.

(She even made me wait until the drive-thru opened up to take her to the hospital!)

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[jacquesm]

very interesting ! that sounds like something that should be studied more widely

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[geekoid]

It was implied all the weight goes away at child birth, it does not. Women do not have 20+ pounds of placenta and fluids.

The often gain fat, they don't get fat. Not a lot, but it happens.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[geekoid]

Probably started eating better.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[aztektum]

Troll? What a joke.

*bdum-tsch!*

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Sowelu]

I got that same sudden "bean burrito" craving out of the blue, while I was in college. I'd been vegetarian for about four years, was coping with some heavy depression during my first year of school...I guess it must have been chemical, because as soon as I ate what my cravings told me to, the depression vanished. Like, in a day. Not vegetarian any more, but I still pay close attention to my cravings.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[InadequateCamel]

IANADoctor, but I seem to recall hearing that the idea that cravings are correlated to missing minerals/vitamins/etc is no longer believed to be correct. We don't get minerals by eating rocks, so why would the body signal a mineral deficiency by triggering a desire for gritty textures?

Off the top of my head, it would seem to me that when we are experiencing a gritty texture in our mouths it is often by accident and rarely nutritious.

On a related note, I put on more baby weight than my wife :-(

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. A 1990 report by the Institute of Medicine called for a weight gain during pregnancy of 25-35 pounds (for women with normal weight for height.) - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1695171

How have these recommedations stood up? A meta-analysis of studies from 1990-2007 found: "Regarding outcomes of weight gain within or outside 1990 IOM guidelines, moderate to strong evidence suggests an association between weight gain below IOM recommendations and preterm birth, low birthweight, SGA birthweights, and failure to initiate breastfeeding, and strong evidence for the association between weight gain above IOM recommendations and high birthweight, macrosomia, and LGA birthweights. Moderate evidence supports an association between weight gain above IOM guidelines and cesarean delivery and postpartum weight retention in the short, intermediate, and long term." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18620471

Clinical evidence calls for a weight gain of 25-35 pounds. What baby is 25-35 pounds? When was this idea supposedly disproven?

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you haven't a shred of evidence for any of this.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[PitaBred]

One of my friends thought that laundry soap smelled really good. She thought she was going crazy, and finally told her doctor, who apparently said that certain smell cravings like that were tied to different deficiencies, and once she got her started with the correct supplement (not sure what it was), the craving went away instantly. Your mother was probably deficient in some nutrient.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[hansamurai]

Great info, thanks for responding.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you are completely wrong. It is currently recommended that average weight women gain 25-30 pounds during pregnancy, less if they are overweight and more if they are underweight. Just so you know, babies don't weigh 25 pounds

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[dave420]

All that added crazy must add weight too.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[sm62704]

Good point; more than likely half of all slashdotters are obese, and the other half are skinny. I was i nthe skinny half, the McDonald's diet didn't help a bit.

Re:Cut the fat, cut the risk.

[Jason Levine]

Not really. She ate pretty much the same. Of course, some of the caloric intake of her food went to feed the embryo so she was left with fewer calories for herself. We actually started eating better after our first son turned two and we realized that our eating choices would affect how he ate thoughout his life.

I gots to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know the way to San Josie?

Re:I gots to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark? Is that you?

Re:I gots to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you vieing for a spot in the special olympics again this year?

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, this would have never happened in the US. The malpractice liability would be too great.

Re:Wow

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

That's we need for a legal system reform. Capping upper limit on malpractice lawsuits saves everyone money.

Re:Wow

[MobyDisk]

Caps would be great, but there is something fundamentally wrong with society if someone could sue the doctor when the child was going to die anyway.

In theory, there would be no standing to sue under the good samaritan laws.

Re:Wow

[freeenix]

It will never happen as long as the Jews are running the government. 90% of the lawyers are Jews. They need to make money. Capping malpractice limit cut their profits.

We shall utilize our right under the 2nd amendment and defeat the U.S. zionist occupied government NOW!

Re:Wow

[EvanED]

In theory, there would be no standing to sue under the good samaritan laws.

Except for the fact that they are being paid to provide care, which means that the Good Samaritan laws don't apply.

See Wikipedia: "As a result, medical professionals are typically not protected by Good Samaritan laws when performing first aid in connection with their employment."

I still think they would be able to get away with it given the proper contracts, otherwise you wouldn't see other "last ditch" attempts.

Re:Wow

[necama]

In theory, there would be no standing to sue under the good samaritan laws.

Not true. One of the things they pound into your head when you take a CPR / First Aid course through the Red Cross is that you are covered by the Good Samaritan laws only if you do not accept a reward or compensation for your help. I guarantee the doctor who built the dialysis machine was paid for the effort.

Re:Wow

[servognome]

Capping upper limit on malpractice lawsuits saves everyone money.

Just let people sue for damage, it should be up to the FDA to institute punitive measures in the form of fines.
Right now you have a system where health care companies are required to jump through numerous hoops to demonstrate safety, but if the system doesn't catch an issue they are still on the hook for multi-millions in damages. No wonder health care is expensive.

Re:Wow

[Jaysyn]

How's that working out for California?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Slashdot. Now don't let the door hit you on the way out.

We don't have any problem with racist trolls here, but traditionally you are supposed to start with a GNAA post or at least some token amount of cleverness. The very least you could have done would have been to use a vulgar username or put in some ASCII penis art. The best trolls know that they need to be vague when they post closer to the root thread and more obscene the further down the thread (since it will be skipped over by the mods). And would it have killed you to create a sockpuppet that agrees with your posts? Even an AC post would have helped.

*sigh*

Our trolls were so much better five years ago.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't met John Edwards. Because if something is wrong, even if it's your fault, or your parent's fault, or just shit luck, somebody else should pay for it. Somebody with lots of liability insurance, like a doctor.

Re:Wow

[UnknowingFool]

You might be right there that in the US there are obstacles to cutting-edge medicine. At Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, they've been doing cross blood type transplants for years for newborns. At first one would think that it violates a rule of basic organ transplants that the blood types must match. But what they've found is that newborns have not yet developed the antibodies that would cause rejection. The first child to have the operation was 7 as of the report in 2004.

These kinds of transplants were necessary because of the scarcity of donor organs and only performed when there were no other options. First of all, most parents, understandably, do not want to/do not think to donate the organs of their new infant out of grief. Secondly, most newborns die of diseases that might cause them to be eliminated for consideration. Lastly, infants when born are different sizes and their organs also vary in size. Getting a suitable organ that was an exact blood and size match is extremely difficult.

Re:Wow

[ivan256]

How is this wild, baseless, and likely incorrect speculation modded to +5 insightful?

Re:Wow

[xaxa]

In theory, there would be no standing to sue under the good samaritan laws.

Not true. One of the things they pound into your head when you take a CPR / First Aid course through the Red Cross is that you are covered by the Good Samaritan laws only if you do not accept a reward or compensation for your help. I guarantee the doctor who built the dialysis machine was paid for the effort.

[Citation needed], I think.

From the BBC article, "However, Dr Coulthard, together with senior children's kidney nurse Jean Crosier, devised a smaller version, then built it away from the hospital."

From another article, "A newborn baby was saved from kidney failure after a paediatrician built a dialysis machine for her in his garage."

I wouldn't be surprised if he built the machine in his own time.

Re:Wow

[UdoKeir]

We had tort reform for just such a thing here in Texas. Neither my insurance premiums nor healthcare costs have been reduced.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You're sort of right. This would never have happened in the US because the malpractice liability of not having such a machine in the first place is probably too great.

Re:Wow

[freeenix]

The Jews are a blockade for a efficient society. They mobilize the activist to against anything pro-government.

We don't need freedom. Freedom and efficiency are mutually exclusive.

Look at China. There is no such thing called malpractice liability, and now many of the inventions are coming up in China. There is no such thing similar to the DMCA in China, and things like Real-Time packet replication technology are being invented in China.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this wild, baseless, and likely incorrect speculation modded to +5 insightful?

You must be new here.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I was going to comment that it was odd that they didn't have their child taken away from them for either pursuing "alternative treatment," for using a "non-medical device," or enrolling them in an "unapproved medical experiment."

Re:Wow

[jbeaupre]

Not really. It is judged against standard of care. If, as in this case, the standard of care is to wait for the patient to die, then anything that doesn't make things worse could be ok.

On a related note, I worked on a dialysis project. The method was so simple, cheap and easily duplicated (unpatentable), we couldn't figure out how to justify working on it as a company (and we really tried). So we donated the research and a large wad of cash to an outside researcher we had hired as a consultant. He was enthusiastic because he was tired of traditional methods failing his patients (literally telling parents their kids had a week to live). I have no doubt that he would seriously consider using this alternate method rather than watch a patient die, and this is a method far less proven than traditional dialysis. And I firmly believe parents would be eternally grateful for him taking the chance. If this doc ever thought of liability, it was the liability of losing a bit of his soul if he didn't do everything he could for a patient.

Re:Wow

[indifferent children]

I sue dead people?

Re:Wow

[paanta]

Right, which is why none of the great medical devices of the last 100 years have come from the United States. Oh, wait...

Re:Wow

[TubeSteak]

Sadly, this would have never happened in the US. The malpractice liability would be too great.

My first thought was FDA approval.
It's not like they just let anyone hook anything up to a patient and hope for the best.

To even do experimental human clinical trials requires gobs of paperwork and years of non-human clinical studies.

It's interesting though that your first though was malpractice.

Re:Wow

[winphreak]

Another thing about the machine is that, after it saved her life, the doctors and staff have used it for other patients in emergency situations.

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

Re:Wow

[AySz88]

Neither my insurance premiums nor healthcare costs have been reduced.

Perhaps because it prevented an increase in premiums? Or it went into preventing a decrease (or an outright increase) in quality of care? (And don't forget about inflation - if your costs didn't rise, then your real cost went down.)

Re:Wow

[Marillion]

Well, yes and no.

Quite often pediatricians are at the mercy of the equipment makers. One of the doctors at the pediatric hospital where I work explained an example: They bought an MRI machine. The machine needs to know the patient weight so that it can make adjustments to energy levels accordingly. The machine as installed refused to allow patient weights under about 6 pounds (3kg). They went back and forth with the manufacture. The manufacturer was like "Who's under 6 pounds?" The hospital was like "We have a level 3 neo-natal intensive care unit. On any given week, we have dozens of patients under six pounds."

Re:Wow

[wulfhere]

Oh, I'm sure some good came out of that tort reform. Won't *someone* please think of the insurance companies?

Re:Wow

[EvanED]

There are better ways of dealing with it than capping malpractice awards. For instance, force a record of past malpractice suits and their resolutions (including settlements and their values) to be public. Then people could pick a doctor based on their record.

The problem with caps is you either need to make them almost uselessly high or you'll be denying people who truly deserve an amount higher than the cap.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously! Would an ASCII art penis with a swastica tatoo have been too much to ask? These new trolll just don't make an effort.

Re:Wow

[Tony Hoyle]

I imagine the doctor and nurse will be *extremely* well compensated for their invention as well.

Re:Wow

[Tony Hoyle]

Approval... meh.

Everyone I've known that has worked in hospitals has had to do some stuff on the hoof. There are limited funds and provided a trained profession reckons it has a good chance of working (and there's no other choice) they'll do it - they're doctors not lawyers.

I myself had my life saved as a child by a then experimental and unapproved operation (It's now routine, in fact). I've since been on trials and also experienced the 'try this.. it might even work!' syndrome multiple times.

Re:Wow

[winphreak]

One would hope. I would like to think that saving the girl's life is compensation enough.

Re:Wow

[Tony Hoyle]

Sure, but you can bet an equipment manufacturer is negotiating a deal right now.

I wonder who owns it? The Health Authority or the Doctor? I guess it depends on the contract he's under.

Re:Wow

[bob_herrick]

If you compare medical malpractice insurance costs in TX vs a neighboring state like LA, which did not pass similar reform, you would quickly convince yourself that there was an effect. One consequence of lower med mal insurance rates is that there has been a emigration of doctors out of the state of LA, some of whom immigrated to TX.

Re:Wow

[Beowulf878]

The thing is, that politicians will later decide if you were suitable to do pioneering operations/medical interventions based on media outcry - I give you the bristol heart scandal etc..

Re:Wow

[geekoid]

No, it doesn't save anyone squat. It helps the insurance carriers, and that is all.
Try to understand 2 things:
1) What you are talking about
2) The fact that any reform will be influenced buy the industry you are trying to reform.

Re:Wow

[Firehed]

If the price in USD hasn't increased at greater than the rate of inflation, then your overall cost has decreased. It may not be obvious as the dollar figure didn't drop, but a dollar isn't worth what it used to be worth these days.

Of course, the amount that your employer covers may have gone down considerably too; there's no need for them to discuss that with you, nor do they have any obligation to lower your costs accordingly.

Re:Wow

[Alegery]

The biggest impediment to medical advances in the US is not malpractice suits but companies that develop a new technology, patent it, then throw it in a vault because it wouldn't be as profitable as whatever they currently have on the market. A marketing spokesman once bragged to me about this practice. His company made dialysis machines among other things. I don't think I've ever been as mad about anything in my life.

Re:Wow

[RatPh!nk]

...and on top of it, the TMA likes to trot out that tort reform lowered malpractice insurance in TExas but always seem to forget that it was going down before the reform happened, and it was going down in other places that didn't/haven't done any kind of tort reform. I've gone north for the foreseeable future. I really don't miss Texas.

Read about it here

Re:Wow

[AngelofDeath-02]

I think a lot of this is due to the high barrier of entry for these drugs. Also - Pharmaceutical companies are given rediculously low ammounts of time to capitalize on their patents. This combined with high costs mean they need to maximize their profits.

If it were easier to recoup costs, we might see them less anal about maximizing profits.
Then again, this is capitalizm and public companies are held accountable by their share holders if they DON'T maximize profits so *shrug*

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet russia, ASCII art penis with a swastica tattoo trolls YOU!

Re:Wow

[Jedi Alec]

Not true. One of the things they pound into your head when you take a CPR / First Aid course through the Red Cross

I'll do you one better. When I got my first aid training here in the Netherlands the instructor pretty much told us that if we ever visited the States we should only give aid in life-threatening situations, because the risk of being sued is too great to do so under other circumstances.

Re:Wow

[fprintf]

Which, of course, is unrelated to the mass migration of people from New Orleans into Texas after Katrina, many of whom (surprise, including Doctors!) stayed rather than return.

Re:Wow

[Edgester]

I agree with this. If the method hadn't worked, the doctor would probably be sued for malpractice even though the kid would have died anyway. I love that this worked. If you try this in the US and it works, great, but if it failed, the doctor is so screwed.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Well as the father of 2 daughters who suffered from anti-e Haemolytic disease of the newborn I can say this has been known for years. Basically anti-bodies from the mothers blood attck the foetus/newborns red blood cells. The uual Anti-d variety is sorted with an injection that "mops-up" the antibodies but they don't have an anti e version.

If the newborn is too anaemic they do a blood transfusion and they told us in 2002 & 2006 that they could use any blood as the child didn't have it's own antibodies against blood groups but they would actually try to match the mothers group as that would stop the action of the anti-e antibodies from her

Re:Wow

[necama]

I'll do you one better. When I got my first aid training here in the Netherlands the instructor pretty much told us that if we ever visited the States we should only give aid in life-threatening situations, because the risk of being sued is too great to do so under other circumstances.

Sadly, this does not surprise me at all. But that's another rant for another time.

Re:Wow

[bob_herrick]

Yes, you are correct. It is unrelated as it predates Katrina. I have attended presentations by state run medical malpractice facilities that are clear on this point. Your move...

Re:Wow

[O Blimey]

Dear jbeaupre, would you please send me a brief email how I can contact you to wdahn andsoon netfront.net thanks Werner

Re:Wow

[Mr. Slippery]

Capping upper limit on malpractice lawsuits saves everyone money.

That's a poor sort of interference in the marketplace. If a doctor or a hospital creates X amount of damage, they ought to pay for it; the industry should not be shielded from responsibility by buying favorable caps from legislators.

Much better would be getting rid of bad doctors so that huge malpractice suits aren't necessary.

Re:Wow

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

6 pounds?!

You can be under 6 pounds at birth and still be normal.

(under 5.5 pounds is considered underweight)

Re:Wow

[Xacid]

I was actually 4 lbs 10 oz and came out *fairly* decent. And by fairly I mean: I read slashdot, therefore SOMETHING must be wrong.

Re:Wow

[Trogre]

Of course they're not normal. That's why they need to spend time in the neo-natal intensive care unit.

Re:Wow

[Trogre]

And they were like "no way!", and you were like, "way!".

Re:Wow

[iamacat]

Did you instructor present at least one solid example of a bystander getting sued for rendering aid which can even remotely be considered reasonable given his/her skill set and circumstances? No, you should not do a tracheostomy with a swiss army knife if you are not a doctor, nurse or at least a veterinarian. And if you are taking 10 people on a 3 day rafting trip away from civilization, you will be expected to perform certain first aid competently. But applying a bandage on someone's non life-threatening cut would be quite legally safe.

Sounds like your first aid teacher is suffering from prejudices.

Re:Wow

[jbeaupre]

I don't have any additional useful information I can share. Is there something in particular you needed?

new category icon?

[loonicks]

now i trust there will be a whole slashdot article category devoted to these girls? i, for one, welcome our new humanoid dialysis-building overlords.

Re:new category icon?

[Smidge207]

...a category of MILFs, perchance? WANT!

Re:new category icon?

[PlatyPaul]

I agree with the poster's sentiment (buried in the meme): using category icons rather than story-related pictures allows for quicker selection at no loss (assuming that you care to RTFA after you RTFS).

Please, please, please go back to category symbols.

Oh come on...

[snl2587]

Is the picture really worth a thousand words? I think the summary is more than enough.

Re:Oh come on...

[geekoid]

no one said it was a thousand good words.

Re:Oh come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a thousand pounds just by looking at the mother.

Re:Oh come on...

[LumpyCartman]

More than a thousand words, a human life.

Re:Oh come on...

[snl2587]

More than a thousand words, a human life.

If a picture is worth a human life, it must either be a very worthless life or a very expensive picture.

Re:Oh come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the picture really worth a thousand words? I think the summary is more than enough.

Oh shut up. I liked the picture and it gives a face to the story, not some lame canned image used for everything else. So yes, this picture really IS worth a thousand words.

Re:Oh come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Melodrama

How OBL stays off the radar

[damburger]

He has one of these in each cave

A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[philspear]

You should see what Dr. Coulthard can build using a postage stamp, a tuning fork, a lawn chair and a jellyfish.

Indeed, I SHOULD see that. What the hell DOES the good doctor make out of those things?!?

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[sm62704]

I was rather disappointed. Samzepus goes for some cheap nerdy laughs while neither he nor the article said anything about how a Dialysis machine works, or why a conventional one can't be used on a 6lb baby. Wikipedia says

In hemodialysis, the patient's blood is pumped through the blood compartment of a dialyzer, exposing it to a semipermeable membrane. The cleansed blood is then returned via the circuit back to the body. Ultrafiltration occurs by increasing the hydrostatic pressure across the dialyzer membrane. This usually is done by applying a negative pressure to the dialysate compartment of the dialyzer. This pressure gradient causes water and dissolved solutes to move from blood to dialysate, and allows removal of several litres of excess fluid during a typical 3 to 5 hour treatment. In the US, hemodialysis treatments are typically given in a dialysis center three times per week (due in the US to Medicare reimbursement rules), however, as of 2007 over 2,000 people in the US are dialyzing at home more frequently for various treatment lengths.[2] Studies have demonstrated the clinical benefits of dialyzing 5 to 7 times a week, for 6 to 8 hours. These frequent long treatments are often done at home, while sleeping but home dialysis is a flexible modality and schedules can be changed day to day, week to week. In general, studies have shown that both increased treatment length and frequency are clinically beneficial.[3]

Rather than the picture of the mom and her kid, I think a diagram of how one works would be a lot more helpful.

Not only was the summary bad, TFA was bad as well. Why couldn't a conventional dialysis machine be used? It doesn't say.

Is there a doctor in the house?

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Red Flayer]

Jellyfishkabobs.

Sit on lawn chair. Stick tuning fork in jellyfish. Set postage stamp on fire. Roast jellyfish.

* By use of this recipe, you agree that Acme Recipe Co is not responsible for any damages resulting from use of Portuguese Man-O-War or Bluebottle jellyfish in this manner. Acme Recipe Co does not warrant, expressly or implied, the edibility of jellyfishkabobs.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Killjoy_NL]

Ignoring the lack of technical details, I'm just happy they got to keep their child, that alone is worth it in my book.

Not a flame, just my opinion :)

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Otto]

Not only was the summary bad, TFA was bad as well. Why couldn't a conventional dialysis machine be used? It doesn't say.

Is there a doctor in the house?

Probably not enough blood in the patient.

Using a dialysis machine means taking a fair amount of blood out of the body, running it through a bunch of tubes, and putting it back.

This effectively adds a lot of extra volume to the blood system as a whole. Adults can spare some without effect, but children and babies are much smaller, and so you have to have a much smaller device which doesn't have as much volume in it.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[philspear]

Just a complete guess: the larger dialysis machines had too much volume of blood displaced for dialysis. If you hooked a baby up to it, it might die from blood loss as a result of temporarily losing the blood that is in the machine. A smaller dialysis machine, running a smaller volume of blood over a smaller filter, would presumably go slower but requires less blood to be withdrawn.

Machines designed for adults maybe the amount of blood in the machine at any one time while running could be, say, a pint (the amount you give when you donate blood) which you wouldn't notice, but on a pint-sized baby, that same size machine would bleed it dry.

I know your blood pressure reaches normal pressure within seconds of blood loss, but there are of course limits.

Once again, just a complete guess as to why normal machines wouldn't work, I'm not a doctor or a phlebotomist.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[SiChemist]

Did you read TFA?

Why a conventional dialysis machine couldn't be used:

During an operation to correct the problem, her kidneys started to fail, and her birthweight, at just over 6lb, meant existing NHS dialysis machines, even those designed for children, were too large to be used.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Big Boss]

It seems like one should be able to combine treatment with a transfusion to get the volume needed for the machine to work without killing the patient. I think there has to be more to it than that.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't you just "prime" the machine with donated, matching blood to make up the difference?

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[sm62704]

Yes, I read it. It didn't say WHY they were too large, although some slashdotters have answered the question for me.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[iserlohn]

Just another stab at it, but infants are frequently treated with peritoneal dialysis rather then hemodialysis. This is due to the poor performance of hemodialysis on infants and the risk it induces.

The peritoneal procedure requires fluid to be pumped into the abdominal cavity of the patient. In this case, one would suspect that it would be inappropriate with her bowel irregularity, and therefore, a different type of dialysis machine is needed.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

A Jelly Tentacled Stamp that is always in tune?

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[rdwulfe]

You should see what Dr. Coulthard can build using a postage stamp, a tuning fork, a lawn chair and a jellyfish.

Indeed, I SHOULD see that. What the hell DOES the good doctor make out of those things?!?

An automatic defibrillator. See, the postage stamp is used to hold down the wires made out of the lawn chair. And the tuning fork is used to whack the jellyfish.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Tony Hoyle]

Depends on how acute the problem is - peritoneal dialysis is a relatively slow process as it's relying on osmosis - in adults the patients are usually treated with haemodialysis first, which is a more active process. Also a patient with acute kidney failure may be so weak they wouldn't survive the operation to enable peritoneal dialysis... I'd imagine this would go double for an infant.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Joebert]

You should see what Dr. Coulthard can build using a postage stamp, a tuning fork, a lawn chair and a jellyfish.

Indeed, I SHOULD see that. What the hell DOES the good doctor make out of those things?!?

That's not nearly as important as what could be going through your girlfriends head if she looks in the mirror and sees the stamp on her forehead the next morning.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or add a lot of donated blood to the system.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Beowulf878]

Even if the change in metabolic and cellular components of the blood can be handled, surely the strain on the cardiovascular system in a baby (on dialysis) must be enormous?

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[TheLink]

This is a nerd site. We usually want better technical details than that.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Biggest/First issue: Blood volume. A neonate doesn't have a large enough blood volume to maintain his own circulation after the initial loading volume has been phlebotomized. Or, in simpler terms, to get enough blood in the dialysis machine, the infant would have been bled to death.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he pointed out a topic which you found interesting, and you followed it up. That's really all you should want slashdot to do. To get more information you went and looked up wikipedia-- fucking impressive research skills you've got there.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Fred_A]

Rather than the picture of the mom and her kid, I think a diagram of how one works would be a lot more helpful.

And I really would have liked to know what kind of membrane he used (I suppose you can buy those though) or if he devised some other type of filtration system.

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[delt0r]

Perhaps its not covered by there health insurance?

Re:A painful noisy chair in the mail?

[Thiez]

Maybe that's more blood than a baby's heart can handle. Anyway, why combine a large dialysis machine with a blood transfusion when you can simply build a smaller dialysis machine like they did in the article?

Stamp, Fork, Chair, Jellyfish

[vjmurphy]

"You should see what Dr. Coulthard can build using a postage stamp, a tuning fork, a lawn chair and a jellyfish"

I guess some sort of reclining jello chair that resonates with certain sonic frequencies that he can send in the mail. See, being MacGyver isn't THAT hard.

Re:Stamp, Fork, Chair, Jellyfish

[DoofusOfDeath]

I guess some sort of reclining jello chair that resonates with certain sonic frequencies that he can send in the mail. See, being MacGyver isn't THAT hard.

Nice try, but you still haven't accounted for the jellyfish's stingers. I think a recliner with stingers clearly is some kind of super-villain throne.

Re:Stamp, Fork, Chair, Jellyfish

[FlyingSquidStudios]

You're both wrong. It's obviously a musical torture chair you can send via first class mail.

Re:Stamp, Fork, Chair, Jellyfish

[Oktober Sunset]

no, no, it's noting to do with the mail, the device is used to indoctrinate people into loving the Queen, hence they are forced to look at hte stamp and receive painfull jelly fish stings when they fail to sing God Save the Queen right, the tuning fork is there so they can check they are in the right key (if it's not the right key, they don't really mean it).

MacGyver would scoff

[nickull]

C'mon! A dialysis machine built using a breadbox. This doesn't compete with my hommey Ricky-Dean who can build an atomic bomb with a digital timer using only a dead bumble-bee, bits of string and twigs found on the forest floor. Feh!!!

Re:MacGyver would scoff

[rob1980]

Mythbusters already said that wouldn't work. However, you might pull it off with a dead caterpillar instead of a dead bumblebee.

Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[DoofusOfDeath]

In the photo accompanying the story, the English woman is ugly. The thing is, I think 98% of the English women I've seen are ugly. It's bizarre.

Am I the only person who's noticed this?

(I realize I'm going to zero-out my karma with this, but the question is on my mind so I figured I'd ask.)

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[legallyillegal]

i call it AC syndrome

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[Amouth]

your not the only one - the gene base there is diffrent from else where.. so yea.. rarely do you see a good looking English woman

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[sm62704]

I just googled "british women" and there are ony two ugly ones there. I don't know where you're from, but Springfield has its share of fugly women too (Betty Boop, Olive Oyle, and Alderman Gail Simpson live here, among other cartoons). In fact, I think ugly ones beat out hotties something like ten to one.

If anything, the women Google provided are perhaps too skinny, but otherwise damned good looking (except one or two, like I said). Where do you see these ugly british women? Or are you just trolling?

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[CmdrGravy]

They do say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder so considering that you are, presumably, a yank I guess you're right there aren't really all that many 25+ stone bloaters with frizzy hair and loud voices here. You could probably pick up something to your taste on one of our council estates. You're strange yankee tastes would probably be best served if you advertised for something like this

"Dole bludging chav minger required for randy Yankee Doodle Dandy. Supersize only"

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[Shin-LaC]

Of course, you can find beautiful people in any country, especially among celebrities. But the more interesting question, and a much harder one to answer, is whether there are differences in the average level of beauty of ordinary people between different countries.

I presume the GP got his impression from visiting England in person; otherwise, it wouldn't even be worth considering. To add to the anectodical data, when I visited England with my family, several years ago, we also noticed something similar: although there was no shortage of cute children, pretty adult women seemed exceedingly rare. I wouldn't go as far as the GP and say that "98% were ugly"; many could be called plain or homely rather than ugly, but there definitely seemed to be far fewer pretty women than there should be.
We noticed this without any negative expectations about English people, and without expressly looking for it, so please regard it as a mere observation. I am also well aware that it's too unsystematic to draw any conclusions.

It could also be a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder. I am from Europe, though, so I probably don't have the same standards as the GP (who I am assuming is from America, since in the English-speaking web everyone is American by default :-)). Anyway, I do wonder if any research has been made in the perception of average beauty of people from one nation by people from others. Is it possible to assemble a list of countries ordered by average beauty as perceived by foreigners, of the same dubious utility as those lists of countries by IQ?

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[sm62704]

I don't know, but when I was in Thailand in the Air Force in 1974, almost all the Thai women under 35 were damned good looking, even beautiful. And they were the absolutely niceset people I ever met, which is saying a lot because I worked at Disney World for five years, meeting people from all over the world.

The British I met at Disney were the most polite of anyone, and the British women pretty much were about the same as American women.

But as they say, beauty (and ugliness) is in the eye of the beholder. Redd Foxx (or was it Richard Pryor?) once famously said "Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly's to the bone!"

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[tehcyder]

"Dole bludging chav minger required for randy Yankee Doodle Dandy. Supersize only"

I'm not sure the Guardian's "soulmates" section would be too happy with that.

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[tehcyder]

The thing is, I think 98% of the English women I've seen are ugly

If you aren't a Danish supermodel, I would poitely suggest fucking off and trolling elsewhere. If you are, please provide pics.

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[Shin-LaC]

You know, I've heard the same thing about Thai women from people who've been in Thailand. That suggests that we can't discount all differences on "eye of the beholder" grounds. If almost all men agree that someone is beautiful (or ugly), then we might call it a fact (and define beautiful/ugly as what most people find attractive/unattractive); and travelers seem to agree that the average Thai woman is more beautiful than the world average. Further research is needed, though.

That said, I agree that there are much more important qualities than superficial beauty, such as programming skill.

Re:Off-topic *and* troll-ish, but serious question

[sm62704]

I was told that "Thailand" means "land of smiles", and the people there are (at least were) extremely friendly, and they smiled a hell of a lot.

Nothing is prettier than a smile. A fat girl with a big nose and a smile is prettier than a frowning supermodel.

Why didn't I think of that???

[Anonymous Coward]

A tuning fork! Of course!!!

When I tried it I used a salad fork!

Show us the machine!

[vecctor]

The picture of the patient is nice and all but the interesting part is the machine, right? I'd like a clear picture of that instead ...

Re:Show us the machine!

[edlinfan]

Ask and you shall receive.

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.hackaday.com/media/2008/08/kidney-machine2.jpg

This is from Hack-A-Day's writeup.

Re:Show us the machine!

[kcbanner]

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/08/05/diy-kidney-machine-saves-girl/

Re:Show us the machine!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't someone think of the machines?

Re:Show us the machine!

[vecctor]

I don't think that is it. From the article:

When a baby too small for the regular dialysis machine (similar to the one pictured above)

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/08/05/diy-kidney-machine-saves-girl/

Also, it doesn't look nearly ramshackle enough! ;-)

Re:Show us the machine!

[xaxa]

The picture of the patient is nice and all but the interesting part is the machine, right? I'd like a clear picture of that instead ...

You could RTFA. There's a picture at the bottom.

(OK, it's a crap picture. Probably because science is "too difficult" for the mainstream media to write about.)

Re:Show us the machine!

[Quantum Jim]

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/08/05/diy-kidney-machine-saves-girl/

That's not the "DIY" dialysis machine according to that fine article. That's just a normal dialysis machine.

Re:Show us the machine!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a regular machine, I dont think anyone has a picture of the home-built machine.

Re:Show us the machine!

[Qzukk]

I don't think that is the homemade kidney machine, the article says

the regular dialysis machine (similar to the one pictured above)

regarding that picture.

Re:Show us the machine!

[Pharmboy]

I would say the image is appropriate, as what really matters first is the life it saved. It gives the story a more tangigle viewpoint. While the hardhack is extremely cool in this circumstance, it still doesn't compare to the outcome.

Re:Show us the machine!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly if you read the article on hack a day you will find that the picture is not the machine in question. According to hack a day it is a machine for a child, but not the one the doctor built.

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/08/05/diy-kidney-machine-saves-girl/

Re:Show us the machine!

[5KVGhost]

Apparently that's not a photo of the actual DIY device. It's a photo of the larger sort of dialysis machine that would not have worked for the small child.

Re:Show us the machine!

[houghi]

Yes it is. It can produce kidneys at a rate of about 1 every 9 months.

Re:Show us the machine!

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

People have 2 kidneys.

(usually)

Re:Show us the machine!

[slumos]

Frank. Ping. Good god you're hard to find. You only exist on slashdot. Go check your LinkedIn mail aready. Or something.

Who would have thought

[Anonymous Coward]

That in a socialist utopia like the UK, the nationalised health service might have a hard time coming up with the right machine for the job? In the backwards, lawless, dysfunctional nation like the US surely they haven't even devised such a machine.

Or, they have them available in children's clinics across the country ready to save young lives. Amazingly, the inefficient and dangerous US healthcare system has addressed this need without resorting to rogue doctors scratching parts together in garages to accommodate the health needs of the citizens.

Re:Who would have thought

[fumblebruschi]

If you'd RFTA (but why should you be different?) you would have seen that the UK, just like the US, does indeed have miniature dialysis machines designed for children. However, this child -- weighing less than six pounds at birth -- was too small to use them. Not just the UK ones -- she was too small to use any existing dialysis machine anywhere in the world.

So, had this happened in the US, she would have been OK, just as long as she had a doctor who was willing to spend his own time and his own money inventing a new machine and building it himself in time to save her life.

Re:Who would have thought

[xaxa]

That in a socialist utopia like the UK, the nationalised health service might have a hard time coming up with the right machine for the job? In the backwards, lawless, dysfunctional nation like the US surely they haven't even devised such a machine.

Or, they have them available in children's clinics across the country ready to save young lives. Amazingly, the inefficient and dangerous US healthcare system has addressed this need without resorting to rogue doctors scratching parts together in garages to accommodate the health needs of the citizens.

Do they have them for newborn babies? I don't see much useful on Google, but I don't really know what I'm looking for.

But, you can be 90% sure that the UK media would have taken the chance to complain that the NHS didn't have the machines if they existed, and they haven't.

Re:Who would have thought

[sm62704]

No results found for "american infant dialysis machine" -Google

I fail to see how the above flamebait is in any way "insightful". We don't have them here, according to Google. From the HTML version in the Google cache of the PDF (also available) the official US Food and Drug Administration website:

For hemodialysis, a specialized central venous dialysis catheter is necessary to deliver adequate blood flow to the dialyzer. Sizes must be available that can be inserted in infants as small as 1 .O kg, up to small adolescents of 50-60 kg. Since the development of the long term indwelling central venous catheter by Robert Hickman and his colleagues, significant strides have been made in the types and sizes of these catheters, but the selection is still limited. Several manufacturers have made commitments to the pediatric nephrology community to develop new catheters and continue to provide them to our patients. However, the number of vendors is quite limited, especially for smaller children and infants. To date the smallest long-term cuffed catheter is 8 Fr, yet this may be too large for some infants with renal failure, in whom long-term hemodialysis is life-sustaining therapy, or for some critically ill newborns with inborn errors of metabolism in whom hemodialysis or CRRT may be life-saving

Mod parent troll.

Re:Who would have thought

[domanova]

No. the kids just die. RTFA

Re:Who would have thought

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid little fuck. RTFA. No, why bother, because then you'd have to think before spouting bollocks.

Re:Who would have thought

[Sockatume]

I think I've seen that doctor. Tall, skinny, scraggly dressed, uses a cane...?

Re:Who would have thought

[Anonymous Coward]

> So, had this happened in the US, she would have been OK, just as long as she had a doctor who was willing to spend his own time and his own money inventing a new machine and building it himself in time to save her life and didn't care about beeing sued for malpractice.

See? Fixed that for you...

Re:Who would have thought

[fumblebruschi]

and didn't care about beeing sued for malpractice.

See? Fixed that for you...

That wouldn't be an issue in this case, since the patient was dying. In the USA, under the Good Samaritan Act, the "responder is not legally liable for the death, disfigurement or disability of the victim as long as the responder acted rationally, in good faith, and in accordance with his level of training."

Suppose the home-made device failed and the patient died. Since the patient would certainly have died if he had not acted, but might have lived if the doctor's plan had worked, that obviously qualifies as acting rationally and in good faith.

(The part about "in accordance with his level of training" is irrelevant in this case, because the "responder" was a qualified doctor. That caveat is meant to apply to non-doctors. For example, I'm not a doctor. So if your heart stops, and I break your ribs while giving you CPR, you can't sue me. But if you have a heart attack, and I attempt open-heart surgery on the spot, and you die, your estate can sue me.)

Re:Who would have thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Just keep paying your overpriced medical insurance (assuming you can get any) and telling yourself you're getting a better standard of care and the bad commies will just go away.

Re:Who would have thought

[laddiebuck]

Uses a cane? I think that went out with the Seventh Doctor, no?

Re:Who would have thought

[Mahjub Sa'aden]

For the record, I'd like to point out that I love the British spelling in this troll. It's... telling.

News for

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if she dies, does anyone care?

Re:News for

[element-o.p.]

Yes.

Trolls, on the other hand...

Fit as...

[Atari400]

You should see what Dr. Coulthard can build using a postage stamp, a tuning fork, a lawn chair and a jellyfish.

A fiddle?

The man makes gadgets out of random items...

[DeadDecoy]

Doctor Who?

Re:The man makes gadgets out of random items...

[Mistshadow2k4]

No, silly things like hair dryers don't interfere with these machines, so apparently the Doctor didn't design or build it.

Re:The man makes gadgets out of random items...

[bcmm]

"The Good Doctor" more often refers to Hunter S. Thompson (a self-proclaimed Doctor of Journalism).

The star of the long-running TV show is generally known simply as "The Doctor".

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[CogDissident]

Hate to feed the trolls here. But if you're going to post a picture, at least have it be of an medium attractive woman.

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'
That's what I said
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read

My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I'd like to sink her with my pink torpedo

Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?

I met her on Monday, 'twas my lucky bun day
You know what I mean
I love her each weekday, each velvety cheek day
You know what I mean

My love gun's loaded and she's in my sights
Big game is waiting there inside her tights, yeah

Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?

As seen o Hackaday...

[kcbanner]

...yesterday. http://www.hackaday.com/2008/08/05/diy-kidney-machine-saves-girl/

Patient-doctor relationship

[oldhack]

I get the feeling that my patient-doctor relationship is more adversarial than cooperative sort. It's like two parties haggling over a trade, neither party trusting the other. I'd guess that some of doctors don't enjoy that either.

I'd rather have a system where docs are not pressured to act like commodity traders.

Oh, almost forgot. Thumbs up from across the pond, Dr. Coulthard. Happy for Kelly family.

If you think that's neat...

[Rob T Firefly]

...you should see his espresso machine.

Re:If you think that's neat...

[Born2bwire]

Which only contributed to the unfortunate incident where he mixed the two up...

too big?

[spiffmastercow]

How can the existing machines be too big? From what I understand, a dialysis machine simply filters blood by pumping it through the machine. One needle for input, one for output. Was the needle too big or something? I suppose the pump might have been too powerful, but wouldn't that be an easy thing to switch out, rather than creating an entirely new machine?

Re:too big?

[EvanED]

Perhaps the larger machines require too much blood to be in flight through the machine at any given time.

This is just a guess, I know nothing abotu dialysis machines.

Re:too big?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pump minimum flowrate and system hold-up volume (the hollow fiber membrane modules have a lot of dead volume) are limiting. Babies don't have tons of blood, and it can only be recirculated so fast.

Re:too big?

[twotailakitsune]

Maybe, most machine require some amount blood.

Most people can live with less blood then their body make. Babes can die from small loses of blood. They likely needed to make a machine that would have vary little blood outside of the kid.

Re:too big?

[maxume]

Presumably it takes a certain amount of blood to fill the filter. Blood that won't be in the patients body.

Re:too big?

[Rene S. Hollan]

I'd rather think that the volume of blood required to be in the machine at any one time would be such that there would be insufficient blood within the body of a patient so small.

I suppose one could transfuse at the same time as starting dialisis, and at the appropriate time "close the loop", removing the source of transfused blood, but that strikes me as rather delicate in this case: IIRC, an infant has maybe two tablespoons of blood total, and the machine might require what, a pint? Maintaining a safe blood pressure range under those conditions would be damn tricky.

Re:too big?

[X0563511]

Oh, I would think there would be more than two tablespoons... that doesn't seem right to me.

Re:too big?

[jhfry]

best guess is that the larger machines require a greater quantity of blood... thus reducing the amount in the patient by a greater percentage in smaller patients.

Re:too big?

[0100010001010011]

There might have been a minimum flow required to push blood across the cleaning medium. Given how small she was, she might not have had enough blood in her entire body to even use the larger machine.

An electrical analogy: Say you have electrons you want to flow from A to B. If you use a wire too thick in diameter all the current is going to go into resistance of the wire. This girl's current source wasn't powerful enough to drive electrons through the wire, so the doctor swapped in a thinner wire.

And since this is slashdot, a car analogy: Turbo chargers work by using exhaust air to spin a turbine which spins a compressor to compress incoming air. If you put a massive turbo on a small car, there wouldn't even be enough air to spin the blades. So you have to get a smaller turbine.

Re:too big?

[Rene S. Hollan]

Oh sure. Like I wrote, "IIRC". It's quite possible I did not RC. Perhaps two tablespoons is the maximum amount of blood that an infant can rapidly lose safely.

Still, as others have noted, it's the amount blood that's required to prime the system that's likely the problem.

Re:too big?

[X0563511]

I have no idea what those two acronyms mean, sorry.

But yes, I think your right about the cause of the issue. Simply not enough blood to run through the machine and the baby at the same time. A transfusion at the same time would be a bit complicated, dangerous, wasteful, and messy.

Re:too big?

[Rene S. Hollan]

I have no idea what those two acronyms mean, sorry.

You must be new here.

IIRC: "If I Remember Correctly"

And, by extension, (though not generally used on it's own):

RC: "Remember Correctly"

Re:too big?

[onkelonkel]

Your electrical analogy is as good as any slashdot analogy. It would, however, make a lot more sense if you swapped thicker/thinner, since that is how resistance works.

Re:too big?

[X0563511]

I'm not much of a chatter, so the only acronyms I tend to remember are the really simple ones like 'ty' 'btw.' I generally don't use them. I'm far to verbose!

Re:too big?

[bill_mcgonigle]

IIRC, an infant has maybe two tablespoons of blood total

one order of magnitude too low.

Re:too big?

[JesseMcDonald]

Say you have electrons you want to flow from A to B. If you use a wire too thick in diameter all the current is going to go into resistance of the wire.

That doesn't make sense -- resistance in a conductor is inversely proportional to cross-sectional area. Larger-diameter wires have less resistance per unit length.

Also, current doesn't "go into" resistance. To get the analogy you want you'd have to introduce a non-linear component (like the turbocharger in your car analogy) which shuts off below a given supply voltage. A diode, for example.

Re:too big?

[TheSync]

How can the existing machines be too big?

Infant dialysis occurs in the US...Chronic dialysis in the infant less than 1 year of age:.

Re:too big?

[element-o.p.]

Having spent a year on dialysis myself...

Dialysis machines don't use needles. You have a tube surgically inserted into your veins that the dialysis machine taps into. I still have the scar in my external jugular from my year on dialysis (13 years ago).

I suspect she was too small for the catheter to be inserted, but I don't know that for a fact. I suppose it is also possible that, due to her size, the existing machines would have attempted to circulate the blood too quickly for her veins to handle. But these are just guesses; I'm not a doctor.

Re:too big?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the parent poster noted, the grandparent had it backwards. But it turns out that the electricity ~ fluid flow analogy is not just apt, it is technically accurate. Back in the days before digital computers were used to run software models of physical processes, some researchers built physical analog "computers" to model fluid flow using electronics circuits. Flow:current, voltage:pressure, capacitor:storage tank, ...

The physical constants are different, but the symmetries and laws are analogous.

Re:too big?

[Tony Hoyle]

Emergency dialysis uses needles. You'll get a stent if you're on it repeatedly.

The jugular is a nasty place to have it. I had mine on my wrist (no scars, thankfully, but it wasn't there long.. they put me on peritoneal dialysis as soon as I was strong enough to have the op for it).

Re:too big?

[quenda]

If you use a wire too thick in diameter all the current is going to go into resistance of the wire.

hmmm... I suggest you stick to car analogies.

Re:too big?

[Anonymous Coward]

While we all appreciate good analogies, larger diameter wires (i.e. thicker) have *lower* resistance than thinner ones. The main reasons for using thinner wire are practical design considerations including the cost of the copper.

Re:too big?

[dave420]

The dialysis machine essentially increases the length of the circulatory system, which adults can easily accomodate. Infants weighing under 6lbs would be turned inside out by even a children's model. The loop needs to be far smaller to stop that, which is what this doctor created.

Award, and Patant.

[scubamage]

The doctors deserve to receive some sort of notice from whatever professional association they belong to, and also a Patent for the smaller size machine that they created. Thats some pretty amazing work - and they already have a human test trial to back it.

Re:Award, and Patant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why a patent? Oh, someone has made a 1 gallon jug for milk. I decide that's just not right so I design a 3.67 pint jug for milk. Does that deserve a patent? No, neither does an existing technology and design of how something else works only scaled down smaller.

If he figured out a different way to make the machine work more efficiently sure, patent the fuck out of it, but if it works just like it's big brothers work, then it's not worthy of a patent in any way shape or form.

The doctor does deserve to get credit for it, which he has. If he then decides to make a commercial model himself he would then get compensated for it, hopefully along with the nurse who helped design and build it. However, if an existing dialysis manufacturer decided to miniaturize one of their existing designs then the doctor shouldn't get compensated for it. It would be nice and it would be nice sure, but they don't have to. At least one would hope they acknowledge him and the nurse by naming the machine after them in some fashion.

Re:Award, and Patant.

[scubamage]

Given that the current machines are too big to work on a child, and this one is not, then I would say that it does indeed work differently - Different enough that it can be used to work on different patients. Define what requirements are needed for something to be considered "different"? Or would you prefer that these innovators get sued for duplicating existing technology which couldn't do the job it was supposed to?

Re:Award, and Patant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this post: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=637737&cid=24501819

Dialysis is very simple: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialysis

For bodies a small as new born infants we're just talking about a matter of scale. For existing dialysis machines to work they'd have to "suck" out ALL of their blood, not a very good thing as they would kill the patient. They simply scaled down existing technology. There was NO innovation, just someone smart helping save a life and creating a new machine to do the job. The process and method is still the same. It's unpatentable technology.

Re:Award, and Patant.

[Tony Hoyle]

Patents might not be needed (in the UK using something publicly is prior art anyway - no 'must be available for 2 years' rule like the US has, so anyone else would have difficulty getting a patent anyway).

It's likely that this comes under the ownership of the Health Authority, which the equipment manufacturers wouldn't want to cross...

(a) because they keep lots of lawyers on retainer,
(b) because losing the contracts from an entire region of the UK (and, if they push it enough, potentially the entire UK) is not worth it... the NHS is a rather large and rather profitable customer.

So where can I

[Anonymous Coward]

submit this as a cautionary example to not put pictures with summaries.

Re:So where can I

[X0563511]

Hmm. I have story icons off and that still showed up.

Now, what if there was some reason I had those turned off? Would I have been unable to properly read the front page until it pushed off the bottom?

Bad Taco, bad!

Re:So where can I

[Killjoy_NL]

That's called a luxury problem, if it was for something less important I would agree, but this is not the case here imho.

DIY Liver in time for the weekend?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case ;)

For that matter...

[Illbay]

...you should see what miracles occur when you're not oppressed by an onerous "single-payer" socialist-welfare-state "health" care system like the NHS.

Re:For that matter...

[Da_Biz]

...you should see what miracles occur when you're not oppressed by an onerous "single-payer" socialist-welfare-state "health" care system like the NHS.

Yeah, like enormous savings on overall national spending on healthcare, and protection of our strategic interests in healthy individuals who can keep our economy sustainable and reliable,

I'm not ready to say that the NHS model would cure all of our ills, but a desire to revamp and improve our healthcare system is hardly socialist (unless one calls Warren Buffett a socialist).

Re:For that matter...

[Bearpaw]

...you should see what miracles occur when you're not oppressed by an onerous "single-payer" socialist-welfare-state "health" care system like the NHS.

Infant mortality rate in the US: 6.3 per 1,000 live births
Infant mortality rate in the UK: 4.9 per 1,000 live births

Personally, I'd rather not see the "miracle" of more dead babies.

Re:For that matter...

[Da_Biz]

Correction: I meant to say that costs of "socialized healthcare" are, on a national basis, dramatically lower than what they are in the US.

Despite the fear-mongering, the public health outcomes are also quite positive.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

Let's see the numbers on the use of fertility clinics and births by older women before you start implying causation.

People have easier access to far more exotic treatments in the US than they do in the UK. It is likely the cause of these numbers. Those extra 1.4 births per thousand might not have even been pregnancies there.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

The costs are lower, in part, because less treatments are provided.

For example, half of all the joint replacement surgeries done in the entire world are done on US patients. That's 50% of the procedures on less than 5% of the world population. Either people in the US blow out their joints way more frequently than Europeans with socialized health care (unlikely), or their system isn't providing them with that option.

So our "inferior" privatized system is providing more people with life-improving treatments, and when something goes wrong the error rate (not the treatment rate) is used to tell people our system sucks. If you don't get the procedure, the system has failed you, but it wasn't screwed up, so you're a positive statistic!

Sorry, but I'd rather pay more, and pay for myself.

Re:For that matter...

[xaxa]

Do you have to pay for fertility treatment in the USA, or does insurance provide it?

You can pay for fertility treatment in the UK (from a private hospital) if you wish. What you get for free varies from area to area for some reason, but it should be available if you're under 40 and not obese.

Re:For that matter...

[Oktober Sunset]

lol! you think a private capitalist system would have delivered better?

Let's all remind ourselves that the UK ranks 18th in the world (this is according to the WHO), and the USA ranks 37th, and to rub it in a bit more, the USA spends a higher percentage of it's GDP than any other country (something like 15% I believe), and the UK spends just 6% of it's GDP on healthcare. So you tell me which system is the one that works here?

No doubt in the US, they would have paid a private contractor thousands to build a kid-sized dialysis machine, the insurance company wouldn't pay for it, then they kid would have died before they finished it.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

It depends on your insurance plan. Some don't pay for it at all, some pay for one try, and if it doesn't work you have to pay for subsequent tries (later tires are usually cheaper than the first try though), and some pay for three or more tries. Age limits also depend on the plan, but I've never heard of a plan requiring you not to be obese.

Re:For that matter...

[TheSync]

like enormous savings on overall national spending on healthcare,

Of course, 50% of medical dollars spent in the US already come from the government, and we already have all kinds of government health regulations (tax benefits for employer but not employee paid for insurance, HIPAA, mandatory coverage elements for insurance that vary state-by-state, etc.). So maybe it would be better to de-regulate medicine to reduce costs?

Re:For that matter...

[TheSync]

The costs are lower, in part, because less treatments are provided.

Also US doctors make 50%-100% more than the OECD average (generalist versus specialist).

So all we need to do is cut doctor pay - oops, we just tried to do that with Medicare and it didn't get passed!

If you think socialized medical care is a good idea, just keep in mind the idiots we put into office in the US. Perhaps European politicians are smarter than ours....

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

An anecdote that I planned to add before my boss came over and I hastily hit submit...

I know a 52 year old woman who had her fertility treatments covered by her insurance plan, and succeeded after her third attempt.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

I don't know if they're smarter... But they can't raise taxes any higher 'cause they're already way up, where politicians here see the vast difference and think they've got a ways to go before tax revolt.

Doctors have plenty of good ideas on how to lower costs. They present ideas all the time. Some of them request government involvement, but usually not in the form of paying for treatments. If anything, the gap between the patient and the payment is part of what drives the costs up here. Most things are covered, and the patient doesn't see the costs, so they're more likely to seek treatment for things they would otherwise deem too costly to worry about.

People didn't used to seek out their doctor for a cold... But then again, there used to be a class in high-school that taught girls how to take care of people who were sick with non-threatening conditions. When it was deemed sexist, they did away with it instead of making it for boys too.

Re:For that matter...

[meringuoid]

and to rub it in a bit more, the USA spends a higher percentage of it's GDP than any other country (something like 15% I believe), and the UK spends just 6% of it's GDP on healthcare.

You've got to be kidding. They spend MORE than we do? I'd got the idea that they put up with having no health service because it meant they could spend more money on, er... I think the term they use is 'defending freedom'. I'd never imagined they spent anything like as much. I mean, the common wisdom in the UK is that the NHS is a colossal money pit. The American system is even more expensive?

Jesus. So, 15% GDP in the US, versus 6% in the UK... and adjust for the higher per capita wealth of the US... that's just horrible. Where the hell is all the money going?

Re:For that matter...

[GameMaster]

It's going to our emergency rooms. All the people without decent health insurance are forced to rely on emergency room care for medical issues that could be handled, at a vastly lower cost, by a general practitioner. Also, they tend to let what start out as minor medical issues progress far longer because they can't afford to get them treated until an emergency room would deem it bad enough to deal with. That's the hidden reason why socialized healthcare ends up saving money overall, you get to take advantage of preventative medicine and catch issues early before the cost to treat them skyrockets.

Re:For that matter...

[Randseed]

Explain that to the socialists (i.e., Democrats).

Re:For that matter...

[w3woody]

There is a very interesting discussion about comparing infant mortality rates at Wikipedia; the short story is comparing two countries infant mortality rates is comparing apples and oranges: countries tend to use different standards as to what they count as an infant mortality.

Re:For that matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell is all the money going?

Research. The United States performs vastly more medical research than any other country in the world. Socialized health care systems take advantage of US research while sharing none of the costs.

Re:For that matter...

[Oktober Sunset]

no, it's cash spend on actual healthcare only, not research. Research for all science is far below that figure, if the US was spending 9% of it's GDP on medical research we would all be living to 100 by now. The actual figure spent on ALL research by government and private industry is less than 3%. In the UK, it's a little under 2%.

Anyway, you should realise that most medical research is done by drug companies who make money from it, a course of Erbitux costs the same for NHS as it does for a private hospital, so they are paying for it's development just the same as everyone else who benefits from it. And when the NHS pays a surgeon's salary, they are paying for the development of the surgical techniques they have learned just the same as any other hospital who employs them.

Re:For that matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

countries tend to use different standards as to what they count as an infant mortality.

Wait, you mean there's more than one definition of dead?

Re:For that matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

To blame the infant mortality rate on the simply on the health care system ignores a variety of factors. Here is a news article that gives more suggestions to the reasoning behind the high mortality rate. Reasons such as race, fertility drugs, and poverty.

Re:For that matter...

[quenda]

I know a 52 year old woman who had her fertility treatments covered by her insurance plan, and succeeded after her third attempt.

Almost certainly with donor eggs, at that age. This would be considered unethical in many countries.

Re:For that matter...

[quenda]

Infant mortality rate in the US: 6.3 per 1,000 live births
Infant mortality rate in the UK: 4.9 per 1,000 live births

Unfortunately, this difference is due primarily to race. The figure for black Americans is about double these numbers.

Re:For that matter...

[vidarh]

Bah, humbug. European taxes aren't much higher than in many US states. I'd pay almost exactly as much in California as I do in the UK for example (I've done the math - was considering a move). Except in California I'd need to spend additional money on private health insurance etc..

Re:For that matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually quite lower than 6.3 in the US, the higher infant mortality rate is just American people using their american freedom to put babies on spikes.

Re:For that matter...

[Monkier]

Listen to a BBC documentary comparison of health care in the UK and Massachusetts: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2008/07/080715_better_health.shtml

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

You have the causative chain the wrong way round: why do black Americans suffer greater infant mortality than white Americans? Two reasons: they're poor (and poverty is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality), and the healthcare they receive is of a lower standard.

Listen to this podcast for more:

http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/yale.edu.1320598949.01320598958.1583568871?i=2073945130

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

You didn't read the Wikipedia article properly. It said that countries used to use different standards but that most developed countries have been using the same WHO definition of infant mortality since the late 1980s or early 1990s. It strikes me that this is mostly squirming around trying to find reasons why infant mortality is higher in the US than other developed countries other than the obvious one: because for a large fraction of the US population, health and healthcare is worse than in other countries.

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

You've set up a false dichotomy with your either-or. The other obvious explanation for the high rates of joint replacement in the US compared to everywhere else is that doctors and insurers are trigger happy and recommend earlier and more aggressive intervention. This may or may not be the right thing to do, but it's not *obviously* the right thing to do. There are always risks and downsides to each course of action (or inaction) in healthcare.

As for your final comment, it's very nice that you'd rather pay more and pay for yourself. Let's hope your disease isn't one that's too expensive for you to afford to treat out of your own resources.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

Solution: Don't live in California. They're all nuts there anyway.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

Let's hope your disease isn't one that's too expensive for you to afford to treat out of your own resources.

Why? If it's not, it's probably not economically viable to keep me alive. Who better to do the cost benefit analysis on saving somebody's life, than the person paying/the person dying?

Re:For that matter...

[quenda]

You have the causative chain the wrong way round

I thought I was dodging that whole question :-)
I'm certainly not here to defend the US health system, but you can't blame it for infant mortality.
      Whatever the causes, it means that a simple comparison is unfair and pointless.

However, I just googled this and see that poor hispanic immigrants in the US have quite low infant mortality. So its not so simple.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

The other obvious explanation for the high rates of joint replacement in the US compared to everywhere else is that doctors and insurers are trigger happy and recommend earlier and more aggressive intervention.

That's not the "obvious" explanation. The obvious explanation is that from a bureaucratic perspective, a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement.

Re:For that matter...

[doctorcisco]

Those statistics are skewed. Doctors in the U.S. intervene on very very premature babies and other "lost cause" situations more often than doctors in Europe. So a stillbirth or "spontaneous abortion" elsewhere -- not included in infant mortality statistics -- can end up as an "infant mortality" statistic in the U.S.

doc

Re:For that matter...

[doctorcisco]

Forgot the link.

Re:For that matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell is all the money going?

hookers and beer, of course

Re:For that matter...

[TheSync]

European taxes aren't much higher than in many US states.

Some European countries are worse than others. In France, top tax rates are 51% income, 60% for both sides of social security, and 20% VAT. Even California can't beat that.

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

OK, you got me. I almost believed you were serious. And then I thought, no-one could be that much of a dumb prick to think that "if I can't afford a 300K operation, then I'm not worth keeping alive. But if I can, I am". So you must be a troll. Right?

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

Um. The explanation you've laid out here is just a repeat of your previous explanation, which is that pennypinching bureaucrats are cruelly denying Europeans of the care they so desperately need.

You may disagree that my explanation is obvious, but I think it's pretty fuckin obvious myself. Especially given that there's plenty of evidence of aggressive early intervention for lots and lots of diseases in all branches of healthcare, and not all of it is helpful, and lots of it happens in the US. Breast cancer screening is just one such area.

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

I agree that confounding factors make it challenging to understand what statistics about health are telling us, but I don't think that we should simply throw our hands up and say "such figures cannot be compared from one country to another" or that "infant mortality cannot be shown to be affected by health systems as opposed to the social and environmental determinants of health".

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

No. I was completely serious. I also think you're a moron.

I didn't put any numbers in my post, but I'm curious to hear where you'd draw the line. How much is it worth spending to save somebody's life, and how long do they need to be expected to live to justify it?

Given that the decision is going to be made by somebody, who would you want making the decision.

Stop "feeling", and think.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

Um. The explanation you've laid out here is just a repeat of your previous explanation, which is that pennypinching bureaucrats are cruelly denying Europeans of the care they so desperately need.

You seriously should consider lessons in reading comprehension.

The explanation I've laid out is that elective procedures are neglected if there is a cheaper option that covers the need. I don't know how that matches up with your description of my explanation in any way.

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

You're nowhere near the clear-sighted rationalist you believe yourself to be, and I'm not the dewy-eyed, woolly-minded liberal you're imagining me to be either.

I am thinking. I'm thinking, "I think it's worth spending $200k to save my life, but oh shit, I don't have the $200k needed for this operation. Oh well, I'm economically non-viable. This feller thinks I should therefore just be left to die." I'm also thinking, "this feller either does not know or does not care that his proposal would create yet more inequities in health, to join a crowded field: a rich person and a poor person with the same disease and the same desire to treat it, but the poor person dies because they don't have the money to pay for treatment, while the rich person lives". Tell me, are you the kind of moralising snit that blames poor people for being poor, so they get what they deserve, or do you have some other form of motivation, such as "the market will sort it all out"?

In any event, in answer to your question, health economists long ago needed to develop a method to compare the relative benefits and costs of different interventions and non-interventions. It's called the QALY, and in the UK, the cutoff for funding ("range of acceptable cost effectiveness") is set at about £30k (oh my god, a number! and set by the state and not a freeborn individual making sovereign decisions for their own selves. What cruel and stupid calculus is this!!). Given the UK median household income was ~£25k in 2004, it's clear that the UK health system provides a safety net for families against illnesses whose treatments would otherwise be catastrophically expensive or simply unaffordable.

Re:For that matter...

[ivan256]

If it's worth spending $200k to save your life, you can afford it. That doesn't mean you necessarily have cash on hand already, or that you have health insurance... It simply means that if you have the earnings potential after being saved, you can afford it. $200k isn't all that much money in that context. It's not "catastrophically" expensive given appropriate financing (which admittedly is an area that we could use some work on).

My motivations are neither of those that you speculated. They are simply that I wish to be in control over my care, and the amount of risk I wish to mitigate. I don't want others making the decision, and I don't want to pay for others making different decisions. Nor should I have to.

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

[Sigh]

I'll lay it out for you:

You originally said:
"Either people in the US blow out their joints way more frequently than Europeans with socialized health care (unlikely), or their system isn't providing them with that option [joint replacement surgery].
So our 'inferior' privatized system is providing more people with life-improving treatments..."

So you've provided two possible explanations for your observation that 50% of joint replacements globally happen on just 5% of the global population:
1. People in the US blow out their joints way more frequently than Europeans
2. Socialized health care systems are not providing them with the option for joint replacement surgery

I caricatured 2 as "pennypinching bureaucrats are cruelly denying Europeans of the care they need". Your "socialized health care / system" = my "pennypinching bureaucrats". Your "not providing" = my "cruelly denying". Your "that option / life-improving treatment" = my "the care they need". My caricature is thus firmly rooted in each part of your original explanation. And it's not much of a caricature, either -- your original statement was clearly implying that you thought the American system was better than European systems because it provided more access to joint replacements.

You then rephrased your original explanation as follows: "from a bureaucratic perspective, a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement"

It's still all in there: your "from a bureaucratic perspective" directly equals my "pennypinching bureaucrats". It also clearly implies "cruelly denying" (after all, who could read your sentence and not be moved to compare "a bureaucratic perspective" with "a humane perspective"?). And the only reading of the phrase "a $600 wheelchair or $200 walker is just as much a solution to the problem as a $25,000 joint replacement" that rings true is that you are saying "Europeans are being given wheelchairs instead of joint replacements as a cost-saving, ie pennypinching, measure"

Finally, you rephrased your original explanation from:
'Socialized health care systems aren't providing Europeans with the option of [joint replacement surgery]...so our 'inferior' privatized system is providing more people with life-improving treatments'
to:
"elective procedures are neglected if there is a cheaper option that covers the need"
By writing in the third person, and removing words such as "socialized", "privatized", 'inferior', "life-improving", you created a more dispassionate argument, but the core contention remains the same: the reason there are fewer joint replacements in Europe is that to save money, cheaper options are used instead.

Your position has thus not shifted at all throughout, which is good. And my description of your explanation holds as true for your third restatement of your position as your first. And I repeat, there is at least one other explanation for why Americans have joint replacement surgery more frequently than Europeans, and I think it's obvious: American doctors and insurance companies recommend earlier and more aggressive intervention than European doctors. And I went on to cite one example of where the jury is out on whether earlier and more aggressive intervention is worthwhile (breast cancer), and I'll now cite another example of where higher operating rates are undoubtedly because of earlier and more aggressive intervention: c-section rates.

Studies show that the best outcomes for mothers and babies appear to occur with cesarean section rates of 5% to 10%. Rates above 15% seem to do more harm than good (Althabe and Belizan 2006). And the rate in the US is about 33% (up ~50% in about a decade). And in the UK it's about 20%, and somewhat lower in many other European countries. I raise this to make clear that you cannot assume that a lower rate of intervention (eg fewer joint replacements) demonstrates worse levels of care or outcomes (eg more pain and less mobility).

Re:For that matter...

[shilly]

Mate, this is just horseshit. Asserting that "if it's worth spending $200k to save your life, you can afford it" doesn't make it so. There are tens of millions of people in your country and mine who could never even dream of persuading anyone to lend them that much money, nor of paying it back if by some weird chance some kindly bank manager made them the loan. In 2006, the bottom 20% of US households earned less than $19,178. Do you really believe that the vast majority of these households could ever get or pay back a loan of $200k (no matter how dire the consequences of not obtaining the money)? And if you don't consider $200k expensive, then have in mind that care can be much, much more expensive than that: well in excess of £1m for a single intervention. And of course, you don't always get to be conscious or competent at the point at which treatment decisions need to be made. For example, a young man was caught in a bomb blast in London in 2005. His care involved rescue by paramedics and firefighters, a complete resus team who restarted his heart twice, a full CT scan, a major trauma op involving six doctors, ten nurses and many more support staff, a microbiology team to identify and resolve fungal infections, another bout of surgery to remove a damaged eye and replace with a prosthesis, more surgery to resolve a pulmonary embolism, extensive stays in intensive care and rehab involving dozens more doctors, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and pyschiatrists, etc, plus prosthetic legs, vast amounts of pharmaceuticals, etc etc. The costs for this must easily have exceeded £500k. Lifetime costs will be much higher. He had no opportunity to make the kind of sovereign decisions about his care that you so fondly imagine, and at the most crucial point, nor did anyone who could be regarded as a guardian (parent, significant other).

This kind of story sits beautifully alongside your glorious statement that "if you have the earnings potential after being saved, you can afford it". So presumably, if you don't have the earnings potential after being saved, you can't afford the treatment. In which case, if someone's say, 80 years old and has a stroke, they should get the treatment only if they commit to going back to work. What happens if the stroke renders them unable to work, by the way?

hereditary

[Anonymous Coward]

So we saved her life. That's good. Because of our advanced medical science, this disease will claim fewer lives.

And she will likely grow up and have kids of her own.

And they will likely have this disease too.

And they will likely need access to practitioners of our advanced medical science to survive.

Before we start talking about Godwin, understand that I believe that racial diversity is necessary in order for the gene pool to remain healthy and adaptive. I am not advocating that we should have let this girl die. I am just pointing out the disturbing consequence of our science combined with our compassion: a species that is genetically weakened and hence increasingly dependent upon the availability of expensive medical caregivers.

I am sure various members of the medical industry love this trend. They are more than happy to provide an expensive service which makes it very likely that one (and one's offspring) will live long enough to continue needing more such expensive services.

And we will pay through the nose for them. It's that or die. And our children will pay for them too...in ever-increasing numbers...because their ancestors chose life-in-debt over natural selection.

Re:hereditary

[EvanED]

Oh stuff it. At least this article doesn't say what the "condition" that required operation was; for all you know it could be something that is just a one-time occurrence, or at least that requires a one-time fix for each person.

Re:hereditary

[Joseph Hayes]

well said my good man. I was just thinking along the same lines when I read your response.

Re:hereditary

[randyest]

Uh, yes it does. As does my comment and at least one other earlier in the thread. Do you read anything or just post?

Millie was born with a condition called gastroschisis, in which her bowels developed outside her body.

Gastroschisis is usually hereditary.

Re:hereditary

[EvanED]

Guess that's what I get for skimming the article.

Anyway, after reading the wikipedia article on gastroschisis, it still sounds like it's a one-time fix, and there's no reason to expect that she'll be much more of a burden healthwise later in life than anyone else.

Re:hereditary

[tattood]

And we will pay through the nose for them.

This is also why Social Security in America is in trouble. People are living longer meaning that they are collecting money from SS faster than it is being replenished by the work force.

Re:hereditary

[DakotaK]

You're aware that civilized people consider eugenics to be out of vogue, right?

Re:hereditary

[buddyglass]

On the other hand, this seems like a trait that would very quickly correct itself out of the gene pool if we, as a species, were ever to lose the ability to treat it. So there's little permanent "damage".

The alternative is that we decline to treat hereditary conditions that have a reasonable chance of ending a person's life before he or she reaches reproductive maturity. Or, perhaps, just decline to subsidize the treatment of such conditions.

Most lines of reasoning that argue for eugenics from a pragmatic point of view suffer from the slippery problem, though. For instance, how much more efficient and productive would humanity be if nobody were nearsighted? Nearsightedness is clearly a hereditary trait. Is it advisable to prevent the nearsighted from reproducing? Or, if not prevent, to deter via other means?

Most slashdot posters are fiercely protective when it comes to issues of personal freedom and privacy. And yet, I suspect many would either welcome or be ambivalent towards draconian reproductive policies as long as they served a desirable eugenic end. Seems hypocritical.

Re:hereditary

[element-o.p.]

Your argument is flawed for two reasons.

First, not everything that causes a dependence upon medical science is perpetuated to subsequent generations. I lost my kidneys to a non-hereditary disease at 21 -- ten years before I had a child. Yes, I now have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of my life, at quite a bit of cost to my health insurance provider, and that sucks. But my daughter should be free of the problem I had, and so should her children and so on.

Second, those of you who argue "survival of the fittest!!!" should keep in mind that a better understanding of science -- including medical science -- may well imply "more fit", even if it *physically* weakens us. Considering that, so far at least, humanity is one of the more successful species on the planet despite the fact that 1) we are far weaker than many other animal species, 2) we are far slower than many other animal species, 3) we have fewer natural defensive weapons (teeth, claws, venom, etc.) than many other animal species, 4) we have much poorer senses than many other animal species (and so on), I would say that there is ample evidence in favor of this line of reasoning.

Re:hereditary

[Anonymous Coward]

"And they will likely need access to practitioners of our advanced medical science to survive."

that's beginning to require a lot of "likely"

"a species that is genetically weakened and hence increasingly dependent upon the availability of expensive medical caregivers."

genetically weakened ? next to what ? Some genetic disease allow for unique strengths ( resistance to malaria, ability to process lactose ) or unique personnalities ( like hawking's )
the important thing is : we don't know what we will become, we just know that we will change. we will maybe become dependant on technology, but that dependance may be what allow us to become smarter. ( Beside on could argue that weakness depend of the environnement )

beside eugenics don't work, you know ? Sex is a great way of fixing what can't work in DNA.

Re:hereditary

[randyest]

Except that, should she have children, there's a good chance she'll pass on this disease to him/her/them, and so on, and so on, which was the GP's point that you apparently missed.

Re:hereditary

[EvanED]

Yes, but there is no ongoing medical treatment that's required because of it, which means that the additional burden is still relatively minimal (especially because it's a recessive trait so the chances it'll show up in a kid is not even that good unless she reproduces with someone else who had that condition). It's not like she'll need expensive treatment for her entire life.

Re:hereditary

[theelectron]

Your first point is flawed in that you are applying a condition (you non-hereditary condition) to what the GP was talking about (specifically a hereditary condition). So point 1 no longer applies.

Your second point is fair enough. Though you have to realize that our dependence on technology may take away our backup plan. If technology were to fail through some catastrophe, we would likely to have troubles as a species because we would be weak without the technology. What the GP may be addressing is the idea that would should use technology not as something to be dependent on, but as a supplement to a strong species. The problem mainly being is that many people view this as cruel, though that is subjective.

Re:hereditary

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but since she's going to be a possible ancestor to a fairly large number of future humans the cost in the long term may well be astronomic. Sometimes nature lets people die for a very good reason, heritable diseases are not things that you want to pass on to your children.

Re:hereditary

[corbettw]

a species that is genetically weakened and hence increasingly dependent upon the availability of expensive medical caregivers.

Your argument is as specious as the one made by australopitheci elders when they warned against using those new fangled "tools": that doing so would result in weaker apes who wouldn't be able to run fast enough to get away from leopards.

Evolution has resulted in our species having large, intelligent, brains. We're not going to weaken our species by using those brains to save people who wouldn't otherwise be saved.

Re:hereditary

[geekoid]

There is no such trend. Please take you paranoid delusional ranting elsewhere.

Re:hereditary

[geekoid]

Except we will ahve killed any possible predator by then.

Fit does not equal strong. If it was just strength, Elephants would rule the world.

It is cruel, and eventually we will be curing this stuff on the genetic level. For example, the genetics in her eggs could be changed to eliminate the disease, then do invitro Problem removed, and species is now fitter then before.

Our 'fitness' comes from our ability to think in a complex way.

Re:hereditary

[ChromeAeonium]

You're aware that scientific people consider eugenics to be out of vogue, right?

Not disagreeing, but you could have said that, too.

Re:hereditary

[Loki_1929]

No, Social Security is doomed (not in trouble), because it's built on a faulty concept of consistent inflation/monetary devaluation and consistent population/workforce growth patterns, and because it is drained of all its excess capital by law at the end of each fiscal year in exchange from Treasury Dept IOUs.

The collapse of Social Security is inevitable and always has been, and no amount of 'reform' will change that. What remains to be seen is whether we'll allow our national credit rating to go down with it. That would be the death of our economy as we know it, and would bring about a worldwide depression the likes of which has never been seen.

Re:hereditary

[Anonymous Coward]

...heritable diseases are not things that you want to pass on to your children.

Then why didn't your mommy get an abortion?

Re:hereditary

[EvanED]

Yes, but those fairly large number of future humans could very well also bring an astronomical amount of benefit to future society as well.

Re:hereditary

[wazza]

Hang on a sec... perhaps you need to broaden your perspective a bit. If we don't spend the fruits of our technological advances on increasing the viability of life, then what *are* we going to spend it on?

Cultural and intellectual pursuits for the naturally healthy masses?
(I'd argue that we do that anyways, and there are still resources left over.)

Mindlessly accruing wealth in various forms, for it's own sake?
(Again, I'd argue that we already do that.)

Surely the point of gaining some level of mastery over "good ol' mother nature" is to make us, as a species, more viable? Advanced (and yes, often expensive) medical treatments do this. I can only repeat my original question of you at this point: what else are you going to spend humanity's technological progress on (both knowledge and resources)?

Disclaimer of bias: I'm a type 1 diabetic, and I work in a hospital in a stroke unit.

Re:hereditary

[InadequateCamel]

Third, not every gene acts in a one-item, good/bad manner. A sensitivity or weakness may be due to a genetic sequence that simultaneously confers other benefits to those that survive, but that simply hasn't had a chance to express in larger numbers due to high infant mortality rates.

Re:hereditary

[quax]

Sounds like a good case for medical gene manipulation of the germline to fix this.

I find this whole evolutionary argument kind of redundant and very yesteryear. After all we are deepening the understanding of the human genome at an ever accelerating rate. I find it much more interesting to contemplate if gene therapy will eventually also be used to fix what ain't broken i.e. enhance healthy ordinary human genome.

Re:hereditary

[aproposofwhat]

From a very personal level, what you are saying is deeply wrong.

I understand your logic, but as the stepfather of an autistic spastic quadriplegic who was born at 28 weeks (roughly the limit for survival 20 years ago), the personal outweighs the social in this situation.

Your cynicism is misplaced - each human being is unique and adds to the sum of their family's happiness in a multitude of ways, no matter what the costs to society as a whole.

Re:hereditary

[albyrne5]

An absolutely excellent point, which I hadn't thought of.

Re:hereditary

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Guess you never heard about the Great Depression in the 1930's then.

Social Security was formed to help fix/prevent that from happening again.

Re:hereditary

[randyest]

How about spending it on increasing the quality of life for those who are "naturally healthy?" Quality > quantity you know.

Re:hereditary

[randyest]

As could the same number of "naturally healthy" humans without the expensive genetic disorder.

Re:hereditary

[InadequateCamel]

Thanks! This simple discussion about a dialysis machine quickly devolved into a hackneyed eugenics discussion, so I'm glad to hear that at least one person doesn't think I'm a total twit :-)

Re:hereditary

[yndrd1984]

So if something was created with good intentions, then it can't have flaws? I question your logic.

Guess who

[Anonymous Coward]

More information about these accounts can be found here.

What about folks with low blood pressure?

[AlienSexist]

My aged step-father requires Dialysis due to Liver & Kidney failure. Now with gradual Heart failure his blood pressure sometimes dips too low for dialysis - a crisis. So far we have been fortunate that his blood pressure comes back up a bit, at least high enough to perform the dialysis.

Might one suppose that this apparatus, designed for small people, might work for those with low blood pressure?

STFU

[an.echte.trilingue]

I have mod points, but I would rather say something.

That is a beautiful woman with a happy, healthy child child. Get out of your make-believe Hollywood world and into the real one. I for one, saw the picture and thought it was sweet.

Re:STFU

[uglydog]

hear hear

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw a picture even though I have my preferences set to the low bandwidth version and wondered "what the fuck?"

Re:STFU

[PMuse]

I, for one, saw the custom picture and wondered: is this /.?

Sure it's cute, but what's it doing here?

Re:STFU

[Sitnalta]

It's not that we don't care about the mother and daughter, it's just that it's the machine that made them remarkable. If that seems heartless, then you've overlooked the fact that kid would've died without it. I'm just saying it's worth a little more attention.

Re:STFU

[Hijacked Public]

Sweet or not, judging from the replies already here I'd say that if Slashdot starts posting photographs with each story the site will turn into half Flickbookbucket and half /b/ in short order.

Re:STFU

[jawtheshark]

Well said! We should know better than to judge people on externalities... Especially slashdotters, who aren't really in the hollywood "sexy" category either.

Re:STFU

[NemosomeN]

Externalities? The effects they have on people who are not direct parties to their transactions? Sounds like a fairly reasonable way to judge people to me.

Re:STFU

[jawtheshark]

Now excuse me that English is not my mother tongue.... I still have no idea how to say what I want to say. "Looks" perhaps, but that's not exactly what I want to say....

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that she was a fat little piggy. Not that I wouldn't have saved the daughter had I been the doctors, but she is FAR from beautiful.

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

You are welcome to your opinion, but please don't tell others to shut the fuck up. And why the heck did this get a +5? I'm moderating it flamebait, since it is a vulgar reply to flames and therefore a flame itself and should be kept at a lower level.

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

Superficial characteristics, outward appearance, something along those lines. I apologize, it wasn't a mistake that was obviously due to lack of familiarity with the language, so I assumed it was from a native speaker.

Re:STFU

[jawtheshark]

That's the main problem with knowing a language well, but not perfectly. It's not the first time, won't be the last. I just felt, dumb because I didn't find the right terms.

Re:STFU

[Fred_A]

I for one, saw the picture and thought it was sweet.

It would have been sweeter to see a picture of the machine, or a diagram or something. This adds nothing to the story. We aren't on CNN (think "human interest" people ! Bah)

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we looking at the same picture? The one I see is of an ugly chick and her ugly kid. Beauty is subjective. You may see a beautiful woman, not hard to believe. However, although you may not realize it yet, you are a homosexual. So you are looking at it from a different point of view than most of us.

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can, try to find a good simple "school dictionary", they usually define words in simpler terms than standard dictionaries and may be helpful in increasing your familiarity with the complexities of the language.

Re:STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

Obesity is the #1 cause of that condition where the intestines are born on the outside of the baby, ironic, isn't it!

Re:STFU

[jawtheshark]

Actually, I think you misunderstand. I speak and write five languages, and all of them quite well. The problem is mainly that one tends to mix them up when you do not find a word in a certain language. "externalities" was a translation of the French "externalités" which exactly means what I wanted to say. Being a polyglot isn't always as easy as one might think.

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[archammer2]

Mod parent up for showing some love to the big girls!

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[parryFromIndia]

True poetry, this I like to add.
Big lady, Big lady at the Starbucks Talk about sweet creamy latte and big nice smile - this lady's got it
Slim lady, Slim lady at the Starbucks Talk about bitter latte no cream and small awkward smile - that lady's got it
Good latte, big smile drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?

People with jobs and skills like this...

[zerofoo]

put my menial, insignificant, network admin job into perspective. Dr. Malcolm Coulthard is a brilliant man, and he is saving lives.

We should all try to be like this man.

-ted

Re:People with jobs and skills like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

People flipping burgers do just a good job of demonstrating the worth of your job. You can take that as a compliment if you want, but it wasn't meant as one.

The've got nothing on Dr. Venture

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dia_de_Los_Dangerous!

And he didn't even complete his doctorate!

Re:The've got nothing on Dr. Venture

[Bob The Cowboy]

.... or his Wikipedia article?

GTFO!

[Smidge207]

I, for one, saw a sweet, lovely FUCKING COW.

That is all.

=Smidge=

Not News

[Thelasko]

MacGyver did it in season 5 episode 5 "Second Chance" way back in 1989. He must have taped it and copied MacGyver's design.

Re:Not News

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Wow, I didn't think anyone could be such a big MacGuyver nerd, so I had to look this up and lo and behold:

Episode 88. Second Chance
First aired: 10/16/1989 Production Code: 88

In China, MacGyver and his old friend Jesse Colton help with a Phoenix Foundation funded hospital for sick children. While there, they discover a gang stealing supplies (including a dialysis machine vital to the survival of a girl name Susie) from the hospital, and something even more surprising: an Amerasian boy who is the son of Jesse Colton.

link

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

Never watched MacGyver myself, but Hawkeye and BJ built one in MASH when they had a guy with a failing kidney and couldn't get one because of some REMF screw-up. They had Radar get ahold of the guy who invented them and talked over what commonly available materials would work as subsitutes for the various parts. If I remember right it assembled in a steel washtub and involved glass jars and Margaret's nylon stockings.

Re:Not News

[Thelasko]

I vaguely remembered that episode from when I was a kid. I got the details from googling "MacGyver Dialysis Machine".

Re:Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

MASH did it first, with sausage casings and a metal bath.

Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

Hate to feed the trolls here.

Hate to break it to you but YOU are a troll.

But if you're going to post a picture, at least have it be of an medium attractive woman.

I always find it amazing that guys who are rather hideous themselves (Howard Stern I'm looking at you) seem to feel it is their job to criticize the appearance of women. It's especially comical here on a website devoted to nerd news where most of the readership wouldn't have any idea how to please a woman. Here's a clue - no one cares what your ugly ass thinks of someone else's appearance. If you feel the need to criticize you had better be a model yourself. Given that you are posting here on Slashdot that's pretty unlikely - so kindly shut the hell up.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[randyest]

guys who are rather hideous themselves

Speak for yourself.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

Speak for yourself.

My bad. Of course we all REALLY believe you are hot...

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

...you had better be a model yourself. Given that you are posting here on Slashdot that's pretty unlikely...

As a 26 year old model and C coder, and grandmother of three, I am offended by your comment.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[randyest]

Reality is unrelated to your belief. And there's a whole lot of territory between "hideous" and "hot."

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[catmistake]

The irony is, most women, even the beautiful ones, don't care about looks. Evolutionarily speaking, all they want is a good provider, fat, ugly, stupid, disagreable, whatever. So it sucks that my good looks, trim physique, high intelligence and friendly nature count for nothing because I'm so poor.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

i had some pretty awful pizza last night but since i'm not a chef I can't really say anything about it.

at least nobody can complain about my code now since they aren't programmers. I'll take the tradeoff.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[npfscayle]

oh so true :-\

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[kayditty]

Shut up, nerd.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[syukton]

Just because somebody is ugly doesn't mean they can't prefer to look at things that aren't ugly. Hypocrisy is everywhere.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

Just because somebody is ugly doesn't mean they can't prefer to look at things that aren't ugly.

Look at and think whatever you want. Just don't be an ass and criticize out loud, especially in public.

Hypocrisy is everywhere.

Amen to that.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

Reality is unrelated to your belief.

Reality is also unrelated to your opinion of yourself.

And there's a whole lot of territory between "hideous" and "hot."

And only a self absorbed narcissist like yourself would be concerned about where anyone thinks you fall on that scale.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

Not only those characteristics. Always remember this article. It is the secret guide to get more girls.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/21/1649224

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

I always find it amazing...

*I* always find it amazing that people write posts on public forums in which they order others to "shut the hell up."

Unless you are fully aware that it will just make the poster, and those of a similar opinion, post even more, and that is your intended result. I suppose some reverse-psychology may be at play here...

In any event, no matter how hideous I am....the lady in that pic is both fat and ugly. Maybe I am fat and ulgy too. Maybe I am just kind of plain. Maybe I am the best-looking being to ever sanctify the earth with a foot's imprint. It doesn't matter. *SHE* is fat and ugly, and I am going to sit here and write about how fat and ugly I find her, just because I can.

Mod me down. I deserve it.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

i had some pretty awful pizza last night but since i'm not a chef I can't really say anything about it.

Sure you can because the chef can do something about how he cooks. Bad cooking can be a mistake and can be corrected. But if you call someone ugly in public because they didn't win the genetic lottery THEN you are just an ass.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

Unless you are fully aware that it will just make the poster, and those of a similar opinion, post even more, and that is your intended result

Yep I'm fully aware you are a clueless, rude, arrogant, cowardly troll and yes I'm having fun showing what an imbecile you are. Next topic.

In any event, no matter how hideous I am....the lady in that pic is both fat and ugly.

Ahh, presumed objectivity. How nice. Because as we all know there is a single arbitrary scale of what is attractive which you and you alone determine for the rest of humanity. Thank $diety I have you to tell me whether a woman is hot or not because I couldn't possibly have an opinion different from yours.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Randseed]

I'm the opposite, buddy. It doesn't do me a damned bit of good.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you special? Are you the father of the fat little piggy that was saved?

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[jacquesm]

I think my 'bizarre' indicator just maxed out...

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

As a 26 year old model and C coder, and grandmother of three

As a 26 year old grandmother, you're certainly no role-model...

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[geekoid]

Note:
Those guys have no end of attractive women.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[geekoid]

Maybe there Ugly bacause they won't stop stuffing crap down their throat?
A lot of ugly can be corrected.

That said, I don't really care and thought the picture was cute...but looked oddly out of place.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy you think you're arguing with made no claims whatsoever about his own appearance. But don't let reality get in the way of a nice self-righteous rant.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on what role you're auditioning for, sweetheart.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[catmistake]

yeah, but you can certainly fiix that easily with money. Take a comedy class, get good at it... personality and being funny trumps all. Remember, while you almost never see an ugly or overweight woman with a handsome man (unless they married young and he is that rarest of breeds of men, i.e. decent), you will often see ugly or obese men with drop dead gorgeous women. Again, being funny trumps all.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[catmistake]

Now this, I know, is true. I have this old friend, known him forever so despite his character flaws, he's sort of like a brother. He looks like Brad Pitt, but according to my mother, my sister (former quite successful model), my female cousins, every girlfriend I've ever had, much better looking than Brad. Broke, sure. Total fucking sociopath. Intelligent, but no concept of morality... a psycological egoist. He can sure get girls... unbelievably hot girls. But he can't keep them. His longest relationship was his marriage, and that lasted all of 4 months. So, while I believe the story is true, I take it with a grain of salt.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[sjbe]

A lot of ugly can be corrected.

True enough though not all. More to the point it is rarely possible to correct "ugly" personalities in my experience. You know, the sort that call someone they've never met ugly in public without any justification whatsoever... I like Ron White's quote "You can't fix stupid".

That said, I don't really care and thought the picture was cute...but looked oddly out of place.

Agreed.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I detect a hint of jealousy on your part?

Just because you might be 300lbs with coke bottle glasses and a stupid haircut doesn't mean that everyone on Slashdot is. People shouldn't have to be all humble or lower their opinion of themselves because you can't handle it. There is nothing wrong with someone taking pride in how they look.

Also, you're a hypcrite. You are calling someone else self-absorbed without realising that you are the one who comes off as arrogant. I couldn't care less if you were arrogant, but hypocrites need to eat shit and die. This means you.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[The Slashdot Guy]

Fuck off. Just because I'm ugly doesn't mean I can't judge the ugliness of others.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[edittard]

personality and being funny trumps all.

And here's nothing more hilarious than being a billionaire!

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[An anonymous Frank]

I'm good looking AND a regular here, yet I don't ever comment on anyone's appearance; it's just irrelevant, crass and superficial, and speaks (unwelcome) volumes about the initiator rather than anything about the viewed subject:

I thought she looked like a rather happy mom, the emotion communicated here being love(ly)...

Perhaps *that* was too much to bare?

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote Pratchett:

'But I just don't seem to meet girls,' Nobby said. 'Well, I mean, I meet girls, and then they rush off.'

'Despite the cream.'

'Right.'

'And the exercises.'

'Yes.'

'Well, you've covered all the angles, I can see that,' said Angua. 'Beats me where you're going wrong.' She sighed. 'What about Stamina Thrum, in Elm Street?'

'She's got a wooden leg.'

'Well, then... Verity Pushpram, nice girl, she runs the clam and cockle barrow in Rime Street?'

'Hammerhead? Stinks of fish all the time. And she's got a squint.'

'She's got her own business, though. Does wonderful chowder, too.'

'And a squint.'

'Not exactly a squint, Nobby.'

'Yes, but you know what I mean.'

Angua had to admit that she did. Verity had the opposite of a squint. Both eyes appeared to be endeavouring to see the adjacent ear. When you talked to her, you had to suppress a feeling that she was about to walk off in two directions. But she could gut fish like a champion.

She sighed again. She was familiar with the syndrome. They said they wanted a soulmate and helpmeet but sooner or later the list would include a skin like silk and a chest fit for a herd of cows.

If anything, what might get results is treatment of each person as an individual, rather than discussing girls' behaviour in 'evolutionary' terms... Oliver Curry, is that you?? If so, get another job, noone's interested in your Morlock fantasies... perv.

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[kayditty]

$diety LOL WELL THAT CHICK DOES NEED TO GO ONTO A DIET IF YOU KNOW WHAT I AM SAYING MAN Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!

Re:Ugly guys shouldn't comment on appearance

[kayditty]

This guy gets it, and it's really sad that almost everyone in society would not hesitate to beat people like him over the head if offered the chance to do so without fear of retribution. I really don't understand why most everyone has to be so stupid and illogical; I'm going to guess that a lot of it has to do with the inertia of ancient cultural norms and mores. On the other hand, these things are constantly brainwashed into young minds, driven into the brains of college kids with even more venom, and re-inforced through the public media on a daily basis.

The solution is intellectual integrity and bravery just like that which has been displayed by the parent. Yes, there is objective beauty. No, your opinion is not equal to others. Yes, you can criticize the looks of others even if you irrelevantly have looks to be critical of yourself (and how could you not?). No, it is not hypocrisy; it, in fact, has absolutely as much to do with hypocrisy as your mother (you, the person reading this post, your mother) has to do with being attractive. It would be hypocritical of me to suggest that someone should commit some action that I am guilty of not commiting myself for similar reasons that that person might (although it is confusing to me, personally, why anyone would consider any action, let alone commit one). For instance, if I had said you are fat and you need to start eating less, while I was also fat and munching on Cheetos as I typed that very comment, that might be hypocritical. For me to make an observation about the nature of your appearance is not in itself hypocritical and can not be so, despite the wishful thinking of the everybody's-equal, Obama-loving socialists that our (yes, I am making an assumption that you are a fat, disgusting Amerikanz) educational system has bred.

Well, maybe, but

[hey!]

would you expect this to happen in a country with "socialized medicine"?

Re:Well, maybe, but

[Anonymous Coward]

would you expect this to happen in a country with "socialized medicine"?

You mean, like in England, where this story took place? That place has a "socialized medicine" system, so it would never happen--oh, wait.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[VJ42]

This happened here in the UK, we have the NHS. Indeed this appears to have been done by a doctor working in the NHS.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[comp.sci]

I don't think the motivation for building this had anything to do with compensation or payment. Socialized medicine really just means to provide equal care to all. (and in Western states this means excellent care - check life expectancy statistics!)

Re:Well, maybe, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Except this wouldn't be news where there isn't socialized medicine. If you're willing to pay for it, and assume the risks, you can get most any treatment you desire.

And if not here, Mexico and many countries south are willing to work on you for unconventional or experimental treatments.

Problem is you're in England. You're stuck with socialized health care.

If you're to wait in line for treatment, go somewhere like Canada. If you want treatment NOW, go the US. If you have the money, the treatment is already here.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[laddiebuck]

In the sense the GP was using it, perhaps. But there is a real sense in which the term 'socialised medicine' is a narrower subset of 'universal healthcare'. This narrower term really only applies to the UK and Cuba, where healthcare is mostly run (not just paid for) by the government.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this shows that irony is a dead language.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[19061969]

"Problem is you're in England. You're stuck with socialized health care."

First, it's the United Kingdom, not England. Second, a national health service is not "socialised medicine". Socialised medicine is just perjorative spin used by heavy investors in healthcare to ensure that their profits remain uninterrupted. What the NHS is, is a national health service funded by tax contributions. Roads in the US are paid for by taxes. Does this mean you have a "socialised transport network"? Third, if you don't want to use the NHS, you can go private and be seen immediately, in the UK. There are plenty of private healthcare facilities along with various plans, insurance policies etc. Fourthly, the NHS appears to deliver higher quality treatment for a lower cost than in the US and for many conditions (eg, cancer) there is no waiting. Still, who cares about the health of a nation when shareholder value is booming? There is also no wrangling with insurance companies or having to remortgage your house or borrow vast amounts of money with little realistic hope of paying it back.

Having lived in countries with both a NHS and with entirely private healthcare, I can say from sore personal experience that I would take the NHS every time.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[shilly]

Are you being deliberately dumb?

The choices are not:
1) Get whatever care you need in the wonderful US
2) Stand in line in commie Britain

The choices are:
1) Get whatever care you individually can afford in the US (rationing by cost)
2) Get whatever care you as a country decide via the government you can collectively afford in the UK, potentially waiting up to 18 weeks for it (rationing by waiting list)

The former method tends to ensure that rich people live even longer and healthier lives than poor people than would otherwise be the case. The latter method leads to endless grumbling about cruel governments denying people access to treatments that cost more than £30k/QALY.

Re:Well, maybe, but

[dwater]

> Having lived in countries with both a NHS and with entirely private healthcare, I can say from sore personal experience that I would take the NHS every time.

I agree.

I've e-screamed at more than a few health insurance agents because they can't find me a company that will insure existing conditions without paying a huge premium; and companies that decide, out of the blue, that they don't want to ensure me any more - not because I'm a huge risk, but I'm in a group of people who seem to claim more frequently that they're happy with. So, I'm forced to declare all my existing conditions and anything I've been treated for previously, and they say they won't pay for anything related to those conditions.

Private health case sucks big time, IMO. It's a SCAM.

Truly, medical geeks are the alpha geeks.

[hey!]

It's got to take serious balls to whip something like this up and plug somebody's baby into it, even if the baby was going to die.

Re:Truly, medical geeks are the alpha geeks.

[Sentry21]

Nah, you just need to make sure you have a fresh backup of the baby in case it doesn't work. Then you refine your design and try again. This is why checking your baby into version control is always a good idea, ESPECIALLY after first being released into the wild.

Re:Truly, medical geeks are the alpha geeks.

[Tony Hoyle]

Hmm...

Don't plug it in:

Risk: Baby dies.
Reward: At least you didn't (directly) kill it.

Plug it in:
Risk: Baby dies.
Reward: Baby lives, you get lots of press, someone buys your design and you never have to worry about money again.

I'd do it..

Re:Truly, medical geeks are the alpha geeks.

[AngelofDeath-02]

Plug it in:
Risk: Baby dies. You directly caused it, and are now sued into oblivion.
Reward: Baby lives, you get lots of press, someone buys your design and you never have to worry about money again.

Re:Truly, medical geeks are the alpha geeks.

[T.E.D.]

Yup. And before performing maintenence, always mount a scratch baby

Re:Truly, medical geeks are the alpha geeks.

[makohund]

This was rated "informative"? Now THAT is wacky/scary...

Blood volume

[Anonymous Coward]

The normal adult has about 70 ml blood per kg body weight, or about 5 L total. An infant has something like 90 ml/kg, IIRC (I'm a doctor but not a neonatologist), so that would be about 270 ml for a 3 kg newborn. Two tablespoons would be about 10% of that, which is about what someone can lose suddenly without serious symptoms.

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll? You morons, he posted lyrics to a Spinal Tap song!

Most women gain more than the weight of baby

[drerwk]

Sorry AKA - very much depends on starting size.
http://www.babycenter.com/pregnancy-weight-gain-estimator Pregnancy weight gain estimator
Estimate for my wife:

You should gain roughly 25-35 lbs. during your pregnancy. Over the last two trimesters you should gain about 4 lbs. every 4 weeks. How it breaks down If you gained the average of range above, this is where the weight would go (totals are rounded): Maternal: Uterus 2.39 lbs. Breasts 1.0 lbs. Blood 3.09 lbs. Water 4.15 lbs. Fat 8.27 lbs. Subtotal 18.89 lbs. Fetal: Fetus 7.5 lbs. Placenta 1.6 lbs. Amniotic Fluid 1.97 lbs. Subtotal 11.07 lbs. Total 29.96 lbs.

And even though you are posting on /. - I'll trust the baby center site over your own experience.

Re:Most women gain more than the weight of baby

[drerwk]

re-readGP. He is talking about not gaining during pregnancy.

Re:Most women gain more than the weight of baby

[AKAImBatman]

No, I was responding to someone who was talking about people being fat after pregnancy. GP is correct.

Re:Most women gain more than the weight of baby

[drerwk]

Ok, I'm not really sure how I became so confused: I continue to read your post as if you are suggesting it is a fallacy that a women would gain weight during pregnancy. Your post is included below. I don't see any mention of after in it. My browser must be replacing 'after' with 'during'. Weird.

I thought women put on weight during pregnancy?

Only if you count the baby. This idea that women gain ten pounds during pregnancy is a fallacy that was propogated[sic], in part, by an early belief in the medical establishment that women needed to gain weight for a healthy pregnancy. Once that idea was disproven[sic], fewer women forced themselves to gain weight during pregnancy. In fact, most women only experience a mild increase in food intake while pregnant. My understanding is that it's more important to pay attention to sudden food cravings, as those are often signs of missing minerals and vitamins. (e.g. my wife wanted bananas while she was pregnant)

Re:Most women gain more than the weight of baby

[AKAImBatman]

That was poor wording on my part. What I'm trying to say is that women often say that they gain weight during pregnancy that does not come off after pregnancy. (e.g. You'll sometimes hear, "You gain 10 pounds for every baby!") The truth is, however, women eating a normal diet will only have a slight increase in their food consumption and will NOT see a weight gain after pregnancy because of their eating during pregnancy. Many women actually lose weight after their pregnancy compared to before their pregnancy.

It's silly to say that women will weigh the same during pregnancy since there are a dozen or so biological reasons why they are carrying more weight. The key is that it comes off after because it's all related to the baby. The respondent to your post appears to have understood that point.

There's a post higher in this thread where I detail the weight gains.

How long did this take to develop?

[fit-old-fart]

I'm just wondering how long something like this would take to develop? Did they use standard parts or did they have to fabricate them?

Need DIY Ultrasound...

[Anonymous Coward]

Such imaging technologies are not so remote that you couldn't produce homebrew ones. My podiatrist had an Ultrasound box about the size of a small PC.

Re:Need DIY Ultrasound...

[wazza]

You could probably make a homebrew version of the data capture, processing, analysis and display equipment (i.e. the stuff that can be done in software/basic hardware, on a PC) without much more than a decently powerful PC, a PhD in mathematics, and a few tens of thousands of hours. Our new-ish ultrasound machine (XP based) uses a dual-processor Xeon motherboard as the main data-aggregation, display, and front-end software/UI processing hardware.

Just add in a quad processor, quad-core motherboard with oodles of RAM, and that could most likely handle the signal processing.

The killer would be the very small, very specialized, finely engineered ultrasound probes - row upon row of ultra-precisely-aligned piezoelectric crystals, with backing layers of carefully mixed ceramic & alloy materials, focusing layers of carefully made ceramic materials, and so on. These things cost us (in Australia) anywhere from $10k to $23-25k each. Also, this isn't a static field in terms of R&D - ask anyone who's used an older Philips HDI5000 to compare the quality of the images they got with that machine's probes, versus what they can get on (say) the newer IU-22 family machines, or the Siemens Antares machine. The difference is beautiful - makes my job a whole lot easier.

You could do a homebrew, but without using a third-party, already built probe, you'd have a piece of all-but-useless junk. Buy a modern machine and two probes - you can do so for under $175k for a top-of-the-range unit, with a fair few software-processing extras included. Much, much cheaper options exist too (under $40k).

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll? You morons, he posted lyrics to a Spinal Tap song!

Spinal Tap are shit!

Weapons of Mass...pain.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess some sort of reclining jello chair that resonates with certain sonic frequencies that he can send in the mail. See, being MacGyver isn't THAT hard.

I was thinking somthing along the lines of using a resonant frequency inspired of the tuning force adapted to neutralise the poison inside each nematocyst sack of a jellyfish. Then we'll strip down the lawn chair to the two square metal frames, and have maybe unwoven a quantity of 36 lengths of that 2 inch by 18 inch biodegradable plastic used in the lawn chair butt and back support. Removing some of the pop-rivets holding the two main squares of metal together to the chair arm-rest, and two beams that are folded to become the chair legs...

I don't see anything yet... wait. The chair frame is pipe..hollow.hrm.... I think we can safely chop the jellyfish into a mulch, bend some of the frame together and tied to an uppertorso as a blowgun, and shoot everyone we see with non-lethal stinging jellyfish plasma. We can then wrap some of it up in a plastic-wrap envelope and send it through the mail with a postage stampe so we can get the thing to explode on the mail-sorting conveyor system that will lead to it all adhering to someone else's mail and thus stinging the mail handlers and recipients.

Excellent!

Re: Not News -- Parent is not joking!

[Shux]

From the first comment here: http://www.amazon.com/MacGyver-Complete-Season-Charles-Correll/dp/B000CNESLW

5.) Second Chance First aired: 10/16/1989
In China,Macgyver and his old friend Jesse Colton help with a Phoenix Foundation funded hospital for sick children. While there,they discover a gang stealing supplies (including a dialysis machine vital to the survival of a girl name Susie) from the hospital,and something even more surprising: a Amerasian boy who is the son of Jesse Colton. A son he never knew he had. When he and Mac find out the boy helped the gangsters steal the supplies,they must get them back,before Susie dies....

Speaking from experience...

[sisina]

This idea that women gain ten pounds during pregnancy is a fallacy

I'd be interested to see some sources on that. As I understand it, the current medical recommendation in the US is that a 30-40 pound weight gain is healthy. I gained about 40 pounds during pregnancy, and my baby weighed 7.7 pounds. Even counting placenta and blood loss, that's a pretty decent weight gain, and it's average among my acquaintance. Most mothers I know gain at least that much. And trust me, it's not from trying. When the kid orders up a 16-ounce steak, that's what it gets.

Re:Speaking from experience...

[arthurpaliden]

When my wife got pregnant she was 130lbs. When she gave birth after eight months in hospital she only weighed 110 (baby included). Then for some really strange reason she never let me touch her again.

Re:Speaking from experience...

[ne0n]

8 months in the hospital isn't normal. Losing weight during pregnancy is probably unhealthy, unless you're talking about these gigantic American Coke-swilling garbage-aholics.

Re:Speaking from experience...

[NemosomeN]

I think she gave birth after 8 months, and was weighed in the hospital. Just my guess.

Re:Speaking from experience...

[arthurpaliden]

She was one of the very few people who is violently alergic to being pregnant. She was puking every 15 to 30 minutes for days on end.

Re:Speaking from experience...

[PitaBred]

Andy my wife has actually lost weight during her pregnancy (4 months so far!). It depends a lot on if you had any extra weight in the first place. If you look at most recommendations, you'll see from 100-300 more calories a day is all a woman typically needs to keep up with the demands of a baby. More than that, and it's just using pregnancy as an excuse to eat more.

Re:Speaking from experience...

[sisina]

The weight gain tends to come toward the end of the pregnancy. Those 100-300 extra calories a day don't all get burned -- you do need some extra fat by the end of your pregnancy to support breastfeeding, which requires about 500 calories a day.

Re: Not News -- Parent is not joking!

[Thelasko]

Well... I was half joking. Also, the Wikipedia article about that episode is incomplete. TV.com was my reference.

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[mcpkaaos]

That is what makes them so awesome.

DIY Dialysis Machine Diagrams?

[JWSmythe]

    Where's the diagrams?

    You can't advertise a DIY Dialysis machine with no diagrams.

    Hell, I thought I'd get instructions on building a kick-ass hangover machine. Drink all I want one night, clean my blood the next morning, and all would be good.

    I hate false advertising.

Re:DIY Dialysis Machine Diagrams?

[whoop]

Actually, when dialysis removes the alcohol (pretty quickly, in the first hour typically), your blood pressure crashes, needing follow up care. It's not a very good way to go about it, honestly...

What?!

[PPH]

No duct tape?

Good Samaritan Defense Fund

[bill_mcgonigle]

In theory, there would be no standing to sue under the good samaritan laws.

Eh, that never kept the sharks away. Could somebody please start a Good Samaritan Defense Fund charity so people will fell less antisocial due to fears of tort suits?

Lynx?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I for one, saw the picture

I thought most Slashdotters used lynx so people wouldn't know they were slacking off?

Re:Lynx?

[ZzzzSleep]

I use Opera, but I turn off images. Does that count?

Re:Lynx?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it look like you're slacking off while you do so?

Re:Lynx?

[edittard]

What use is lynx for that, it's text only?

Ah. You said 'slacking off'. My bad!

is there a Howto somewhere?

[catmistake]

TFA is deliciously vague. I need something similar for my CRF cat. Where is the howto link?

Get a grip people

[msoori]

This is a great story and its sad how people are making rude comments about the mom. If you had a dying child, you were helpless and couldn't do anything to help save the child, you'd be like that too. So, please be a bit more sensitive about others. Regardless, this is something that can save the life of these insensitive people's children too if needed (if they are able to reproduce in the first place!) Give the guy some credit doing the best as a doctor to save a life.

Re:Accurate

[drerwk]

Well I suppose the mods know nothing.

Two fallacies in one!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're aware that civilized people consider eugenics to be out of vogue, right?

Whether or not some group of people considers it to be "out of vogue" has little to do with whether or not it is a good idea (or valid observation, as in this case the poster wasn't actually advocating eugenics so much as observing the consequences of the current trend). Reasoning that the group must be right because it is a group is known as the "bandwagon fallacy."

Also, you are subtly implying that the poster is not civilized. Be that as it may...uncivilized people can still make correct statements. Rejecting an idea because of some attribute of the person who states it is known as the "ad hominem" fallacy.

But I suppose if a little irrational thinking allows you to post comments that make you feel superior, have at you!

Re:Two fallacies in one!

[tehcyder]

Also, you are subtly implying that the poster is not civilized. Be that as it may...uncivilized people can still make correct statements. Rejecting an idea because of some attribute of the person who states it is known as the "ad hominem" fallacy.

Bullshit, the original poster was subtly alluding to the fact that the idea of eugenics leads logically to Nazism.

Simpsons Quote

[jzuccaro]

Homer: What if instead of donating one of my old worn out kidneys, I gave grandpa that artificial kidney I invented.

Marge: Oh Homer, that was just a beer can with a whistle glued to it

anonymous coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Old news... Bin Laden obviously has been using a mini-dialysis machine for years. It's even has stealth tech built into it.

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Dialysis for babies: 2 major technical challenges

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with dialysis devices is blood volume. A large area is usually required to get effective mass transfer across the semi-permeable dialysis membrane. That large area must be exposed to a volume of blood, and on the other side, to dialysis fluid (this is an equilibrium problem). So, large area --> large volume to cover that area --> lots of blood volume tied up in the device. Babies don't have much spare blood volume, to supply the device.

Another problem is overcoming the flow resistance in such a device, this has already been pointed out. Large area --> large pressure drop. Babies don't have big hearts, and pushing a large pressure drop for an extended time is a significant stress.

Or do some sport and try healthy food

[Anonymous Coward]

Get out of your make-believe Hollywood world and into the real one.

Or move to a continent such as Europe where there are still lots of fit girls and where the proportion of obesity in the populations isn't as high as in northern america (Yet. But it is getting widespread at an alarming rate)

I for one, saw the picture and thought it was sweet.

And I for one, happen to live in an European city featuring a good share of sexy girls.

But I agree on one point with you : it is just plain mean and cruel to criticise this woman only because of her weight.

Re:Or do some sport and try healthy food

[bob_herrick]

Or move to a continent such as Europe where there are still lots of fit girls and where the proportion of obesity in the populations isn't as high as in northern america (Yet. But it is getting widespread at an alarming rate)

While I know that folks in the UK don't think of themselves as true 'Europeans,' they are in the EU. This took place at

FTFA: "Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary"

which sounds like good old England to me.

Sorry, but this is /.

[DrYak]

You must be new here

But if you're going to post a picture, at least have it be of an medium attractive woman.

No, on /., if you're going to post a picture, at least have it be of an *attractive technology*, like the DIY machine it self.

Good show!

[Neanderthal Ninny]

My father & mother-in-law both had kidney failures and relegated to kidney dialysis machines. I seen the various sizes of kidney dialysis machines at the kidney dialysis centers but never though one for the size of a infant or toddler. It is sad to see children about 5 years old that need kidney dialysis due to many factors but at least they have an kidney dialysis machine. Kidney dialysis takes much out of you and it never a permanent solution. I never though a infant or toddler will ever need one.
It is great for these doctors to make one for this infant and they should find a manufacture to make them for infants and toddler that will eventually need them. It is great for them to have the technical knowledge and creative skills to make such a device.
Again good show!

Re:WTF? "What is a DIGG?"

[davidsyes]

"Deftly Incessant Digital Gnomes?"

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"intervening act", "proximate cause", yada yada

[Anonymous Coward]

If the doc's gamble on an unproven treatment didn't pay off and the patient died sooner than he/she would have without any treatment then there's the liability of knowing he robbed the patient of days, weeks or months of time with their family -- not to mention the potential liability of criminal charges for causing someone to die before their time (aka "killing them").

Personally I think patients diagnosed as terminal by approved treatment approaches ought to be able to choose (themselves! never their doctor's sole choice) to gamble their life on an unproven treatment but that comes awfully close to infringing on the AMA's monopoly so it'll never be legal.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[bertvv]

he posted lyrics to a Spinal Tap song!

Frank Zappa, I think you'll find...

EMTALA

[raygundan]

You're absolutely right. EMTALA essentially created universal healthcare in the US by making it illegal for an emergency room to refuse to treat someone based on their ability to pay. This is (in my opinion) a worthwhile goal, but one which is terribly inefficient with health-care money if not backed by a socialized healthcare system at the same time.

If you've got no healthcare, but get sick, you can roll into the ER for free treatment. Of course, ER care is an order of magnitude more costly than care from a family doctor, and does not include checkups, history, or preventative care that could have avoided the issue in the first place. It also requires that you wait until your condition is far enough gone that it constitutes an emergency, likely making things more difficult and expensive to treat.

So we pay for healthcare for everybody, except we do it as inefficiently as possible, tying up ER doctors, nurses and facilities with things that should have been taken care of at a tenth the cost elsewhere, earlier, and without occupying a bed somewhere at a facility designed for broken bones and heart attacks, not festering infections you should have had cleaned up a year ago.

Re:EMTALA

[T.E.D.]

If you've got no healthcare, but get sick, you can roll into the ER for free treatment.

Not quite. The hospital still charges everyone. Its just that if you are poor you can't pay. So what you end up doing is declaring bankrupcy. As less and less people have coverage every year, the amount of bankrupcies due to medical bills is skyrocketing. Its now well over half of all bankrupcies.

There's a clear moral problem here. Fortunately, our last "family values" congress saw this and acted quickly. They made personal bankrupcy much harder to declare. Whew! Dodged a moral bullet there.

Re:EMTALA

[raygundan]

You're correct. I definitely oversimplified-- the care is only "free" in the sense that you can't squeeze blood from a stone. If you can't pay, you can't pay, but they still have to treat you.

Why is this news?

[Myrkridian42]

While a DIY dialysis machine is pretty awesome; it was successfully designed, built and put into use 2 years ago. Shouldn't this story have come out then?

Or... insurance isn't an idealized market.

[weston]

Perhaps because it prevented an increase in premiums? Or it went into preventing a decrease (or an outright increase) in quality of care?

These possibilities are worth considering.

Or course, it's also quite likely that malpractice insurance companies, health care providers, and health insurers had little incentive to pass any savings on to those insured. An insurance marketplace isn't like some other basic marketplaces like, say, restaurants (if it were, we wouldn't eat out at the restaurant of our choice, we'd get subsidized meals at the company affiliated locations). Most of us don't chose our health plan on our own, and nobody really knows how good their plan is until they really, really need it -- and by that point, if there's a problem, you're going to have trouble getting someone else to cover you, so it's not easy to switch away from a poor alternative. Furthermore, choice at signup time is plagued by the problem of considerable information asymmetry -- the insurance companies most assuredly have an army of actuaries and lawyers and others to assess and manage the risk each potential new customer adds to the pool, but individual consumers don't have ready access to similarly significant information about insurers for comparison, and even where some sources exist, the time investment's pretty daunting. Market forces operate pretty weakly for the consumer, if at all.

So, two plausible scenarios:

1) Tort reform prevented cost increases, and resulted in more stable costs for consumers, but not price reductions
2) Tort reform prevented cost increases, and resulted in more stable or reduced costs for insurers, who kept extra as profits

Which is it? Either's fairly plausible; we'd probably have to see either stats on health care / insurance prices in texas, or have public balance sheets for insurers....

Re:Or... insurance isn't an idealized market.

[riverat1]

How about:

3) Tort reform didn't make any difference because even though you hear about the occasional huge awards the cost of malpractice suits doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the overall picture.

Re:Or... insurance isn't an idealized market.

[TheLink]

Yeah, I suspect if a large insurance company just delays policy pay outs for one or two days they'll make enough money to cover a huge malpractice suit.

Of course delayed pay outs may mean some people will die. But hey that often means you pay out less (the dead don't usually continue getting fancy expensive medical treatment ).

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[Anonymous Coward]

Frank Zappa, I think you'll find...

No, you moron, Spinal Tap...

Why didn't this hospital have neonatal dialysis?

[LagFlag]

My first thought when I saw this article a few days ago on news.google.com was... Why didn't this hospital have a neonatal dialysis machine, or transfer the child to a tertiary care center that did? Is this what it's like in the NHS, that they are willing to let a baby die for lack of renal replacement therapy? I can't help but think that in the US, no physician would have had to develop this piece of equipment in his garage, because many tertiary care centers have this equipment already.

Re:WTF? "What is a DIGG?"

[Wandering Wombat]

Well, now I know what a DIDG is...

Chocolate

[Prien715]

And if you could tell me what minerals and vitamins are in chocolate fudge brownies (my wife's latest craving at 7 and a half months) I'd love to know.

Chocolate is rich in a certain class of flavonoids as well as other anti-oxidants. It's rich in the alkaloid theobromine has been linked to fewer birth defects in rats.

Our food cravings have evolved over millions of years and are so common, they probably provide some sort of survival advantage.

NICE

[Builder]

I'm surprised this doctor isn't being sued by NICE out here. We're such a nanny state :)

Re:Why didn't this hospital have neonatal dialysis

[pandrijeczko]

But in the US, if you can't pay the admission fee of a tertiary care centre through health insurance, then you don't get in.

Yes, our NHS has problems but at least the care is free.

So you "septics" go and sort your health service out first before poking your fat snouts into ours.

Re:Why didn't this hospital have neonatal dialysis

[Anonymous Coward]

This is incorrect. The hospital will admit you and treat you, but you will be required to pay out of pocket for the service. You are treated first and then you are sent the bill.

In addition, I know of no Health Insurance company who tracks your movements so specifically. You get whatever treatement you need as recommended by your doctor. The cost of the treatment is forwarded to your Insurance company. If there is a dispute about your treatment or any cost associated with the treatment you get the bill later.

The only time you pay up front is for doctors visits. Since the average co-pay is around $20 you can pay right away, though I belive even then you can ask them to send you a bill later.

Your comment is just more propaganda against a private health care system.

Keep in mind I don't know enough about costs and benefits to say which is actually better. But US hospitals don't turn away patients without insurance. In fact, the ER will often take in and treat walk-ins with no insurance and let them go without paying.

Re:this lady need DIY plastic surgery and lyposuct

[QwertyKing56]

Since when did Slashdot turn into 4chan? What's posted for discussion isn't the attractiveness of the woman in the picture, but the medical marvel of a couple doctors building their own custom dialysis machine for an infant. Please keep your opinions of beauty to yourself; I will.

Don't spread the news to the terrorists!

[Anonymous Coward]

An easily portable dialysis machine is just what Osama has been looking for!
Can't tell you how much of a PITA it is to push one of the standard bulky ones through the mountain caves of Afghanistan.