Slashdot Mirror
Cheap Incubator Backpack Could Reduce Infant Deaths
Boy Wunda writes "In just one six-month period in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2006, 96 newborn babies who were in need of medical care died before they could get help. In many developing nations, these deaths could be prevented simply by providing better ways for medical responders to transport infants properly over rough terrain and keep them alive until they can reach hospitals and clinics. Now, a group of Colorado State University seniors has designed and filed a patent for a medically equipped incubator backpack unit that they believe can reduce baby deaths in medical emergencies both in the United States and in newly industrialized nations."
I was hoping this would be just the ticket for helping me with my cross-border baby-smuggling operation. But the thing's transparent, kinda defeating the whole purpose of "smuggling", and it's huge but can only carry one baby!
I'm sticking with my REI-brand frame backpack for baby smuggling. Swing and a miss, CSU. Swing and a miss.
The enemies of Democracy are
Even the article say so: "We have to say that being carried skin to skin by a warm human body in a baby-carrier (aka 'kangaroo care') actually sounds a lot more humane, safe and baby-friendly for a newborn than being carried strapped to a board in a giant plastic box...But, we have to ask: wouldn't a low-tech solution of using a cloth baby-carrier on a compassionate person often be better, safer, cheaper and easier than this ginormous contraption? It's been scientifically shown that the best way to regulate the breathing and heartbeat of a newborn infant is to have that infant snuggle up, chest-to-chest, skin-to-skin with his mom or dad right after birth."
Also, it's 2010. We don't call them 'third world countries' anymore. We call them 'developing nations'. The former is so Cold War...
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
While this seems like a great idea for helping babies (I'm not a doctor), why can't they just publish the idea so everyone can benefit instead of just the cities / villages / towns / areas / families / whatever that can afford to buy one? The patent part is all about making money. At the expense of dying children. No different than drug companies (and many others) in my eyes. Although I do have to say that when I was their (apparent) age, I wanted to be filthy rich and didn't see anything wrong with that. Now that I'm (supposedly) more mature (and much older), I see things like this and wonder why can't people just do some things for the good of mankind? No I'm not naive, I just don't understand human nature sometimes.
There are no stupid questions, only stupid people asking questions.
my infant was just released from the hospital.. total cost of stay, $101,520 for 68 days... they do it for the good of mankind, so long as mankind has his Health Insuranse Plan card.
Actually, even altruists frequently file for patents for their inventions, then they simply allow free and unfettered licensing of the product.
After all, if they don't patent it, someone will. And the control over the invention goes to the first patentholder, not the first inventor.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
But how do you get the baby to wear the backpack?
Because here's a bitter reality: a whole bunch of people worked on this thing for a long time - months, or even years, to make it happen. If you want to appeal to emotion ("at the expense of dying children") - I'll do the same - these people quite likely have children who will be homeless and possibly starve if their parents are putting months or years worth of work only to have it given away "for the good of mankind".
Now if you want to suggest that a government or generous charity should buy it then that's fine, but you can't expect people to starve because the work they have done happens to benefit the needy, because I can tell you the immediate result of that: people won't bother with working on this sort of thing anymore.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I agree.. I do think we're becoming less physically fit/resilient as a result of modern medicine. The strong and the weak both survive. However, now that we are no longer being selected based on physical fitness, people like Stephen Hawking get to survive, who would not have lasted 1 second in the jungle or 1 year in the dark ages in his current state. I'm hoping our gradual loss of fitness and natural survivability is outweighed by the occasional Stephen Hawkings of world, who should not have survived, but are making great contributions to mankind because they're alive. And then one day, when we can code out the weaknesses out of our genes, it will all be a moot point.
That is, if don't get over-run by the Idiocracy first.. I would say the best evolved "class" of humans for the current environment on Earth (with welfare, etc), is one that can reproduce rapidly and live off of the productivity of others. Maybe somebody needs to set up a "Foundation" somewhere in Antarctica, to protect our advances/knowledge throughout a possible idoicracy/dark-ages (also useful as a refuge against Tripod attacks..)
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
Yes, it's technically possible to overturn a patent, but an altruist would have to go through a lot of effort and a massive amount of money to gain access to their own invention only to give it away.
If you invent something, patent it immediately, whether you intend to profit from it or not. If you choose to freely share the invention, fine, at least with a patent on file you won't get some troll who jumps claim on you and starts barring you from using your own invention.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
they do it for the good of mankind, so long as mankind has his Health Insuranse Plan card
Why are health care practitioners derided when they want to make a decent living just like the rest of us? The harsh reality is, the only reason your child got such excellent care was because you PAID for it (ok, the insurance paid, and you pay the premiums, but that's splitting hairs). Without the motivation to earn good money, the medical field would not attract the best and brightest minds, nor would we have the fantastic advances in medical advances that we enjoy now. Sure, there are altruistic folks out there who do wonderful work, but there's no way we could care for everyone without the support of a well-financed medical industry like we have now.
Besides, by law, no one is supposed to be denied emergency medical care in the US. Hospitals simply absorb the cost (well, in reality, they pass the cost onto paying customers) of uninsured patients who can't afford treatment. Incidentally, it's reported now that 55% of emergency care is uncompensated.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Actually, in the U.S., we're still using the "first to invent" system, not the "first to file" system. The rest of the world uses first to file, because it's far easier to determine who was the first filer. The U.S. occasionally investigates making the switch (because first to invent disputes cost the courts a lot of time and money), but hasn't done so yet. And since the inventors are in Colorado, they're subject to U.S. law. All they'd need to do to "prove" first to invent is mail themselves a sealed copy of the plans for their invention and they wouldn't need to file if they didn't want to. That said, once they're going public, it's probably better to file, just to avoid the "first to invent" problems I just mentioned.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
People are willing to pay more dollars more often to have the health or life of a loved one saved than they are to listen to some boring self important blowhard dipshit.
_I_ don't need to do anything. There are already lots of ways _you_ can provide scholarships for qualified students to become doctors. Why aren't you?
There are several things that make health care very expensive in this country:
1) nobody knows what it costs, so they never comparison shop on price; they rarely refuse service because of costs. Thus, there is no incentive to control costs. There is no market, so to speak.
2) not everybody pays, but everybody receives. That uncompensated care is paid for _somehow_
3) Doctors have their labor union legally protected by law everywhere in the US. Want to be a doctor? All the other doctors in the US get to decide that they're willing to tolerate some competition before you're allowed to practice medicine here.
Breaking the union stranglehold on who can practice medicine, and not requiring care providers to render care regardless of ability to pay would make medicine very affordable. The first would probably allow some people to receive lower quality care some of the time. It would also allow some people to receive higher quality care some of the time. I bet it's a net positive for both care and affordability [since providers would compete on reputation instead of on union membership].
You would think that the latter -- removing the legal obligation to provide care -- would mean that many people would immediately start going without care, but I don't think this is the case. In the not-so-distant past, people and doctors managed to work out payment plans and there weren't epidemic die-offs due to inability to acquire "insurance".
Essentially, the high cost of care is due to collusion between government and insurers. Remove the government involvement, and things get better.
Of course, that's not the direction people are trying to take things...
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Yeah, except nether of those take in reporting bias.
For example: In Japan it's not required to report them as infant mortality. Deaths at birth can get labels as fetal mortality. In other countries an infant under a certain weight gets labels as fetal mortality.
In some countries. for example Norway and Sweden, 40% of all their fetal deaths would have been counted as Infant mortality in the US.
I Just finished reading up on a ton of research on this issue. Literally. I sent my email of the compiled data and loaded Slashdot. Weird.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The same could be said for you.
is the life you lead after you turn 40 really going to be productive enough to warrant the cost to develop the technologies that let you live that long?
After your 60? 80?
You should live bu your post and go jump off a tall bridge.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on