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Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Saskatoon Health Region in Saskatchewan, Canada recently discovered a fax machine problem which had not relayed almost 1,500 X-rays, Computed tomography (CT) and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, ultrasounds, and other medical imaging test results to doctors.

The fax machine is part of the automated Radiology Information System. An audit revealed that medical diagnostic tests involving results dating back a decade have been affected by the broken fax machine.

On May 6, a doctor called the health region officials seeking follow up on a patient’s report. Staff who delved into it, found that the report was not sent from the system.

Now, two weeks later, this same patient has still not been contacted by the health region.

“It has taken some time to work with the patient’s physician. That was important — to get more information and more detail because we want that patient’s physician to be involved in the discussion with the patient,” Dr. David Poulin, vice-president of medical affairs for The Saskatoon Health Region, said. “This is a system error and that’s just what it was — an error. This doesn’t reflect in any way on the quality of work regional staff have done and continue to do.”

An internal review revealed that, of 2.2 million diagnostic tests performed, at least 1,380 had not been sent out by the malfunctioning fax machine.

The health region will embark on contacting each of the 1,380 patients and their physicians to make sure that the results have been received and if any health care was compromised.

Patients can also contact the health region via a newly set up hotline to make enquiries.

“We think it would actually be good practice if physician offices could have a system to check whether they have received important reports,” said Poulin, “The common practice appears to be in many doctors’ offices, particularly family physician offices, that they don’t respond to the report until it arrives. So, they basically are waiting for the report to arrive in their office by fax and it’s at that point that they look at it and decide what action to take.”

City Hospital, St. Paul’s Hospital and Royal University Hospital were the three city hospitals affected. Saskatoon has a population of roughly 233,923, and the hospitals also serve the surrounding rural areas.

Ironically the faulty fax machine was discovered the same week that provincial medical officials began to review approximately 70,000 radiology tests conducted in Yorkton. Officials there doubt the competence of the physician who first interpreted the radiology results.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

According to scientists, the land territory of Russia has expanded by about 4.5 square kilometres within the last few years in the Far East due to seismic and volcanic activity.

The gained land was recorded in the Sakhalin Peninsula. Boris Levin, head of the Institute for Sea Geology and Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the increase happened primarily due to two seismic events.

The first, in August of 2007, was when a heavy 6.8 earthquake near the city of Nevelsk in the Far East raised about three square kilometres of seabed above the level of the water. The second was in June of this year, when the Sarychev Peak volcano on the Matua Island erupted. GPS trackers on the Matua island were used to monitor the eruption, and the volcano changed its shape, adding 1.5 square kilometres of land, scientists said.

Geologists also reported that the Kuril Islands nearby were slowly moving towards mainland Russia at an estimated rate of eighteen milimetres per year.

Friday, April 23, 2010

The vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, said yesterday that he expects the United Nations to implement new sanctions against Iran by early next month.

Biden said that “I believe you will see a sanction regime coming out by the end of this month, beginning of next month”, adding that said that China, which had previously been opposed to sanctions against Iran, would take part in the latest round. UN diplomats are presently engaged in the process of developing the new sanctions, which will be the fourth resolution against Iran’s nuclear program.

According to Biden, the latest sanctions would mark the first time the world was unified in its opposition to Iran’s nuclear program. He noted that “[t]veryone from the Israeli prime minister straight through to the British prime minister to the president of Russia, everyone agrees the next step we should take is the UN sanction route.” The Obama administration, leading the effort for further sanctions against Iran, is confident China will be in support of such actions, despite being a close trading partner with Iran.

Biden also said that Israel has pledged not to take military action against Iran in the near future, and would instead wait to see what effect sanctions have on Iran. He commented: “They’re [Israel] not going to do that.” Iran and Israel have long been at odds, and Israel has not ruled out launching a preemptive strike against Iran before it develops nuclear weapons. Numerous Western countries have claimed that developing nuclear weapons is the ultimate goal of Iran’s nuclear program, although Tehran claims that the program is for civilian purposes only.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

On March 26, thousands rallied outside the Columbus, Ohio statehouse, advocating rights for undocumented immigrants. This was one of a series of rallies following one in Los Angeles, which was reported to have drawn over 500,000 attendees.

The sponsoring coalition included the Immigrant Worker Project, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), UFCW Local 880, MIGUATE (of [Dover, Ohio]), and the Red [network] de Inmigrantes de Ohio. Organizers wanted to raise awareness of bill pending in the US Senate, HR 4437, which would make it a felony to be an illegal alien, or to assist aliens in entering or staying the country illegally. Organizers also called for “true” immigration reform plan that would provide a path to citizenship for all immigrant workers.

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Friday, May 7, 2010

Latest figures from the US government say that the country’s economy gained 290,000 jobs in April, the largest single-month gain since March 2006.

According to the Labor Department, excluding temporary workers for this year’s census, the number of non-farm jobs increased by a seasonally adjusted 224,000.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, increased from 9.7% to 9.9%; the apparent contradiction is because 195,000 people who previously gave up searching for jobs started looking for work again, entering the labor force and augmenting the jobless rate.

The increases were larger than expected by economic analysts; according to a survey done by MarketWatch, economists believed the country would have added 185,000 jobs for last month.

President Obama commented on the numbers earlier today at the White House, saying: “This is the largest monthly increase in four years […] we’ve now seen job growth for four months in a row. These numbers are particularly heartening when you consider where we were a year ago, with an economy in freefall.”

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Natural Balance Pet Foods has recalled some of its wet and dry food for cats and dogs after several owners said that their pets were becoming sick. The company urges owners to stop feeding their pets the food immediately.

The brands recalled include Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Food.

Last month, Menu Foods recalled all of its 60 million products of dry and wet dog and cat food after pets began to fall ill and in some cases died of kidney failure.

“Natural Balance, Pacoima, CA, is issuing a voluntary nationwide recall for all of its Venison dog products and the dry Venison cat food only, regardless of date codes. The recalled products include Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats, and Venison and Green Pea dry cat food. Recent laboratory results show that the products contain melamine. We believe the source of the melamine is a rice protein concentrate. Natural Balance has confirmed this morning that some production batches of these products may contain melamine,” said a press released issued by Natural Balance.

The FDA states that the “investigation remains open and active, and the agency continues to follow leads to get closer to the root cause of the problem and to ensure that all contaminated product is removed from the market.”

“The source of the melamine appears to be a rice protein concentrate, which was recently added to the dry venison formulas. Natural Balance does not use wheat gluten, which was associated with the previous melamine contamination,” said the press release.

Bags, cans and zip lock bags of the food are expected to be the most affected.

“The products are packaged in bags, cans and zip lock treat bags and sold in pet specialty stores and PetCo nationally. No other Natural Balance products are involved in this voluntary recall as none of our other formulas include the rice protein concentrate,” added the press release.

The company states that the food, Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Food, are the only brands affected by the recall.

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

In a press release issued Saturday, September 3rd, 2005, Democratic Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana claims that President Bush staged a photo opportunity, at the breached 17th Street levee, by having equipment quickly moved into the background during the event. Senator Landrieu says the equipment was dispersed elsewhere the next day, but did not provide details.

Landrieu says in her press release, ” … we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast — black and white, rich and poor, young and old — deserve far better from their national government …”

The President and Senator Landrieu toured the 17th Street levee on Friday, and held the photo-op. Senator Landrieu said she believed the repair effort was legitimate, at that time. Less than 24 hours later, she discovered only “one lonely crane” working on the site, while giving an aerial tour for ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. A video of her tearful comments, during that tour, has been circulating around the internet (WMV).

Senator Landrieu made no specific accusations about the photo-op during the ABC tour. However, neither does her press release describe any measures taken to verify that equipment was in-fact pulled from other projects for the purpose of the photo-op, nor where the equipment is now. The canal wall breach, near Hammond Highway, was later shown Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes with dump trucks and a power shovel building a single-lane pathway across the gap. The breach was closed Monday.

Senator Landrieu was herself criticized by Anderson Cooper (CNN) on Thursday, after she responded to a question by rattling off a list of “thank yous” to other politicians (WMV, transcript). Democratic pundits have excused such detachment as an attempt to gain more federal assistance during the tragedy. Senator Landrieu’s press release partially confirms this interpretation by attempting to simultaneously ask the president for more aid, while accusing him of misusing existing resources.

Although press reports mentioned the 17th Street Canal breach was blocked by the use of metal sheets, sandbags, and dumped fill, details were not available. On Wednesday September 7 it was reported that earlier metal girders, often used for retaining walls, had been hung down from the north side of the Hammond Highway bridge so as to form a metal wall which blocked the canal from the lake. After the breach had been closed, by sandbags and fill delivered by dump truck, the metal wall was opened to allow draining of the city through the canal.

Obviously placing the metal wall required an assortment of equipment which was no longer needed after it was in place. The wall was only visible from the bridge and most dry land as a few feet of metal along the bridge railing. It is not known if Senator Landrieu noticed this work of engineering, nor if she had been briefed as to what was being done.

However, photos of work at the site were later found which showed a lot of activity Sept 4, after Landrieu said the equipment was not there. However, the sheet piling wall in the photo was reported to have been completed September 2. Information of the schedule of similar work at the London Avenue breach has not been found.