2 Paramedics and 4 Firemen

2 paramedics in an EMS vehicle and 4 men on a fire truck respond every time someone is reported passed out in the park. Doesn't this seem like overkill? Why not just send the paramedic?
 

Sleeping with Infants

We had kids in our bed often from birth to about 2-years old, and it never seemed unsafe in any way. I have heard of cases like the one yesterday in Lebanon, but I had assumed that there were unusual circumstances such as the dad being drunk or having a medical condition. That was apparently not true in this case. Wouldn't you would have to be a really heavy sleeper to roll-over onto an infant and not wake up?

Default Death Panel

Kimi Young, 22 a young vibrant woman with her whole life ahead of her died Tuesday of H1N1 Virus. She had two degrees, worked two jobs, but did not have health insurance:

Young became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate.

Mowery said Young eventually went to an urgent care facility in Hamilton where she was given pain medication and then sent home.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Young’s condition suddenly worsened and her roommate drove her to McCullough Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford, where she was flown in critical condition to University Hospital in Cincinnati.

“That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor,” Mowery said.

In Favor of Walkable Neighborhoods

A post on the NY Times Health blog This Old (Healthy) House talks about a study that attempts to look at the affect of where you live on BMI. From the post:

University of Utah researchers found that people who live in older, more walkable neighborhoods are at lower risk for overweight and obesity.

I found this paragraph especially pertinent to recent discussions on things like complete streets:

They found that neighborhoods built before 1950 tended to offer greater overall walkability because they had been designed for pedestrians. Newer neighborhoods often were designed primarily to facilitate car travel, the researchers noted.

Follow the links to the post and study for more details.

CF Article in New Yorker

The May 4th issue of The New Yorker has a great article about the effort to find genetic treatments for Cystic Fibrosis. (full article requires registration)

Although the treatment of genetic disorders has long been considered too small a market for most pharmaceutical companies, an increasing number of biotech firms have found that genetic research can be used in broader ways than anticipated. All of the physicians and scientists the writer spoke with emphasized the many unknown variables, but for the first time, there is convincing evidence that the underlying defect in cystic fibrosis can be corrected.

The New Yorker had a cutting edge report 5 years ago that also dealt with CF. That article was less about the drugs, but more about the efficacy of different hospitals. The controversy then was about a rating system that showed better success among aggressive programs such as the one in Minneapolis.