Freeze-Dried Blood May Save Soldiers' Lives 140
SpaceAdmiral writes "An Israeli company is working on a method to freeze-dry blood. This would enable soldiers to carry a packet of their own blood on the battlefield. If a soldier is injured and needs blood, medics could mix the dried blood with water and give the soldier a transfusion of his or her own blood. From the article: 'The idea is to take a soldier's blood, freeze it in laboratory conditions, take out the ice crystals leaving only the blood components. It will look like freeze-dried coffee in a little bag.'"
Two technologies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two technologies (Score:5, Interesting)
They used it in ambulances under some exception to the general rule requiring informed consent for clinical trials.
You can read more about it by poking around Google
http://www.google.com/search?q=polyheme+consent [google.com]
There was a big ethical brouhaha when the testing made the papers.
So, when you say "final stages of field testing" you really mean
"used on accident victims without their permission."
Re:Two technologies (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Two technologies (Score:3, Informative)
That's called rotations, and the students at my school all have to do them at different times. Believe it or not you may have an EMT in training assisting the full timers in patient care next time you call an ambulance.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
I think what the PP was saying was that it was like having only EMTs in training showing up, which would be considerably more dangerous.
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As a student of Emergency Health Services, most of my knowledge stops in the ambulance receiving bay. Aside from ER rotations, I have no firsthand experience in a hospital.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
That is utterly irrelevant. My point was that there is a valid reason to administer the stuff in the ambulance, where you don't have stocks of blood. However, while you can provide treatment without explicit consent if a patient is not in a position to give it, or to make a rational
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Let's get something straight: even in the ambulance this is a trial. It is a trial after the medication has been proved safe, but it still counts as a trial. There is an alternative in the ambulance: saline! That alternative is used in almost all Advanced Life Support vehicles in the country. Also, when the medics unload their patient there is a doctor making the choice of treatment. He h
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
No, I am not sure, and have made that abundantly clear to anyone actually reading my comments all along.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
My NAZI comment was directed at your slippery slope argument. There have been unethical experiements in the past, but they hardly bring us to being NAZIs. Milgram's Obedience [new-life.net] was specifically designed to model NAZI behavior, but it did not take us down a slippery slope. There is a reason that Godwin's Law exists, after all.
What
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Are you a paid corporate shill, or what? I never took issue with the potential of the stuff. It might be the greatest invention since
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
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perfectly safe or not.
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worked, so, there was no risk..."
kind of thinking from the
post I responded too. I thought about putting
in something about "I would rather have this
experimental thing done than die" proviso
in my post, but I didnt, silly me.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
What are the potential risks of participating in the study?
Rash
Transmission of hepatitis and HIV viruses
Unforeseen happenings
You trade the chance of dying against the chance of requiring a liver transplant, or a chronic
illness requiring lifelong medication, no medical insurance, your family not wanting to be near
you, and having no employer wanting to employ you.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Oh no, a rash. I bet I'll have to rub some lotion on it now. Oh why oh why couldn't they have let me die and spare me this terrible fate?
I can only assume these risks come from improper use of needles. I might be wrong, but if you're dealing with trained EMTs, there wouldn't be much cause for concern.
Standard legal coverage, whatever. The point is, all of their potential side effects are pretty weak compared to bleeding to death. Ev
Re:Two technologies (Score:3, Informative)
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15,000 Thalidomide children [wikipedia.org] don't quite agree with your "whatever". And that was a drug that had passed this stage of testing before the side-effects were known. I won't post a link to a picture of one of these kids as it's now illegal to goatse someone.
Typical polar argument, you're either with us or against us, right? Well, there is a third option. Give the patient REAL
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
I hear your point but if people are dying then don't you think the solution would be to sort out the supply of O- and then work on a long-term solution in the lab? I've not heard of a specific O- shortage, have you? If it was a genuine emergency, then an experimental substitute could be used without ethical issues. But th
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
In other situations that may apply. However, this is a replacement for regular blood, not an experiemental treatment that might save you. It offers nothing new over real blood other than unknowns. It has a better shelf life, that's all, something completely irrelevant to the patient in a western urban environment where rea
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Oh yeah, the fact that whole blood supply is dependent on donations from healthy citizens is a big negative for whole blood. There's barely enough supply for the demand now, and there are any number of things that could cause an increase in demand or a drop in supply. For e
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Don't be so ridiculus. Are you astro-turfing for them or something? I'm not saying that blood replacements should not be tested. Of course the traditional method has risks of disease but as you yourself say; screening has all but removed that risk.
The ONLY time an experimental treatment is valid WITHOUT CONSENT is when it's a life-or-death situation. The risk of disease from transfusion is so low that NO WAY IN HELL is this ethical. Not even in the slightest.
What the hell is happening in the US right no
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Uh, life or death situations are the only time that PolyHeme is being used without direct consent. Considering that trauma patients have as little as an 80% chance of survival, I can't think of a situation that is more life or death!
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
I hate to tell you, but "real blood," as you call it, it not available in ambulances regardless of where you are. You need to compare it to sterile saline instead.
Re:Two technologies (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's bullshit and you know it. It's a whole-blood substitute, not some revolutionary new treatment. Whole blood would have likely been better for the patients even without considering the unknown risks with this stuff.
Because whole-blood wasn't designed, it evolved. If anything our bodies are designed around blood. Just give them the real thing and stop being so cheap.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
The only difference? To put this in context, the UK has just recently had a major news item when one of these trials went horribly wrong back in March [bbc.co.uk]. The last of the victims has only just been released from hospital now in July. At least one is now permamently disabled [bbc.co.uk] (loss of fingers and toes). Google news sea [google.co.uk]
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
This was not Polyheme! These were people who consented to an experimental presciption treatment. I have no idea how you can compare the two trials. Polyheme had to pass human trials before starting field trials. In those trials I imagine they administered it to healthy adults. This is the stage at which the linked study went so wrong. That drug never made it to the point where Polyheme is now. Also you a
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
So, you are saying drug trials never go wrong in the latter stages of testing? Wow, you have a lot of naive confidence. There's been drugs that have gotten all the way through and regularly prescribed by doctors that later turned out to have horrific side-effects. Unexpected bad things can happen at any stage in medicine
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
The distinction that I am drawing is that PolyHeme is in Phase III clinical trials, whereas the aforementioned drug failed much much earlier. PolyHeme has already been shown to be safe; now they need to know if it is effective.
My point in indicating the difference in
Re:Two technologies (Score:5, Insightful)
So, instead of "used on accident victims without their permission" what you advocate is "withheld from dying people because they couldn't say yes."
Explain to me how that's better. I agree that oversight is needed for such a program. But the rules of the program only allow it in critical cases where no alternative is available. The only thing that bothers me about it is the continuation of its use once in the hospital.
If you are going to complain about this trial, don't just take one aspect of it in isolation and whine about that. Yes, no prior consent is received...but it only matters in cases where option 'b' is die.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
The basic ethical argument against using experimental treatments (without informed consent) "in cases where option 'b' is die" is that it leads you down a slippery ethical slope in which you test all kinds of stuff on (terminal) patients.
Hopefully this doesn't Godwin the discussion, but the very first point of the Nuremberg Code [wikipedia.org] (enacted as a res
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
The basic ethical argument against using experimental treatments (without informed consent) "in cases where option 'b' is die" is that it leads you down a slippery ethical slope in which you test all kinds of stuff on (terminal) patients.
I don't see any slipperly slope here. The cases where this kind of treatment would be used are quite limited. It's essentially only in emergency situations where the patient is going to die without it, you can't reach a parent or spouse to get consent, and there's no othe
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
How is that different from giving a placebo to somebody who has given informed consent to try an experimental drug? It's perfectly standard to do this, because it's important to see if a treatment is actually effective or not. Somebody made a decision based on all available data that the potential risks of trying a new dru
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Because the argument used for giving them this blood substitute is that "they'll die without it". That's clearly not the case if you are doing the experiment with a 50% control group. It's randomly assigned which group you are in. Doctors do not make potential life-saving decissions based on the toss of a coin.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
Obviously, you need to do a lot of paperwork for ordinary clinical trials, say.. cancer treatments. But emergency medicine is an area where it's always going t
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
They could have some kind of religious phobia, leading them to depression and murder-suicide.
(since you ask)
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Uh, the drug is still in trial. We're talking about the trial. No one knows about this shit at all. Thus you are talking about something utterly irrelevant to the current conversation.
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
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Unless, of course, that church's tenets including ignoring the [perpetually corrupt] media...
Anyway, this is the first I've heard of it; I don't watch TV, I only read the paper on
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
If you need PolyHeme you are already dieing, so don't worry about the lawsuit. And what makes you think that this field trial is going on in your area? Als
Re:Two technologies (Score:2)
I really wish that I could tell you that you are 100% correct. We got a lot of the techniques we have now without the benefit of randomized field trials. There are several cases of things being pulled off of the street because they were eventually proven to be harmful to patients. If only there were more trials like this one, those devices ne
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My hope (Score:2)
I really really hope they label these bags clearly, or that morning cup of coffee may not taste quite right. Never fix your early morning coffee in the dark either.
Re:My hope (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My hope (Score:2)
Just add water and serve.
Re:My hope (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My hope (Score:2)
Wesley: Blood. I don't... usually drink in front of humans.
Mr. Bryce: Don't insult me, go on. It's fresh.
Wesley: Dear God! That's... nummy! [cityofangel.com]
Tastes nutty. (Score:1)
Re:My hope (Score:2)
My blood type is caffeine (Score:3, Funny)
There's a coffee chain in my area (Kelly's Coffee and Fudge [kellyscoffee.com]) that has T-shirts that say, "Instant human. Just add coffee."
Somehow, that phrase suddenly seems all the more appropriate.
funny how the eyes work.. (Score:4, Funny)
My heart was racing.
OKay... (Score:3, Funny)
Okay... but what about the flavor ?
Re:OKay... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OKay... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:OKay... (Score:2)
Sangria?
Re:OKay... (Score:2)
Re:OKay... (Score:2)
Now, on the other hand, if it were from an Arabica source, it would have a softer, more cultivated tone, less aggressive and not quite as dominating.
Yes, I prefer Coffea Arabica, why do you ask?
</bashing>
Taster's Choice - Bleah! (Score:1)
Cup O' Blood (Score:2)
Blood Libel (Score:3, Informative)
Murder mystery (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Murder mystery (Score:2)
Re:Murder mystery (Score:2)
good to the last drop! (Score:2)
[ok I'm punching out]
Like Astronaut Ice Cream for Vampires! (Score:2)
Old idea and a difficult problem (Score:3, Informative)
Andromeda Strain (Score:2)
It's like Tang... (Score:3, Funny)
Little vampire kids could run around with a bag of it licking their fingers and sticking them in it...
Works great, until you add confusion & nature (Score:3, Insightful)
If they're smart, they'll make sure that blood has to go into containers with the blood type in big letters, so that even if they get mixed up you can look at your dog tags to be sure you're not getting the wrong type of blood.
Then you also need clean water...
Today, when soldiers are wounded in action and need a blood transfusion in the battlefield or out in the field, military medics and doctors usually give them a transfusion of water and salt.
I just got done with CLS yesterday. The IV bag we use is a 500 ml bag; works great for a hangover. I guess you could mix the saline solution with this stuff but you still need a container to mix it in.
But it's hard enough to give someone an IV... now, by the time you were doing the transfusion you'd already have a saline lock in them. But imagine having to mix this stuff up and get it into a practical container while someone's going into shock.
Re:Works great, until you add confusion & natu (Score:2)
Soldier has his freeze dried blood in a deflated sealed IV bag. Medic or CLS carries water (or saline) in appropriately sized bag. Water bag is attached to blood bag and water is squeezed/drained in. Mix as necessary. Proceed as usual.
Sure there are a couple more steps, but the logistics are not insurmountable.
Re:Works great, until you add confusion & natu (Score:2)
Re:Works great, until you add confusion & natu (Score:2)
Not sure about the jargon (and are other readers?), but I'm guessing this means giving them a saline lock (which allows you to swap different things into the catheter) and then starting them on an IV while you mix up the instant blood.
That's pretty much what I was thinking of in the latter half of my ramb^H^H^H^Hpost.
The biggest issue, I think is the durability of whatever you mix it in. Here's a thought: I can put a
Re:Works great, until you add confusion & natu (Score:2)
Maybe they'll just make it a sort of ziploc IV bag that you seal and shake up. That would make the most sense, I'd think, and eliminate the need for an addition
The Scottish divisions of the British Army... (Score:3, Funny)
Battlefield lifesaver (Score:2, Insightful)
Saw this in 1971... (Score:2)
OK maybe not "they" but something did...
Vampire Astronaut Icecream (Score:2)
Minute Maid Orange Juice (Score:3, Insightful)
Freeze Dried Monsters (Score:2)
I wonder if they are planning on freeze drying soldiers so they can have an instant army.
Re:Blood Flakes (Score:2)
Re:fresh freeze dried (Score:2)
Re:Will someone please think of the robots? (Score:2)
What's that? What do you mean "he was trying to be funny?" This is