• Dentistry

    Mad Cow Disease Watch: Link Between Variant CJD and Dentistry?

    Canada.Com has UK agency to probe possible link between variant CJD and dentistry.

    Britain’s Health Protection Agency said Monday it is investigating whether the human form of mad cow disease can be transmitted through dental work.

    The three-year experiment, begun recently, was announced at the agency’s annual conference at the University of Warwick.

    The main routes of transmission of the disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, are believed to be eating infected beef, or through blood transfusions.

    “This is really an information gathering exercise,” said Joanne Dickinson, one of the researchers.

    When the experiments are concluded, she added, “the Department of Health will have the information to decide what the level of risk is and what measures need to be put in place

    Does Britain not have the same CDC Bloodborne Pathogen guidelines like in the USA?

    Here is a link to the CDC Recommended Infection Control Practices for Dentistry

    And more links here:

    The Department of Health wrote to dentists in February outlining precautions to prevent transmission of the disease from infected patients. Urging dentists to observe proper decontamination procedures, the letter said that “under these conditions, routine dentistry is understood to be low-risk, and therefore no special infection control precautions are advised for the instruments used on symptomatic or at-risk patients.”

    This will be an interesting study but with appropriate sterilization technique there should not be a problem with the spread of this horrible disease through dental treatment.

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  • Los Angeles

    City of Los Angeles Watch: Power Outage Caused by ERROR Not Terror

    KNBC Television reports DWP: Workers Trigger Outage By Connecting Wrong Wires.

    Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said an outage Monday afternoon was linked to human error at a receiving station.

    Power officials reported outages from the San Fernando Valley to downtown Los Angeles. Workers connected the wrong wires, causing a surge of power that led to shutdowns at three power generating stations, according to officials.

    Receiving stations take high-voltage power from generating stations and convert it to lower voltage. It can then be used throughout the city.

    Ron Deaton, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said the system is designed to shut down when it receives too much power.

    “They connected it to another line that was not expecting that much electricity,” said Deaton.

    Power to DWP customers went out at about 1 p.m.

    The cable has been rewired, according to authorities. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that power was restored to 90 percent of Los Angeles customers within two hours of the outage.

    Authorities said power will be restored to all areas by Monday night.

    Oh OK!

    Well, better than a terrorist act.

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger,  Bear Flag League,  California,  Politics,  Special Election 2005

    California Special Election Watch: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Kicks Off His Special Election Campaign

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks during a town hall meeting at K & N Engineering kicking off the fall campaign season to discuss his reform agenda on the November Special Election Monday Sept. 12, 2005, in Riverside, Calif.

    The ASSociated Press has Schwarzenegger opens campaign for reform initiatives.

    Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off his campaign Monday in support of a Nov. 8 special election he says is needed to curb the power of labor unions and state legislators and rein in state spending

    He took aim, especially, at the public employee unions he has feuded with all year.

    “I’m talking about the union bosses now that want to control and want to drive our taxes up,” he said.

    “It is unfair to treat those public employees much better than they treat you and then you have to pay the taxes and foot the bill.”

    The Governator needs to make this case about the leftie public employee unions, the union bosses influence in Sacramento and how they busted the California state budget under recalled Democrat Governor Gray-OUT Davis .

    Schwarzenegger is expected to announce later this week that he will seek a second term. While not addressing the issue specifically, he did give a brief campaign-style rundown of his accomplishments in office, including reducing the $14-billion deficit without raising taxes (the deficit for next year is now estimated at $4.7 billion).

    Schwarzenegger will make his announcement this weekend beginning Friday at the California Republican Party Convention in Anaheim.

    Flap will be live blogging the Governor’s luncheon address to the CRP on Saturday.

    Stay Tuned.


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    Cross-posted to the Bear Flag League Special Election Page

  • Los Angeles

    City of Los Angeles Watch: Major Power Outage Strikes the City

    The ASSociated Press has Large Portion of Los Angeles Loses Power

    A large portion of Los Angeles was hit with a blackout Monday afternoon. The city was investigating the cause and extent of the outage. But Sgt. Catherine Plows, a police spokeswoman, said terrorism was not suspected.

    Electrical power was knocked out shortly before 1 p.m. after two power surges, and traffic was snarled at intersections throughout the city when stop lights went dark. The lights also went out at downtown high- rises.

    The Police Department went on “full tactical alert,” meaning no officers were allowed to leave duty.

    The blackout came a day after ABC aired a videotape of a purported al- Qaida member making terrorist threats against Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia, on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Heavy usage on hot days can lead to blackouts. But the weather in Los Angeles was not unsually hot Monday.

    Fox News is reporting that an electrical line was accidentally disrupted by a DWP crew.

    DWP is still investigating the outage.

    Parts of the San Fernando Valley have already had their power restored.

  • Hurricane Katrina,  Politics

    Hurricane Katrina Watch: FEMA Director Resigns

    U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff (C) speaks to reporters, as U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen (R) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Michael Brown look on, at FEMA’s Hurricane Katrina media center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana September 9, 2005. Brown, the embattled director of FEMA, is resigning, a senior homeland security official said September 12, 2005.

    The ASSociated Press has Embattled FEMA Director Mike Brown Resigns.

    Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown said Monday he has resigned “in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president,” three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

    “The focus has got to be on FEMA, what the people are trying to do down there,” Brown told The Associated Press.

    Lesson to the President and future Presidents – FEMA Director should be a professional in the area of disaster management not a political appointment.

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  • Arnold Schwarzenegger,  California,  Election 2006,  Politics

    Arnold Schwarzenegger Watch: Re-election Comeback Begins Friday?

    The Buzz at the Sacramento Bee has Governor to run again? Stay tuned Friday.

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has hinted for some time he’s about to declare that he will seek re-election in 2006. The smart money says the announcement will come Friday at an “Ask Arnold” town hall meeting in Southern California.

    That gives the Republican governor a big news splash across the state Saturday, the same day he’s scheduled to speak at the state GOP convention in Anaheim.

    Flap says bet money on it.

    A Friday announcement to kick-off the California Repubican Party convention in Anaheim.

    Flap will be blogging the convention this weekend.

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  • Dentistry

    The Value of Dental Records in Victim Identification

    New Scientist has Dental records beat DNA in tsunami IDs.

    WHEN the devastating tsunami struck the Indian Ocean in December 2004, it was not DNA that identified most of the victims but traditional forensic methods such as comparing dental records. In Thailand, for example, DNA techniques put names to less than 1 per cent of the victims.

    The scale of the disaster made the detection effort particularly difficult. Teams were dealing with thousands of bodies in a hot, wet climate, where roads and other infrastructure had been destroyed and lab facilities were virtually non-existent. In other recent disasters, such as 9/11 and the massacres in the former Yugoslavia, DNA identification proved to be the most useful tool. But in Thailand neither the time nor the facilities were available.

    In Thailand some 75 per cent of bodies were identified using dental records, 10 per cent by fingerprints and just 0.5 per cent using DNA profiling. For the remainder a combination of techniques was used.

    One advantage teeth have over DNA is that they can be easily stored to be compared with dental records later. Without refrigeration, DNA samples would have quickly degraded. Forensic odontologists were still working in Phuket months after the disaster. By February, they had identified more than 400 people with dental records. By April more than 1200 had been identified, and by July the number had reached 1700. The number now identified is 2200, and 3300 bodies are unidentified.

    For the Tsunami victims it seems the “old fashioned way” of forensic odontology worked the best. DNA, of course continues to have value but climatic conditions continue the role of comparing teeth and skulls.

    H/T MedGadget

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  • John Roberts,  Politics,  Supreme Court

    Judge John Roberts Watch: Confirmation Hearings Start

    President Bush’s nominee for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts leaves his house on Monday, Sept. 12, 2005, in Chevy Chase, Md. Less than three years after first donning a judge’s robe, John Glover Roberts Jr. is on a path toward speedy confirmation for becoming, at age 50, chief justice of the United States.

    The ASSociated Press has Senate to Start Roberts’ Hearings Today.

    Roberts smiled and said merely, “Good morning,” as he left for the hearings from his suburban Maryland home Monday. Outside the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, several dozen demonstrators carried signs that said “Confirm Roberts” and “Stop Abortion Now.” Court officers stood shoulder-to-shoulder to keep demonstrators at a distance.

    Lawmakers were devoting the first day of the weeklong hearings to opening statements _ from the 17 men and one woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, from the three senators who were introducing Roberts and from the nominee himself.

    Less than three years after first donning a judge’s robe, Roberts seemed on a path toward speedy confirmation.

    Today the country will be bored with the statements of the eighteen Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    The hearings are beginning…..carried gavel to gavel on C-Span 3 or cspan.org.

    Supporter of Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, Corinne Reed of Wichita Kan., joins a a rally of supporters and opponents Roberts’ confirmation in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Monday, Sept. 12, 2005 in Washington. Roberts’ confirmation hearing begins today

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