Be Thankful!

Who wants to hear bad news right before the holidays? Everyone has so much to be thankful for! I mean, after all we did just win an election victory!

However, my thoughts turn to the troops in harm's way. They are thousands of miles away from their family and loved ones. While we will sit comfy in our chairs and sofas, with a refrigerator full of food, late night snacks and beer avaliable, resting comfortably, a warm bed to crawl into; we have young men and women risking their lives daily. Each mission they go on could be their last. No guilt trips folks, they volunteered for bu$h'$ folly.

I'm truly thankful we have modern medical capabilities for them in the field. What I thought was a modern breakthrough in medicine to help the troops stay alive, has been misleading.

A blood-coagulating drug designed to treat rare forms of hemophilia is being used on critically wounded U.S. troops in Iraq despite evidence it can cause clots that lead to strokes, heart attacks and death in other patients...The Food and Drug Administration said in a warning last December that giving Factor VII to patients who don't have the blood disorder could cause strokes and heart attacks. Its researchers published a study in January blaming 43 deaths on clots that developed after injections of Factor VII. However, the Army medical command considers it a medical breakthrough that gives front-line physicians a way to control deadly bleeding. Physicians in Iraq have injected it into more than 1,000 patients. "When it works, it's amazing," said Col. John B. Holcomb, an Army trauma surgeon and commander of the Army's Institute of Surgical Research. "It's one of the most useful new tools we have." "I've seen it with my own eyes," said Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, a trauma surgeon deployed this summer as senior physician at the American military hospital in Balad, Iraq.
"Patients who are hemorrhaging to death, they get the drug and it stops. Factor VII saves their lives." However, doctors at military hospitals in Germany and the United States have reported unusual and sometimes fatal blood clots in soldiers evacuated from Iraq, including unexplained strokes, heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms, or blood clots in the lungs. And some have begun to suspect Factor VII, The Sun reported. Doctors say determining the precise cause of blood clots is rarely possible, making it difficult to establish definitively whether Factor VII is responsible for complications. And military doctors caution against drawing any conclusions from individual cases. Officials at Novo Nordisk said complications don't mean the drug is too dangerous to use. "It's really not a question of an absolute safety level, but rather a ratio of benefit to risk that has to be established," said Dr. Michael Shalmi, vice president of biopharmaceuticals for Novo Nordisk. "We're making decisions, in the middle of a war, with the best information we have available to us," said Holcomb at the Army's Institute of Surgical Research.

So basically the American G.I. is a lab rat! Ignore the warnings of the FDA, they are just standing in the way of medical ingenuity. "When it works", WTF, thanks for the help Col. Holcomb! Then the 'money shot' from the "Officials at Novo Nordisk"..."It's really not a question of an absolute safety level, but rather a ratio of benefit to risk that has to be established"!! All I can say is WOW! Then there is more from Col. Holcomb, we come to the Rummy Philosophy, "We're making decisions, in the middle of a war, with the best information we have available to us"!! Please, haven't we heard enough rhetoric during this war!

Please, just keep the troops in mind at your Thanksgiving table this year. I ask this from ordinary Americans because we know it rings hallow if it comes from the bu$h cabal.

crossposted at Low and Left

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