- Forbes.com

- Forbes.com: "Simpler CPR Guidelines Unveiled
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Nov. 28 (HealthDay News) -- New, simplified guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) emphasize pushing on the chest over breathing into a person's mouth.

The revised guidelines are aimed at everyone -- from bystanders to police rescuers as well as doctors and nurses.

'We're starting to get more scientific evidence and this year we reached the tipping point to make changes,' said Mary Fran Hazinski, senior science editor for the American Heart Association, and a clinical nurse specialist in pediatric emergency and critical care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. 'This year's guidelines emphasize the importance of CRP and especially high-quality CPR.'

Dr. Robert O'Connor, vice chairman of the American Heart Association's emergency cardiac care committee, and director of education and research at Christiana Care Health System in Newark, Del., added, 'We have tried to tighten the chain of survival.'

The guidelines were released Monday by the American Heart Association and are published online in the new issue of the journal Circulation.

Both Hazinski and O'Connor spoke at a news conference Monday.

At the heart of the new effort is a desire to increase survival rates for cardiac arrest -- when the heart suddenly stops beating. 'We have been concerned that the overall survival rates from cardiac arrest in the U.S. have not budged in the last several years,' Hazinski said.

The chances that a victim of cardiac arrest will be successfully resuscitated and go on to live a normal life range from two percent to 70 percent in the United States and Canada, depending on location.

O'Hare and Midway airports in Chicago, however, have reported extraordinarily high rates (74 percent survival to hospital discharge), as have some casinos and some police programs, including the one in Rochester, N.Y., the "

Gifts? or just fun?

I thought these kits looked fun.

http://www.lashingkits.com/Merchant2/merchant.

Early Adopter Download of the Day: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 Release Candidate 1 - Lifehacker

The Mozilla Foundation has made Thunderbird 1.5 Release Candidate 1 available for download. This release candidate isn’t stable yet but it is filled with good stuff. Features include:

* Sort address autocomplete results by how often you send e-mail to each recipient.
* Spell check as you type.
* Saved Search Folders can now search across multiple accounts.
* Podcasting and other RSS Improvements.
* Deleting attachments from messages.
* Integration with server side spam filtering.
* Reply and forward actions for message filters.
* Auto save as draft for mail composition.

Not for the faint of heart, Thunderbird 1.5 RC 1 is a free download, Windows, Mac and Unix."

The Duct Tape Merit Badge - a great idea!

The Duct Tape Merit Badge - a great idea!

Chertoff: Preparedness Depends on People - Yahoo! News

Chertoff: Preparedness Depends on People - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON - Stockpiling supplies and developing family response plans in case disaster strikes not only might save lives — it's also a civic duty,
Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.
ADVERTISEMENT

Two months of hurricanes ravaging the Gulf Coast should prove that people need to make preparations so emergency officials can focus on those who are poor, elderly or otherwise can't help themselves, Chertoff said.

'For those people who say, 'Well, I can take care of myself no matter what, I don't have to prepare,' there is an altruistic element — that to the extent that they are a burden on government services, that takes away from what's available to help those who can't help themselves,' Chertoff said. 'That is a matter of civic virtue.'

Chertoff's comments mark a new stage in Homeland Security's 'Ready' campaign — which was widely ridiculed two years ago for urging homeowners to stock up on duct tape and plastic sheeting to safeguard their homes against a chemical or biological attack.

Now, Chertoff said, the department plans to reach out to school students to carry the preparedness messages home to their parents. Additionally, Homeland Security and the Ad Council launched a newspaper and radio campaign Monday pitched at small businesses to develop disaster plans for workplaces.

Whether the public will listen, however, is another matter.

Even with a week's notice of Hurricane Wilma, many Floridians failed to evacuate areas the storm flooded or to stock up on food, water and other essentials. The cavalier attitude prompted Republican Gov.
Jeb Bush to scold constituents, noting that people who sought relief from Wilma 'had ample time to prepare.'

'It isn't that hard to get 72 hours' worth of food and water,' Bush said last week.

Michael A. Wermuth, homeland security director at the RAND Corp. in Ar"