[Brian Kopp DPM]

A lot of people still don't understand ECMO. They think its just another type of lung machine or assisted breathing.

However, it might help to explain that ECMO is like renal dialysis. They take the blood out of the body using large catheters inserted in the neck and oxygenate it using the ECMO machine because the lungs have failed and are not able to oxygenate the blood, just like a dialysis machine filters the blood outside the body because the kidneys have failed.

Fortunately, while kidneys rarely recover their function after failure requiring dialysis, the lungs often do.

Unfortunately, ECMO machines are far more rare than renal dialysis units, and far more difficult to master and maintain due to complications rates, a steep learning curve, and infrequent use outside neonatal units:

...due to the high technical demands, cost, and risk of complications, such as bleeding under anticoagulant medication, ECMO is usually only considered as a last resort...

Fatal sepsis may occur when the large catheters inserted in the neck provide fertile field for infection.

We can't rely on ECMO to pull as through if a widespread virulent H1N1 resurgence occurs.

[editor-surveyor]

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>> “Fatal sepsis may occur when the large catheters inserted in the neck provide fertile field for infection.” <<

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I see the liklihood, but whatever happened to UV disinfection? It works well on water supplies and pools.
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[little jeremiah]

People need to undertand this. The news yesterday and today from the UK is amazing. I've been putting together snippets, maybe I'll post some later. Following are outright lies being told. The truth is that even a couple of weeks ago the total death rate in the UK was much higher than average due to excess deaths from flu.

And it states that although deaths from swine flu may be occasionally reported in the media, "there will be no cumulative total of deaths from any type of influenza viruses, as additional data is no longer collected and any figures would be incomplete or misleading".

According to the World Health Organization, the swine flu virus detected in Britain is similar to the pandemic strain and no changes have been identified to suggest it is more lethal or transmissible.res would be incomplete or misleading".

Health experts say flu numbers this year are the same as normal.

They are lying and they know it, and now they openly state they are not going to be making any numbers of the severely ill or deaths any more. And total, utter silence from the WHO and the CDC. Sequences just came out today that put the lie to the "no mutations" crap. It is now going to be Tamiflu resistant, and vax won't help much if at all.

Anyone who hasn't prepared very well as of yesterday better do it ASAP.