[Rhodes22-list] Politics and Science a reply to Mike W

[Michael D. Weisner]

Ed,

I have no experience relevant to public office - but then again, neither do 
most of the candidates!

No way I would consider that bait!  If I have THAT much time on my hands, 
I'd much rather be sailing.

As far as O2 concentration goes you are not totally incorrect.  Optimum fiO2 
as well as ventilation method and parameters must be established and 
monitored (read that as changed frequently based on patient condition.)  I 
do not consider excess O2 as "wasting resources" but rather providing a 
margin of safety.  The application was in a NICU in which the "mean time to 
disaster" can be measured in seconds.  Believe me, nobody cares about the 
insignificant cost of the O2 compared to the cost of the rest of the NICU 
and the risk to the patient.  When patients were on elevated O2, we were 
more concerned with balancing the danger to the patient of high O2 with 
maintaining sufficient oxygenation to sustain life long enough to correct a 
defect.

Mike
s/v Shanghai'd Summer ('81)
Nissequogue River, NY


From: "Tootle" <ekroposki at charter.net> Saturday, January 12, 2008 9:55 AM
>
> Mike:
>
> Now that you have some good experience under your belt, how about running
> for public office?
>
> When you asked the question, tongue in cheek, "To save 10% across the 
> board,
> we could reduce
> oxygen usage by 10% when treating patients requiring O2 therapy, placing
> patients on 90% instead of 100% oxygen."  Unfortunately you are now 
> critical
> of a valid question.  A pulmonary doctor should be asked what is the 
> optimum
> % for this patient.  Only a penny?  If it beyond what is necessary to
> achieve results, why be wasting resources?
>
> Therefore, I disagree with your point of view, it was a valid question in
> all instances.  Just as often the minimal maintenance level of 2L is not
> adequate for a particular patient.  It resides in area of education,
> experience and good judgement.
>
> Maybe the best dose of O2 is received in a cockpit of a sailboat in a
> breeze?
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
> "Modern research ... Ah, the sound of a million monkeys typing (on their
> PCs?) ..."  Michael D. Weisner
>
>
>
>
>
>
> R22MikeW wrote:
>>
>> Ron,
>>
>> Unfortunately, research funding cuts continue to be made by folks who
>> really
>> have no idea what they are doing.  In the mid 80s I entered industry as a
>> result of a similar instability in medical research and high energy
>> physics
>> funding cuts (can you say Reagan and Brookhaven?)  Most of us scattered
>> fairly quickly as the paycuts (10% at first) and layoffs began to 
>> threaten
>> the security of our growing families.  Every postdoc was approached by
>> industry and most of us found new "homes" within months.
>>
>> The attitude of the bean counters seem to be that research funding is a
>> luxury.  It can therefore be cut without great loss.  One administrator
>> who
>> had to cut 10% out of his budget at the last minute, thought hard and 
>> long
>> when I offered, jokingly, "To save 10% across the board, we could reduce
>> oxygen usage by 10% when treating patients requiring O2 therapy, placing
>> patients on 90% instead of 100% oxygen."  He was so intrigued with the
>> idea
>> that he asked for a full justification why some patients had been on 100%
>> oxygen in the first place.  Peter principle at work ...
>>
>> I hope your funding is restored - call Obama and ask him why IL was not
>> represented properly.
>>
>> Modern research ... Ah, the sound of a million monkeys typing (on their
>> PCs?) ...
>>
>> Mike
>> s/v Shanghaid'd Summer ('81)
>>        Nissequogue River, NY
>>
>>
>> From: "Ronald Lipton" <rlipton at earthlink.net> Saturday, January 12, 2008
>> 12:17 AM
>>> 2008 was supposed to be a good year for science in the US.  A study
>>> by the National Academies had made a strong argument that basic
>>> research is vital to the economic health of the US.  That resulted in a
>>> bipartisan agreement to increase funding for the physical sciences.
>>> Budgets were increased for the NSF and DOE Office of Science in
>>> the appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate.  Last summer
>>> these bills were vetoed by the president as "budget busters".  The
>>> government
>>> operated on a continuing resolution until the end of last year when
>>> the Omnibus bill was passed.
>>>
>>> This bill reduced overall funding for Science by $1 billion below the
>>> level agreed last summer.  The cuts in Particle Physics and at
>>> Fermilab, where I work were particularly devastating.  All funding
>>> for a new experiment to measure the properties of neutrinos was
>>> cut.  R&D funds for the next generation particle accelerator, the ILC,
>>> which was intended to regain leadership in the field in the next decade
>>> from
>>> a new machine in Europe scheduled to start up next year, were cut to 1/4
>>> the level expected.  Since the budget was passed 1/4 of the way through
>>> the year all of this money has been already been spent.
>>>
>>> As a result all work on the projects which would have been the future of
>>> the
>>> field in the US have to stop.  At Fermilab 170 people were working on
>>> these projects and will be reassigned and 200 layoffs are planned.  At
>>> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 125 people will be laid off.  The
>>> Fermilab
>>> budget was $52M below the budget initially passed by Congress. Those of
>>> us who survive will be asked to take 2-3 days/month of unpaid furlough.
>>>
>>> The cuts were a result of a last minute flurry of adjustments to bring
>>> the
>>> budget below the limit set by President Bush for veto.  Fermilab was
>>> hit particularly hard because Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the
>>> house,
>>> had resigned a month earlier and none of the Illinois delegation was
>>> watching the store.  The cuts were not the result of any plan as far as
>>> I can tell, just a random cut in the final weekend of preparation of the
>>> Omnibus bill. US commitment to ITER, a demonstration fusion reactor
>>> to be built in France was also cut to zero in spite of international
>>> funding
>>> agreements that took decades to negotiate.
>>>
>>> This is the sort of thing that can't easily be recovered from.  The
>>> accelerator
>>> group at Stanford, the best in the world, will be fragmented.  People
>>> will be
>>> laid off and leave the field.  Bright students will go elsewhere.  The
>>> international
>>> community will get yet more evidence that the US is not a reliable
>>> partner.
>>>
>>> I had been working on detectors for the ILC.  We had a program
>>> that led the field in the development of advanced silicon detectors and
>>> electronics. Because we do R&D much of our work with US companies funds
>>> beyond state-of-the art work too risky for immediate commercial
>>> applications but which
>>> lay the technical base for the future.  We we strongly involved in 3D
>>> electronics,
>>> where ~10 micron thick layers of circuit are stacked vertially,
>>> increasing the
>>> density of electronics without decreasing the transistor size.
>>> We may be able to continue, but certainly at
>>> a reduced level. Our group of IC design engineers, one of the best such
>>> groups
>>> in the world, will likely fragment, and much of the R&D will be delayed
>>> or
>>> narrowed.
>>>
>>> This was not due to on party or another, but our government has become
>>> increasingly
>>> dysfunctional.   As by far the richest country in the world we could
>>> afford to be inefficient,
>>> but we have real challenges now.  Killing the future of a field of
>>> science that, aside
>>> from enormous scientific and intellectual contributions, has generated
>>> technologies such
>>> as medical imaging, fast electronic logic, practical superconducting
>>> magnets for MRI,
>>> and the world wide web protocols, essentially by accident, is one
>>> example of that
>>> dysfunction that hits close to (my) home.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ron
>>> __________________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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