>Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic

>

A doctor who used lemon juice to disinfect his patients’ operation wounds and removed healthy organs was sentenced to four years in a minimum security facility followed by a four-year ban on practising medicine, a Mönchengladbach court said Monday.In one of the more notorious medical scandals in recent years, the court pronounced the 54-year-old owner and head doctor of a private clinic guilty guilty on two counts of negligent homicide and 21 counts of bodily harm.

Arnold Pier, who confessed to his crimes after one-and-a-half years at trial, “removed organs that should not have been removed,” head Judge Lothar Beckers said.

He surgically removed appendixes, a gallbladder and a kidney without medical cause or permission from patients, the court said. In another case a woman died because he broke off treatment, while another was subjected to unnecessary chemotherapy.

Another incident involved a man who had accidentally sawed his thumbs off. Instead of immediately sending the patient to a specialist, Pier simply sewed his thumbs back on, an action an expert described for the court as “waiting on a wonder.”

The thumbs rotted and had to be amputated.

“How he imagined he could simply sew the thumbs back on is hard to grasp,” Beckers said.

A total of four patients did not survive his treatment, which the court said was akin to “flying blind.”

In 2006 Pier purchased the bankrupt Antonius Klinik in Wegberg for €25,000 with the intention of restructuring operations there. But Pier did not know his limits and overestimated his abilities, the court said, assuring victims and their families that chances he would ever practice medicine again were slim.

via Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local.

>Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local

>

1. A doctor who used lemon juice to disinfect his patients’ operation wounds and removed healthy organs was sentenced to four years in a minimum security facility followed by a four-year ban on practising medicine, a Mönchengladbach court said Monday.In one of the more notorious medical scandals in recent years, the court pronounced the 54-year-old owner and head doctor of a private clinic guilty guilty on two counts of negligent homicide and 21 counts of bodily harm.

Arnold Pier, who confessed to his crimes after one-and-a-half years at trial, “removed organs that should not have been removed,” head Judge Lothar Beckers said.

He surgically removed appendixes, a gallbladder and a kidney without medical cause or permission from patients, the court said. In another case a woman died because he broke off treatment, while another was subjected to unnecessary chemotherapy.

Another incident involved a man who had accidentally sawed his thumbs off. Instead of immediately sending the patient to a specialist, Pier simply sewed his thumbs back on, an action an expert described for the court as “waiting on a wonder.”

The thumbs rotted and had to be amputated.

“How he imagined he could simply sew the thumbs back on is hard to grasp,” Beckers said.

A total of four patients did not survive his treatment, which the court said was akin to “flying blind.”

In 2006 Pier purchased the bankrupt Antonius Klinik in Wegberg for €25,000 with the intention of restructuring operations there. But Pier did not know his limits and overestimated his abilities, the court said, assuring victims and their families that chances he would ever practice medicine again were slim.

via Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local.

>Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local

>

1. A doctor who used lemon juice to disinfect his patients’ operation wounds and removed healthy organs was sentenced to four years in a minimum security facility followed by a four-year ban on practising medicine, a Mönchengladbach court said Monday.In one of the more notorious medical scandals in recent years, the court pronounced the 54-year-old owner and head doctor of a private clinic guilty guilty on two counts of negligent homicide and 21 counts of bodily harm.

Arnold Pier, who confessed to his crimes after one-and-a-half years at trial, “removed organs that should not have been removed,” head Judge Lothar Beckers said.

He surgically removed appendixes, a gallbladder and a kidney without medical cause or permission from patients, the court said. In another case a woman died because he broke off treatment, while another was subjected to unnecessary chemotherapy.

Another incident involved a man who had accidentally sawed his thumbs off. Instead of immediately sending the patient to a specialist, Pier simply sewed his thumbs back on, an action an expert described for the court as “waiting on a wonder.”

The thumbs rotted and had to be amputated.

“How he imagined he could simply sew the thumbs back on is hard to grasp,” Beckers said.

A total of four patients did not survive his treatment, which the court said was akin to “flying blind.”

In 2006 Pier purchased the bankrupt Antonius Klinik in Wegberg for €25,000 with the intention of restructuring operations there. But Pier did not know his limits and overestimated his abilities, the court said, assuring victims and their families that chances he would ever practice medicine again were slim.

via Doctor jailed for removing organs while using lemon juice antiseptic – The Local.

>Girl finds boa constrictor in toilet

>

A seven-year-old girl was shocked to find a sizeable boa constrictor staring up at her from the toilet over the weekend, police in Hannover said. The “fugitive” reptile escaped before authorities could capture it.The girl discovered the snake in the toilet bowl when she lifted the lid on Saturday evening at her family’s apartment in the Linden-Süd district, spokesman Holger Hilgenberg said in a statement.

She informed her 39-year-old mother, who called police immediately, they said.

Officers photographed the reptile and consulted with animal rescue services at the fire department.

“But before the animal could be retrieved, it disappeared into the drain pipe, and a ‘search’ was fruitless,” Hilgenberg said.

According to the local veterinary school the snake was a boa constrictor, a non-venomous genus that poses no danger to humans.

“The reptile probably escaped from a terrarium.” Hilgenberg said, adding that the owner was still unknown.

via Girl finds boa constrictor in toilet – The Local.

Look before you sit.

>Girl finds boa constrictor in toilet

>

A seven-year-old girl was shocked to find a sizeable boa constrictor staring up at her from the toilet over the weekend, police in Hannover said. The “fugitive” reptile escaped before authorities could capture it.The girl discovered the snake in the toilet bowl when she lifted the lid on Saturday evening at her family’s apartment in the Linden-Süd district, spokesman Holger Hilgenberg said in a statement.

She informed her 39-year-old mother, who called police immediately, they said.

Officers photographed the reptile and consulted with animal rescue services at the fire department.

“But before the animal could be retrieved, it disappeared into the drain pipe, and a ‘search’ was fruitless,” Hilgenberg said.

According to the local veterinary school the snake was a boa constrictor, a non-venomous genus that poses no danger to humans.

“The reptile probably escaped from a terrarium.” Hilgenberg said, adding that the owner was still unknown.

via Girl finds boa constrictor in toilet – The Local.

Look before you sit.

>Forger shows up in court with phony doctor note

>

A California woman facing nearly five years in prison for forging drug prescriptions showed up for sentencing with a phony doctor’s note seeking a delay in the proceedings.

Michelle Elaine Astumian was free on $45,000 bail and pleaded no contest in January to felony counts of forgery and using a fraudulent check.

The 41-year-old woman arrived Monday for sentencing in a San Luis Obispo County courtroom and presented a note with a doctor’s signature asking for a postponement.

Prosecutor Dave Pomeroy called the doctor, who said the note is a forgery.

The judge immediately ordered Astumian into custody and she collapsed to the floor. An ambulance took her to a hospital.

Pomeroy told the San Luis Obispo County Tribune that Astumian will be sentenced later, but he doesn’t know when.

via Forger shows up in court with phony doctor note.

>Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics

>

They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.

A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.

A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin. …

The books, or “codices”, were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings.

Their leaves – which are mostly about the size of a credit card – contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.

If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.

He says they could be “the major discovery of Christian history”, adding: “It’s a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church.”

He believes the most telling evidence for an early Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.

Mr Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God. …

tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently.

The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.

Little is known of the movement after Jesus’ crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.

via BBC News – Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics.

>Harry Coover, creator of Super Glue, dies aged 94

>

The creator of Super Glue, Harry Coover, has died in Tennessee, aged 94.

Dr Coover, who died on Saturday, discovered the well-known adhesive by accident, while working for Eastman Kodak, his grandson Adam Paul said.

An assistant at the company noticed that two new refractometer prisms were glued firmly together by the substance.

Dr Coover and a colleague first realised the potential of the glue in 1951, according to the Super Glue Corporation website.

Cyanoacrylate, the chemical name for this glue, was actually discovered some years earlier.

During World War II researchers were looking for materials to make clear plastic gun sights. The website said researchers dismissed it for that purpose because it stuck to everything.

President Barack Obama awarded Dr Coover the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2010.

Dr Coover became vice-president of the chemical division for development at Eastman Kodak, where the team he worked with achieved more than 460 patents. He gained a place on the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Ohio in 2004.

Dr Coover was born in Newark, Delaware, and gained a degree in chemistry from Hobart College in New York and a PhD from Cornell University.

via BBC News – Harry Coover, creator of Super Glue, dies aged 94.

Thanks for all the things you’ve helped fix over the years Mr. Coover, including Ella-Grace Honeyman’s brain.

 

>Harry Coover, creator of Super Glue, dies aged 94

>

The creator of Super Glue, Harry Coover, has died in Tennessee, aged 94.

Dr Coover, who died on Saturday, discovered the well-known adhesive by accident, while working for Eastman Kodak, his grandson Adam Paul said.

An assistant at the company noticed that two new refractometer prisms were glued firmly together by the substance.

Dr Coover and a colleague first realised the potential of the glue in 1951, according to the Super Glue Corporation website.

Cyanoacrylate, the chemical name for this glue, was actually discovered some years earlier.

During World War II researchers were looking for materials to make clear plastic gun sights. The website said researchers dismissed it for that purpose because it stuck to everything.

President Barack Obama awarded Dr Coover the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2010.

Dr Coover became vice-president of the chemical division for development at Eastman Kodak, where the team he worked with achieved more than 460 patents. He gained a place on the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Ohio in 2004.

Dr Coover was born in Newark, Delaware, and gained a degree in chemistry from Hobart College in New York and a PhD from Cornell University.

via BBC News – Harry Coover, creator of Super Glue, dies aged 94.

Thanks for all the things you’ve helped fix over the years Mr. Coover, including Ella-Grace Honeyman’s brain.

 

>Teens warned of risks from ‘vodka tampon’ use

>

Police in the Baden-Württemburg city of Tuttlingen responded Tuesday to growing online chatter among teenagers that they could become intoxicated using the vodka tampons without having alcohol on their breath.

This is not true, police said, denying that it was an effective way to get drunk. They also warned girls that the alcohol could damage vaginal walls and increase the risk of infection. Boys have reportedly also been using tampons anally.

“I believe this is very dangerous,” head of a children’s clinic in Singen told southern German paper Südkurier last week. “For us this is a new thing.”

In early March a 14-year-old girl collapsed during a street festival in Konstanz, apparently highly intoxicated from using a vodka tampon, the paper reported.

Youth researchers have since found out that this form of alcohol abuse is trendy in the region.

But teens who believe they can hide the smell of alcohol consumption are wrong, experts told the paper.

The development shows a new dimension for alcohol abuse among teens, county social worker Axel Goßner told the Südkurier.

“Alcohol is no longer a stimulant, but a means to an end,” he said.

The trend arose among teens in the United States, where it is known as “slimming.” But it has reportedly caught on in Scandinavia and other places where alcohol is difficult for young people to acquire.

Some Facebook groups are even devoted to exchanging tips on the topic, complete with how-to videos and instructions. …

via Teens warned of risks from ‘vodka tampon’ use – The Local.

You still get the brain damage this way. Save some time and money and just hit yourself repeatedly in the head with a rock.

People who have been drinking large amounts of alcohol for long periods of time run the risk of developing serious and persistent changes in the brain. Damage may be a result of the direct effects of alcohol on the brain or may result indirectly, from a poor general health status or from severe liver disease. – nih

Some evidence suggests that low to moderate alcohol consumption may speed up brain volume loss. ^–link