Will hydrogen balloons come back?

[gfretwell]

Helium is rapidly becoming unobtainable and very expensive when you find it.

Now that smoking is virtually illegal, maybe hydrogen balloons are the answer (outside only).

[micky]

Now where I find it. Around here, they sell mylar balloons for parties etc. for one dollar each, including the helium.

And people take advantage of the low price. Instead of one balloon, they buy 6.

It makes me sick. There should be a 2000% excise tax on non-indurstial uses of helium.

IIRC it turns out the Hindenberg either a) didn't burn because of the hydrogen, or b) it was filed with hydrogen because helium was a war-restricted commodity, and the US wouldn't sell helium, except maybe to allies and maybe only for the war effort. Even though the US wasn't at war in 1937 others were?? Or at least war was coming.

[Bill]

Why? Is it bad for our ozone layer? Other reason?

[chaniarts]

[Bill]

Thank you. That was worth knowing. I noticed, though, the following "dumb" quote: "There are a finite number of helium atoms on the planet".

[Paul Drahn]

Absolutely WRONG! New helium atoms are being create continuously from radioactive decay.

Paul

[Tegger]

This explains why the human voice has increased in pitch since Neolithic times.

[Bill Nye]

Bill wrote:

I thought this was dumber:

"prices were going up and supplies were under pressure."

Aren't supplies always under pressure?

====== Helium is used to keep the large magnets in MRI scanners cool ======

"You're not going into an MRI scanner because you've got a sore toe - this is important stuff."

Tell that to GE and the US heathcare system.

Of course they're going to give you an MRI for your stubbed toe. Why? Because you'll sue their ass off for malpractice if you have to have your toe amputated because they didn't scan it.

And the MRI is a revenue-center for hospitals. GE sells them on that angle.

That said, it an MRI doesn't use up helium based on the number of scans it does. It uses up helium just sitting there, regardless if you do 1 scan per day or 100.

That said, if you have way more MRI units than you need to actually serve a given population base, then you're using more helium than you need too.

[HeyBub]

Smoking was permitted on all hydrogen-filled airships.

[HeyBub]

"Need" is not the best word that's applicable. Like guns, the word for MRI's is "want."

Of course some places do actually "need" MRI machines. Canada for one. There are more MRI machines in my town than in the whole country of Canada. The wait time for an MRI scan here is measured in hours; it's weeks in Canada.

[Tegger]

If you can get one at all. Often they will send you for a CT-scan first. If that shows anything, /then/ they schedule you for an MRI. CT-scans are not too useful for soft-tissue, but they do it like this anyway to keep the few MRIs from being overbooked.

Another thing I learned from my GP recently is that GPs book (by fax!) CTs and MRIs as soon as the patient presents, just in case. That way, they can get the earliest appointment possible, whether it ends up being needed or not. For this reason, there is a lot of overbooking and a significant number of cancellations as a certain number of patients end up not needing the scan after all.

So, part of the shortage up here is a result of overbooking, which is a reaction to shortage, which itself causes shortages of booking times as physicians try to compensate for the shortage of machines and booking times. Got that?

Or you can go across the border to New York and get an MRI in days for $500-$750. But no MRI provider will give you a scan without a prescription from your Canadian physician, which may need to talk him into sending, and then you need to make sure the Canadian hospital will accept a US MRI, which is not guaranteed.

Oh, and one more thing: Canadian operating rooms are open from

8:00am to 4:30pm. Period. Outside of those times, ORs open up for emergencies only. That's why Granny's hip replacement took 2 months.

Now, you guys go ahead and vote for that Obama fellow. Go on. Do it.

[Tegger]

On the other hand, that Obama fellow got his ideas from some guy named Romney, who tried something pretty close to the Canadian system in Massachusetts.

Is Ron Paul running?

[gfretwell]

That is harder to do. I was talking to a balloon shop lady the other day and she said they were having trouble getting any. The places that sell the party balloons like grocery stores and flower shops are tacking on another 50 cents to a buck on the price.

I was just wondering if big balloon users like advertisers and weather balloons might switch to hydrogen. So what if the giant floating gumby went up in a big fireball. The fire would all go up.

Yes we did embargo helium in the 30s and we had a monopoly on it. Why the Hindenburg actually caught on fire has been a source of conspiracy theories since it happened. The thing that was lost was that most of the people actually survived. Again, the helium fire went up. It was only the skin that came down on fire. Mylar would mitigate that.

[Dr. Ballard]

============= Medical Imaging in Canada reports that in 2007, there were 419 CT scanners and 222 MRI machines installed and operational in Canada, up from 325 and 149, respectively, in 2003.

As of 2007, Canada has 12 CT scanners and 6 MRI machines per million population.

In OECD countries as of 2005, the median value is 15 CT scanners and 7 MRI machines per million population.

There were 103 CT exams per 1,000 people performed in Canada in 2007, less than the rate performed in both the United States (207) and Belgium (138), but higher than the rate in Sweden (89), Spain (57), England (54) and Denmark (34).

In comparison, Canada's rate of MRI exams per 1,000 population (31) was higher than that in England (25), Spain (21) and Denmark (17), and lower than in the U.S. (89), Belgium (43) and Sweden (39). Information on scans per 1,000 population was available for only six OECD countries other than Canada.

In 2007, the US had about 4 times as many MRI scanners per-million population as Canada, but the US performed less than 3 times as many actual scans per-million population, an indication that Canadian MRI units were used more efficiently.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a type of nuclear medicine examination used to detect cancerous tumours, some brain disorders and diseases of the heart and other organs. Another new technology combines PET and CT imaging, allowing physicians to examine both the function of an organ and the anatomical details of its tissues at the same time. As of January 1, 2007, there were 18 PET/CT scanners in Canada and 13 PET scanners. ================

=============== Japan has the highest per capita number of MRI units, followed by the USA.

As of 2008, Canada has 8 MRI units per one-million population (same as UK). The US has 32 per one million, Japan has 46, Germany has 27, France has 9, and Europe (in total) has 11 per one-million population.

MRI units vary considerably in terms of resolution based on their field strength. Newer MRI units tend to have a higher field strength compared to older units. Canada has a higher percentage of newer MRI units (less than 6 years old) compared to the US. ===============

[Dr. Ballard]

See my last post (about 10 minutes ago).

See why I have proved you to be a lying lier.

[Robert Green]

You've simply proved you can't spell, nothing else. It's liar, not lier. Back into your bathyscaphe, "Doctor" Ballard. The Titanic awaits. What do you call a troll wrapped in chains at the bottom of the sea? A good start.

-- Bobby G.

[G. Morgan]

Or the patients were made to wait their turn for weeks.

[Tegger]

"Dr. Ballard" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

That's "liar". an "A", not an "E".

And you must be young enough not to have ever had to navigate the frustrating, insufficient, sparse, bare, uncaring, perfunctory, hasty, short, slow, inefficient, "I have no control over that", Canadian medical system.

Up here, nobody's responsible, nobody has any sort of control or effect, nobody can just "make stuff happen". It's the very strangest thing: Even family doctors are powerless to help their patients. Imaging can deny the doctor a scan for his 85-year-old patient, and there's nothing he can do about it except get testy towards the nurses on his patient's floor ("Stay away from Dr. X today; Imaging turned him down on his order for a CT on Mrs. Y.".

Nurses and orderlies up here are /all/ unionized. It is impossible to get any of them even disciplined, much less fired, even if they kill patients by accident. Even hospital managers are totally powerless against the SEIU. All hospitals are government-owned, of course.

Emerg staffing is static: Number of staff on the floor is exactly the same whether the ER is crowded or bare. No adjustments of any kind are made to ER staffing levels as demand changes. The nurses are not bad people, they just get sort of inured to the pressures of high-demand times, and stop rushing for anybody, anytime, ever. There's no point: they'd go insane; they have no control over anything anyway. There might be a single pediatrican for the entire hospital, and he will take 8 hours to see you and your vomiting, crying, severely distressed 2-week-old newborn. All that is a big factor in the accurately-perceived horribility of Canadian ERs.

Regarding the overbooking of CT and MRI scans, my GP said, and I quote, "We're all doing it; it's the only way we can keep the times down to their minimum".

And guess what? We are /prohibited/ by the Canada Health Act of 1985 from purchasing our own care unless we cross the border.

In the noble effort to improve health care, governments and activists have created the most awful and deadly monster ever devised. My solution: A Constitutional amendment prohibiting any individual, government entity, or any other entity with any sort of connection to any government or governmental power, from having anything to do with health care provision or funding. Ever. Period. Full stop.

[bob haller]

overuse of nuclear based testing is raising patients lifetime cancer risk........

something to think about before your next test

the trouble isnt a single test is the lifetime dose

[Larry W]

That's about how long it takes in the USA too...