More Americans have now died In Iraq than died On 9/11

Boing Boing: More Americans have now died In Iraq than died On 9/11

While President Bush and other Republican politicians spent the day exploiting the memory of those we lost five years ago, the nation overlooked a grim milestone: More Americans have now died in Iraq than died on 9/11. Iraq didn’t attack us on that day, and our misguided policy there has now taken more American lives than Al Qaeda.

Here are the numbers: 3,015 Americans have died in Iraq as of September 9.

2,666 of these were military deaths and 349 were civilians.

Ambien awakens persistent vegetative state victims

Boing Boing: Ambien awakens persistent vegetative state victims

This story, in today’s Guardian, is just mind-blowing. The common sleeping pill zolpidem, sold in the US under the name Ambien, can reverse serious brain damage and wake up patients in persistent vegetative states!

The hospital ward sister, Lucy Hughes, was periodically concerned that involuntary spasms in Louis’s left arm, that resulted in him tearing at his mattress, might be a sign that deep inside he might be uncomfortable. In 1999, five years after Louis’s accident, she suggested to Sienie that the family’s GP, Dr Wally Nel, be asked to prescribe a sedative. Nel prescribed Stilnox, the brand name in South Africa for zolpidem. “I crushed it up and gave it to him in a bottle with a soft drink,” Sienie recalls. “He couldn’t swallow properly then, but I helped him and sat at his bedside. After about 25 minutes, I heard him making a sound like ‘mmm’. He hadn’t made a sound for five years.

“Then he turned his head in my direction. I said, ‘Louis, can you hear me?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Say hello, Louis’, and he said, ‘Hello, mummy.’ I couldn’t believe it. I just cried and cried.”

Wow…

links for 2006-09-12

• The Wooden Periodic Table Table
  (tags: Reference)