Smoke in Sydney crosses 11 times the “hazardous” level

Australia's deadly wildfires are showing no signs of stopping

Earlier in December, the smoke was so bad in Sydney that air quality measured 11 times the “hazardous” level.

Dre K K Aggarwal

President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President IMA

Australia is facing the worst wildfires of the decade with large swathes of the country devastated since the fire season began in late July.

A total of 27 deaths and in the state of New South Wales alone, more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged.

State and federal authorities are struggling to contain the massive blazes.

Persistent heat and drought, and climate change is making natural disasters go from bad to worse.

There have been fires in every Australian state, but New South Wales has been hardest hit.

Blazes have torn through bushland, wooded areas, and national parks like the Blue Mountains. Some of Australia's largest cities have also been affected, including Melbourne and Sydney.

In Australian summer, with hot, dry weather makes it easy for blazes to start and spread. Natural causes are to blame most of the time, like lightning strikes in drought-affected forests. Dry lightning was responsible for starting a number of fires in Victoria's East Gippsland region in late December, which then traveled more than 20 kilometers in just five hours.

About half a billion animals have been affected by the fires across NSW, with millions likely dead -- and that's a conservative estimate. That number of total animals affected could be as high as one billion nationwide.

The figures for NSW include birds, reptiles, and mammals, except bats. It also excludes insects and frogs. [Excerpts from CNN News]

Efficacy and Safety of Low-Dose Colchicine after Myocardial Infarction

Reproduced

Efficacy and Safety of Low-Dose Colchicine after Myocardial Infarction

N Engl J Med 2019; 381:2497-2505

Jean-Claude Tardif, M.D., Simon Kouz, M.D., David D. Waters, M.D., Olivier F. Bertrand, M.D., Ph.D., Rafael Diaz, M.D., Aldo P. Maggioni, M.D., Fausto J. Pinto, M.D., Ph.D., Reda Ibrahim, M.D., Habib Gamra, M.D., Ghassan S. Kiwan, M.D., Colin Berry, M.D., Ph.D., José López-Sendón, M.D., et al.

Abstract: Experimental and clinical evidence supports the role of inflammation in atherosclerosis and its complications. Colchicine is an orally administered, potent antiinflammatory medication that is indicated for the treatment of gout and pericarditis.

METHODS: We performed a randomized, double-blind trial involving patients recruited within 30 days after a myocardial infarction. The patients were randomly assigned to receive either low-dose colchicine (0.5 mg once daily) or placebo. The primary efficacy end point was a composite of death from cardiovascular causes, resuscitated cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, stroke, or urgent hospitalization for angina leading to coronary revascularization. The components of the primary end point and safety were also assessed.

RESULTS: A total of 4745 patients were enrolled; 2366 patients were assigned to the colchicine group, and 2379 to the placebo group. Patients were followed for a median of 22.6 months. The primary end point occurred in 5.5% of the patients in the colchicine group, as compared with 7.1% of those in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61 to 0.96; P=0.02). The hazard ratios were 0.84 (95% CI, 0.46 to 1.52) for death from cardiovascular causes, 0.83 (95% CI, 0.25 to 2.73) for resuscitated cardiac arrest, 0.91 (95% CI, 0.68 to 1.21) for myocardial infarction, 0.26 (95% CI, 0.10 to 0.70) for stroke, and 0.50 (95% CI, 0.31 to 0.81) for urgent hospitalization for angina leading to coronary revascularization. Diarrhea was reported in 9.7% of the patients in the colchicine group and in 8.9% of those in the placebo group (P=0.35). Pneumonia was reported as a serious adverse event in 0.9% of the patients in the colchicine group and in 0.4% of those in the placebo group (P=0.03).

CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with a recent myocardial infarction, colchicine at a dose of 0.5 mg daily led to a significantly lower risk of ischemic cardiovascular events than placebo. (Funded by the Government of Quebec and others; COLCOT ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02551094. opens in new tab.)

Spiritual Blog: Understanding who we are…………..

The classical description of ‘who we are comes’ from Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam, where he says that even the wife refuses to touch the same physical body after death, with which she has been fondling all these years and if she touches it, a ritual bath has to be taken. This means physical body is not what we are.

If we weigh physical body before and after death there will be no difference. The life force also called consciousness or atman has no weight, shape or dimensions. 

In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna in Chapter 2 describes its characteristics as “fire cannot burn it, air cannot dry it, weapons cannot cut it, and water cannot wet it. It is omnipotent, omnipresence and omniscient”. 

Though modern medicine may not talk about soul but it does differentiate life and death based on certain parameters.

Vedic description describes five different movement forces in the body: apana vayu expulses urine, stool, baby and menses; samana vayu controls the intestinal movements; vyana vayu controls the circulatory system; udana vayu controls the neurological impulses and the connection between soul and spirit; and prana vayu controls the brain stem reflexes. 

Soul or consciousness is linked to udana vayu and prana vayu. The best description of these five forces apart from Ayurveda text comes from prasannopanishad. 

A patient with brain stem death can be kept on ventilator for months together, as the body has normal vyana vayu, sana vayu and apana vayus. The patient will therefore, maintain blood pressure, GI functions, urinary functions and reproductive functions. These three vayus are controlled by the atmospheric oxygen and not by the life force. 

Can anyone remember the weight, height, abdominal circumference or size of collar, waist or shoes of Lord Krishna? He is only known only from his actions and the soul profile.

All of us have physical, mental, intellectual, ego and soul characteristics. Soul characteristics in all are same & are positive. The examples are love, compassion, care, humility, etc. These soul characteristics are influenced by the subtle mind, intellect and ego characteristics. 

While introducing ourselves, most of the times we talk about define our intellectual or ego profile and not the soul profile. When we describe our status, house, car or money, we are describing our ego profile and not the soul profile. Our aim in life should be to understand our soul profile, as without the soul nobody will come near us. The same very people will dispose off our body at the earliest opportunity they get. 

Most of us co-relate life span with the life span of the physical body, which has to perish sooner or later. When we ask people how long they want to live their usual  answers are 60 yrs, 70 yrs, 80 yrs or 90 yrs. Nobody thinks beyond physical death. People like Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa are not dead. Though their physical body does not exist, their good karmas, work, memories and the soul profiles are still alive.

The purpose of life should be to create an atmosphere or an aura in such a way that the society remembers us after the death of our physical body. This is only possible when we shift our thinking from the ego profile to the soul profile. 

Soul is nothing but an energized field of information and can be equated to the live information fed in any computer or mobile phone. Both computer and mobile phones with and without information weigh the same. Similarly, weight of radio does not change weather the radio is on or off. The live data information in the TV, radio or mobile phone can be termed as their soul. A computer without this soul is useless, so are the mobile and radio sets. 

The information is always static and still without any movements. This information in a computer requires a software to run. The static soul in our body also requires a software called life force.

Soul, thus van be described as a combination of the life force and the static information. In Hindu mythology this is called shiva and shakti. Some people describe them as prana and chitta. In vedic philosophy by controlling prana one can control chitta and vice versa.

For a computer to operate one requires two softwares: operational software and application software. Operational software makes the computer do basic work and application software helps one to manipulate the data the way one wants. 

All of us our born with the operational software or the life force. We develop and create our own application software over a period of time by using the triad of action, memory and desires. 

To understand oneself, therefore, one needs to control our own application software and do not let them go beyond its desired scope of work.