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How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
- andyjohnson0 8y agoThe Economist article is paywalled for me, but BBC news has a piece at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40498395 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40498395 that describes the shampoo bottle hack.
- bencevans 8y agoAdding it to Pocket, then lets you read it.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y agoDisable JavaScript. Without JavaScript, no paywall pops up on The Economist.
- deno 8y agoThe BBC article also has a video that shows how the device works.
- esalman 8y agoYou can use a private window too.
- known 8y agoInstall https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/burlesco/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/burlesco/
- CryptoPunk 8y ago>>The hospital now deploys it routinely and the number of children who die there from pneumonia has fallen by three-quarters. That means the survival rate in the Dhaka Hospital is today almost on a par with that of children treated in rich-world facilities, using conventional ventilators. Innovation like this is facilitated by the lack of medical device regulations in Bangladesh.
- geon 8y agoMore like it was facilitated by the need. Had they had as low fatality rate as developed countries, I doubt weak regulation would have spurred innovation. Which is supported by the fact that fatality rates now almost match developed countries. If it was the weak regulation that spurred innovation, the rate should continue to fall.
- xyzzy123 8y agoRelatively weaker regulation (coupled with need!) allowed a doctor to deploy an unapproved pediatric device. You might get away with this once or twice but if you were a company making this thing in the west you would get rightfully sued into a smoking crater. I think the fallacy in your reasoning is to assume that innovation is “proportional” to death rate somehow. Doing it cheaper (or even at all!) under the constraints you have is still innovation. Put another way I think we have different definitions of innovation. The way I think of it, equivalent outcome for way less cost still counts.
- xyzzy123 8y agoI don’t think you deserve to be downvoted for this. A $5 hack is not really possible in the west, and that is definitely a thing worth thinking about. You might not get stopped from doing it if it was immediately obvious that it was effective but eventually hundreds of thousands if not millions would be spent on studies or approvals before a “proper” device made its way into the supply chain at 10000x markup over injection moulding cost.
- hopler 8y agoThe challenge is that without regulation you get $5 life-saving shampoo hacks, but you also get lots of shake oil that is useless or harmful.
- syn0byte 8y agoAnd with regulation you get...lots of snake oil this is useless to harmful. Prozac, Phenfen, etc. Even device and equipment makers like Theranos. You also get Pharma-Bro types selling medication WHO considers "essential" for 750 dollars a pill. Only the one company has(had) the regulatory approval to make a drug so basic Aussie school kids can make in chem class[0]. [0] https://qz.com/851416/why-martin-shkreli-and-turings-daraprim-still-costs-750-in-the-us-when-australian-schoolkids-can-make-it-for-2/ https://qz.com/851416/why-martin-shkreli-and-turings-darapri...
- mettamage 8y ago> Ever heard of the concept of "jugaad"? It's a Hindi term meaning cheap innovation. Let's use this word in English as well, as it allows to direct our attention to jugaad immediately.
- jacobush 8y agoThey way English rifles through the pockets of other languages looking for vocabulary, just start using it and see if it sticks. :)
- AmericanChopper 8y agoMany languages do this as far as I can tell. I speak Indonesian and my girlfriend speaks Hindi, we come across words the languages share every so often. I’ll also catch a word in Tagalog or Dutch that I understand in Indonesian from time to time too.
- noir_lord 8y agoMy partner is Hungarian and her language and mine (I'm English) share very few words, it's strange with most languages I hear from other Europeans I can at least get one or two words fairly often but Hungarian is just straight Klingon. It's an interesting hidtory, it basically shares no (known) common roots like most languages around Europe do.
- Markoff 8y agothat's just not truth, they have pretty much same international words for paprika, balcony, auto etc.
- mettamage 8y ago> They way English rifles through the pockets of other languages looking for vocabulary, just start using it and see if it sticks. :) reply I do this in my native language (Dutch) as well. My favorite one I came up with is "search term scavenger hunt" in Dutch it is one word as "zoekwoordspeurtocht".
- zeristor 8y agoLooking this up led me to Open Pediatrics, a lovely idea: https://www.openpediatrics.org https://www.openpediatrics.org A video going into more of the detail, on reflection the big idea seems to be the air pressure oscillations https://youtube.com/watch?v=rjmdNspYoy4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=rjmdNspYoy4
- napoleoncomplex 8y agoTangential, Openpediatrics seems like a great initiative, are there any other such resources for other medical fields? There is the FOAM movement (Free and open acces meducation - https://lifeinthefastlane.com/foam/ https://lifeinthefastlane.com/foam/) but I bet there's many more out there. It feels like there is some foundation for medicine to evolve like software evolved, where there is more and more open source knowledge to build upon, democratizing and lowering the cost of access to that knowledge.
- isoprophlex 8y agoWhat a nice story about keeping things simple. Also, damn, neonatology must be brutal to work in at times.
- taneq 8y agoI could never work in a vet office, obstetrics, neonates, or early paediatrics. I don't know how people do it.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y agoLike everything else, it’s a job that you must emotionally separate yourself from to do it good.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoManagement of and varying response to compassion fatigue. There's a happy period where you're doing extremely fulfilling work, then a difficult time when you're distraught at your failures, then a complete indifference to suffering that you've normalized. Managing fatigue and stress in any job is extremely important, managing compassion fatigue is even more so.
- sambeau 8y agoI once asked the nurses in the intensive care ward, where my baby son was, why they didn't work with adults rather than children. Surely the heartbreak was hard to cope with? They said it was because children didn't know they were supposed to be ill so they didn't lie around moaning like adults did—as soon as they felt a little better they would jump up and go and play with their toys. It was much more satisfying having patients who (if they got better) you saw go from coma to running around again full of joy.
- tmd83 8y agoYes, I cannot imagine how people work in some of these fields. A lot of the pediatric specialization comes to mind also like oncology, cardiology. That some people can and do take the burden is the reason lots of those kids get to live.
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- thecatspaw 8y agoHonestly the amount of screen space the economist takes away is ridicolous. https://imgur.com/a/U0ClW65 https://imgur.com/a/U0ClW65 (Yes I have an adblocker installed)
- goldenkey 8y agoNot to mention these "please subscribe" and "you have no free articles left" popovers and alerts. Whats even worse is that Google News now includes paywalled publications with these spammy dark patterns. I don't mind paying for Quanta or Nautilus and other high quality publications. But sorry [Generic Copypasta News.] Most of the time all you do is copy the PR off Associated Press - I am not going to pay for freely available current events or your shitty OP-eds.
- rootusrootus 8y agoThis is The Economist. I doubt they use any AP material. They also get nearly all their revenue from subscriptionz, not ads.
- trading_wheels 8y agoThe Economist should be held up as the pinnacle of quality writing worth paying for. Very few ads (maybe a full pager for lear jets and some classifieds). It may cover some of the same current events as AP or other news services, but their content isn't available anywhere else.
- sealjam 8y agoI find it slightly ironic that when I view that imgur image to see how much screen the economist takes away, ~30% of the window is obscured by a cookie warning and the content is dimmed. Not a critique of the thecatspaw.
- thecatspaw 8y agoInteresting, I dont see those, even in private browsing with my adblocker disabled
- aaron695 8y agoMove fast and break stuff or overenginer medical devices and pay the $ But don't be two faced and complain that a software bug in a medical device should never have happened and cheer hacks like these.
- keithpeter 8y ago"His invention was inspired by something he saw while visiting Australia." Exchange visits(+) a good use of money perhaps? - spark that innovation. (+) not necessarily just to 1st world countries by the way
- RA_Fisher 8y agoOf course! Free of people and ideas is a great benefit to each of us. Some folks give into resentment but most of that's caused by the central banks not actual immigration. It's caused by central banks bc they have kept the substitute for labor cheap. Low interest rates, as far as I can see, are one of the principal causes of populism. Populism is the premise most folks would use to argue against exchange visits.
- Markoff 8y agoit's not really innovation if he just copies something he saw abroad i guess they could get inspired by military solutions in emergency situations which must be also hacked from what's available
- ignoramous 8y agoOutlined: https://outline.com/Yb8sLG https://outline.com/Yb8sLG
- jaboutboul 8y agoThanks for this.
- sparkzilla 8y agoDidn't News Genius run into trouble by copying articles for annotation like this? https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2016/3/25/citation-appropriation-and-fair-use https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2016/3/25/citation-appropriatio...
- CydeWeys 8y agoFor sure they're going to go down in flames at some point. Enjoy the free mirrors while they still work though.
- reviseddamage 8y agoI tried to find out the name of the manufacturer of the low-flow oxygen delivery approach recommended by WHO, but couldn't. Anybody else able to figure it out?
- wcoenen 8y agoThere is no manufacturer because there is no equipment needed for low flow oxygen, beyond an oxygen supply (from gas bottle) and a tube with two nozzles that go into the patient's nostrils. That's why WHO recommends it to hospitals who can't afford anything else.
- lultimouomo 8y agoIt's not clear to me if he invented a new device, or simply built a 2$ home made version of a 6000$ standard bubble-CPAP. In other word, is this a story about ingenuity saving lives, or about regulation and industry profiting on medical devices killing lives? (Note that I'm not saying that we necessarily have too much regulation or that medical industry profits too much; I'm just saying that in this specific case they would be failing to save people, while overall they could still be optimal)
- onetimemanytime 8y agoMy guess: the hack one is less effective but in that area, a $6000 device might as well not exist, way out of reach for 99% of the people. So, maybe less effective in theory, but in reality it is saving countless lives. It's true that some money goes to designers, lawyers etc etc but when they see an opening, they do rip people off.
- bena 8y agoExactly, something that saves 95% of patients but is 0% affordable is worse than something that saves 50% of patients but is 100% affordable.
- RA_Fisher 8y agoAccessibility broadens as waste is eliminated from the system. No other manner increases accessibility. Medical device manufacturers would prefer to make a device with less waste, they'd make more money (see empires built on low price commodities). Regulation unfortunately builds in tremendous waste and reduces accessibility. A waste reduction like this is an incredible achievement.
- icebraining 8y agoMedical device manufacturers would prefer to make a device with less waste, they'd make more money (see empires built on low price commodities). This seems like an oversimplification. The people capturing those gains are very often not the manufacturers. Often it's the retailers, not the manufacturers, who build those empires. Unless it's different specifically in the medical device industry; if so, do you have examples?
- rafaelvasco 8y agoBlessed be this man and his inspiration that is now saving many lives. Seeing that little child entubed like that is so heartbreaking. I wonder why he can make a device with a plastic bottle and a similar device costs thousands of dollars more.
- RA_Fisher 8y agoOne reason is regulation. Regulation builds waste into the price and reduces accessibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18733284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18733284
- saadshamim 8y agoThis reminds me of the $0.68 microscope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-D1Upn-KU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-D1Upn-KU. I love how a slight change in perspective can result in such drastic applications of the same idea.
- KillerRAK 8y agoWhy do I read this headline to myself in Adam Sandler's voice???
- zhoujianfu 8y agoSaving lives at a medium pace...
- dang 8y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17945071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17945071