Rhonchi

Tracing Lung Ailments That Rose With 9/11 Dust – New York Times
After nearly five years, it is still too early for these doctors, scientists and forensic pathologists to say with certainty whether any long-term cancer threat came with exposure to the toxic cloud unleashed by the trade center collapse. But there are already clear signs [...]

New York Daily News – Home – WTC air doomed ex-cop
An autopsy of a retired NYPD detective confirmed yesterday what his family and fellow cops long suspected – that James Zadroga’s death was “directly related” to the Ground Zero cleanup.
The stunning findings are believed to mark the first time the death of a cleanup worker [...]

CurEvents.com – A Global Current Events Discussion Forum – Avian influenza (H5N1): implications for intensive care.
Abstract
Background As influenza A/H5N1 spreads around the globe the risk of an epidemic increases.
Discussion Review of the cases of influenza A/H5N1 reported to date demonstrates that it causes a severe illness, with a high proportion of patients (63%) requiring [...]

AARC Webcast Central:
Looks like a good service from the AARC. Live and archived webcasts for AARC members. The upcoming one about the issue of Mechanical Ventilation in Mass Casualty settings looks like an important one.

This looks useful:
CPHP Learning Center: Terrorism, Preparedness, and Public Health: An Introduction
At the end of this course, public health workers will be competent to describe the public health role in emergency response in a range of potential or possible emergencies and to recognize unusual events that might indicate an emergency and describe appropriate action. [...]

NPR : Health Officials Consider Strategy for Possible Bird Flu Pandemic
Health experts worry that in the event of a bird-flu pandemic, there could be a severe shortage of ventilators and intensive care unit beds. Planning has begun to determine which cases would get treatment priority.

What happens if you have mass casualties who all need mechanical ventilation? Sounds like a mess to me, but folks are thinking hard about the allocation of ventilation technologies in such an event. Let’s hope we don’t need to implement it.
Concept of Operations for Triage of Mechanical Ventilation in an Epidemic — Hick and O’Laughlin, [...]