Israel Develops New ‘Sniff Test’ that can Predict if a Comatose Patient Will Regain Consciousness

Israel Develops New ‘Sniff Test’ that can Predict if a Comatose Patient Will Regain Consciousness

Breaking Israel News

Latest News Biblical perspective

By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich April 30, 2020 , 4:13 pm 

“So David took away the spear and the water jar at Shaul‘s head, and they left. No one saw or knew or woke up; all remained asleep; a deep sleep from Hashem had fallen upon them. (1 Samuel 26:12)

Monitoring of comatose patient in intensive care. (courtesy: Shutterstock)

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/149498/israel-develops-new-sniff-test-that-can-predict-if-a-comatose-patient-will-regain-consciousness/

The nose knows! The olfactory system that centers on the sense of smell is the most ancient part of the brain, and its functioning provides an accurate measure of overall brain integrity. So perhaps it can provide information on the state of the brain itself.

If an unconscious person responds to smell through a slight change in his or her nasal airflow pattern, the patient is likely to regain consciousness, according to a new study conducted by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and colleagues at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital in nearby Ra’anana.

According to the findings, just published in the prestigious journal Nature, 100% of the unconscious brain-injured patients who responded to a “sniff test” developed by the researchers regained consciousness during the four-year study period. The scientists think that this simple, inexpensive test can aid doctors in accurately diagnosing and determining treatment plans according to the patients’ degree of brain injury.

The scientists conclude in their article that this finding once again highlights the primal role of the sense of smell in human brain organization. After a severe brain injury, it is often hard to determine whether the person is conscious or unconscious, and current diagnostic tests can lead to an incorrect diagnosis in up to two-fifths of all cases.

“Misdiagnosis can be critical, as it can influence the decision of whether to disconnect patients from life support machines,” noted Dr. Anat Arzi, who led the research. “In regard to treatment, if it is judged that a patient is unconscious and doesn’t feel anything, physicians may not prescribe them painkillers that they might need.”

Arzi launched this research during her doctoral studies in the group of Prof. Noam Sobel of Weizmann neurobiology department and continued it as part of her postdoctoral research at the psychology department at the University of Cambridge in England.
Sobel’s lab studies olfaction in human subjects and in machines (electronic noses), and the team’s main goals are to study the systems-level neurobiological mechanisms of olfactory processing and ways in which chemical sensing affects human health and behavior.

The “consciousness test” developed by the researchers – in collaboration with Dr. Yaron Sacher, head of the department of traumatic brain injury rehabilitation at the rehabilitation hospital – is based on the principle that our nasal airflow changes in response to odor; for example, an unpleasant odor will lead to shorter and shallower sniffs. In healthy humans, the sniff-response can occur unconsciously in both wakefulness and sleep.

The study included 43 brain-injured patients at Loewenstein Hospital; the researchers briefly placed jars containing various odors under the patients’ noses, including a pleasant scent of shampoo, an unpleasant smell of rotten fish or no odor at all. At the same time, the scientists precisely measured the volume of air inhaled through the nose in response to the odors. Each jar was presented to the patient ten times in random order during the testing session, and each patient participated in several such sessions.

“Astonishingly, all patients who were classified as being in a ‘vegetative state’ yet responded to the sniff test, later regained consciousness, even if only minimal. In some cases, the result of the sniff test was the first sign that these patients were about to recover consciousness – and this reaction was observed days, weeks and even months prior to any other signs,” added Arzi. Moreover, the sniff response predicted not only who would regain consciousness, but also forecast with about 92% accuracy who would survive for at least three years.

“The fact that the sniff test is simple and potentially inexpensive makes it advantageous,” continued Arzi. “It can be performed at the patients’ bedside without the need to move them – and without complicated machinery.”

After a severe head injury, patients may fall into a comatose state – their eyes are closed and they do not have sleep-wake cycles. A coma usually lasts for about two weeks, after which there may either be a rapid improvement and return to consciousness, deterioration leading to death – or it could lead to a condition defined as a “disorder of consciousness.”

When spontaneous eye opening occurs but there is no evidence that the patients are aware of themselves or their surroundings, they are then diagnosed as being in a “vegetative state.” Alternatively, if a patient displays consistent signs of awareness, even if they are minimal and unstable, the patient will be classified as being in a “minimally conscious state.”

The gold standard diagnostic tool for assessing the level of consciousness is the Coma Recovery Scale (Revised), which examines responses to various stimuli: eye movements while tracking an object; turning the head toward a sound; and response to pain, among others. Since the rate of diagnosis errors may reach up to 40%, it is recommended to repeat the test at least five times.

But misdiagnosis may also occur when that test is conducted repeatedly. “In a well-known study, a patient diagnosed as being in a ‘vegetative state’ following a car accident was scanned in an MRI machine. While in the scanner, the researchers asked the patient to imagine that she was playing tennis and observed that her brain activity was similar to the brain activity of healthy people when they also imaged playing a tennis game. Suddenly, they realized: ‘Hold on a minute, she’s there. She hears us and is responding to our requests. She simply has no way of communicating,’ ” said Arzi. “There are also known cases of people who were diagnosed in a ‘vegetative state’ but when they regained consciousness, they were able to recount in detail what was occurring while supposedly vegetative. Diagnosing the level of consciousness of a patient who has suffered a severe head injury is a major clinical challenge. The sniff test we have developed may provide a simple tool to tackle this challenge,” Arzi concluded.

THE KISSINGER REPORT: December 10, 1974 - Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide

THE KISSINGER REPORT: December 10, 1974 - Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide

SAGACIOUS NEWS

May 1, 2013

https://sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/the-kissinger-report-december-10-1974/

 (SNN) National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200) was completed on December 10, 1974, by the United States National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger.

It was adopted as official U.S. policy by President Gerald Ford in November 1975. It was originally classified but was later declassified and obtained by researchers in the early 1990s.

Click below to read the report:

National Security Study Memorandum, NSSM 200, Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (THE KISSINGER REPORT) December 10, 1974

Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide

(Joseph Brewda) On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post-Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture.

The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 “to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population.” The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since “a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production.” The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, “might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West,” especially effecting “military strength and security.”

NSSM 200 similarly concluded that the United States was threatened by population growth in the former colonial sector. It paid special attention to 13 “key countries” in which the United States had a “special political and strategic interest”: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. It claimed that population growth in those states was especially worrisome since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength.

For example, Nigeria: “Already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970, Nigeria’s population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa.” Or Brazil: “Brazil clearly dominated the continent demographically.” The study warned of a “growing power status for Brazil in Latin America and on the world scene over the next 25 years.”

Food as a weapon

There were several measures that Kissinger advocated to deal with this alleged threat, most prominently, birth control and related population-reduction programs. He also warned that “population growth rates are likely to increase appreciably before they begin to decline,” even if such measures were adopted.

A second measure was curtailing food supplies to targetted states, in part to force compliance with birth control policies: “There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.”

“Mandatory programs may be needed and we should be considering these possibilities now,” the document continued, adding, “Would food be considered an instrument of national power? … Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can’t/won’t control their population growth?”

Kissinger also predicted a return of famines that could make exclusive reliance on birth control programs unnecessary. “Rapid population growth and lagging food production in developing countries, together with the sharp deterioration in the global food situation in 1972 and 1973, have raised serious concerns about the ability of the world to feed itself adequately over the next quarter of a century and beyond,” he reported.

The cause of that coming food deficit was not natural, however, but was a result of western financial policy: “Capital investments for irrigation and infrastructure and the organization requirements for continuous improvements in agricultural yields may be beyond the financial and administrative capacity of many LDCs. For some of the areas under heaviest population pressure, there is little or no prospect for foreign exchange earnings to cover constantly increasingly imports of food.”

“It is questionable,” Kissinger gloated, “whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis.” Consequently, “large-scale famine of a kind not experienced for several decades—a kind the world thought had been permanently banished,” was foreseeable—famine, which has indeed come to pass.

Smithfield shutting U.S. pork plant indefinitely, warns of meat shortages during pandemic

Reuters

Published Sun, Apr 12 202012:18 PM EDTUpdated Mon, Apr 13 20208:44 AM EDT

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/12/smithfield-shutting-us-pork-plant-indefinitely-warns-of-meat-shortages-during-pandemic.html

Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers.

Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock.

Smithfield extended the closure of its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant after initially saying it would idle temporarily for cleaning. The facility is one of the nation’s largest pork processing facilities, representing 4% to 5% of U.S. pork production, according to the company.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said on Saturday that 238 Smithfield employees had active cases of the new coronavirus, accounting for 55% of the state’s total. Noem and the mayor of Sioux Falls had recommended the company shut the plant, which has about 3,700 workers, for at least two weeks.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield Chief Executive Ken Sullivan said in a statement on Sunday. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”

Smithfield said it will resume operations in Sioux Falls after further direction from local, state and federal officials. The company will pay employees for the next two weeks, according to the statement.

The company has been running its plants to supply U.S. consumers during the outbreak, Sullivan said.

“We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of COVID-19,” he said.

Other major U.S. meat and poultry processors, including Tyson Foods, Cargill and JBS USA have already idled plants in other states.

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