" Ethanol Fuels Fire Concerns
By CHRIS BLANK Associated Press Writer
1:55 PM EST, February 26, 2008 JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.

" The nation's drive toward alternative fuels carries a danger many
communities have been to slow to recognize: Ethanol fires are
harder to put out than gasoline ones and require a special
type of firefighting foam.

" Many fire departments around the country don't have the foam,
don't have enough of it, or are not well-trained in how to
apply it, firefighting experts say. It is also more expensive than
conventional foam.

" 'It is not unusual to find a fire department that is still
just prepared to deal with traditional flammable liquids," said
Ed Plaugher, director of national programs for the International
Association of Fire Chiefs.

" The problem is that water doesn't put out ethanol fires, and
the foam that has been used since the 1960s to smother ordinary
gasoline blazes doesn't work well against the grain-alcohol fuel..."

Guys, Tickets Version 2.5 beta candidate is online and available for
preliminary tire-kicking at http://www.saefern.org/tickets .

(For those of you not already aware of it, Tickets is a web-based
package per subject line, OS-agnostic. Yep, it's really free, offered
in the same sense of volunteerism that many of you guys offer your
time and skills without pay. Tech-wise, you already have the desktop
software you'd need, the web browser you're probably reading this
with. Any web server will do; several easy-to-install free ones are
available.)

See information re the overall project at http://openises.sourceforge.net/

At the demo site - http://www.saefern.org/tickets - there's a guest
login available - with limited privileges. Contact me offline for a
proper set of credentials.

In addition to some usability and performance tweaks, this version has
a number of important upgrades over its predecessors. The big one is
in the general arena of much better support for response units, as
follows:

If anyone has a current email address for Steve Mackey, please send it
my way, or forward my email to him.

my email address is:

dgerard at alamedafire

Baxter Halts Production of Heparin
By THOMAS M. BURTON and JON KAMP February 12, 2008

Baxter International Inc. temporarily suspended production of the widely used
blood-thinner heparin because of about 350 possible allergic reactions,
including four deaths, primarily in patients undergoing kidney dialysis and
heart surgery.

Because heparin, a generic drug available for decades, is widely used in
hospitals and dialysis centers, Baxter said it isn't suspending sales of the
heparin already produced. Officials of the Food and Drug Administration made
that decision along with executives of Baxter, of Deerfield, Ill., to avoid
shortages.
...
Heparin is derived from pig intestines.

Leaving a possibly tainted product on the market required an agonizing
balancing act by the FDA, and will mean more balancing by kidney specialists,
heart doctors and others who use the product.

rest:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120275413037059379.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news

I see no reason to continue maintaining this group. Like virtually all
newsgroups other than the binary groups, it has been replaced by web-based
forums.

If you disagree, speak up and give me a convincing reason why it should
continue.

Oh, and be prepared to take over moderating the group in your argument. :-)