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05 November 2008

Yeah, sure... tasers

That's what we should all be freakin' out about...
-- TORONTO -- Ontario has recorded its highest number of superbug MRSA cases - a troubling sign that the pernicious invader has made significant inroads in hospitals.

Specifically, the number of cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has increased by more than 50 per cent over a three-year period, with 16,498 patients infected or colonized with MRSA in 2007, according to figures provided by Ontario's Quality Management Program-Laboratory Services.

Also worrisome were figures released on vancomycin-resistant enterocci (VRE), a strain of bacteria that has developed resistance to many commonly used antibiotics, specifically vancomycin.

Figures from Ontario's Quality Management Program-Laboratory Services showed the number of VRE cases climbed from 1,031 in 2004 to 3,900 cases in 2007, according to Dr. McGeer.
Let's try a little... admittedly unscientific... experiment here.

Ready...

Part one... When's the last time you, or anybody you know, got tasered? Total up all the instances.

Write that number down.

Part Two... When's the last time you, or anybody you know, was in a hospital? Again, add 'em up and write that number down too.

Part Three... divide the larger number by the smaller one.

Oh, that's right... you can't divide by zero.

Damn.

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RELATED: Maybe it scared him to death

File this one under... "We don' need no steenkin' science"
Police said the 30-year-old B.C. man was acting irrationally in the 500 block of 42 St. S.E., before he jumped through a window into a basement of a vacant duplex and a Taser was used to try and subdue him.

A police union official said Bowe, who appeared be under the influence of drugs, was hit by a Taser but only one probe struck him. And such a scenario would render a Taser entirely ineffective, said Tuttle, explaining both a positive and negative probe on the device must make contact with an individual for it to work.

"It's an all-or-nothing scenario," he said. "Either you get a circuit or you don't ... the bottom line is, you need two probes for a five-second application."
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