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A recent study on the effects of commonly used anesthetic and sedative drugs on cerebrospinal fluid flow and volume has uncovered significant findings regarding their impact on the brain's vital glymphatic system. These findings may affect neuroanesthesia practices. Researchers found that two commonly used anesthetic regimens are stronger in regulating cerebrospinal fluid flow and cerebral blood volume than the influence of blood carbon dioxide. This finding may reshape neuroanesthesia practices in clinical settings, particularly in neurological, brain trauma, and neurosurgical scenarios, where manipulating carbon dioxide levels is routine for regulating cerebral blood flow, cerebral oxygenation, and intracranial pressure in intubated...

The Food and Drug Administration is notoriously allergic to the concept of tradeoffs: FDA bureaucrats see eliminating risk as their highest goal, no matter what benefits might be destroyed in the process. This tendency has manifested itself most tragically in the current drug shortage. About 150 drugs considered “medically necessary,” including anesthetics and medications that treat lethal illnesses such as leukemia, are today in shortage. This problem has been growing since at least 2005, and there are several causes for it — but overly stringent FDA regulations are one reason it has reached such immense proportions. Since the “tainted drugs”...

<p>AMMAN, Jordan  — Baghdad's hard-pressed surgeons, flooded with war-wounded, are amputating the limbs of children and adults with too few anesthetics to block the pain and too few antibiotics to protect the patients, a Greek doctor newly arrived from Iraq reported Saturday.</p>