Car Wars Internet Newsletter
Vol. 7, No. 7
August 08, 2054
 

Web Posted December 31, 2004
Updated December 31, 2004

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THE GUNNERY CHAIR
 

Hello autoduelists. You can blame radiation poisoning from my youth on getting this issue out one week later than its planned release of last Sunday. The contamination to which I am referring is the radioactivity caused by the planet bombs sent to Earth by the Gamilon Empire. (Translation: I have been watching my newly arrived Star Blazers DVD collection birthday gift. If you are visiting the Seattle area and you are a Star Blazers fan, let me know and we can meet to watch the DVDs in addition to dueling each other.)

This coming weekend I will be attending the Dragonflight 2004 gaming convention at Seattle University. I am not planning to run any scheduled games, however I will have Car Wars materials with me to host on-demand sessions.

I have been reinstated as the editor for the Car Wars Category for the Open Directory Project (ODP). If you are aware of a good Web site about Car Wars or other auto-combat tabletop game, please tell me about it so I can add it to the ODP.

Drive offensively,

Michael P. Owen
 

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50 YEARS AGO TODAY
 

RESEARCH SHOWS VIDEO GAMES LEAD TO FEWER MISTAKES ON THE OPERATION TABLE
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-04-07-surgeons-video-games_x.htm

The Associated Press and USA Today
Posted 4/7/2004 7:05 AM

NEW YORK (AP) -- All those years on the couch playing Nintendo and PlayStation appear to be paying off for surgeons.

Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37% less mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27% faster than their counterparts who did not play video games.

"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Laparoscopic surgery -- using a tiny camera and instruments controlled by joysticks outside the body -- is performed on just about any part of the body, from an appendix to the colon and gall bladder.

The minimally intrusive surgery involves making tiny keyhole incisions, inserting a mini-video camera that sends images to an external video screen, with the surgical tools remote-controlled by the surgeon watching the screen. Surgeons can now practice their techniques through video simulations.

Rosser said the skill needed for laparoscopic surgery is "like tying your shoelaces with 3-foot-long chopsticks."

"Yes, here we go!" said Rosser, sitting in front of a Super Monkey Ball game, which shoots a ball into a confined goal. "This is a nice, wholesome game. No blood and guts. But I need the same kind of skill to go into a body and sew two pieces of intestine together."

The study on whether good video game skills translate into surgical prowess was done by researchers with Beth Israel and the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University. It was based on testing 33 fellow doctors -- 12 attending physicians and 21 medical school residents who participated from May to August 2003.

Each doctor completed three video game tasks that tested such factors as motor skills, reaction time and hand-eye coordination.

The study "landmarks the arrival of Generation X into medicine," said the study's co-author, Dr. Paul J. Lynch, a Beth Israel anesthesiologist who has studied the effects of video games for years.

Kurt Squire, a University of Wisconsin researcher of video game effects on learning, said that "with a video game, you can definitely develop timing and a sense of touch, as well as a very intuitive feel for manipulating devices."

Squire, who was not involved in Rosser's project, said applying such games to surgery training "could play a key role in preparing medical health professionals."

Beth Israel is now experimenting with applying the findings.

Rosser has developed a course called Top Gun, in which surgical trainees warm up their coordination, agility and accuracy with a video game before entering the operating room.

"It's like a good football player," Rosser said, "you have to warm up first."
 
 

THERE'S MONEY IN THE BUSINESS OF BODY PARTS
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-04-06-body-parts_x.htm

By Robert Davis, USA TODAY
Contributing: Liz Szabo
Posted April 06, 2004
 

Photograph: In a basement of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in an office near the morgue, Ronn Wade's phone rings with yet another request for body parts.

Photograph: Colette Dugan, 43, had specialized knee surgery after her doctor learned the procedure on cadavers first.
 

The caller, a body broker, says doctors are traveling to a hotel where they will practice surgical techniques with new instruments. The course's sponsors need bodies.

This is not an unusual event. Seminars such as this take place throughout the country to give doctors needed experience with new instruments or surgical techniques. (Graphic: How the body can be used after death.)

And this is not an unusual call. Wade, director of the Maryland Anatomy Board, has a lot of bodies: state residents who donated their bodies, now carefully tucked away, unembalmed, in coolers. Body brokers call him several times a week.

These brokers are people who profit by providing bodies and body parts for medical research, and they come in many different forms. They might be representatives of tissue banks or companies that act as intermediaries between those who have bodies, such as medical centers, and those who need them, such as sponsors of surgical seminars.

Federal law prohibits the sale of human organs and tissue for transplantation. The law is widely considered a total ban on the sale of all body parts, although it does not specifically address the conveyance of parts for medical education and research.

In any event, those who act as go-betweens, including organ recovery agencies, may charge for their work. Some are conscientious professionals who help provide research cadavers. But others are van-driving entrepreneurs who walk a thin line between legitimacy and lawlessness.

A recent scandal at the University of California-Los Angeles, in which two men, including the director of UCLA's Willed Body Program, were arrested on charges of selling stolen body parts for their own profit, has turned a national spotlight on an industry that operates in the dark: the largely unregulated acquisition and dissemination of body parts for medical and scientific research.

News reports of shady characters trading bodies that were donated with the best of intentions have legitimate members of the research and transplant communities calling for more oversight. Their greatest fear is that people will stop donating the bodies that are so necessary for lifesaving transplants and research.

"The people who put their trust in us begin to have second thoughts and may not make a donation or may even withdraw their donation from a donor roll," Wade says. "The fallout is long-term."

Wade oversees the donations of 1,300 to 1,500 bodies a year. And there are 70,000 people alive today who have signed up to donate their bodies to Maryland's medical schools when they die.

When the broker calls to find bodies for the seminar, Wade stands between the surgical course's promise of "hands-on training" and a sweet profit for the corporate sponsor, which will charge thousands of dollars for such a seminar. Money pours in from several fronts: Doctors are willing to pay to learn new techniques on cadavers. And the makers of medical instruments are willing to pay more because the sales of those new tools will increase after the doctors learn how to use them.

Wade has seen this trade bloom over 30 years of working with the dead, and he thinks of what's best for the deceased and their families when he gets these calls. He is the worst nightmare for a body broker looking for shortcuts and fast money.

Before Wade will release a body, there are layers of paperwork and phone calls to verify key details. He wants to know exactly where the body is going, how it will be transported and what it will be used for. He tracks every body and every body part. Every part is either returned to him or is cremated under his direction. The remains then are returned for a ceremony to which the families are invited.

Hearing all of this, the body broker on the other line hangs up, saying, "I don't need this lecture."
 

The benefits

Medicine depends on the dead.

Organ transplants save about 20,000 lives a year through dramatic surgical swaps that often include using helicopters and jets to move organs quickly.

Tissue transplants help about 1 million people a year; the blind get eyes as good as new, burn victims get bandages made of human skin.

Bodies used for research drive medical advancements by helping inventors to create safer surgical tools and medical professionals to hone their skills. The availability of cadavers allows crucial skills to be sharpened before a life depends on fast and flawless execution.

Because all of these medical benefits rely on the same selfless gift, leaders in each area cringe when the public's trust is threatened by misdeeds.

Helen Leslie, president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, whose 59 members ask grieving families for permission to transplant organs into those on waiting lists, says the entire system relies on public trust. "What hurts is the buzz," she says. "The impression that there is a lack of integrity is devastating."

Alexander Capron, director of ethics, trade, human rights and health law for the World Health Organization, says the way in which bodies are treated after death either builds or diminishes trust by the public. And if the public loses trust in the system, thousands of lives are at stake.

"Any time you have an apparent abuse of the system, you potentially shake public confidence," he says. "This could undermine organ donations."

What government and medical professionals in the USA do, or don't do, to impose order on this vital but sometimes seamy outpost of modern medicine will be watched around the world, Capron says.

"What the U.S. does leads the rest of the world," he says. "People say if they can do it in the U.S., why not in the Philippines?"
 

The suppliers

As the phone line goes dead, Wade knows that the body broker need only dial a few more folks on a growing list of about 700 tissue banks to find someone who will part with a body — for a price.

Tissue banks are at the center of the controversy. Within hours after a death, workers from tissue banks remove parts of the eye that give sight, ligaments for knee surgeries, skin for burn patients and other parts for the living. They get most of their bodies from hospitals that ask grieving family members whether the person who has just died wanted to make the gift of life. Usually, the person has spelled out his or her wishes before death and has, perhaps, signed an organ donor card.

Less reputable, non-accredited tissue banks don't stop at removing the tissue needed for transplant.

"You remove the cornea, and the head is still salable. You remove the skin, and joints are still salable. This is the main source of body parts," says Todd Olson, a professor of anatomy at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York -- a state that has taken steps to regulate the willed-body trade. "Unfortunately, a significant number of tissue bank organizations are not conscientiously dealing with the rest of the remains."

Olson calls it unlikely that those who drafted the laws banning the sale of organs and tissue for transplant ever anticipated that other body parts would become a salable commodity. "In the spirit in which they (the bans) were drafted, this generous donation was not meant to profit someone else," he says.

There are three kinds of body-part donations. The most attention is paid to organ donation for transplant, a highly regulated process overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Second is tissue donation for transplant. There are fewer regulations, but the tissue banks still must meet strict rules about how material is handled, tested and prepared for transplant.

Third is the donation of a body for research. There is virtually no federal oversight of how cadavers and body parts are moved across the country for research and training.

The big money -- and the profit -- is in the details.

Handlers such as the one who called Wade at the University of Maryland can charge thousands of dollars for the storage, transportation and processing of each body part they deliver. The well-connected body broker with a knack for finding someone who wants all of a body's parts can make between $100,000 and $300,000 per body. Even if he can't get the body as a research donation and has to pay a disreputable tissue bank $5,000 for it, he still makes a handsome sum.

Bob Rigney, executive director of the American Association of Tissue Banks, which has accredited 83 tissue banks, says most accredited banks turn away body brokers. "Our banks get calls all the time looking for this, that or the other thing, body parts or some organ or tissue," he says. "My experience has been that most of the banks we accredit don't deal with tissue for research, period."

When a tissue bank turns a broker away, the search for a body may lead to a medical school, another major source of bodies. When medical schools have more bodies than they need to teach with, they can release extra specimens to other schools and other researchers.

The UCLA scandal, experts say, shows that more oversight is needed to protect the dead from body-parts trafficking. Demand is growing, supply is limited and the market is hot.

"UCLA tried to make fixes years ago" by hiring licensed contractors to handle remains from the willed-body program, says Wade, who also is co-chair of the anatomical services committee for the American Association of Clinical Anatomists.

"Those were Band-Aid fixes," he says. "If the whole thing is broken, you have to step back. You have to look back and see what is driving this machine. It's money."

UCLA agrees. Thomas Rosenthal, associate vice chancellor of UCLA's medical school, says "temptations" are strong for those who handle bodies. "It is clear from our experience that there is money to be made," he says.
 

Growing demand

The demand for body parts has created a growing field of companies that supply bodies on a larger scale.

Many surgeons go to two big centers if they need to practice on cadavers. The Medical Education and Research Institute in Memphis and the Orthopaedic Training Center in Rosemont, Ill., both obtain bodies and work with national physician groups to plan mass training sessions. Neither returned repeated calls seeking information for this story.

Another company is ScienceCare, based in Phoenix, which has turned to funeral homes as far as New York. The funeral homes can facilitate cadaver donations.

Although ScienceCare is an accredited tissue bank, Rigney says it does not recover tissue for transplantation, focusing only on parts for research. The company refused to comment, saying in an e-mail that it works with "sensitive end-of-life issues."

These operations are said to be meeting a large and legitimate need by supplying the cadavers needed for medical training seminars. Surgical advancements also have caused spikes in medical errors. When doctors try out a new skill on patients, the results can be damaging. So they increasingly are turning to cadaver labs to learn.

"As a surgeon, I am doing nothing that I was trained to do in my residency," says Nicholas DiNubile, an orthopedic consultant with the Philadelphia 76ers pro basketball team and the Pennsylvania Ballet, who has relied on cadaver training to learn many new techniques. In the 22 years since he finished his medical training, medicine has "evolved so much that the work I do is completely different than my training."

Although no nationwide count is available, thousands of surgeons work on donated bodies and parts each year.

Sometimes, these sessions are held in hotel rooms -- a practice that experts say puts other guests at risk of disease. "They are grinding tissue, drilling through tissue, and there is particulate matter in the air," Wade says. "They are working on specimens on the ground floor near the lobby, and what happens if somebody on the 12th floor starts coughing? Are they exposing everybody in their hotel to a health risk? Certainly they are."
 

The solution

Those who want to see an end to profiteering from body parts say professional medical organizations can help clean up the business by requiring brokers to provide detailed accountings for every part.

"Most of the time, the broker won't tell you where the body came from," Wade says, but the doctors, who are key to courses, have ethical standards and a responsibility to public health. "The sales guys don't teach the courses. They have to put a doctor in there."

Olson says the medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association and the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, should insist on knowing where the body parts used for training came from. "They should know where it came from, how it got here, where it is going to be used, and how it is going to be disposed," he says, "as well as what costs were incurred in each of the transactions."

Similarly, big companies such as Johnson & Johnson and subsidiaries that use the parts to develop new surgical instruments could "take a more ethical stand in doing business" by establishing guidelines and oversight of the bodies, says Olson, who serves with Wade at the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. "They have a willing partner here at the AACA. Our door is open."

"We take the matter of using human tissue samples for medical research and education very seriously. We are sensitive to the need that all samples are appropriately and properly obtained, stored and shipped," says Johnson & Johnson's Marc Monseau. "Therefore, many of our companies work directly with accredited tissue banks, laboratories and medical schools that comply with federal, state and local laws and regulations."

Proposed FDA regulations may soon call for more record-keeping and more quality-assurance measures in tissue banks, but the agency has no plans to regulate brokers of body parts for research.

Olson says only the buyers can force a cleanup of the trade. "They have it in their power to say if we are going to do business with you, if you are going to provide these specimens, you have to provide us documentation and declare something about the cost associated with this contract," Olson says. "They could do that tomorrow."

"Most people with common sense and common spirit will say this has to stop," Olson says.
 
 
 

"BUNKER BUSTERS" MAY GROW TO 30,000 POUNDS
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/20/big.bomb/index.html

U.S. Air Force seeking deep impact on hard-to-reach targets

From Barbara Starr
CNN Washington Bureau
Tuesday, July 20, 2004 Posted: 3:01 PM EDT (1901 GMT)
 

Photograph: The proposed bomb would be about six times the weight of this "bunker buster," the laser-guided GBU-28.
 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It's just an idea on paper, but the U.S. Air Force is asking defense contractors how they might develop a 30,000-pound, precision-guided bomb that could destroy targets deep underground, in caves or in hardened bunkers.

Air Force officials said the proposed weapon, called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, would be substantially larger than the current penetrating bomb -- the GBU-28, a 5,000-pound weapon.

Military officials said the most likely use of such a weapon would be against underground targets such as those found in North Korea.

The Air Force initially considered the development of a 30,000-pound penetrating bomb before the Iraq war, but funding and technical challenges stifled movement.

After the invasion, Air Force weapons experts examined several bomb sites in Iraq and learned targets could not be fully destroyed using the current inventory of conventional weapons.

However, Air Force officials said they are uncertain whether the concept of a bigger bomb can be brought to reality or that there would be available funding.

The Air Force concept calls for the bomb to be deployed on B-2 or B-52 bombers. The weapon would be guided by use of Global Positioning System satellite coordinates.

Engineering obstacles must be overcome, according to Air Force officials.

One challenge would be the need to carry two bombs on an aircraft to keep the plane stable in flight. Both bombs probably would need to be dropped at the same time for the bomber to maintain level flight, officials said.

Air Force officials said the bomb's structure would incorporate some type of heavy alloy that would make up most of the weight, allowing it to penetrate the target. An advanced or "smart" fuse also would be part of the system, so that detonation would occur only after the bomb reached the target, they said.

The Air Force said it is prepared to spend $11 million on weapon design and demonstration, with testing possibly beginning in 2006.

This bomb concept, informally known as the "Big Blue," differs from the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, a 20,000-pound weapon packed with 18,000 pounds of explosives. The MOAB bomb is designed to explode above ground for destruction of widespread surface targets such as troops and tanks.
 
 

MAN TAKES TRACTOR FOR SPIN ON AIRPORT RUNWAY
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/07/22/baggage.tractor.ap/index.html

The Associated Press and CNN
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Posted: 1:43 PM EDT (1743 GMT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- An airline passenger wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms stole a baggage tractor at the city's main airport and drove it onto an active runway early Wednesday, police said.

Atlanta police say Robert W. Buzzell, 31, had walked out an exit door that had an alarm at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Flights were not affected by the incident, which took place before 6 a.m., airport officials said.

The man was stopped by mechanics who asked him for an employee identification card. When he could not provide one, they escorted him to an office and called police.

Authorities said the man appeared mentally unstable.

Buzzell, who had a ticket for a Delta flight, was jailed on charges of unlawful interference with security, theft by taking and reckless conduct.

Police said Buzzell, of Warner Robins, Georgia, told Delta employees that an alarm sounded when he opened the door to the tarmac, but that no security personnel were around.

Airport officials said they are working with police and the airline to determine if security changes need to be made.
 
 

MILITARY READIES DIRECTED-ENERGY WEAPONS
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/08/02/directedenergyweapons.ap/index.html

The Associated Press and CNN
Monday, August 2, 2004
Posted: 10:07 AM EDT (1407 GMT)
 

Photograph: Pete Bitar, president of Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems, looks over the output from a demonstration unit of a directed-energy weapon.
 

(AP) -- A few months from now, Peter Anthony Schlesinger hopes to zap a laser beam at a couple of chickens or other animals in a cage a few dozen yards away.

If all goes as planned, the chickens will be frozen in mid-cluck, their leg and wing muscles paralyzed by an electrical charge created by the beam, even as their heart and lungs function normally.

Among those most interested in the outcome will be officials at the Pentagon, who helped fund Schlesinger's work and are looking at this type of device to do a lot more than just zap a chicken.

Devices like these, known as directed-energy weapons, could be used to fight wars in coming years.

"When you can do things at the speed of light, all sorts of new capabilities are there," said Delores Etter, a former undersecretary of defense for science and technology and an advocate of directed-energy weapons.

Directed energy could bring numerous advantages to the battlefield in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have had to deal with hostile but unarmed crowds as well as dangerous insurgents.

Aside from paralyzing potential attackers or noncombatants like a long-range stun gun, directed-energy weapons could fry the electronics of missiles and roadside bombs, developers say, or even disable a vehicle in a high-speed chase.

The most ambitious program is the Air Force's Airborne Laser, a plan to mount a laser on a modified Boeing 747 and use it to shoot down missiles.

At the same Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, researchers working with Raytheon Co. have developed a weapon called the Active Denial System, which repels adversaries by heating the water molecules in their skin with microwave energy. The pain is so great that people flee immediately.

"It just feels like your skin is on fire," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the laboratory who, as a test subject, has felt the Active Denial System's heat. "When you get out of the path of the beam, or shut off the beam, everything goes back to normal. There's no residual pain."

A Humvee-mounted Active Denial weapon is expected to be given to all services by the end of this year for evaluation, with a decision about deployment expected by the end of 2005.

But the idea of using directed energy against humans is creating debate fueled by deaths allegedly caused by Taser stun guns and the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners -- which put the military's respect for human rights under a microscope.

Some experts believe the use of directed energy will be limited by international law and treaties.

"Although it seems like it would be more desirable to disable rather than to kill them, the problem is there are all sorts of treaties in place that limit how you can disable noncombatants," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank. "It's kind of perverse, but sometimes the backlog of old laws can get in the way of being humane."

Military officials believe the intended uses of the Active Denial System do not violate any international laws or treaties and do not cause any permanent health problems.

"You can rest assured that with this system, when it finally is deployed, we will be very, very clear about what the intended uses are and what is clearly outside of bounds," said Marine Corps Capt. Daniel McSweeney, spokesman for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. "It's not intended to be used as a torture device. That goes against all the design intentions and parameters."

Research into side effects of weaponized directed energy began in the late 1990s at the Air Force's Brooks City-Base in San Antonio. Researchers began by reviewing studies of radio-frequency energy involved in military communications, radar and other technologies, officials say.

Human testing of the Active Denial System began after researchers concluded it could be used without permanent harm. More than 200 volunteers -- including some in their 70s -- from various military branches and government agencies were zapped with the system, on average about three times each.

The results showed no lingering health problems, officials say.

"This type of device doesn't penetrate very far," said Lt. Col. William Roach, chief of the radio frequency branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory.

But the fact that studies on directed energy's human effects haven't been released to the public has some outside the government worried.

Dominique Loye of the International Committee of the Red Cross has pleaded for more disclosure of directed-energy research and independent investigation into possible side effects.

Directed energy may cause "new types of injuries we're not aware of and may not be capable of taking care of," Loye said. "The message we try to put across is: 'We understand some companies are investing money, so maybe it will be worthwhile for you to start the investigation as early as possible and not to invest millions and millions and then 10 years down the line find out your weapon will be illegal."'

The weapons' developers, on the other hand, pitch them for their lifesaving potential.

The pinpoint accuracy of a laser could eliminate collateral damage caused by missile explosions, the argument goes, and stun gun-like weapons could save lives in hostage or bomb-threat situations. Directed energy also has the potential to explode roadside bombs or mines from a distance.

"You're dealing with the ability to pre-detonate the majority of improvised explosives that are used right now," said Pete Bitar, president of Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems, an Anderson, Ind., company that is developing a rifle-sized directed-energy gun for the Marines.

The device works by creating an electrical charge through a stream of ionized gas, or plasma.

Bitar says it could be tuned to target the electronics of a vehicle or explosive device, or tuned to temporarily paralyze voluntary muscles, such as those that control arms and legs. The involuntary muscles, like heart and lungs, operate at a different frequency.

So far, this and a handful of similar weapons are only in the prototype stage. Production models, if approved by the military, would not be ready for a few years.

The device being developed by Schlesinger's company, HSV Technologies Inc. of San Diego, will operate similarly to Bitar's, except the electrical charge will be created by an ultraviolet laser beam, rather than plasma. He, too, says the device is designed for non-lethal purposes only.

"Later on, as certain agencies or law enforcement gets involved in this, and they see the need for lethality, I'm sure that can be developed later," Schlesinger said. "It could induce cardiac arrest, for example. But that is not our patent, and not our intent."

Still, that potential is sure to make opponents of directed energy skeptical.

"It's encouraging that the U.S. is searching for more humane weapons," said the Lexington Institute's Thompson. "But it's very hard to convince other countries that our goals are ethical."