Propofol

Propofol Sandoz is used as a short acting general anaesthetic. It may be given to you by injection before an operation to produce general anaesthesia. This is the condition of heavy sleep needed during surgery. Propofol Sandoz can also be used to start off an anaesthetic (induction anaesthesia). This means that the anaesthetist may change over to a gas anaesthetic after you have gone to sleep. During some short medical procedures, Propofol Sandoz may also be given to you slowly in low doses to sedate you, or make you sleepy. However, your anaesthetist or surgeon may have prescribed Propofol Sandoz for another reason. Ask your doctor if you have any questions about why Propofol Sandoz has been prescribed for you. This medicine is available only with a doctor's prescription.

Propofol Sandoz is given by an injection into a vein, usually in the forearm or the back of the hand. Your anaesthetist will decide what dose and how long you will receive Propofol Sandoz. The dose of Propofol Sandoz will be adjusted to keep you at the right depth of sleep or sedation. If you are older, a child, or have some kind of heart condition, your anaesthetist may be able to use lower doses to get the right depth of sleep or sedation.

Your anaesthetist, surgeon and nursing staff are trained to look after every need that you have while you are asleep or sedated. If you are receiving Propofol Sandoz for general anaesthesia the anaesthetist may need to use several different medicines to keep you asleep, pain free, breathing in a healthy way and with good blood pressure. If you are receiving Propofol Sandoz for sedation, other drugs may also be given at the same time for pain relief. The mix and doses of drugs needs to be chosen by specially trained doctors and adjusted for each patient according to their need.

All medicines can have side effects. Sometimes they are serious most of the time they are not. You may need medical treatment if you get some of the side effects. Some of the unwanted side effects of Propofol Sandoz are the result of sleep being too light or too deep. Your anaesthetist will reduce the dose of Propofol Sandoz if your blood pressure is low, or if you need help breathing. However, your anaesthetist may increase the dose if body movement is still observed. Other medicines may also be needed if your heart rate becomes too slow or irregular. There may be an increased risk of fits or convulsions in patients with epilepsy. The anaesthetist is trained to manage these rare events in the unlikely event that they occur. Rarely, major allergic reactions called anaphylaxis have occurred following the use of Propofol Sandoz. These reactions occur during operations and may include drop of blood pressure, spasm, or tightness of the bronchi (breathing tubes) and redness of the skin. The anaesthetist is trained to manage these rare events if they occur.

More questions about Michael Jackson’s medications arose Tuesday when a nurse came forward to say that Jackson had asked her in April for a power sedative.

Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse who operates a Los Angeles-based nutritional counseling business, told CNN that Jackson was complaining of insomnia and pleaded for her to get him some Diprivan (propofol), a drug usually used to start or maintain anesthesia during surgeries.

Lee said she told Jackson “the medication is not safe.”

Four days before Jackson’s death, Lee said, a Jackson staffer called and said the pop star was complaining that one side of his body was hot and the other side was cold .

“You need to go to hospital,” she told the staffer, with Jackson apparently in earshot.

An injection of Diprivan can induce hypnosis within 40 seconds from the start of injection, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The drug’s product label says that propofol should only be administered by people “trained in the administration of general anesthesia.” Sedated patients should be continuously monitored, the product label says, and equipment to provide artificial ventilation, administration of oxygen and instituting CPR “must be immediately available.”

The product label warns that use of propofol for sedating adult and pediatric intensive care unit patients has been associated with organ system failures that have resulted in death.

Al Franken

Al Franken statement on election contest victory, Full statement:

Thank you all for being here.

Franni and I couldn’t be happier, because today, after a lengthy and careful trial scrutinizing our lengthy and careful recount, the three-judge panel has declared a winner in the 2008 Senate election here in Minnesota.

I am honored and humbled by this close victory, and I’m looking forward to getting to work as soon as possible.

I am, of course, incredibly gratified by today’s ruling, and grateful to the judges, to our legal team, and most of all, to Minnesota’s civil servants, elected officials, and citizen volunteers who have taken so much time and gone to so much effort over the past weeks and months to make sure that the votes were accurately counted.

It has been more than five months since Election Day, and more than three months since the winner of this election was supposed to be sworn in to go to work for the people of Minnesota.

This long delay in the seating of Minnesota’s second U.S. Senator has come at a time when our state badly needs help from Washington.

Since Election Day, Minnesota has lost 56,000 jobs.

Since Election Day, 9,000 Minnesota families have lost their homes.

And all of us have watched as our neighbors in the Red River Valley have struggled and suffered in the wake of the flooding there.

Now, if I had to pick one person to do the job of two United States Senators, it would absolutely be Amy Klobuchar. Senator Klobuchar - and, I must stress, her amazing staff - have performed incredible feats of constituent service over the past few months.

But she’s only one Senator. And it’s time that Minnesota, like every other state, had two.

You know, over the past few months, we’ve all learned more about the mechanics of democracy than we ever thought possible.

And that’s a good thing. But it’s important to remember why we go through all of this in the first place, why people go to the trouble of standing in line for hours or filling out absentee ballots or even driving down to a St. Paul courtroom from all over the state to make sure their votes are counted properly.

After all, this was a hard-fought election, and the fighting continued long after the polls closed, but there’s a reason we fought hard.

We didn’t fight hard simply because we wanted to win.

We fought hard because every Minnesotan knows someone who’s losing a job or a home, someone who’s struggling to pay for tuition or prescription drugs.

We fought hard because the American dream, the dream that my family believed in when I was growing up in a middle-class home in St. Louis Park, is slipping away from too many families.

We fought hard because when Washington lets us down, it’s our friends, our neighbors, our family members who suffer, and when we can do something about it, we owe it to them to fight hard.

It’s like Paul Wellstone always said. Politics isn’t about winning. It’s about the improvement of people’s lives.

And so, I want to say a word to those on both sides of the aisle who have followed every twist and turn of the recount and contest, whether it was on the Uptake’s live blog or a discussion with friends in a coffee shop, whether it was with patience or frustration: Let’s not forget why this election mattered.

Let’s commit ourselves with the same energy and passion to addressing the challenges we face, improving the lives of our neighbors, and building a better future for Minnesota.

The campaign for this Senate seat has been long and expensive. But the fight ahead, the fight to rebuild our economy and repair our broken health care system and restore our standing in the world - that’s a fight we must win. It’s a fight we must win by setting aside partisan gamesmanship and working together.

My role in that fight will be to work every day with Senators from both parties to serve the state I love, because restoring America’s promise is going to be a big job. And it’s long past time we got to work.

Al Franken met Joe Biden

Alan Stuart "Al" Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American entertainer turned political pundit and politician, and is the United States Senator-elect from the the State of Minnesota. In 2008 Franken ran as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for U.S. Senate. He was declared the winner of that contested race, but the outcome was appealed by his opponent, Norm Coleman. On June 30, 2009, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld Franken's victory and declared that he was entitled to be certified as the election winner. Coleman thereupon conceded the election to Franken.

Franken has worked as a comedian, writer and liberal political commentator. He first became famous as a writer and a performer for the television show Saturday Night Live (SNL), then moved on to writing and acting in several films. He then became a political commentator, writer of several best-selling books, and host of a nationally syndicated radio show on Air America Radio.

he Vice President met with Al Franken this afternoon, and released this statement afterwards:

"The election process and recount in Minnesota have lived up to the state's reputation for organization, transparency, and bipartisanship. The officials have been meticulous and every ruling has been unanimous.

"While Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the hardest working members of the United States Senate, Minnesotans deserve their full representation.

"Once the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued its final ruling in this case, the President and I look forward to working with Mr. Franken on building an economy for the 21st century."