![]() ![]() When a baby's mother has a different blood type, antibodies from the mother may leak into the baby's circulation and destroy blood cells. Erythroblastosis fetalis is a disease of newborns marked by the presence of too many immature red blood cells (erythroblasts) in the baby's blood. Several diseases are characterized by defective blood coagulation that can destroy red blood cells. Kidney failure and other serious diseases.If a patient is given an incompatible blood type, hemolysis results. In 75% of cases, this reaction occurs all by itself, with no underlying disease to account for it. Several types of cancer and immune system diseases produce antibodies that react with RBCs and destroy them. ![]() The RBCs squeeze through capillaries one at a time and can easily be damaged by scraping against the vessel walls. It results from damage caused by rough surfaces on the inside of the capillaries. Hemolysis that occurs in diseased small blood vessels is called micro-angiopathic hemolysis. Malaria, other infections, cancers and leukemias, some of the hereditary anemias mentioned above, obstruction of blood flow from the spleen-all these and many more diseases can enlarge the spleen to the point where it removes too many red blood cells. If it has become enlarged, it filters out normal cells as well. It is supposed to filter out and destroy only worn-out RBCs. The spleen is an organ that is located near the upper end of the stomach and filters the blood. There are also inherited defects that involve the internal chemistry of RBCs. Such hereditary disorders as spherocytosis weaken the outer membrane of the red cell. There are many genetic mutations that affect the hemoglobin itself, the best-known of which is sickle cell disease. There are a number of hereditary defects that affect the blood cells. This damage is one reason to recommend pig valves and valves made of other organic materials. The inflexible moving parts of heart valves damage RBCs as they flutter back and forth. Snake and spider venom, certain bacterial toxins, copper, and some organic industrial chemicals directly attack the membranes of red blood cells. Most important among these drugs are anti-malarial medications such as quinine, and vitamins C and K. Other drugs cause hemolysis only in people with this disorder. Some of the drugs listed above are more likely to cause hemolysis in people with G6PD. G6PD is a deficiency that affects more than 200 million people in the world. Certain drugs in combination with a hereditary enzyme deficiency known as glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD).These medications include some antibiotic and anti-tuberculosis medicines drugs that regulate the heart-beat and levodopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease. Some common drugs can cause hemolysis as a rare but sudden side effect. The pigment may reach the urine in sufficient quantities to cause "blackwater fever," an often lethal form of malaria. When enough cells burst at once, jaundice may result from the large amount of bilirubin formed from the hemoglobin in the dead cells. This process happens to most of the parasites simultaneously, causing the intermittent symptoms of the disease. When it is mature it breaks the cell apart and swims off in the blood. The malaria parasite develops inside red blood cells. When it rises to 3 mg/dL or higher, the person's skin and the whites of the eyes become noticeably yellow. The normal total level of bilirubin in blood serum is between 0.2 mg/dL and 1.2 mg/dL. If bilirubin cannot leave the body, it accumulates and discolors other tissues. Bilirubin is a product of the breakdown of hemoglobin, which is the protein inside red blood cells. One particular substance, bilirubin, is yellow. ![]() Many of these outward-bound chemicals are excreted into the bile. The liver also collects chemicals from the blood for processing. It is the first stop for all nutrients, toxins, and drugs absorbed by the digestive tract. The liver is the premier chemical factory in the body-most incoming and outgoing chemicals pass through it. The most important function of the liver is the processing of chemical waste products like cholesterol and excreting them into the intestines as bile. ![]() In order to understand jaundice, it is useful to know about the role of the liver in producing bile. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() It has had a resurgence in recent times but has never been the mainstream view. This view is known as “Ricardian equivalence” because it was first raised–and swiftly rejected–by the English economist David Ricardo in 1817. Whether the accumulated debt is paid off or interest is paid on it forever makes no difference. On this view, when the government runs a deficit and issues new debt, the private sector understands that this means that taxes will be higher in the future and makes provision for it by adjusting savings. Or you could just keep paying interest and never pay off the loan. You could pay it now, or you could get a loan at, say, 10% interest and pay off the $110 loan next year. One view is that government debt doesn’t matter at all. ![]() In looking at the effects of this, I’m going to sidestep three issues to keep to a vaguely sensible length: (i) Whether it’s advisable to run deficits to stimulate a sluggish economy (ii) whether it’s desirable to have an official bond market, a by-product of government debt and (iii) whether the problems of measuring what’s going on in government accounts are so severe as to make it impossible to assess the generational effects of budgetary policy. As long as the government doesn’t repudiate the debt–unlikely for the U.S.–future taxes will have to be higher to service it. The key point is simple: Government debt is future taxation. If I may take the liberty of ignoring the paranoid element, you want to know what’s the deal with (i) having existing debt and (ii) adding to that debt by running a budget deficit. (We note in passing that printing money to pay off debt would amount to a large tax on the holding of money.) If the coin disappears into the hands of collectors, the government makes a clear profit at no obvious expense to anyone. If the government replaces a lost coin, it’s spending a small amount to grab the (tiny) increase in value that would otherwise accrue to holders of money, the theory being that if money is withdrawn from circulation, the value of what’s left rises. If you hand in your mangled quarter and the government swaps it for a shiny new one, clearly that’s cost the government about five cents (less scrap value). Whether it raises revenue for the government depends. Issuing new coins is not “making more money” in any of these cases, so it’s not inflationary. And people collect them–125 million people are collecting the State Quarters, according to the Mint. They get lost behind sofas and down drains. its indentured servitudeness? pfm, Albuquerqueīefore we get to your “real question,” pfm, let’s deal with the coins. taxpayers paying interest (we must be paying that interest to someone)? Or is it some entity like the World Bank who prefers that a country stay in debt so that there is essentially indentured servitude by a whole country, making that country’s money worth more-in other words is the underlying wealth of the U.S. to maintain a national debt? Is it the politicians who insist that a national debt is not a problem because they are the ones who are profiting from U.S. What’s up with that? The real question I have, though, is about the national debt. ![]() Mint is telling me that they are making money based on nothing more than what it costs to manufacture the money. In a previous column Cecil explained why the Federal Reserve does not just make more money to pay off the national debt as: “If you double the amount of money in circulation without increasing the amount of underlying wealth, all you’ve done is make your currency worth half as much.” But the U.S. The cost to manufacture a quarter is about 5 cents, providing a profit of approximately 20 cents per coin. Government will make money on the 50 State Quarters Program. The FAQ and answer is: What will the 50 State Quarters Program cost U.S. At that site I perused the FAQ section and found one of the answers troubling. Mint website to find one of the state logos of the new quarters being put out. Dear Straight Dope: I recently visited the U.S. ![]() |
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