Push hard, push fast

The American Heart Association changes its cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) guidelines every five years. The last update was in 2005, when the standard became thirty compressions to every two breaths. That's the CPR that I last learned.

Today, the AHA made one of the biggest changes in its history of CPR guidelines. The new CPR procedure is this: no more rescue breaths. Just keep pumping hard and fast at 100 compressions per minute. I guess they made the change now as opposed to in 2010, the next scheduled update, to get more people to perform CPR when necessary.

The theory is that anytime compressions stop, blood is not being circulated, and the amount of oxygen given in rescue breathing really is not enough to justify the interruptions in the compression cycles. Furthermore, sometimes the victim gasps on their own a little bit during the arrest anyways, although banking on that fact seems incredibly risky and irresponsible. Furthermore, the committee that made the changes in hope that more people are willing to perform CPR now that the real fear factor of needing to put your lips on someone else's is gone.

What they did not consider was how this may deter two-person rescue. If possible, CPR should always be performed by two people, one person continually giving compressions and the other person giving slow, one-second long breaths every five to six seconds. That way, circulation doesn't stop and the victim is being ventilated at the regular rate. With this new recommendation, if somebody requires immediate CPR, the bystanders will all think the same thing: "Only one person is required to do CPR. Somebody else can do it." Effective CPR is thus compromised because of this new common paradigm because nobody is willing to be the second rescuer with the "knowledge" one person can take care of it all.

Of course, if there is only one available rescuer, the AHA's recommendation makes more sense - make sure circulation happens. So the recommendation isn't totally bullshit. However, I don't see the AHA pushing for two-person CPR - that should be their priority because it's definitely the most effective method of prehospital care, should the situation call for it.
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Last Wednesday, the AHA changed the mnemonic device for stroke from FAST (Face, Arms, Speech, Time) to this "Give me 5" stroke awareness crap. The 5 are Walk, Talk, Reach, See, and Feel. How is that easier to remember than FAST? Ok, so FAST doesn't have a visual component in the acronym explicitly, but partial facial paralysis will very likely compromise the vision on that side as well - they go hand in hand; there really is no need for a separate checklist item for vision.
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Pharmaceutical companies are bullshit. Delaying crucial evidence in order to rake in billions of dollars, evidence that could potentially hurt the customer simply because it's more expensive than Zocor and does the same job is unprofessional and sickening.