A very good friend sent me a landmark study surrounding Ketamine a little while ago. In drug research, big effects and powerful findings are usually accompanied by tiny sample sizes and weird statistics magic to rig the findings. So when I read the meta-analysis and systematic review published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, I was heartened. This is serious science and serious stats, with 167 patients evaluated across multiple studies. Also, the reporting scales (MADRS, HAM-D, QIDS-SR & the BDI) are well understood, robust and respected in the field. All of this adds up to this results abstract being very, VERY important:
Ketamine rapidly (within 1 day) reduced suicidal ideation significantly on both the clinician-administered and self-report outcome measures. Effect sizes were moderate to large (Cohen’s d=0.48–0.85) at all time points after dosing. A sensitivity analysis demonstrated that compared with control treatments, ketamine had significant benefits on the individual suicide items of the MADRS, the HAM-D, and the QIDS-SR but not the BDI. Ketamine’s effect on suicidal ideation remained significant after adjusting for concurrent changes in severity of depressive symptoms. ~The Effect of a Single Dose of Intravenous Ketamine on Suicidal Ideation: A Systematic Review & Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis (Wilkinson et al)
That’s a dense couple of sentences, so let me explain why it’s so earth shattering. Suicidal thoughts, (known as suicidal ideation in clinical psychology) and depressed feelings are very difficult to get rid of, especially for depressed people. Treatment-resistant depression is a term associated with someone who has attempted multiple types of treatment for their Axis I disorder, but it hasn’t gotten better. After trying multiple types of interventions with no success, people slide quickly into hopelessness and thoughts of self harm. Up until now, depression treatments like SSRI drugs and Cognitive Behavioral therapy take time to work, sometimes more than a month. If you’re not in a good place right now, these things can’t help you. Ketamine infusions help immediately, and the change is apparent both to the patient and to the interviewing physician afterwards. This bit is huge, as most drug research relies heavily on self-report, which leads to bias and distorted findings. But, people are already talking to the press swearing by it, and it’s getting quite a lot of press, so here’s what they’re talking about.
Fortunately Burners.Me is here for free to fill you in with further details.
A Burner returning from the Playa informed us that the camp structure that collapsed was part of The Lost Hotel. They were notorious for their involvement building the Mega-Bucks Board Director camp Caravancicle, home of sherpa whistleblower Beth Lillie.
The Lost Hotel courtyard, 2014
2014. Lost Hotel is in the middle; Caravancicle’s camp is to the right. Both use canvas cube hotel rooms from a company reportedly financed by JT Photo: Lost Hotel/Facebook
This is one hell of a coincidence. Two major incidents at Burning Man in two days – and they both relate to the two most notorious plug-n-play camps? Meanwhile, class war instigator Danger Ranger’s latest thing is high-profile homelessness…
Who benefits from these two attacks? They seem to promote “traditional values of Burning Man” (ie. romanticized reminiscing of the Cacophony Society), at the expense of the BMorg 2.0 Flysalen vision of “advance your career with acid and networking”. The vandals don’t respect the “newer” Burning Man values like the Ten Principles – in particular, Leave No Trace, Civic Responsibility, and Radical Inclusion.
It seems like whoever did these attacks approached the job like a military operation. To pull this off without getting caught required detailed knowledge of the camp layout and movements. Some have said “that shows it must be an inside job”, because who but someone camping there would know this? This assumes that sparkle ponies flying in on private jets and paying $10k+ for hotel rooms get involved in the nitty-gritty of camp logistics. Most people staying in Fancy Camps at Burning Man would have no idea which lines are the main generator lines, which tanks are the fresh water, which trailers are the food storage, or how to obtain and operate glue guns. Each camp must provide a great deal of this type of information to the BMorg placement team, including number of people in camp, art cars, and diagrams of the camp layout.
The sabotage (or remarkably coincidental accident?) of the Lost Hotel seems to have dangerously backfired. Six people were injured, one so badly they had to be airlifted out – the media are not saying “to Reno”, which suggests the injuries were extremely severe and a specialist was required.
Should we kill people over the Ten Principles now that Decommodification is an LLC? Is that how Burning Man makes the world a better place? Perhaps this is why the Satanists wanted a Jonestown segment when they launched their theme camp idea in 1996.
A little bird told me the reason why the cops love ChocoTacos so much.
It seems that a few years ago they came up with quite a successful undercover sting. Someone would roll into camp with an ice cream cart full of treats. They would hand them out to everyone who wanted one. The natural response from many Burner camps would be “thanks, can I offer you something?” The phony ice creamer would then ask for drugs (the scam would also work if the narc was under 21 and wanted an alcoholic beverage). The ice creamer would then leave the camp, which (if they were generous enough to gift something to the Burner) would mysteriously be raided by rangers and dogs a few minutes later.
Given that last year there were more than 600 citations which start at $525 each, it sounds like the Chocotacos are a solid investment for the people of Pershing County, even if they have to buy their own instead of getting them comped by Burners. We heard this year that the police could not provide adequate personnel to an active shooter situation elsewhere in Pershing, because everyone was too busy ogling titties writing cannabis citations at Burning Man.
We have had a comment from the Onceler about last year’s near-fatal medical situation, which sounds reasonably informed:
THE MONIQUE ROSE KETAMINE INCIDENT
The actors: Monique Rose (Paramedic HGH, Winnemucca, Deputy Pershing County Sheriff, Pershing County), Pat Songer (EMS Manager, HGH Winnemucca), Jim Parrish (CEO HGH, Winnemucca), Pershing County Sheriff’s Dept., Dr. Charles Stringham (Medical Director HGH, Winnemucca)
Incident: Deputy Monique Rose is trained as a paramedic and employed by Humboldt General Hospital, Winnemucca, NV who was deputized by Pershing County Sheriff’s Dept. supposedly dual role capacity at Burning Man 2015. Deputy Rose administered a lethal dose of Ketamine to a 110 lb. intoxicated female who was resisting arrest. The woman in custody went into respiratory failure twice and had to be resuscitated twice by medical personnel on scene and at the hospital. Luckily the patient lived.
Questions: First, Ketamine is not indicated in any form to subdue a noncompliant individual. Second, what was the determined does and route of administration? Did the individual have an IV in place? Third, where was Pat Songer (Supervisor) when this event occurred? Next, where did Deputy Rose get the Ketamine from, was she carrying her own narcotics working as a Deputy? Lastly, under which physician’s license was Deputy Rose operating under?
If Deputy Rose was operating under Dr. Charles Stringham (Medical Director of HGH, Winnemucca) than Dr. Stringham’s license should be reviewed to see if he allowed Deputy Rose to administer a drug, which has no indications for the event. Pat Songer also needs to accept accountability and responsibility for a paramedic who works under him who acted reckless, is dangerous, and almost killed a Burning Man participant. Finally, Jim Parrish CEO of Humboldt General Hospital, Winnemucca needs to answer for the actions of Dr. Stringham, Pat Songer, and Deputy Monique Rose as to how what if any corrective, administrative, or loss of employment occurred.
It is clear Deputy Rose actions were reckless and criminal in nature and should never be allowed to practice medicine again. If she is still employed by Humboldt General Hospital in Winnemucca, NV than Pat Songer, Dr.Charles Stringham, and Jim Parrish are shielding her. Furthermore, she should never be allowed to function in any medical or civil capacity at a Burning Man event ever again.
In closing, Humboldt General Hospital, Winnemucca, NV used to have the contract for medical services at Burning Man and lost the contract two years ago to CrowdRx. Perhaps the powers at be were aware of the reckless, dangerous, arrogant actions of the paramedics who work under his leadership and wanted to avoid any such events…. Too bad Burning Man participants didn’t.
Wait a minute…“lost the contract two years ago to CrowdRX”. That’s my information too. So why isn’t this 2015 incident CrowdRX’s responsibility? What was anybody from Humboldt General doing there in 2015, after BMOrg publicly ditched them months before? Why does CrowdRX take over, somebody nearly dies, and immediately it’s the fault of the people no longer involved?
I don’t really get why Onceler wants to hate on all Burning Man participants for the incompetence of medical personnel. But, I do understand why many of the locals harbor resentment to Burning Man for all the trash they get dumped with – so maybe it’s related to that – “all Burners are bad because of this one Burner”. Or, perhaps this person has a hidden agenda…you’ll notice that in the list of “the actors” in their tale, nobody from CrowdRX or BMOrg is involved in any way. So where the hell were they, when their rivals are running around the festival injecting ketamine into disgruntled Burners?
Anyone needs a lawyer as a result of their Transformative Experience, call Lawyers For Burners.
It didn’t take long for video of The Man burning to be uploaded to YouTube. The big “O” ring surrounding The Man stayed intact right to the end, then fell as one piece into the flames (25:42).
Finally, we have some info on White Ocean and tantalizing nuggets of further stories from Anonymous Burner. Anybody hear about any of these?
These folks hire a different camp producer every year and stiff everyone that works for them.
Given the sabotage that happened to the camp, it has all the fingerprints of someone who knows camp infrastructure.
Putting rotten meat in the A/C units, bullion cubes in the water tanks they didn’t drain, cutting generator cables without frying, glue for door locks.
This wasn’t a spontaneous vandal attack or class warfare. IMHO, they stiffed the wrong individuals, someone who knows how to mess a camp up.
I wasn’t going this year but a generous friend gifted me a ticket and a seat on a plane for a 48 hour rock star tour that started yesterday at noon.
Still gathering the unpublished stories on this year’s event. Why did the chef for first camp leave early? She bailed, and she has done this for years
DMV shenanigans, why the Man didn’t spin, what was up with that small head and skinny arms? He looked like he was born with the Zika virus
Jenny Kane in the Reno Gazette Journal brings us news of some last minute tensions between Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen, who wants to use Humboldt General Hospital staff; and BMOrg, who are up in arms about a near-death last year that is just coming to light now.
A near-fatal medical incident last year has sparked renewed tension between Burning Man organizers and local authorities, none of whom can seem to agree on medical protocols for this year’s event, which begins Sunday.
Burning Man organizers last week asked Pershing County Sheriff’s Office and Humboldt General Hospital officials to meet and sign an agreement that organizers believe will help to prevent any further medical accidents. The agreement intends to clarify medical personnel’s responsibilities and procedures, Burning Man spokesman Jim Graham said.
Humboldt General Hospital officials refused to attend the meeting, which was cancelled, and Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen refused to sign the agreement.
Allen told the Reno Gazette-Journal that the agreement was a roundabout attempt to prevent him from hiring Humboldt General Hospital paramedics, whom he wishes to hire as special reserve, or temporary, deputies for this year’s event.
“We remain unclear as to what protocols those (hospital) medics follow when administering care to patients. We do not have a commitment to standardized … hand-off of patient care should those (hospital) medics treat a patient,” wrote Burning Man executive Harley Dubois in an Aug. 17 email to the Humboldt General Hospital Board of Trustees.
So what is the incident that Harley is so upset about?
Organizers were outraged when CrowdRx employees informed them of an incident on Sept. 6, when a Humboldt General Hospital staff member injected a Burning Man patient with ketamine because she was resisting officers, Dubois wrote in the email to the hospital board. Ketamine is a general anesthetic sometimes used for sedation and pain management.
“The participant subsequently went into respiratory failure twice and nearly died. Burning Man’s medical staff saved her life. Ketamine is a dangerous drug, especially when mixed with alcohol, and the participant – a 110-pound female – had been drinking,” Dubois wrote in an email to the Humboldt General Hospital Board of Trustees.
The hospital employee, emergency medical services Capt. Monique Rose, injected the woman with the drug while serving as a special reserve deputy under Pershing County Sheriff’s Office, according to contracts with the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office. Rose, who remains employed at the hospital, declined comment on Tuesday. Chicago medical malpractice attorney believes that no wrong was done here.
Cutting their contract with Humboldt is one thing, but forcing the local sheriff to never deal with medical personnel he wants to work with sounds like Burning Man promoting disruption in the community, not harmony. These people have to live and work with each other all through the year, not just when Burners are there for a week partying participating in social engineering experiments.
