The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here's why the medical world is worried.
Source: NBC News
The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried.
MRI machines need thousands of liters of liquid helium to function. Health care workers say they can’t afford any disruptions to the helium supply chain.
Jan. 25, 2024, 5:03 PM EST
By Caroline Hopkins
On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.
Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.
Regulatory and logistical issues with the facility threaten a temporary shutdown as it passes from public to private ownership, and hospital supply chain experts worry the sale could have serious consequences for health care down the road — especially when it comes to MRIs.
To be sure, a Federal Helium Reserve shutdown wouldn’t mean that MRIs would suddenly power down across the country, said Soumi Saha, senior vice president of government affairs at Premier Inc., which contracts with helium suppliers on behalf of 4,400 hospitals in the U.S. “But we are stressing about this shortage. From a health care perspective, MRI machines are the No. 1 concern.”
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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-just-sold-helium-stockpile-s-medical-world-worried-rcna134785
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It can be used for euthanasia aka assisted suicide in the form of what's referred to as a suicide bag. I wonder what percentage of it's used for such.
I'm going to have to look. It will be interesting to see what the uses are for what purposes.
When I heard about the execution yesterday, though I am passionately opposed to such, why wouldn't helium be the option?
Too compassionate, apparently. Why have a prisoner drift away peacefully when you can torture them and watch them have painful convulsions while they are dying. What a horrible disaster.
I agree balloons with helium need to be outlawed. Not only do they waste a finite resource but they are an environmental hazard.
I cringe every time I see a "commemorative balloon release" for whatever reason. They are sickening to me.
https://techiescientist.com/uses-of-helium/
https://rockymountainair.com/blog/10-helium-uses/
Suicide bag
A suicide bag, also known as an exit bag or hood,[1][2] is part of a euthanasia device consisting of a large plastic bag with a drawcord used to commit suicide through inert gas asphyxiation. It is usually used in conjunction with a flow of an inert gas that is lighter or less dense than air, like helium or nitrogen. Continuing to breathe expels carbon dioxide and this prevents the panic, sense of suffocation and struggling before unconsciousness, known as the hypercapnic alarm response[3]: 45 caused by the presence of high carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood.[3] This method also makes the direct cause of death difficult to trace if the bag and gas canister are removed before the death is investigated. While asphyxiation by helium can be detected at autopsy, there is currently no test that can detect asphyxiation by nitrogen. For this reason, nitrogen is commonly the preferred choice for people who do not want the cause of death established.[4][5][6]
Suicide bags were first used during the 1990s. The method was mainly developed in North America.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bag
Anna Carfora et al. Toxics. 2022.
Abstract
Suicide by helium inhalation has become increasingly common in the last few decades in Europe and the US because it produces a quick and painless death. Inhaled-gas suicides can easily be assessed through death scene investigation and autopsy. However, helium is a colorless and odorless inert gas that unfortunately cannot be detected using standard toxicological analysis. A successful gas analysis was performed following the suicide of a 17-year-old female. For the detection of helium, central/peripheral blood samples and gaseous samples from the esophagus, stomach, and upper and lower respiratory airways (from the trachea and the primary left and right bronchia) were collected with a gastight syringe, ensuring minimal dilution. Qualitative analyses were positive in all gaseous samples. Quantitative analyses were performed using a special gas-inlet system with a vacuum by which the sample can be transferred to a mass spectrometer, reducing the risk of contamination. Helium concentrations were 20.16% from the trachea, 12.33% from the right lung, and 1.5% from the stomach. Based on the high levels of helium, the cause and manner of death were assessed as asphyxia suicide by inhalation of helium. Therefore, toxicological analyses should always be applied in order to gain evidence of inhaled gas in gaseous samples.
Keywords: asphyxia; detection and quantification; helium; suicide.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36006103/
Russel D Ogden, William K Hamilton and Charles Whitcher
Journal of Medical Ethics
Vol. 36, No. 3 (March 2010), pp. 174-179 (6 pages)
Published By: BMJ
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20696752
Balloon releases have deadly consequences – we’re helping citizen scientists map them
Published: March 18, 2020 8:06am EDT
Lara O'Brien, Shannon Brines, University of Michigan
Read about this topic here...
https://theconversation.com/balloon-releases-have-deadly-consequences-were-helping-citizen-scientists-map-them-129321
More than 100 balloons collected at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey. USFWS/Flickr, CC BY
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