Pumpheads ...

[Veronica.Franco]

Each year, 300,000 Americans have bypass surgery to improve blood flow to their hearts. Most of the operations succeed. But a minority of patients leave the hospital confused or forgetful, unable to think clearly or unable to concentrate.

''Pumpheads,'' some doctors privately call those patients, and the information shows that a third or more may be affected. As the term implies, doctors attributed the problems to the pump, the heart-lung machine that takes over during surgery when doctors literally stop a heart from beating so that they can repair its blocked vessels.

Doctors theorize that something about the pump -- little fat fragments or tiny clots that may be thrown into the blood or maybe blood pressure levels in the brain that are too high or too low -- may be causing damage.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05EED7133FF930A25756C0A9659C8B63

Bill Clinton’s Madness:
A Consequence of Heart-Bypass Surgery Brain Damage

http://www.drmcdougall.com/bill_clintons_madness.htm

I know that we have already discussed this subject ... but it's interesting to ADD the NYTIMES article as it states ... "Meanwhile, off-pump operations are growing increasingly popular. A national database at Duke University shows that the number of off-pump surgeries has doubled in the last few years and that more than a quarter of all bypass operations are now off-pump."