Newsprint machine shutting down

The Calhoun paper mill's newsprint machine is being shut down, and its new owner is laying off 150 employees.The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports Resolute Forest Products says part of the reason is falling demand for newsprint, as well as the machine's high operating costs.Resolute merged with the former AbitibiBowater Inc. in 2007 and this week acquired the rest of the Calhoun mill it didn't already own.The mill will continue to operate specialty paper machines and the pulp dryer. It currently employs 610.Newsprint from the plant supplied newspapers across the South. An Augusta, Ga., plant will now provide it.Resolute said affected workers will be given severance, according to the labor agreement or corporate policy for salaried employees.Resolute is headquartered in Montreal.
Using this method, 206 high-risk patients, those with a EuroSCORE of six or higher, were randomized to receive on-pump or off-pump CABG. In addition to the primary endpoint, researchers looked at participants' postoperative need for blood transfusions and re-exploration for bleeding. They found that a significantly higher percentage of on-pump patients required a blood transfusion than off-pump patients (80.2 vs. 64.9 percent, p=0.017.) The study did not find a significant difference in the need for re-exploration for bleeding with 8.5 percent of on-pump patients versus 3.2 percent of off-pump requiring a return to the operating room for excessive bleeding.Due to the lack of evidence in randomized trials for better outcomes among off-pump patients, off-pump surgery has become less popular during the past decade as it places a higher demand on surgeons' skills.
"Patients, especially the sicker and older ones, should know that there is an option to be operated off-pump with potentially better postoperative outcomes," Dr. Hlavicka said. "Our study shows the benefits of this technique to a large group of our patients. Their health care providers should offer this method to them."Hlavicka notes that his study results are limited to the first 30 postoperative days, so further observation of these patients should be done to assess the long-term outcomes of the off-pump CABG procedure. He also recommends that a larger, multicenter, randomized study be done to verify the study's conclusions.