In Tour de Crash, Doctors Are Fastest of All; 2 Minutes and It's Too Late.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-25/tour-de-france-cyclists-need-quick-aid-to-reach-finish.html

The Tour de France is all about speed, and that goes for the doctors too.

The 101st edition of cycling’s biggest race ends tomorrow in Paris, where Italy’s Vincezo Nibali is expected to win. Former champions Chris Froome andAlberto Contador crashed out during the 3,664-kilometer (2,276-mile) ride, with other riders completing the course with broken bones and shoulder separations. Doctors don’t have long to diagnosis and treat athletes after a pile-up before race leaders are out of sight.

“If you wait for 2 minutes they are already a mile ahead of you,” Max Testa, medical director for BMC Racing Team, said in a telephone interview.

The drive to finish all 21 grueling stages despite crashes during the three-week event makes cycling different from many sports. In football and basketball, play can be stopped while an injury is evaluated and the player can be benched. In cycling, the race goes on.

There are only moments to check the rider’s condition and symptoms of a concussion might not be immediate, so the medical team will stay next to the rider and talk with him for a few kilometers, Testa said.

BMC’s American rider Tejay Van Garderen continued on but lost a minute on the leaders after a crash in stage 7, the same day teammate John Darwin Atapuma withdrew with a broken leg.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s Contador dropped out with a fractured tibia during stage 10, while last year’s champion Froome of Team Sky didn’t finish stage 5 after breaking his left wrist and right hand. Omega Pharma-Quick Step sprinter Mark Cavendish tore shoulder ligaments during the opening stage.

Even with the pain, Cavendish wanted to continue, team doctor Helge Riepenhof said.

Follow That Rider

A standard neurological exam is performed for head injuries, race doctor Florence Pommerie said by phone. The medical team includes 10 physicians with emergency training and five nurses, with three ambulances and two cars to follow the race, and more ambulances and an X-ray and ultrasound van waiting at the finish line.

“Most of the head injuries are nothing,” she said, saying there’s more concern if the rider lost consciousness or if they were going at high speeds. In those cases, the ambulance will follow closely and a race or team doctor will typically keep talking with the rider as he continues, she said. If there are signs of a brain injury, a scan will be done, she said.

Testa said awareness of the risk of concussions, which can lead to long-term brain damage and have been linked to neurological disorders, has increased over the 20 years he’s been involved. The Union Cycliste Internationale, cycling’s governing body, made helmets mandatory in 2003.

“We’re much more aware of the risk of a second concussion so definitely we do more prevention,” Testa said. “We know more now about how we can push the envelope with some types of injuries rather than others.”

Spain's Benat Intxausti, left, and Czech Republic's Leopold Konig after a fall during the 208.5 km nineteenth stage of the 101st edition of the Tour de France cycling race on July 25, 2014 between Maubourguet Pays du Val d'Adour and Bergerac, southwestern France.

Static exposure System.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_toxicology

Static- a static test exposes the organism in still water. The toxicant is added to the water in order to obtain the correct concentrations to be tested. The control and test organisms are placed in the test solutions and the water is not changed for the entirety of the test.

Exposure Systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_toxicology

Exposure systems are four general techniques the controls and test organisms are exposed to the dealing with treated and diluted water or the test solutions.

There are many kinds of toxicity Tests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_toxicology

There are many kinds of toxicity tests widely accepted in the scientific literature and regulatory agencies. The type of test used depends on many factors: Specific regulatory agency conducting the test, resources available, physical and chemical characteristics of the environment, type of toxicant, test species available, laboratory vs. field testing, end-point selection, and time and resources available to conduct the assays are some of the most common influencing factors on test design.

A variety of acceptable standardized test methods have been Published.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_toxicology

A variety of acceptable standardized test methods have been published. Some of the more widely accepted agencies to publish methods are: the American Public Health Association, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, American Society for Testing and Materials, International Organization for Standardization, Environment Canada, and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Standardized tests offer the ability to compare results between laboratories.

There are different types of toxicity tests that can be performed on various test Species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_toxicology

There are different types of toxicity tests that can be performed on various test species. Different species differ in their susceptibility to chemicals, most likely due to differences in accessibility, metabolic rate, excretion rate, genetic factors, dieteary factors, age, sex, health and stress level of the organism. Common standard test species are the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), daphnids (Daphnia magna, D. pulex, D. pulicaria, Ceriodaphnia dubia), midge (Chironomus tentans, C. ruparius), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatu), mysids (Mysidopsis), oyster (Crassotreas), scud (Hyalalla Azteca), grass shrimp (Palaemonetes pugio), mussels (Mytilus). As defined by ASTM, these species are routinely selected on the basis of availability, commercial, recreational, and ecological importance, past successful use, and regulatory use.

Aquatic toxicity Tests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_toxicology

Aquatic toxicology tests (bioassays): toxicity tests are used to provide qualitative and quantitative data on adverse (deleterious) effects on organisms from a toxicant. Toxicity tests can be used to assess the potential for damage to an aquatic environment and provide a database that can be used to assess the risk associated within a situation for a specific toxicant. Aquatic toxicology tests can be performed in the field or in the laboratory. Field experiments generally refer to multiple species exposure and laboratory experiments generally refer to single species exposure. A dose response relationship is most commonly used with a sigmoidal curve to quantify the toxic effects at a selected end-point or criteria for effect (i.e. death or other adverse effect to the organism). Concentration is on the x-axis and percent inhibition or response is on the y-axis.