Still a sleepy hollow? Directors’ liability and the business judgment rule

The statutory business judgment rule was introduced in Australia in 2000 after a lengthy process of consultation and debate. The rule was aimed at alleviating fears that directors may have that their commercial decisions made in good faith and for the benefit of the company would be subject to second guessing by the courts through litigation alleging a breach of the duty of care and diligence. Since 2000 there have been only a few decisions that have discussed the rule, giving credence to the prediction that it would be a sleepy hollow rather than a safe harbour. Fifteen years on, the rule was recently successfully relied upon for the first time in ASIC v Mariner (2015) but in circumstances where a breach of duty of care was not proven. Significantly, the rule remains a hot topic for public debate with the AICD and Dr Robert Austin proposing amended business judgment rules. This article reflects on the past 15 years of the statutory business judgment rule and assesses the case for law reform advanced by the private sector

The applicability of commonly used predictive scoring systems in Indigenous Australians with sepsis: An observational study

Background Indigenous Australians suffer a disproportionate burden of sepsis, however, the performance of scoring systems that predict mortality in Indigenous patients with critical illness is incompletely defined. Materials and methods The study was performed at an Australian tertiary-referral hospital between January 2014 and June 2017, and enrolled consecutive Indigenous and non-Indigenous adults admitted to ICU with sepsis. The ability of the ANZROD, APACHE-II, APACHE-III, SAPS-II, SOFA and qSOFA scores to predict death before ICU discharge in the two populations was compared. Results There were 442 individuals enrolled in the study, 145 (33%) identified as Indigenous. Indigenous patients were younger than non-Indigenous patients (median (interquartile range (IQR) 53 (43-60) versus 65 (52-73) years, p = 0.0001) and comorbidity was more common (118/145 (81%) versus 204/297 (69%), p = 0.005). Comorbidities that were more common in the Indigenous patients included diabetes mellitus (84/145 (58%) versus 67/297 (23%), p<0.0001), renal disease (56/145 (39%) versus 29/297 (10%), p<0.0001) and cardiovascular disease (58/145 (40%) versus 83/297 (28%), p = 0.01). The use of supportive care (including vasopressors, mechanical ventilation and renal replacement therapy) was similar in Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients, and the two populations had an overall case-fatality rate that was comparable (17/145 (12%) and 38/297 (13%) (p = 0.75)), although Indigenous patients died at a younger age (median (IQR): 54 (50-60) versus 70 (61-76) years, p = 0.0001). There was no significant difference in the ability of any the scores to predict mortality in the two populations. Conclusions Although the crude case-fatality rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians admitted to ICU with sepsis is comparable, Indigenous patients die at a much younger age. Despite this, the ability of commonly used scoring systems to predict outcome in Indigenous Australians is similar to that of non-Indigenous Australians, supporting their use in ICUs with a significant Indigenous patient population and in clinical trials that enrol Indigenous Australians

COVID-19 and its effects on the food production industry of South Africa

No abstract availablehttp://www.occhealth.co.zapm2021Medical MicrobiologyParaclinical Science

The renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system and its suppression

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/1/jvim15454-sup-0001-supinfo.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/2/jvim15454-sup-0002-figures.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/3/jvim15454-sup-0005-TableS3.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/4/jvim15454-sup-0004-TableS2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/5/jvim15454-sup-0007-TableS5.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/6/jvim15454_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/7/jvim15454.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/8/jvim15454-sup-0006-TableS4.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148403/9/jvim15454-sup-0003-TableS1.pd