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TORONTO (CP) - It could take half a century or more for someone infected with prions - the cause of mad cow-like diseases - to start showing symptoms, say researchers, who drew that conclusion after studying a similar illness among Papua New Guinean people who once feasted on their dead. Their findings suggest that the number of human cases of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) could end up being much larger than originally suspected, say the researchers, whose study is published in Friday's edition of The Lancet. With 160 cases, the United Kingdom has the highest number of recorded cases in...

The Florida judge who presided over the Terri Schiavo case and ruled her feeding tube should be removed told a bioethics symposium that lawmakers are ill-equipped to make right-to-die decisions. Pinellas County Circuit Judge George W. Greer, in brief remarks at the University of Pennsylvania on Monday, said that 30 state and federal judges painstakingly reviewed the many volumes of testimony and evidence submitted in the divisive case. But state lawmakers who passed "Terri's Law" to have the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube reinserted did so with "little to no debate" and with "significant arm-twisting," he said. "Do you want that...

THE explosive story of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who became caught in the middle of a US battle over the right to die, could become a Hollywood movie, industry reports said. A year after Schiavo died following the removal of her feeding tube, Hollywood has bought the rights to make a movie from husband Michael Schiavo's book Terri: The Truth, Daily Variety said. Schiavo died in March last year after a bitter and divisive years-long battle between Michael Schiavo and Terri Schiavo's parents over whether she should be removed her from life support. The family feud exploded into a...

CLEARWATER - The one-story brick house sits in a carefully tended yard in a cul de sac, a gray Honda minivan parked in the driveway shaded by trees. Hospice, the license plate says, Every day is a gift . Inside, he reads his daughter to sleep and changes his son's diapers. He steps over disregarded toys and animal books and escapes with the Sopranos and Extreme Home Makeover , slipping happily into someone else's drama. He works 12-hour days to keep the bills at bay and yawns as he sits on the couch. She reminds him to take out the...

The end of this month marks the anniversary of the judicially-ordered killing of Terri Schiavo, age 41, carried out at the behest of her husband who was living with another woman and his Scientologist lawyer. She was not brain-dead. She could breathe on her own. Yet despite the best efforts of Terri's family and the pro-life and disability-rights communities, the courts ordered Terri Schiavo to be killed by dehydration. Rush Limbaugh described the day as "the day our country hit rock bottom." One year later, it is still an apt description. Terri Schiavo left no written instructions nor a living...

I wanted to consider the idea of music to help us remember the horror of this time last year when Terri Schiavo died in a cruel and horrible way. Some of these songs were mentioned by other FReepers in the threads I read last year (I hadn't joined yet). So I make my contributions in the order I placed them on my tape (I use ancient technology). Terri's death was followed by the passing of Pope John Paul II and in some ways I combined the music to also remember his life and ministry. So here is the list: 1....

3/25/2006 8:38:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Jerry Horn of Priests for Life, 540-220-0095 WASHINGTON, March 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, and an eyewitness to Terri Schiavo's final hours, released the following open letter to Michael Schiavo tonight. Fr. Pavone will read it to a worldwide audience on an internationally broadcast religious service on Sunday morning, March 26: A year ago this week, I stood by the bedside of the woman you married and promised to love in good times and bad, in sickness and health. She was enduring a very...

TORONTO, March 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The World Federation of Right to Die Societies is having its 16th biennial conference in Toronto and is featuring George Felos as a keynote speaker. Felos was the “right to die” activist lawyer that propelled Michael Schiavo’s case through the courts to have his disabled wife Terri starved and dehydrated to death. Calling him “a nationally recognized expert in right-to die cases, and lawyer for Terri Schiavo, the Canadian euthanasia and assisted suicide group, Dying with Dignity, has booked Felos to speak at the conference opening in Toronto September 7. Speaker topics will include,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor used a speech at Georgetown University to attack pro-life lawmakers who sided with Terri Schiavo's parents in their efforts to prevent their daughter's euthanasia death. She claimed a Congressional effort to have federal courts review the case was a first step towards a dictatorship. O'Connor, who backs abortion, announced her retirement last year and was recently replaced by federal appeals court judge Samuel Alito, who pro-life advocates hope will be more open to upholding laws that protect the right to life. "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would...

TAMPA, Fla. One year ago, everyone was talking about Terri Schiavo. Few knew the 41-year-old severely brain-damaged woman, but they knew her name, from President Bush and Pope John Paul II to the millions of people who were riveted by the wall-to-wall news coverage of her final days. Now her family - parents Robert and Mary Schindler, brother Bobby Schindler and sister Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo - have collaborated on a new book that throws open the curtains on those desperate, emotional times as they fought to keep her alive and watched a private family feud culminate in a surreal public...

HOLYOKE, Mass. -- Haleigh Poutre's birth mother is expected to file a court motion seeking more of a say in her daughter's medical care. Allison Avrett plans to appear in Holyoke Juvenile Court on Wednesday. Haleigh, 12, has been hospitalized since police say her adoptive mother and stepfather severely beat her in September. About a week after taking custody of the Westfield girl in September, the Department of Social Services sought permission to remove her from life support.

Tonight on the Isaac Mizrahi Show, Terri Garr discusses her aversion to the Bush Administration. Terri's statement that she had been invited to a state dinner and wished she had the ear of the president to let him know where 'had gone wrong' was met with applause by the audience.Ms. Garr, a regular on the David Letterman show, revealed a dissatisfaction with the current Bush administration.Viewers also noted that the usually voluptuous Ms. Garr has gained a considerable amount of weight. Thought it was not a topic on this show, it was evident that this 'entertainer' has fallen upon hard...

When Sen. Jim King took questions during a recent appearance at the Jacksonville Meninak Club, he could have been asked about anything. But tort reform was an issue that he knew would come up. “I had a feeling I’d be asked about that one,” said King, after an audience member asked him what the state legislature would be doing this year on the issue. The legislature and Florida’s Supreme Court are still wrestling with the implementation of three ballot initiatives passed in 2004 that affected medical malpractice torts. One limited lawyer fees in the cases, another made past malpractice information...

Talking about impeachment of judges and judicial independence.

SAFETY HARBOR - Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze were married in a private ceremony at Espiritu Santo Catholic Church on Saturday. "It was very emotional," said John Centonze, brother of the bride, just after the noon ceremony. "It's been a long time coming. A lot of things happened in between." The wedding came a day after the couple applied for a Pinellas County marriage license and 10 months after the death of Schiavo's first wife, Terri. Terri Schiavo died March 31, two weeks after her feeding tube was removed, and 15 years after a cardiac arrest that left her in...

SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. — Michael Schiavo, whose brain-damaged wife was at the center of a contentious end-of-life battle that played out on a worldwide media stage, has remarried, family members said. Schiavo married his longtime girlfriend Jodi Centonze on Saturday in a private church ceremony, said John Centonze, the brother of the bride. Schiavo's former wife, Terri, died in March after her feeding tube was removed. She had suffered irreversible brain damage after collapsing at age 26 in 1990. Terri Schiavo's parents and siblings fought for years to keep her alive, arguing that she had some level of consciousness. Florida...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The sister of Terri Schiavo said Saturday that her family's failed court struggle to keep the brain-damaged woman alive shows a society that has "lost sight of the value" of human life. Suzanne Vitadamo said her sister did not want to die and was not terminal when she died after her feeding tube was removed in March. Schiavo's husband, Michael, had a court order to remove the tube.

They might have done this years ago, but he already had a wife. Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze applied for a marriage license in Pinellas County on Friday. She listed her last marriage as ending in divorce on March 29, 1989. He listed his as ending in death on March 31, 2005. Their relationship has long been a curious sidenote in the national right-to-die case of Michael's first wife, Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. Michael Schiavo, 42, has called Jodi Centonze his fiancee for at least six years, relatives said. They live together...

As the yearslong battle between Michael Schiavo and Bob and Mary Schindler came to a head in March, the case drew in Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Vatican and the White House. National TV networks chronicled every twist of the hot-button issue. Michael Schiavo wanted to carry out what he said were his wife's wishes not to be kept alive artificially. The Schindlers disputed their daughter had such end-of-life wishes and had held out hope that she could have improved with therapy. They said she had interacted with them. The dispute nearly created a constitutional crisis. Congress, the president...

Article Last Updated: 12/19/2005 08:18 AM a denver post special report Letting go: Dylan's last days Two parents face an agonizing test of faith and love for their son By Kevin Simpson Denver Post Staff Writer DenverPost.com Dave Walborn lifted his son upright, all 32 pounds of him, slipped one hand behind his lolling head and gazed into the open but vacant blue eyes. He spoke out loud the words that would move him and the boy's mother, Kerri Bruning, one step closer to an excruciating decision. "Dylan, it's OK if you want to go," he said. "I don't want...

A self verifying man sits astride the world, surveys all he can see, and pronounces it good. This is a terrifying thing because the man doing it is none other than Judge George Greer of Florida and the thing he was pronouncing good was the excruciatingly legal murder of one Terri Schindler, formerly Terri Schiavo. We have to grasp this. A tin-pot, swamp water embarrassment from the brackish backwater of former jurisprudence pronounced to both houses of the Congress of the United States of America that their subpoenas weren't worth a damned thing and that he, the new godhead, had...

It is frequently said that truth is stranger than fiction. In the case of Michael Schiavo, husband of the now deceased Terri Schiavo, this is precisely correct. You may recall that during the years that Terri Schiavo suffered from a debilitating condition, Michael worked very hard to acquire legal permission to kill his wife by denying her the basic human right of receiving food and water. He argued that she would not want to be fed through a tube. His view was that she actually died 12 years earlier, and that the person in the hospital bed was not truly...

Terri Schiavo's husband starts a PAC devoted to defeating the Bible-thumping politicians who used his comatose wife as a football. By Michael Scherer Dec. 7, 2005 | At the height of the battle, Michael Schiavo appeared to be a reluctant cultural warrior. His wife, Terri, lay comatose, in her 15th year of vegetative slumber, connected to a feeding tube, but well beyond resuscitation. Around her hospice, a political hurricane swirled. In Terri's name, President George Bush interrupted his vacation, Sen. Bill Frist played doctor from the Senate floor, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush launched a flimsy criminal investigation, and Rep. Tom...

Why did Michael Schiavo, a Floridian with Pennsylvania roots, endorse Democrat Tim Kaine's run for Virginia governor? Your guess is as good as Kaine's, whose campaign first learned the news on Wednesday after Schiavo's PR firm gave the mini-scoop to the Washington Post. The maneuver was meant to motivate base Democrats in Virginia six days before the Nov. 8 vote. Schiavo's statement said lots of mean things about Jeb Bush and Florida, and only a few nice things about Kaine and Virginia. This makes us wonder: Is Schiavo focused on Virginia's well being, or his own political future? Doesn't Florida...

After speaking at a convention to honour the pro-euthanasia physician who pronounced that Terri Schiavo was in a “persistent vegetative state,” Terri’s estranged husband and killer, Michael Shiavo, drew a standing ovation. Michael Schiavo, speaking at an “ethics” convention honouring Dr. Ronald Cranford, who is retiring from medicine because of a cancer diagnosis, spoke publicly about the euthanasia of his wife Terri for the first time since her death in March. “Terri didn’t die an awful death,” he claimed. He said that, as Terri died, he “laid a red rose in her hand and said goodbye,” according to a North...

Schindlers’ book likely to compete with Michael Schiavo’s memoir Terri Schiavo’s parents and siblings are writing a book about their struggle in the epic end-of-life case that divided the country and captured the attention of everyone from the Pope John Paul II to President Bush. The yet untitled memoir by parents Bob and Mary Schindler, brother Bobby Schindler and sister Suzanne Vitadamo will be published by in March to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of the brain-damaged woman, whose feeding tube was removed after her husband, Michael Schiavo, won a court order to do so. The Schindlers’...

Months after her death by court-ordered dehydration, the Justice Department has ordered an investigation of a complaint alleging discrimination against Terri Schiavo under the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act. The Justice Department's Disability Rights Section directed the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services in July to conduct the probe, reported the Empire Journal, an Internet news site that has published numerous investigative stories on the Schiavo case. Schiavo died March 31 at age 41 at Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., after her estranged husband Michael Schiavo obtained judicial approval to...

LifeSiteNews.com Wednesday August 31, 2005 Ten Year Old Arrested for Giving Food to Terri Schiavo Apologizes TAMPA BAY, August 31, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ten year-old Joshua Heldreth, the eldest of eight children, was arrested on Good Friday of this year for trespassing while attempting to bring a drink of water to Miss Terri Schaivo.  Days later Schiavo died of intentional dehydration.  In court Joshua pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 hours of community service and ordered to write an apology for his actions.The boy whose arrest photo was splashed on front pages of newspapers across the nation wrote in...

For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin was seemingly unaware of the world around her after she was hit by a drunk driver in an accident that sent her into a comatose state in September of 1984. Then in February, she shocked her parents and doctors when she began to speak. In her first national television interview, after undergoing surgery on her long-unused limbs and speech therapy to unlock her long-dormant tongue, Scantlin speaks with The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith in a two-part interview to be broadcast Thursday and Friday. Smith also speaks with Sarah's parents, Jim and Betsy Scantlin,...

Dougherty is accused of locking Kilrain, his brain-damaged wife, in a bedroom for five years after she suffered an aneurysm. Kilrain, 46, weighed 81 pounds when police found her body Feb. 25 surrounded by decaying food and human waste. In addition to murder, Dougherty, 53, an employee of an auto shop in Townsend, Del., is charged with manslaughter and abuse-neglect of a vulnerable adult. Dougherty's attorney said his client is innocent, and that Kilrain died of "natural causes." An autopsy concluded that she died of starvation and dehydration.

Now that Terri Schiavo’s autopsy report results are in, the left-wing media death squad elitists are demanding apologies and retractions from those of us who criticized Michael Schiavo and the Florida system of “justice.” Regarding one of my articles, “Michael Schiavo: Loving Husband or Monster?” it was inevitable that I would receive the obligatory hate mail from verifiable nutcases. Here’s one of my favorites: “I do not like you & I do not think that Jesus does either. Du (sic) unto others as you would have done to you. Apologies should go to Michael Schiavo & the the FLA court...

Did anybody catch the 2 Michael Schiavo "supporters" on H&C tonight? They were a couple of typical hippie-hags from the far left, who said they went to Florida to counter-demonstrate against the Terri Schiavo supporters, who they called "religious Nazis". Colmes grovelled and slobbered all over them, but Hannity's first question, directed to one of the hags, was, "What does that say on your shirt?". She replied, "Revolutionary Communist Youth League". Brilliant, Alan, just brilliant.

Floriduh Voter had a serious car accident this afternoon on 66th St. by Hospice and is lucky to be alive. FV's car went airborne after being hit and there were no brakes. She flew north onto a median and the car wouldn't stop - something told her to put the car in park and to take the key out. FV ended up in southward oncoming traffic facing north. Good Samaritans directed traffic around her car. (FV lost downforce when the impact took out the back windshield). The guy who hit FV was a half block south with the cops and...

The Florida State Guardianship Association has chosen Michael Schiavo as its "Distinguished Guardian of the Year" for 2005, outraging many in the pro-life community. Schiavo is the former husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-injured Florida woman whose life ended March 31 by court-ordered dehydration at her husband's request. While admitting that Schiavo was a "controversial choice," Michelle Kenney, president-elect of the association told the Associated Press that her group decided to bestow the honor on Schiavo because of his "commitment" to honoring what he claimed was his wife's wish "not to be kept alive artificially." "We see a lot of...

CLEARWATER - Michael Schiavo has asked a court to waive the two-year statute of limitations on filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against one or more of his deceased wife's caregivers. Terri Schiavo, 41, died March 31 after her feeding tube was removed after a seven-year court battle. Schiavo's attorney in this case, Mark Perenich, said he was not able to discuss the proposed lawsuit behind Tuesday's request for an extension of the two-year statute of limitations. By law, medical malpractice lawsuits must be filed within two years of the alleged misconduct unless an extension is granted. In October 2003, Terri...

DORAL, Fla. - (KRT) - He has been rebuked by the Vatican, castigated by Congress and slandered on the Internet, but Michael Schiavo was welcomed as a hero Friday by a state organization whose members make end-of-life decisions for people unable to make them for themselves. The Florida State Guardianship Association bestowed its Guardian of the Year Award on Schiavo for carrying out his wife's wishes not to be kept alive artificially despite a drumbeat of withering criticism. In a rare public appearance, Schiavo, 42, modestly accepted the award at the association's 18th annual conference at the Doral Golf Resort...

The husband of Terri Schiavo was honored by a group that advocates guardianship services for his years-long efforts to get his wife's feeding tube disconnected. Michael Schiavo was given the Guardian of the Year Award by the Florida State Guardianship Association yesterday. Terri Schiavo lived in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years before dying in March. She died after a protracted legal battle between her husband and her parents over her end-of-life wishes. She died from dehydration after her feeding tube was disconnected. A Franciscan friar who serves as the Schindler family spokesman Brother Paul O'Donnell said the award...

Lima, Jul. 26, 2005 (CNA) - The President of the Pontifical Council for Heath Care, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, recalled the Terry Schiavo case this week and said “they killed her” by denying her food and hydration.According to the cardinal, “Food and hydration are never considered medicine.”  “To remove them means euthanasia, it means killing, and so this woman was killed by hunger and starvation.  Let’s stop with the euphemisms—they killed her,” he stated.“Law consists of a rational ordering that seeks the common good and not the common evil,” Cardinal Lozano noted, “but many times there are laws that are...

While editorials across the nation agreed in chorus that at last, Terri Schiavo will rest in peace, the autopsy report declined such certainty:"It is the policy of this office that no case is ever closed and that all determinations are to be reconsidered upon receipt of credible, new information." Even if no new information surfaces, how Terri Schiavo was put to death is causing many Americans to confront their own death. Pat Anderson, for a long time the attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents, said the day Terri died of dehydration as ordered by the courts and her husband: "Euthanasia in...

Ave Maria [University in Naples, FL] creates Terri Schiavo Scholarship By I.M. STACKEL, imstackel@naplesnews.com July 9, 2005 UPDATE — Likening Terri Schiavo to St. Therese, the Little Flower, the Rev. Michael Beers hinted Schiavo, too, could be canonized. The dean of Ave Maria University's undergraduate theology program, Beers was shepherding Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and brother, Bobby Schindler, through a Friday morning announcement that a new scholarship would be set up in Schiavo's name. Schiavo lost her ability to function physically or mentally on Feb. 25, 1990, after her heart stopped as a result of an eating disorder....

I believe it is unrealistic to expect, considering the past decade of increasingly venomous litigation and family members' disparate and irreconcilable beliefs as to Terri's wishes, that our office has the ability to resolve or ameliorate this long standing dispute. This occurance has been the object of continuing litigation for the past twelve years. Most of the pertinent "facts" are in the public record and have been considered and reconsidered by lawyers, jurors, judges and a myriad of experts. Our office has twice been asked to consider accusations against Michael Schiavo - once in 2003 based upon contact from Mr....

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - There is no evidence that Terri Schiavo's collapse 15 years ago was caused by criminal activity, said a prosecutor asked by Gov. Jeb Bush to look into the case. Bush, who asked State Attorney Bernie McCabe to further investigate Schiavo's case after her autopsy last month, responded Thursday by saying he considers the state's involvement with the matter finished. "Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed," Bush said in a two-sentence response to McCabe. The governor is vacationing in Maine and couldn't be reached for further comment,...

Terri Schiavo, may she rest with God in Peace, was starved to death by the State of Florida, carried out by the so-called Hospice, to prove a point: her husband, who had moved on with his life 14 years 11 1/2 months earlier, wished it, got a lawyer (George Felos) who promotes "death", found a Judge (Greer) who would agree and would appoint a Dr. (whose brother belonged to the same pro-death organization as George Felos to declare her a vegtable, unworthy of life. Proving the point that people who are inconvenient can and will continue to be murdered by...

LARGO - In what could be a final chapter in the legal saga of Terri Schiavo, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe says he could find no evidence that Michael Schiavo caused his wife's collapse 15 years ago. In a June 30 letter to Gov. Jeb Bush, McCabe suggested ending the state's inquiry into the case. Bush responded Thursday in a two-sentence letter to McCabe: "Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed." Bush asked McCabe last month to investigate Schiavo's collapse on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990. He cited questions...

Several bloggers have drawn attention to a strange lead in a Washington Post story about the Terri Schiavo autopsy results. The June 16 Post story by David Brown said that "Terri Schiavo died of the effects of a profound and prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain on a day in 1990, but what caused that event isn't known and may never be, the physician who performed her autopsy said…"

Hurricane activity has increased and is likely to remain high for a decade or more, the head of the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday.

Oh! Well, it's OK to have Murdered Her Then. Mr. Thogmartin has told us that, after fifteen years of a patient lying in bed recovering, Terri Schiavo might have fully recovered from any abuse she endured. Miraculously he was also unable to see whether or not this person had, fifteen years ago, a heart attack or not. Of course, I’ve never met anyone whose cardiologist was ever unsure, say 24 hours after the incident, that a heart attack had occurred or not. No, in my experience cardiologists can tell you precisely how many nano-seconds the heart attack lasted. Continuing, the...

The battle over Terri Schiavo's life and death will now be fought in a Republican primary between an antiabortion activist who became her parents' spokesman and a state Senate leader who helped block a bill aimed at keeping the brain-damaged woman alive. Randall Terry, who founded the antiabortion group Operation Rescue and helped lead the effort to reinsert Schiavo's feeding tube, officially launched his GOP primary campaign Wednesday to unseat former Senate President Jim King. Terry, with about 25 supporters standing behind him, said King no longer represents the Republican base. King was one of the nine Republicans who teamed...

The politicization of Terri Schiavo prompted the American Medical Association on Tuesday to adopt policy opposing any legislation that presumes patients would want life-sustaining treatment unless it is clear that they would not. Tuesday's action at the annual meeting of the nation's largest doctors group also reaffirms existing AMA policy that says it is ethical in some cases to discontinue life-sustaining treatment if it is in the patient's best interests.

The burial of Terri Schiavo's cremated remains didn't bring an end to the acrimony between her husband and her family. Michael Schiavo angered his late wife's family Monday by not notifying them about the burial beforehand Still, her parents welcomed the news until they found that a graveside plaque reads "I kept my promise," reports Gordon Byrd of CBS radio affiliate WHNZ. Michael Schiavo — who said he promised his wife he would not keep her alive artificially — also listed Feb. 25, 1990, as the date his wife "Departed this Earth." On that date, Schiavo collapsed and fell into...