And how many is that, and how long did they examine her? My understanding is that a two doctors hand-picked by Felos and a Hemlock Society member hand-picked by Greer examined her for less than an hour apiece and declared her PVS, but there are many other doctors who disagree with such diagnosis.
Further, if Michael is so certain she's PVS, further testing could help allay the fears of many that he's sandbagging. Of course, if he's instead certain that she's not PVS, his refusal to allow any evidence to be produced to the contrary is understandable.
Suppose I have a painting which I claim to be a genuine Rembrandt. Three experts declare it genuine, while two proclaim it an obvious fake. At least one of the experts who declare it genuine has never declared a painting fake, even though he's declared many paintings to be genuine which were later proven fake. Should the painting be believed with certainty to be genuine, since 3 of 5 "experts" believe it so?
Suppose further that over a dozen experts who look at a Polaroid of the painting say it's such an obvious fake that it can't even withstand a crude examination by snapshot. Should their word be discounted because they didn't see the real painting?
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/7122138.htm
Many experts say the videos, made public after a court hearing last year, distort the reality of Terri Schiavo's condition.
They say most lay people, including her parents, have trouble reconciling the image of her tracking a balloon with her eyes or smiling at her mother's kiss with what doctors and judges say are the facts: She is unaware. She is not responding. She is unconscious. But, like most patients in a persistent vegetative state, she has wake and sleep cycles characterized by involuntary movements that seem to mimic emotions.
"What's gotten the Legislature to act is the coverage of her blinking and moving. They think maybe she's disabled or retarded," said Bill Allen, co-director of the Florida Bioethics Network. "I think people would take a different view if every time they saw her blinking, an expert neurologist would explain a picture of her brain scan. It would show her brain is mush."
Ron Cranford, one of five neurologists who examined Terri Schiavo and her brain scans for an October 2002 court hearing, said her cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that controls thought and awareness, is severely atrophied and has all but disintegrated. He said that process began when she collapsed from a potassium imbalance in 1990, enduring five critical minutes without oxygen, and has progressed over the years.
"There is hardly any cerebral cortex left," Cranford said. "It looks like a black hole."
He and a number of medical experts also take great umbrage at news media outlets that continue to describe Terri Schiavo as comatose. Patients in comas may wake up again, but those in persistent vegetative states don't - especially after 13 years.
Coupled with the misleading video images, they say, inaccuracy is further confusing the public.
Kelly McBride, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute, a journalism-education center in St. Petersburg, Fla., agreed.
"Those videos can be taken out of context," she said. "By using them as B-roll, which is the film under the voice-over, or by simply presenting them without context, journalists are inaccurately using and explaining them, and that is swaying public opinion."
The videos were recorded to help Pinellas Circuit Judge George W. Greer decide whether Schiavo could improve with treatment, as her parents insist, or has no hope of recovery, as her husband and her doctors argue.
Greer held a hearing on those questions last October. After hearing from five doctors and watching hours of unedited videotaped examinations of Terri Schiavo, he agreed with three doctors who said she was in a persistent vegetative state and could not recover. Two of three, including Cranford, were selected by Michael Schiavo and one by the court. The two doctors selected by the Schindlers disagreed, basing their opinions primarily on Schiavo's response to brief stimuli, mostly involving contact with her mother.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal later agreed with Greer after a panel of three judges watched the tapes in their entirety.
Lawmakers did not do the same, nor review any medical testimony, before passing the bill giving the governor the power to restore Schiavo's artificial feedings. That, in part, is what outrages many critics of the unprecedented action.
UF's Allen said that is as preposterous as it would be to allow the Colorado Legislature to decide Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant's guilt on rape charges based on what they've seen on TV.