Posted on 03/23/2005 2:19:08 PM PST by ambrose
Schiavo Videotape Misleading, Experts Say
Wed Mar 23, 2005 10:06 PM GMT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The videotape that runs endlessly on television stations around the world shows an apparently smiling Terri Schiavo being caressed by her mother's loving hand.
She seems to look deeply, even lovingly, into the off-camera eyes of her mother.
Schiavo's parents and their supporters, including doctors in Congress, have used the tape as evidence the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman is at least occasionally aware of her surroundings and might even be revived from her condition.
They are fighting to get her feeding tube reinserted against the wishes of her husband and legal guardian who says Schiavo would not want to be kept alive in that condition.
But many experts agree the tape is a cruelly misleading trick of biology.
"Pictures do lie," said Dr. Lawrence Schneiderman, a physician and bioethicist at the University of California, San Diego.
"Every time they have done a videotaped neurological examination, the courts have reviewed them and said, 'Yes this woman is unconscious.' Those movements of her eyeballs are reflexive and have nothing to do with recognition."
Studies of people whose cerebral cortices are damaged in the way Schiavo's is show that their eyes will respond to stimuli such as movement or a human face, but there is no way for them to be conscious of what they are seeing.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has been part of the fight to prolong Schiavo's life, said on Wednesday a review of Schiavo's medical records by a neurologist for Florida's Adult Protective Services indicated she may have been misdiagnosed and was more likely in a state of minimal consciousness rather than in a persistent vegetative state.
Such a condition, in which a patient slips in and out of consciousness, was sometimes mistaken for a persistent vegetative state, said Dr. Joseph Fins of New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. But Schiavo was not in that state, Fins said.
"I think now it can be argued that with the advent of minimally conscious state (as a diagnosis), that permanent vegetative state as a diagnosis becomes much more certain," Fins said in a telephone interview.
It is almost certain that when someone suffers brain damage from a lack of oxygen, they are permanently vegetative, Fins said. Schiavo's brain was starved of oxygen after her heart stopped 15 years ago and most doctors who have examined her say there is no chance of recovery.
'UNNERVING PHENOMENON'
Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and bioethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said reflexes can fool nonspecialists.
"To the families and loved ones, and to inexperienced health care professionals, PVS (permanent vegetative state) patients often look fairly 'normal,"' Cranford said in a statement.
"Their eyes are open and moving about during the periods of wakefulness that alternate with periods of sleep; there may be spontaneous movements of the arms and legs, and at times these patients appear to smile, grimace, laugh, utter guttural sounds, groan and moan, and manifest other facial expressions and sounds that appear to reflect cognitive functions and emotions, especially in the eyes of the family."
Dr. Timothy Quill of the Center for Palliative Care and Clinical Ethics at the University of Rochester in New York, said reporting about the case had confused people.
"Distortion by interest groups, media hyperbole, and manipulative use of videotape have characterized this case and demonstrate what can happen when a patient becomes more a precedent-setting symbol than a unique human being," Quill wrote in a commentary published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"Anybody who been around patients in a persistent vegetative state knows that it is an unnerving phenomenon because they are alternate between sleep and wakefulness but that have no ability to interact," Quill said in a telephone interview.
"It is difficult for families because it is very difficult to discern that."
You see what the real battle is now.
This "Dr." Cranford is the same "expert" used by Michael Schiavo and his lawyer Felos to claim that Terri is in PVS.
Look at the statement by Cranford, look at all the behaviors he dismisses, opening closing eyes.turning head,smilimg laughing,moving parts of the body,making sounds even words sounding. But this is nothing,just confusion for the family.
THat guy is dangerous.
It has occurred to me what his agenda is.
First,have people declared PVS ,( despite,movement recognition,smiles)
Second, PVS have no constitutional rights. This is the test case.(Cranford is on the record as saying that)
Third,PVS patient get killed off.
Fourth, Harvest body parts for transplant or medical research.
My advice,get a power of attorney, and DECLINE any organ donation form.
After observing how the "media" has lied about Terri's situation...I will no longer call them MSM...I will now call them MSP...they have systematically tried to ram the Culture of Death doctrine down the throats of Americans...Propagandist...plain and simple.
prop·a·gan·da Audio pronunciation of "propagandist" Pronunciation Key (prp-gnd)
1. The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
I don't know whether she's "PVS". "PVS" is a made-up term by humans, defined by humans, and measured by humans. She might be "PVS" for all I know.
I do know that she's not a "vegetable". And one of the reasons I know that, are those video shots, whether or not they are "selectively edited".
These "Experts" are telling us that, well heck, she can still be "PVS" and do those things. Ok fine, but then I don't give a rat's ass about someone being "PVS", and why should I? Because, apparently, "PVS" is a misnomer. Apparently, not all "PVS" people are "vegetables".
Which makes it a shoddy, propagandistic term in the first place. And i don't have to play along with it.
implicitly if she were the tube could be removed.
I am troubled by the idea that if someone gets labelled "PVS" they can be starved to death. Who made the label? Who defined it? Who measures it?
Yes, Cranford stated on Hannity last night that PVS patients have NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS>
This is the test case.
If protecting an innocent life would distract us from "the cause of restoring Conservative values in America" then so be it, I would say.
Yes. I never thought I'd see such evil promoted by FReepers.
Thus proving that he is not a vegetable, but a living thing. Vegetables don't say or do anything.
Do you understand that the "selectively edited" argument is fallacious?
If I show you a video of what you claim is an artichoke, and on that video the artichoke laughs and smiles, is "But that video was selectively edited" a good counterargument?
You can't tell squat from 15 seconds of video.
If you want to know what she is really capable of you need to go back to the physical therapy assessments and the assessments of the Physical Rehabilation Physicians , prior to her confinment in the hospice.
Michael is the only one that has control over those records.
Let me ask you what I ask another:
If I show you a video of what you claim to be an artichoke, and on that video the "artichoke" laughs and smiles, does it matter whether its footage was "selectively edited" from a larger quantity of footage?
I agree. It's depressing.
CAll ASAP! TIME IS AN ISSUE!!! THey are logging calls.
Contact info for DCF
Lucy D. Hadi, Secretary 1317 Winewood Blvd.
Building 1, Room 202
Tallahassee, Florida
32399-0700
Phone: (850) 487-1111
WOW! Would you consider putting this picture as a Post on the main page?? Thank you for your picture.
Terri's case has taught us a lot not only about the group here but (sadly, painfully) about the larger society. It may be that the effort to save Terri's life will cost social conservatives a whole bunch of votes. It may be that there are many Bush supporters who hate the weak and the helpless more than they love tax cuts. That seems to be the case here.
You sure as hell can, if what is on the video is claimed to be a "vegetable", and then laughs.
Are you referring to Cranford there the doc that executioner Greer relied on. The one who stated on national TV last night, on Hannity that PVS patients have no constitutional rights.
Same guy who said that alzheimers patients should not be fed by tube.SHEESH Now there is an unbiased opinion for you.
Have Dr. Lawrence Schneiderman, Dr. Joseph Fins, Dr. Ronald Cranford or Dr. Timothy Quill examined Terri Schiavo?
If I show you a video of someone pointing his dog to a pile of shaggy grass on a golf course, asking "what's that?" - and the dog responds "ruff!"...
What does that prove?
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