Replies

Where's the evidence? Court documents. Doctors who treated her at the hospital. Doctors who were sued and didn't catch her low potassium levels and bulimia.

Terri's medical discharge summary:
Please note: She had cardiac arrest, severely low potassium (3.7 is low enough to make you 2x more likely to have cardiac arrest (which is not a heart attack) hers was a 2.0).

She had no head injury,
she had a stiff neck "and all other muscles in her body were stiff"- which is is "normal" under those circumstances - in spite of the BS started by Hammesfahr about her neck (see below)
was in a coma, on a ventilator, and her tube was put in there at the hospital, NOT "at Michael's request for the convenience of the nurses"
- she was malnourished and low in calcium
- Classic profile of a bulimic, especially added to the fact that she faught a life-long weight problem, going from ~250 lbs at age 18 to 110-120 in '90's, and was seeing and infertility doc, and missing her periods. (the major malpractice suit of the 2 was for his not noticing the signs - he hadn't taken a blood chemisty)

Also note that bulimics lose up to 30% of their bone mass in a single year. Even Dr Baden, in the last few weeks, has said everything was consistent with bulimia. His earlier comments were based only on the bone scan... and he misread it at that, thinking it showed a head injury. It doesn't. (see link to greer and unedited bone scan deposition below)
Her knee x-ray showed nothing.

http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/Humana%20Discharge%20Summary%20050990.pdf

Report of Guardian ad litem Richard Pearse, who was relieved after a year, when it was discovered that he had a previously stated personal objections to legalizing the removal of patient feeding tubes:
Note that, while he recommended against pulling the feeding tube, citing conflict of interest for Michael Schiavo, he also found him to have gone above the call of duty in seeking the best care possible for Terri. He also agreed that she was PVS, and says he never once was able to elicit a response from her. He scoffed at Carla Iyer's claims about Michael.
http://www.hospicepatients.org/richard-pearse-jr-12-29-98-report-of-guardianadlitem-re-terri-schiavo.pdf

Greer's denial of bone scan - the doctors who actually saw Terri, and the radiologist who did follow-up x-rays saw nothing suspicious.
It only showed a compression fracture of Lumbar 1 (which many with osteoporosis (like bulimics) walk around with, and he said could have even happened when she collapsed), a possibly *bruised* femur (ditto), and multiple ribs showing signs of injury, which he said could be caused by CPR. The rest were common joint problems from Phys. Therapy and treated by her therapists.
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder11-02-scan.pdf

Greer's finding that Carla Iyer and others were not credible (See Pearse section above, and link to post):
http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/Order%20Denying%20Pet%20Immed%20Ther%20091703.pdf

Description of the complete 4 hours of video from which come the ~4 minutes we are shown:
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/10/Tampabay/Schiavo_tapes__snippe.shtml

Description of the testimony at the 2000 trial, including the reports of Terri's conversations on the subject.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/08/Tampabay/Schiavo_s_wishes_reca.shtml

NATIONAL ENQUIRER 1998 featuring Dr. William Hammesfahr (he has ads there)
http://www.hnionline.com/national_enquirer_1998.htm

CT scan of Ms. Schiavo's brain.

Normal brain scan image. (If you have a larger one, I'd love a link to it.)

More links at http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html
and http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo_project.htm

I'll try to upload the transcripts of the 2002 trial sometime tonight or tomorrow.

She has had multiple EEGs, the latest in 2002, and all were consistent with PVS - the report stated "no recognizable cerebral activity" even upon inducing painful stimuli. Bambakadis disputed the term "no activity" and said he it as severely abnormal and typical of PVS.

(Note - I don't know if she is PVS or not - just showing why the judges ruled the way they have.)

*The only 2 doctors in the last 15 years (including 9 neurologists) who said she wasn't PVS after actually examining her in person were both alternative medicine docs hired by her parents:

- A radiologist, Maxwell(who couldn't accurately define PVS or distinguish it from coma in the trial)

- the neurologist, Hammesfahr, who said she wasn't PVS even before he examined her, and has very little credibility after his intentionally misleading claims of a number of things - like outright lying about being a Nobel prize nominee, for just one example. See below for more about this character.

When it comes to recovery, actually coma patients are much better off. They can wake up years later and have great recovery.

When someone comes out of a coma, but remains uncommunicative, the prognosis depends on the age of the patient, and what caused their injury. Children and those with traumatic head injuries have a better prognosis than those with an anoxic injury.

Patients who show no signs of consciousness after their eyes open usually fit the criteria for the vegetative state(VS). Persistent vegetative state (PVS) is a prognostic term that refers to a chronic condition in which basic arousal (i.e., wakefulness) and life-sustaining functions (e.g., respiration, blood pressure) are generally intact, despite the absence of behavioral signs of meaningful interaction with the environment. The American Academy of Neurology recently adopted the position that the VS should be termed "persistent" at 1 month, and considered "permanent" after 3 months following non traumatic causes of unconsciousness and after 12 months following traumatic injury [27]. However, rare exceptions to this have been cited. Merck
The longest documented is 3 years.

She didn't have a Heart Attack (MI).

Heart attack is myocardial infarction (MI). It can be diagnosed by measuring cardiac enzymes because they rise due to the destruction of heart muscle.

Cardiac arrest is a whole different thing, and it is diagnosed by the actual observance of the heartbeat. Her records clearly stated that she was in Cardiac Arrest, as Merck describes:

Absent or inadequate ventricular contraction that immediately results in systemic circulatory failure.

In ventricular fibrillation (VF), loss of coordinated global ventricular myocardial contraction leads to immediate loss of effective cardiac output, resulting in circulatory arrest. (Thus no oxygen to her brain) Although acute MI is often the underlying precipitant of VF in cardiac arrest, about 50% of victims have no evidence of MI on follow-up ECG and enzyme studies.

VF can also result from worsening of chronic ventricular arrhythmias (primary VF), low-voltage electric shock (110 to 220 volts for 2 to 3 sec), electrolyte imbalances (especially K* and Ca), hemolysis from freshwater near drowning, profound hypothermia (< 28° C [< 82.4° F]), and excessive sympathetic stimulation of ventricular myocardium sensitized by hypoxemia and vasoactive drugs (eg, dopamine, theophylline, epinephrine).--http://www.merck.com/

*K is potassium Ca is calcium. Low K, below 3.5, is called Hypokalemia.

Hammesfahr:
"World Renowned Nobel Prize Nominee" - He is neither of those things.
His reputation among his respectable peers is that of a quack and a fraud.
He has been confronted with this multiple times, and asked to cease and desist even by the congressman who wrote the letter! Yet, he dishonestly persists in claiming to hold that honor.

Upon what does he base this claim?

At the request of the VP of the Chiefs of Police group in Gulfport, FL, his local Congressman, Mike Bilirakis, wrote a letter asking them to consider him for a "Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine."

1. There there is no such thing as a "Peace Prize in Medicine"
2. Bilirakis is not even on the panel of people who can nominate anyone. Nor are Chiefs of Police.
( This is what it takes to nominate someone for the distinction he claims. )

Nevertheless, Dr Hammesfahr, who is an alternative medicine neurologist, continues to knowingly and fraudulently claim to be a Nobel Prize Nominee. He very recently pretended in a KGO radio interview to be surprised to discover that he wasn't an actual Nobel prize nominee, and unaware that his congressman's letter was meaningless.

But, he has been aware for years:

At the 2002 trial, he was asked to bring a the official letter of confirmation he claimed to have in his possession, along with everything else to support his claim. He claimed he forgot to bring it. The facts were very clear then as he was drilled on the subject - including his previous pretense that he would look into it.

He also said he just could not locate the records or remember names or details about the supposedly "numerous" people in Terri's condition he claims to have treated with success. No doubt, had he actually achieved the feat he claims he could achieve with Terri, he would have deserved a Nobel Prize. Too bad he forgot to tell anyone when or to whom he did it. "It" was impossible to get out of him under oath.
He would make Clinton proud. (I'll provide a link to the testimony Monday)

His claim that, if a patient can swallow saliva they do not need a feeding tube, is a lie. First of all, he knows Terri failed the swallowing tests taken in the first 3 years, while she was in the midst of good therapy. (The last one, after three years, said no more tests were necessary.) He also admitted on the stand that that swallowing saliva is very common even among PVS patients. Especially those whose heads tilt back like Terri's
(It is a common condition of neck spasticity called opisthotonus - a contraction of the neck muscles just like her other muscles - it goes along with her spasticity and seizures caused by the anoxic brain injury. I'll hunt down a link asap.)

His continual use of the "Terri had no heart attack" (he knows she had cardiac arrest), relies on peoples' ignorance of the difference to cast doubt on the cause of Terri's collapse. Once caught in that, he tried to say she didn't have cardiac arrest, because he doesn't think her heart "stopped". It didn't need to "stop".
This is all only part of the available evidence of his deceitful character. He's currently in the middle of a challenge to his medical license.

Even Glenn Beck, a major supporter of the Schindlers, ended his interview with him, apologizing to his audience for having him on, after he refused to be straightforward.
This "world renowned" doctor, who is listed at quackwatch.com and advertised in the National enquirer, has never published in any respected medical journal (check pubmed). He claims to have had his work "peer reviewed," yet the "peers" are a few friend$ who work with him. http://www.hnionline.com/results_peer_reviewed_and_publis.htm

His patent is merely the use of common vasodilators to increase blood flow to the brain. Though the medical community says it is hogwash, he gets away with it with the board by listing his treatment as experimental upfront. It has had anecdotal success in a certain segment of patients. The only thing close to a study he did was on whiplash and some other highly functional patients.
Yet, he touts this treatment as a cure-all for everything from ADD to PVS. He bases his claims of success treating ADD on his treatment of 2 adult sisters who said they improved after taking the pills along with doing other therapies that would improve them as well.

Here is a typical example of this man's deceitfulness. Remember - Terri, without doubt, had cardiac arrest (see above), which is different from a Heart Attack (MI). Cardiac arrest is 50% more likely to occur if potassium is as low as a 3.5 Terri's was a 2.0. Heart attack is a totally different thing. Keeping this in mind, read this section of a transcript

HAMMESFAHR: I'd like to go back to the potassium for a second, because he talked about the potassium and about the diet pills issue or some other drugs.

COLMES: Sure. Sure.

HAMMESFAHR: But the medical record clearly shows that there has never been a heart attack. Potassium causes damage by causing heart attacks, so we know the potassium is not an issue.
...
Right now we have a woman who had a collapse with no known cause. No evidence of infection, heart attack, respiratory failure or anything. The only thing found in the emergency room is a damaged neck.

Now, he is either totally clueless about common physiology, or he is making a concerted effort to deceive people into believing Michael strangled her.

I would also add, that if Hammesfahr only saw a stiff neck like Terri's in one patient, it only goes to more proof that he's lying about seeing many PVS patients - he never has brought forward any proof, though it was so critical he do so.

There was and is nothing about Terri's neck that was or is unexpected for anyone in her condition.

Quackwatch http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Tests/tcd.html
2002 Trial Transcript
Multiple web sites investigating him
http://www.hnionline.com/nominating_letter_for_the_Nobel.htm
http://www.hnionline.com/nobel_prize_nomination.htm