Posted on 04/01/2005 11:52:28 PM PST by FairOpinion
The amount of medical misinformation put out about Terri Schiavo has been truly stunning. The testimony of Terri’s physicians who believe that some recovery is possible has been largely dismissed. Judge Greer’s court and the media in turn, have focused only on the pessimistic interpretations of the raw data of her CT scan.
A physician at a credible physicians’ website has analyzed Terri’s CAT scan and concludes that it has been grossly misrepresented. There is some cerebral atrophy, but it is a completely inaccurate to characterize it as “bag of water.” Furthermore, the author states that
“the most alarming thing about this image, however, is that there certainly is cortex left. Granted, it is severely thinned, especially for Terri's age, but I would be nonplussed if you told me that this was a 75 year old female who was somewhat senile but fully functional, and I defy a radiologist anywhere to contest that.”
In one of the definitive court battles in 2002, five physicians examined Terri to determine if therapy would be of further benefit. Two chosen by Terri’s parents believed that she was not in a “persistent vegetative state” and that some recovery was possible. Two chosen by Michael Schiavo held that she had no chance of recovery, as did the “neutral” physician appointed by the court. This 3-2 decision was key in the 2003 attempt to pull her feeding tube.
One of Michael Schiavo’s medical experts was the right-to-die advocate Dr. Ronald Cranford, who has been an expert in a number other key court cases on our nation’s slippery slope to euthanasia, including those of Nancy Cruzan and Robert Wedlund. But Dr. Cranford has made serious errors in other cases when prognosticating about the prospects of neurological recovery. Frederica Mathewes-Green states that Sgt. David Mack, who was shot in the line of duty as a policeman, was diagnosed by Cranford as
"definitely...in a persistent vegetative state...never [to] regain cognitive, sapient functioning...never [to] be aware of his condition."
Twenty months after the shooting Mack woke up, and eventually regained nearly all his mental ability. When asked by a reporter how he felt, he spelled out on his letterboard, "Speechless!"
In fact, the entire field of diagnosing “persistent vegetative state” or “PVS” is fraught with inaccuracy. Recent studies have shown the rate of misdiagnosis to be as high as 37% or even 43%. PVS is a clinical diagnosis, meaning that it depends on the subjective judgment of the examining physician. Experts in the field cannot even agree on the usefulness of diagnostic imaging.
Dr. Ronald Cranford himself was upset about the articles showing the inaccuracy of diagnosis and prognostication about PVS. Childs and Mercer, authors of one of the studies citing the difficulties of diagnosing PVS, took Cranford to task for “zealously” promoting the concept of the "permanent vegetative state" despite the evidence of its problematic nature, and the regularity with which some patients recover from it .
The nomenclature of “persistent vegetative state” was coined in 1972 by Jennett and Plum in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. The original article, “Persistent Vegetative State: A syndrome in search of a name” seems to have succeeded in its task as reclassifying severely cognitively disabled humans as non-persons - something akin to vegetables in the minds of many. Public perception of this highly-charged term predisposes many to dismiss the lives of human beings as no more significant than plant life. It is a brilliant, if chilling, masterstroke of propaganda, one which has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
This reclassification of non-terminally ill people has allowed for their dehydration and starvation deaths in Britain with a doctor’s recommendation, and in many states in the USA with the family’s wishes (or a patient’s own advance directives). The medical literature is rife with arrogant pronouncements in editorials of learned journals, such as life itself not being of “benefit” to someone in the PVS state. The echoes of current bioethics doublespeak resound in these journals.
In some respects the “persistent vegetative state” is more a political than a medical diagnosis, as it allows its unfortunate victims to lose their right to life and be medically killed through withholding food and water. It is unfortunate that some of the experts on the side of the Culture of Death seem to have had the upper hand in Terri’s fight, and have been portrayed by the media as reasonable and responsible members of the medical profession, rather than the zealots which, in fact, some of their own medical colleagues have branded them.
My apologies for misunderstanding.
I was only pointing out that people who have experience with abusers "know 'em when they see 'em."
They shouldn't be accused of feeling superior, for having that insight. They've learned an important lesson from a life experience they really would rather not have undergone.
When used honestly, before it became a death sentence, the term "persistent vegetative state" meant nothing more nor less than that no demonstrable cognitive response had been discovered. It did not mean that none exists--merely that if any such response did exist it had not yet been discovered and identified. In that sense, the term was similar to "UFO".
One of the difficulties with establishing the meaningfulness of a PVS diagnosis is that someone who isn't looking very hard for signs of cognition isn't apt to find them. Given that some people drift in and out of states where they are largely unconcious, the notion that a single 45-minute exam could suffice to show that there are no signs of congition at all is ludicrious.
To use a Greerlogic analogy, suppose five police officers search a vehicle for drugs. Three of them, two of whom are open advocates of drug legalization, find nothing. The other two find drugs. Should the fact that the majority of the cops found nothing be taken as clear and compelling evidence that there weren't any drugs in the vehicle?
Not to mention, at least one person who was capable of operating a motorized wheelchair in Dr. Cranford's presence.
Giant BUMP
Before the law was changed so that PVS was a death sentence, why should the parents have cared what the doctors called Terri's condition? Given that the term PVS had historically been used to apply to people for whom signs of cognition had not been confirmed even though they might exist, why should the parents have objected to such a diagnosis?
How many people did he diagnose, correctly or incorrectly, as not being PVS?
Any "test" which has some false positives and zero true negatives is absolutely and 100% worthless.
I recall reading that someone requested and received a copy of the original application and the word "Insurance" was spelled correctly there. It may be that the mistake was an accidental typo, or the result of a bribed clerical worker, or that the person who claimed to have examined a copy of the original document was lying. I don't know. But something to keep in mind.
Good points about the mis-spelling of insurance.
GrimGreer also sealed Florida's Department of Children & Families records which contain near 90 allegations of abuse by Mikey Schiavo against Terri.
If there is a purpose for doing so...i.e., if doctor is goign to take action based on the tests. What was to occur here? If tests showed she was in persistant vegetative state, do you really think the Schindlers would drop their case. They admitted in court that she was in pvs but that didnt stop them.
The Mayo Clinic guy came way too late and with way too little. The time to have presented his findings was in the original trial, not after he had ruled.
He met with Terri for an hour and a half, admits that she wasnt at all responsive to anything he did but then says but I still have a feeling that I am in the presence of a person. Sounds to me like his subjective mind was overuling his brain and medical training. He didnt say she wasnt in pvs. She said he thought there was a small chance that she might be minimally conscious.
Thanks for your advice
And, when the law is changed, it may NOT comport with YOUR personal ideas.
Perhaps you should move.
Don't you know how to read? Three off the top of my head. That doesn't mean three only. Or maybe to you it does.
Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you go try to find out how many times Cranford has testified that someone was NOT in a PVS? Go dig up his records yourself.
Well, it's for certain that Clearwater is crawling with the Scientologist crowd, wearing their uniforms, and lapping up HubbardCultJibberish like kitties do with milk.
No KoolAid, yet...
I dont live in Florida. I live where the Cruzan case was decided.
Perhaps the courts really do deal with what's given to them. But pulling life-sustenance is wrong, "courts" or no courts.
Those laws which contradict natural moral laws are void, and that's the substance of the Congressional action.
Not that GrimGreer cared; he was bound and determined to be the poster boy for the Krytocracy, and he's gotten there.
Now it's a matter of what the reaction from the public will be, and I don't think Grim's going to like it--nor the moron Fed in Tampa, nor the 11th Circus clowns.
But it will be well-earned.
Actually, since the founding of Israel, about 500 BC. The Jews were the ONLY Mediterranean culture which did not kill off their unwanted children and adults--a fact remarked upon by contemporaneous historians. For a while, the USA operated under those principles, too.
Neither you nor anyone else can produce a written document that Terri "wished" this.
Only Mikey said so, and only after it became necessary for his purposes. That wasn't the case, however, when Mikey was testifying to gain $1+MM in insurance settlements.
THEN Mikey just did not recall such a statement from Terri.
"If you read the paper which created the category of PVS in 1972 (Jennett B, Plum F. Persistent vegetative state after brain damage: a syndrome in search of a name. Lancet. 1972;1:734-737.), you would realize that this "finding" should never be used to make the decision to kill someone, because of its imprecision and uncertain prognosis. It doesn't matter how many experts agree on the diagnosis, the concept is wrong."
I agree, and now I've learned about "mimimally conscious state" and "locked-in syndrome." PVS is a label to declare people no longer human so evil people and off them.
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