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.
One of Terri's close friends testified that she had lunch with her shortly before her collapse, and Terri only ate a bagel, and she was concerned that Terri ate so little.
My point is that as far as I know eating very little is NOT characteristic of people with bulemia, just the opposite -- they gorge themselves and purge.
Years before Terri met Michael, she lost a lot of weight using Nutrisystem -- a healthy way of losing weight.
Put all this together, and I find it extremely unlikely, that Terri had bulemia.
But no mention is made and no attention is paid to the above facts.
Please produce proof that Terri wanted to have all food and water withdrawn from her, even by mouth, and die that way.
No. The actual question in the case was whether or not Terri Schiavo was able to eat on her own, and whether or not she could swallow that food. She could not.
Her parents, hoping against hope, found "doctors" who fed into their unrealist hope.
I ask you the question again:
If a person, even Terri Schiavo, could NOT chew, eat or swallow, and they have NO HOPE of getting better, isn't a feeding tube unrealistic, unnatural, and an attempt to circumvent God's purpose for that person?
Why did "Christians" fight so hard against allowing a natural death (since Terri Schiavo can NOT eat on her own, it is natural to remove the feeding tube)?
The reason I put Christians in quotation marks is because NOT ALL Christians believe that removal of the feeding tube was wrong.
The bone scans have already been brought up before the court and the Schindlers claim against Michael Schiavo were dismissed 'with prejudice' meaning that the Schindlers could not bring up that issue again. It means that their claim was unfounded.
The potassium imbalance which brought on the heart arrest and subsequent oxygen depletion to the brain was DUE TO BULIMIA.
It's a matter of medical record and was a part of the trial.
No one is pure as the driven snow except one, Jesus.
So, no the Schiavo side is not pure at all. It's just that he is not evil incarnate as the Schindler side has made him out to be. The Schindlers believed they were doing what was right. But, that doesn't make them right.
TM129: I am afraid, very afraid, that the choice to refuse medical care will disappear if we begin to force individuals into unnecessary legal battles, unnecessary human tragedy, and unwarranted extreme burdens for people (emotional, physical, mental and financial) by unnaturally extended life and forcing people to accept feeding tubes for unlimited time periods, respirators and surgeries unwanted by a person or their immediate family.
FO: Please produce proof that Terri wanted to have all food and water withdrawn from her, even by mouth, and die that way.
I made a statement that the right to refuse medical assistance is at risk and that it concerns me.
I wasn't trying to prove that Terri wanted or didn't want to have food and water withheld.
I have, however, tried to make the point that when the physical body is unable to process food (chew and swallow) and drink water adequately, that the body is and has shut down and it is unlawful (even according to God, if God has so situated that body) to force that physical body to receive food and water.
A credible physician at a credible physician web site, ...
Would you care to expand on that?
Thank you for posting this article. It is excellent.
CSI MEDBLOGS: CODEBLUEBLOG ANALYZES TERRI SCHIAVO'S CT OF THE BRAIN
http://codeblueblog.blogs.com/codeblueblog/2005/03/csi_medblogs_co.html
It was in the article -- it gives the link to the site, where the doctor's analysis is.
Go to the link of the article and check out the other links.
It also has links to articles in medical journals, which state that PVS is misdiagnosed in nearly half the cases.
If a person appears generally vegetative, but has enough swallowing ability to take care of their own saliva without drooling, what would be the harm in seeing whether the patient could take on a sufficient quantity of concentrated nourishment (in addition to the saliva) without choking?
Given the alternative of 100% certain death by dehydration, who would have been harmed by allowing the parents to attempt feeding with either a nineteenth-century invalid feeder or a medieval (if not earlier) spoon?
As I have posted before, or at least thought I had, that would be preferable, of course.
The problem is, though, that the REASON Terri Schiavo had a feeding tube was because she was UNABLE to chew and swallow food due to her diminished brain activity and ability. The parents hoped physical therapy would cure this disability. The courts found that their hope was unrealistic, due to the neuorological limitations (or lack) of their daughter's brain.
I am all for seeing if the ability to be fed is appropriate.
When it is NOT appropriate, what then?
Let the person choke on the food to death?
Or for their daughter's care.
The Schindlers had a big lapse in moral judgement when they decided to avoid investigating the basis for the "malpractice" suit, for fear that such investigation might jeopardize their daugher's ability to receive treatment. Given that the Schindlers had spent huge amouts of money on their daughter's care, I do not begrudge them a desire to (1) get at least some repayment, and (2) win some more money for their daughter's care. Nonetheless, their failure to confirm that everything was on the up-and-up proved fatal.
Let the person choke on the food to death?
Even if there were a 95% chance that the person would choke before their swallowing muscles improved to the point of becoming reliably, and only a 2% chance of success, would that not be preferable to a 100% probability of an agonizing death by dehydration?
There are only two reasons I can see that the denial of oral food and hydration would be in anybody's interest:
You conflate Terri's situation with others which are not similar.
Chew/swallow is something learned, and in her case, it could well have been re-learned through therapy.
Further, you postulate that Terri's body was "shutting down," which is manifestly untrue.
However, the Pope's body was, e.g.--so regardless of the feeding tube, he died.
The differences are extremely important.
Of course, you know, with absolute moral certainty, exactly what caused the potassium imbalance, eh?
Because, if you are not 100% morally certain, then you really shouldn't be discussing it as though it were a settled fact.
Whether or not the Schindlers chose to argue about the alleged bulimia (perhaps they choose their battles, or were unaware of the allegation) is irrelevant.
Ummmnnhh...NOBODY on this thread has suggested "...unwarranted extreme burdens..." or "...unnaturally extending life..."
So just exactly what are you trying to say?
BINGO!!!
He who controls the language controls the argument.
Ask Goebbels, or Madison Avenue.
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