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.
Sounding like George Felos, you asserted, "When the body is shutting down, it is not the agonizing death you purport it to be. It is peaceful and more or less painless." You conveniently ignore the testimony of persons who've been starved and dehydrated to death's door only to recover with medical assistance. Your agenda is becoming more and more evident as you continue to identify your field of accepted premises. And it isn't a pretty picture, George.
Well. "thinkingman"
you see, Terri had brain function, and as testified to by examining neurophyscicions who also testified that, with therapy, - which she was being denied - there was hope for improvement. Nurses who took care of Terri - which may know more than someone who didn't? - testified that they DID feed her by mouth and she not only was able to eat it, but enjoyed it (medically, she would have needed aspiration several times a day to remove fluids, if she could not swallow. She did not need it, because she swallowed all day long, as we all do.) michael, thru the court, forbade hand feeding. And when they ordered the feeding tube pulled, the court forbade anyone to give her ANYthing by mouth, even a wet washcloth to help her drying out lips.
I think anyone, including you, can make decisions for yourself. I don't think anyone else has the right to make such decisions for anyone else. Terri was murdered, pure and simple.
I could site many more details you may be unfamiliar with - including Ct scans and videos and experts in the field that testified to just the opposite of michael and his minions. But "wasted breath" and all that.
I just didn't want your misconstruing of the facts in Terri's case to stand for others to be misled.
You may not be a democrat - but deathaCrat? "If it walks like a duck..."
I'm surprised you don't see the full depth and complexity of that artistic masterpiece. It is obviously a painting of a grey cat chasing a grey mouse across an unpainted asphalt parking lot at dusk on a foggy day.
Then get your ducks in a row - get your wishes down and notarized.
But you spell out just exactly what is so dangerous - the slide into killing many people who have no proven wish to be killed,...in many cases, people who could eventually recover - or, at least, improve, will be systematically killed.
Ever wonder why prisoners of war - WW11 Concentration Camp prisoners, for example - who went thru the tortures of the damed, hung onto life against all odds. Or what about Stephen Hawking, crippled, in a wheel chair, unable to use his body, on a breathing device, and feeding tube, - yet a brilliant scientist - preferred life...
The danger is that thinking of your kind - and we know there's a lot out there - will push for the decisions to be taken out of relatives altogether and put in the hands of dr.s and judges...using the false rationale of "to avoid the conflict ion of family members."
Get your papers filled out - but for others, should there be no written, clear wishes - err on the side of life." No one should decide death for someone else. Terri's case couldn't be a clearer testimony for that. Hers is a classical example of getting rid of the 'inconvenient." You cite God, (in your other post, below in italics) and what He'd want? Do you think he believes we have a right to kill his children for Him? Or the ability to keep them alive by any means if He doesn't wish it?
(Your first post) I disagree with the reasoning to keep a person alive via a feeding tube. If God has made the person's body unable to chew, eat or swallow, then feeding by tube is unnatural. I believe in life after death, eternal life. Why would a Christian value life on earth over the life he gains after death. Live as best you can, as long as you can while living. But when the brain function and the ability to chew and swallow has left the body, let the spirit go to the Father in Heaven. My opinion.
Despite that, you sound quite knowledgeable on the subject. MD?
If someone is terminal and the person's organs start failing, the person's need for water will decrease substantially. In such cases, the need for hydration is correspondingly reduced, sometimes to basically nothing. Such a person might be adequately hydrated to live for a month without water were it not for the fact that the failure of the person's organs would kill them much sooner than that.
It is peaceful and more or less painless.
In cases where a patient's other organs are already shuttig down of natural causes, denial of food and sometimes water can indeed be painless. But for a patient whose organs are functionaing normally, the story will be far different.
It is a way of NATURAL death for people when the natural means of receiving food and water becomes impossible.
If Stephen Hawking's wife were to lock him in a closet for two weeks and he died of thirst, should that be viewed as death by natural causes or as homicide?
More specifically, in Terri Schiavo's situation, the feeding tube supplanted the natural means and made its withdrawal appear to be inhumane.
Had Terri's parents been allowed to make such efforts as they could to give Terri water and nutrition by mouth, that might have been 'humane'. Given that Terri was able to swallow over a liter of saliva per day, it would seem likely that she could have swallowed some water or nutritious liquid--administered slowly and carefully--were she permitted to.
Prolonging her life was inhumane and presuming man's means to prolong life more important than the way her body had already shut down YEARS ago.
Her body hadn't shut down. It was functioning jut fine as long as it was given food and water. When water was cut off, the result was very different from what occurs in a terminal patient. Not humane, and not "peaceful".
In simplest terms, the body's organs use water during the various life processes and 'pollute' it. The kidneys remove polluted water from the blood stream. The stomach and intestines replace the water the kidneys have removed with clean water.
If someone's kidneys have shut down, water will no longer be extracted from their bloodstream. Consequently, adding more water will not help the patient and may indeed be harmful. Unless the person receives dialysis, the blood will become more and more polluted until it can no longer sustain life, but this is hardly the worst way to die.
In someone like Terri, however, the kidneys will continue to extract water from the blood even though it is not being replaced. The amount of water in the blood will consequently drop to the point that the many of the person's capilaries become brittle and burst. Even though this is happening, though, the kidneys will keep on doing their job extracting polluted water from the blood. Although conditions will eventually get so bad that the kidneys quit functioning, the effects of dehydration on the rest of the body before that occurs are just plain nasty.
We care for the profoundly retarded, people born with NO cognitive ability whatsoever, provide them with therapists, teachers, nurses, caretakers, and doctors, even when it is clear that NO amount of attention is ever going to make them get better. There are tens of thousands of these people living in hospitals all over the country. Since they won't get better, should we stop wasting the money on them and starve them to death? (The major difference between them and Terri being that they were born that way, while she wasn't.)
I have a CD whose 'label' is black on black. When viewed under the right lighting conditions, though, it's readable (glossy black on flat black). And I once volunteered to help some special-ed students, one of whom very meticulously painted all of the areas on a coloring-book page, fitting the lines perfectly, but using the same crayon for everything (had I not seen the kid do this and merely examined the page, I would have thought the kid simply ignored the lines--the coloring was that even and precise).
But I've seen Karl Richter's "Grey" at the Tate Modern. And it isn't some fancy design all painted with the same color, where analysis of the brush strokes would reveal the design. Rather, it's just a canvas painted uniformly gray.
I'm sorry, I should have labelled my post as "humor." That Gray "painting" is right along the lines of the old "Polar bear in a snowstorm eating marshmallows" joke, where the artist is displaying a blank white sheet of paper.
Seriously, given physiologic differences in the way men and women see the color red, it should be possible to make a picture using shades of red, where most women would see the picture, but men would only see a blank red canvas.
Now--killing Terri was despicable and totally unnecessary. (I have to bring this post back on topic.)
I know, but I wanted to mention that (1) I have seen monochromatic efforts worthy of some notice; (2) I have actually seen the work I "posted" [nb: I didn't even use a .gif or .jpg--just some HTML]; (3) the work in question is indeed hanging in a "prestigious" "art" museum whose only interesting work, to my eye, was "Concerto for an anarchist" [or something like that]. It was a grand piano, hung upside down, with a pneumatically-operated mechanism that would, every five minutes, make it go 'sproing' and fly apart crazily and then draw itself together. Not sure about the artistic merit, necessarily, but technically interesting.
Which of Terri Schiavo's bodily functions necessary to process food were shut down?
She swallowed, yet Michael Schiavo and Greer forbade anything by mouth at threat of arrest. Her parents couldn't even put a spoonful of cool water in her mouth. How does that fit in your idea of God's purposes for that person?
Why should your religious beliefs - which are in direct opposition to the Catholic tradition the Schindler and Schiavo families followed - cause Terri Schiavo to starve to death?
Was it also merciful and appropriate for the judge to rule that Terri may not be given anything by mouth after the tube was pulled? How about having a policeman in the room to make sure no one committed the crime of placing a few ice chips on Terri's tongue?
Terri swallowed all the time. But the judge decided that giving her anything by mouth, even after the tube was pulled, would be "experimental" and a "medical examination."
If you do not believe that God gave us medical progress to prolong life, why on earth does it exist?
Can you give me something beyond your "belief" that Terri has not capable of living for the 15 years that she was tube-fed? It's obvious that she was able, because she did live.
What you do not believe is that a body should be *aided* in living if the person cannot feed himself or herself.
Care to elaborate?
Terri's body processed nutriments very well, because she was not dying.
It was barbaric to starve her.
Whose body was God "shutting down"?
Certainly not Terri's. Even Michael testified Terri could live for decades.
If Terri's body was shutting down, why did Greer, Felos and Michael need to starve her in order to kill her?
Odd....you didn't have Christians in quotation marks the first time you "wondered aloud" about this.
Terri's body did not begin "shutting down" until she had been starved for over a week.
This appears to be the most informative site I've seen yet. I've bookmarked it, so I can refer back to it often. Thanks so much for posting it.
The moral question precedes and is superior to ANY 'fact' question in Terri's case.
You may, if you like, defend the positive laws which governed the outcome.
You are wrong in doing so.
Acceptance of Deryk Humphry's, or Jack Kervorkian's, thesis on governance of life (that is, that life belongs to individuals here on Earth and thus is subject to their judgments) is a fundamental and extremely significant error.
Thus it was that Congress and the President intervened, supported by a cast of millions including a self-described atheist who is disabled, and EVERY major disability-rights group in the USA, not to mention commentators of all stripes, Democrat, Republican, Jewish, et al.
Perhaps reading the works of Leonard Kass on the question will be helpful to you.
My father was a practicing attorney, and good at it. He made it very clear that judges, as a class, were rarely on his list of most-admired-people. In fact, he often made it clear that they were idiots.
This case does nothing but re-inforce his wisdom.
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