Terri was aware, says brain doc

Refuting the findings of the county medical examiner, a neurosurgeon who examined Terri Schiavo before her death says the autopsy report confirms she was aware of what was going on around her.

Dr. William Hammesfahr, nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work in medicine and known as a pioneer in approaches to helping the brain injured, said to ignore the facts would "allow future Terri Schiavos to die needlessly."

"The record must be set straight," he said. "As we noted in the press, there was no heart attack, or evident reason for this to have happened (and certainly not of Terri's making). Unlike the constant drumbeat from the husband, his attorneys, and his doctors, the brain tissue was not dissolved, with a head of just spinal fluid. In fact, large areas were 'relatively preserved.'"

He said the autopsy results confirmed his opinion that the frontal areas of the brains, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact.

"In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape," he said. "The Spect scan confirmed these areas were functional and not scar tissue, and that was apparently also confirmed on Dr. (Stephen) Nelson's review of the slides."

Dr. Hammesfahr describes Terri as "a woman trapped in her body, similar to a child with cerebral palsy, and that was born out by the autopsy, showing greater injury in the motor and visual centers of the brain. Obviously, the pathologists comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality, and thus his assessment must represent sampling error. The videotapes clearly showed her seeing."

He was critical of the findings that she was not capable of swallowing on her own. He cited her ability to swallow up to about 1.5 liters per day of liquid, confirmed, he said, by two other physicians.

"With respect to the issue of trauma, that certainly does not appear to be answered adequately," he added. "Some of the types of trauma that are suspected were not adequately evaluated in this assessment. Interestingly, both myself and at least one neurologist for the husband testified to the presence of neck injuries."

Hammesfahr concluded: "Ultimately, based on the clinical evidence and the autopsy results, an aware woman was killed."

His statements concur with others who have conducted analyses of the autopsy results. Last week, an attorney specializing in medical ethics cases, Jerri Lynn Ward of Austin, Texas, made similar observations. She particularly took note of this autopsy finding: "The frontal temporal and temporal poles and insular-cortex demonstrated relative preservation."

"What this tells us is that her cortex retained function and that her brain was more normal in the area that controls higher-level thinking," said Ward, who has weighed in on the case in her weblog and in an interview with "Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily RadioActive" show.

Schiavo died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said they were willing to care for their daughter, insisting she had a strong will to live.

Experts supporting Michael Schiavo – contending Terri Schiavo's brain cortex essentially was missing and filled with fluid – concluded she was in a persistent vegetative state. The Schindlers, arguing that their daughter recognized and responded to family members, produced neurologists who diagnosed her as "minimally conscious."

Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner Jon Thogmartin, speaking at a news conference Wednesday, said the damage to Terri Schiavo's brain was "irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

But Ward, pointing to the autopsy report, noted the brain's frontal lobe plays a part in impulse control, judgment, language, memory, motor function, problem solving, sexual behavior, socialization and spontaneity.

"It is very possible that she remained cognizant of sounds and other things without being able to communicate," Ward said. "It's possible Terri was aware of everything being done to her – yet could do little to make people aware that she was there."

Ward pointed out that major damage to Schiavo's brain was shown to be toward the back – the areas that affect motor skills.

So the question remains, says Ward, was Terri Schiavo still a thinking, aware human being?

In fact, neuropathologist Nelson, whose assessment is included in the report, conceded there is no way of determining through an autopsy whether a person was in a persistent vegetative state.

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.

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

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, 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

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