Florida's US House Member outstanding in his field(s).
Posted on 07/06/2005 10:50:06 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
Several bloggers have drawn attention to a strange lead in a Washington Post story about the Terri Schiavo autopsy results. The June 16 Post story by David Brown said that "Terri Schiavo died of the effects of a profound and prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain on a day in 1990, but what caused that event isn't known and may never be, the physician who performed her autopsy said…"
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
With our own son, we indeed let nature take its course as we always intended. This was longstanding for us. We fought the doctors to prevent them from taking their own course beyond nature, either the one extreme of keeping his body alive, pain and all, when he might be obviously dying or trying to accelerate his dying, as was done with Terri.
"Nature" won out over man.
8mm
Liberals cheer
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Politics
July 29, 2005, 10:56PM
Frist to support federal funding of embryonic stem cell research
Liberals cheer the Senate leader's break with Bush
By JILL ZUCKMAN
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's announcement Friday that he would support federal funding of embryonic stem cell research sparked outrage among Christian conservatives and may signal a rift within the Republican Party in advance of the 2008 elections.
ADVERTISEMENT
In a speech on the Senate floor, Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon from Tennessee, said the restrictions on federal funding imposed by President Bush in 2001 "will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases."
Frist's break with the president elicited profuse thanks from such stalwarts of the left as Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., as well as gratitude from Republicans on the right, ranging from former first lady Nancy Reagan to Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Bush, notified by Frist of his decision late Thursday, said, "You've got to vote your conscience," according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
Political matters
But Frist's decision may complicate his presidential ambitions as well as expose the limits of the clout of social conservatives considered pivotal in the Republican presidential primary process.
"Senator Frist's public backing of this horrific science is being felt deeply across Middle America, and most importantly at the grass roots," said Tamara Scott, Iowa state director for Concerned Women of America. "Iowans today are significantly saddened to see our majority leader support an issue that stands in opposition to his former pro-life stance."
Marshall Wittmann, former legislative director for the Christian Coalition, said Frist's break with social conservatives may be a sign that GOP lawmakers are feeling the heat from swing voters for intervening in the Terri Schiavo case this year.
After voting to instruct the courts to review whether Schiavo's feeding tubes should be reinserted, Congress found itself sinking in the polls as voters expressed unhappiness and shock that lawmakers would try to step into a private family dispute.
"It may be a signal that the religious right can take nothing for granted as they look to 2008," said Wittmann, now a political analyst at the Democratic Leadership Council. "His apostasy may presage a real fight within the Republican Party in 2008."
Coming to his decision
On Capitol Hill, Frist's announcement changes the political calculus for stem cell legislation, which has passed the House and has been pending in the Senate with myriad related bills.
Specter, one of stem cell research's early backers, said Frist had given political cover to undecided lawmakers and provided new momentum to the issue.
"Here's a man who really knows science and who really knows government," said Specter. "So it is a very, very profound change. It's an earthquake."
Aides to Frist and others who are close to him say the senator spent several months reviewing information and talking with scientists, ethicists and religious figures, including at Harvard, Stanford, Vanderbilt and other universities.
They said Frist studied the current policy, as well as the state of the science now. One fact may have moved him the most: Existing stem cell lines have been contaminated and can't be applied for human medical use.
Whether he factored politics into his decision isn't known.
Veto still expected
But aides said Frist made the decision based on science.
"Of course there are those on the right who are going to scream," said one person close to Frist, dismissing the uproar.
In any event, the senator was unlikely to become the top choice of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, said John Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California who studies the GOP.
"There were many doubts about his effectiveness in dealing with judicial nominations," said Pitney.
And while the right may have agreed with his position on Schiavo, Pitney said, "he wound up getting bad publicity out of it because a lot of people viewed him as trying to do a diagnosis on the basis of videotape."
(In the Senate, opponents of embryonic stem cell research shook off the loss Friday.
"I don't think it matters," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who also is a doctor. "The president is going to veto it anyway."
And despite talk by stem cell advocates that they will try to change the president's mind, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said he's not worried that they will succeed.
"I'm quite confident," said Brownback, a favorite among social conservatives who is also mulling a run for the White House. "The president staked out clear principles that this is human life and I don't think he'll move from it."
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Politics
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/3288780
I don't think in your Aunt's situation the advanced directive made much of a difference. She did not die of starvation or dehydration. Can u imagine how much worse pain she would have been in if she would have keot alive in her pain and not been fed or given water? It would have been much worse for her. Her death was natural and not man made. Dehydrating someone to death is not natural no matter if they make a will say they want it or not.
"federal funding of embryonic stem cell research"
Am I correct in thinking that Independent Medical Research Firms can already do this? and Frist wants to put our tax dollars in it too.
Sounds about right....
8mm
Does Frist want to totally decimate the party???? It won't take much and I hope the POTUS sticks to his veto promise. If not, that's it as far as millions, I'm afraid are concerned.
Yes, there is a rift but there's a lot of flip flopping going on on the GOP side too. Like I just posted, do they want a GOP party or not? They called asking for my help but I declined. They better keep their promises because life and death promises are for keeps.
I have seen wildly varied reports on Leslie Burke in the UK. Is he safe or is he in danger now or if he loses his ability to communicate??? Do you know the latest?
I'm for the congressmen who opposed Frist on c-span yesterday. They represent the REAL RNC. Chris Smith, NJ; Dave Weldon, FL, Tom Delay, TX, and some other guys I didn't recognize. Dave Weldon, M.D. is a fine House member.
This is long; but worth noting. Remember we were finding a lot of odd connections between FL and NJ? This seems to be it:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1453849/posts?page=24#24
I posted a few more on that thread too that ties in Castro's Cuba with the Pharm industry. The players our listed in post 24
Florida's US House Member outstanding in his field(s).
Thanks, I'll ck it out.
This just came out this evening. Remind me not to be in the UK when I am in real bad health. Looks like the doctors can dehydrate someone to death really easily now.
It is unnerving anyway, but they portray the dehydration process as being just hunky dory, no big deal, patient hardly aware, etc. Yeah, rightttt.
Red Nova News
8mm
Dying Patient Loses His 'Right to Food' Battle ; Doctors Must Be Allowed to Make Final Decision, Say Appeal Judges
A TERMINALLY ill man yesterday lost his legal battle to stop doctors withdrawing food and water when his illness reaches its final stages.
Leslie Burke, 45, now fears he will suffer death by starvation or dehydration after he loses the power to communicate.
The Appeal Court ruling could have implications for thousands of patients each year who are unable to tell doctors they want life- prolonging treatment.
Campaigners for the 'right to food' say it allows doctors to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration once a patient can no longer express his or her wishes.
It is feared that those with conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's and muscular dystrophy may be affected as they could lose the power of speech or suffer deteriorating mental faculties.
Mr Burke, a former postman who has a degenerative brain condition, secured a landmark High Court ruling last year to stop doctors taking away nutrition in the final stages of illness. But the General Medical Council yesterday won an appeal against the verdict after saying it put its members in 'an impossibly difficult position'.
Philip Havers QC, for the doctors' body, said it would have obliged them to provide treatment even if they thought it was useless or possibly even harmful.
A panel of three judges headed by Lord Phillips, Master of the Rolls, defended the right of competent patients to demand artificial feeding.
But the same protection will not be guaranteed for those who cannot tell the doctor they want to be fed. Mr Burke, of Lancaster, knows his illness will cause him to one day lose the power of speech and control of his limbs.
He now fears taking two to three weeks to die of starvation or thirst.
He said last night: 'When I am no longer able to communicate, the power will shift totally away from me to the doctors. My fate is then in their hands and I find that very worrying.
'The doctor may decide it is in my best interests for my life to end when that is not what I want.' Lord Phillips, giving the ruling yesterday, said patients would normally have nothing to fear because doctors are obliged to consider their best interests.
He said: 'Where a patient indicates his or her wish to be kept alive by the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH), any doctor who deliberately brings that patient's life to an end by discontinuing the supply of ANH will not merely be in breach of duty but guilty of murder.
'Ultimately, however, a patient cannot demand that a doctor administer a treatment which the doctor considers is adverse to the patient's clinical needs.' Mr Burke's solicitor Paul Conrathe, of the Croydon-based firm Ormerods, said: 'The court has confirmed that patients like Mr Burke who want food and water have to be given it. Failure to do so would constitute murder.
This is a significant matter for him.' He added, however: 'Concerns remain that in the final stages of Mr Burke's life, when he has lost the ability to communicate, a doctor may override his wish.' Joyce Robins, of human rights group Patient Concern, described the decision as a huge step back.
She said: 'The right to food and water is a right to simple basic sustenance, but because they are considered treatment, they can now be taken away.' Bert Massie, chairman of the Disability Rights Commission, said: 'Many disabled people fear that some doctors make negative, stereotypical assumptions about their quality of life.' Professor Sir Graeme Catto, president of the GMC, said: 'Patients should be reassured by this judgment, which emphasises the partnership needed to resolve end of life issues.
Our guidance makes it clear that patients should never be discriminated against on grounds of disability.
'And we have always said that causing patients to die from starvation and dehydration is absolutely unacceptable practice and unlawful.' Mr Burke, who has been backed by Pounds 35,000 worth of legal aid and attended the Appeal Court in a wheelchair, is considering taking his case to the House of Lords.
j.hope@dailymail.co.uk
PATIENTS whose artificial feeding is withdrawn are not conscious during their final days, doctors say.
Rather than suffering an agonising death from starvation, most become dehydrated and slip into a coma.
Dr Keith Andrews, of the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in South London, said patients usually display few outward signs of the effect of a lack of food and water.
'They don't lose a lot of weight but slip deeper into a coma,' he added.
'Dehydration results in the patient being anaesthetised and there is no awareness of the environment. Death comes about as a result of the body shutting down, or pneumonia.' Dr Andrews said nursing staff sometimes apply water to the lips to prevent them cracking. But he added that reports about patients dying in pain from starvation are inaccurate.
That would happen only if food was withdrawn but water maintained.
'In practice, artificial feeding means giving food and water,' he said.
'That is because if you supply only water, then the patient will enter a prolonged period of starvation that can last months.'
Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)
http://www.rednova.com/news/health/191541/dying_patient_loses_his_right_to_food_battle__doctors/
Anyone really interested in seeing what Michael is doing to become an acclaimed author?
http://www.authorlink.com/news/news.asp?id=719
I can link but not copy their interesting observation. It has a link to Nat Hentoff.
8mm
My aunt did not receive IV fluids nor did she receive any feeding once she became unable to take anything by mouth. The morphine drip was mixed with a small bag of saline.
I do not believe in dehydrating or starving a patient. However, I watched helplessly while my aunt suffered excruciating pain. I prayed that God would, in His infinite mercy, take her to heaven so that she would not have to suffer anymore. That is, unless He would provide a miracle cure.
What good would a feeding tube and IV fluids have done her? It would just have prolonged the extreme agony that she was in.
That was the same way as it was with my aunt. God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, healed her, but not in this life.
No one tried to speed her passing, only to make it as painless as possible under the circumstances.
You can bet that The New York TIMES will list Michael's book as "non-fiction."
Another hydration/starvation case. A bit complicated, IMO.
http://www.blogsforterri.com/archives/2005/07/a_response_to_t.php
How about Avoiding Judges like Greer who kill with impunity? Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH)
July 29, 2005
Section: HomeFinder Avoid being a toxic family
KATHLEEN MEGAN
The Hartford Courant
One of the saddest images of the Terri Schiavo case was Michael Schiavo at his wife's deathbed back in March, barring other members of her family from entering the hospice room. This clearly was a family feud marked by a bitterness and vitriol beyond reconciliation. And while life-and-death issues such as those in the Schiavo case certainly can divide relatives, often the issues that trigger family explosions are comparatively trivial.
Michelle Callahan, a New York City psychologist and "life coach," has seen families fall apart over issues as small as an unpaid $50 loan, a refusal by one adult sibling to baby-sit for another, or even a conversation between a sibling and his brother's ex-girlfriend.
"A lot of times the most heinous issues are not the things they stop talking over," Callahan said. In many cases, of course, the surface issue that triggers the rift is not the real cause. Usually, a stew of underlying issues - competition, unkindness, actual or perceived betrayals, double-speak, innuendo - have put family relations at a steady simmer. It doesn't take much to make it boil.
Erik Fisher, an Atlanta psychologist and author of "The Art of Managing Everyday Conflict," said that in some families the pressure to be "good" on the surface might be so high that family members develop passive-aggressive ways to hurt each other.
"They'll say these little snippy things to each other," Fisher said. "This can be more draining than if they were screaming and yelling. The underhanded comments, the indirect stabs . . . "
One tactic is the sarcastic insult that's passed off as "just kidding," Fisher said.
Fisher experienced a situation like this himself. His grandmother, who felt threatened by his mother, would always maintain a pleasant, even ingratiating demeanor toward her. But behind his mother's back, grandma would try to undermine her.
"A person who draws someone in, acting as if they want to be loved and accepted and then destroys them - that's toxic," he said.
Fisher distinguishes between a "conflicted family" and a "toxic family," saying a conflicted family may have a misunderstanding, and they don't have the communications skills to solve it.
A toxic family, on the other hand, is wrestling with deeper, more complex issues that snuff the life out of family relationships. It's less about a particular disagreement and more about unhealthy patterns of relationships.
Fisher said that in a toxic family, for example, a parent might say to a son, who has brought a date home: " 'Oh, isn't that a nice girl? But did you notice how she dressed funny, or did you know her mother . . . ' Little comments so that the child is forced to choose between Mom or the girl.
"The mother knows that if she forthrightly says, 'I don't like (her),' the child might be gone."
Dr. Robert Trestman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut Health Center, said a typically toxic situation may develop when a man and wife, who married early, grow disillusioned a dozen or so years later. "The kids are there causing all the normal challenges," Trestman said. "There was never quite enough money and a lot of anger and frustration. The husband certainly didn't achieve in the way the wife wanted him to."
Rather than discuss their feelings, the couple becomes angry and bitter. "All of their communication includes sarcasm and anger," Trestman said. "Frequently, there is a lot of abuse or neglect. It may or may not trigger calls to the police."
The relationship may simply simmer along that way for decades, or there might be an explosion, or the kids may turn up troubled in Trestman's office.
"The kids may suffer silently," Trestman said. "They learn this is the way life is supposed to be. They learn that this is the normal way to interact, to expect people to disappoint you."
The vulnerable among them may become depressed or suicidal or abusive of drugs or alcohol. If such a child comes in for help, Trestman said, he would usually want to see the entire family.
If the couple does stay together, Trestman said, "many don't face horrific disasters, in which case this kind of toxicity can exist without causing front-page news. Rather, it's the cause of a great deal of sadness, frustration, loss, joy and lost productivity."
If family members can admit that they are unhappy and are willing to try to change, he said, there is a chance to undo some of the patterns.
Andra Medea, a psychologist and author of "Conflict Unraveled: Fixing Problems at Work and in Families," said that when toxic families are faced with a problem, instead of trying to work together to solve it, they tend to fight each other.
"The core issue is that they focus on trying to dominate each other," Medea said, "rather than on solving their problems."
Often this means that families cast conflicts in terms of victims, villains and heroes. Declaring one person the villain may make the other family members feel in control. But, Medea said, "being a hero often involves punishing somebody else - not just asserting yourself, but really throwing your weight around.
"Instead of buying into the adrenaline" of the fight, she said, family members should "take a step back and decide if there really is an enemy here. This is your family. Maybe the problem is not coming from a willful person doing evil."
Of course, divorce and the intervention of in-laws also lend themselves toward creating toxic situations.
John Mayoue, a divorce lawyer from Atlanta, said too often he has seen in-laws step in on the side of their child when trouble brews in a marriage. "Someone's child, even if an adult, is always their child," Mayoue said.
So what's the answer to family harmony? The key seems to be understanding others' perspective and letting them know you understand how they are feeling. If the various sides feel as if they have been understood, it's more likely that family members will be able to engage in a healthy discussion that will lead to good solutions.
Callahan said it is important always to be respectful and to avoid swearing. If the conversation grows too heated, she suggests politely excusing yourself - making up an excuse, if necessary, to avoid confrontation - and walking away for a time.
If a family is facing a disagreement based on fundamental beliefs that are hugely different, it may be that there is no compromise. In such cases, experts say the family has to agree that they don't want to fall apart over this issue and they will have to agree to disagree. Ultimately, someone will have to back down.
Fisher said the message to family members should be: "You disagree with me, but that doesn't mean I stop loving you."
Copyright, 2005, The Telegraph, Nashua, N.H.
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