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A study by the Coma Science Group of the University of Liège, Belgium, finds that up to half of patients in an acute vegetative state regain some level of consciousness.In the study, which analyzed data collected over a five-year period, researchers assessed and classified comatose patients according to the Coma Recovery Scale. The researchers determined that some 40 percent had been incorrectly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, when they were in fact in a minimally conscious state. And 10 percent of those diagnosed as being minimally conscious were communicating functionally.A patient who is minimally conscious shows periodic...

Government questions patients' right to treatment ANGUS HOWARTH A RIGHT of patients to demand life-prolonging treatment has "very serious implications" for National Health Service resources, appeal judges were told yesterday. The health department claimed that if a right to artificial nutrition or hydration (ANH) treatment was established, patients would be able to demand other life-prolonging treatments. The argument was put forward yesterday by the government as Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, intervened in a General Medical Council challenge to a High Court ruling which was hailed at the time as a breakthrough for the rights of terminally-ill patients. Leslie Burke,...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another 9-11 date with death -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 4, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com What do you call a country that sentences its prisoners to death by starvation and dehydration? Barbaric, inhumane perhaps? Fasts, even hunger strikes, often are self-imposed for periods of time. However, no one in his right mind passes up fluids. Death by dehydration is a painful, agonizing and arduous process that takes 10 to 14 days. In addition to feeling the pangs of hunger and thirst, the skin, lips and tongue crack. The nose bleeds because of the drying of the mucus membranes....