Schiavo Thread Part the Third

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ned


Pain? Her family say she is suffering tremendously, which is consistent with their position that Terri in not in a PVS, but it marginally conscious. She continues to communicate with them and she apparently is dying in agony.

Denial spring eternal
All of her brain besides the brain stem is jelly

[Ned]

Originally posted by Boshko

Denial spring eternal
All of her brain besides the brain stem is jelly

Bosko, I think most of her brain is missing. But she does talk, does laugh, does cry. Doesn't this indicate that some of her higher brain functions survived?

There is a strong dispute among experts on Terri. This has characterized this case from the beginning. How are we the public to decide which side is right on this issue without personal observation?

On this score, Michael had denied anyone the right to photograph or video record Terri for the last five years. What does this imply?

[alva]

Laugh??Cry?? Since when??

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Ned


You apparently are a mind reader and know the "true" motives of people who support Terri. You must realize that what you have engaged in here is simple political propaganda.

I could do the same by saying that Liberal support of civil rights is NOT motivated by any true concern for civil rights and equality for minorities, but by a desire for power by keeping their base happy.

It works both ways, doesn't it?

Ned, if you said that, you would be correct and I would agree with you 100%. Support for civil rights from the far left was and is all about maintaining power by keeping their base happy.

It certainly works both ways and when I see politicians doing that crap, I will call them on it.

I know the motives of the RR and the Bush brothers as well the back of my hand. They are all about power, just as are those from the opposite side of the same corrupt coin (Kennedy, Peglosi, Boxer, Kerry, the Clintons).

I am just being a watchdog. I am providing a warning. The RR is far more dangerous than you believe.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, when they examined Terri for the medical malpractice case, she was found to have sustained a broken back and a broken femur.

No, she had an injured knew from the fall, some broken ribs, and some crushed vertabrea. The latter are consistent with having CPR performed on you. Jeez, Ned, do some friggan' research instread of regurgitating right-wing lies.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Capt Dizle
I get so irked when folks say, no, the repubs aren't doing that, it would be stupid, look at the poll numbers, the majority is against them.

A poll I saw in the paper says 62% of Americans believe the GOP is doing this for political reasons. Only 24% believe the GOP is sincere.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
She continues to communicate with them and she apparently is dying in agony.

How is that possible, with them being barred from the place?

[chequita guevara]

As someone who has both starved and been dehydrated, I can assure you it is not painful, at least not after the first day. After that, hunger and thirst go away. I actually had to force myself to eat at least once a day. I lost 10% of my body weight in a month, and I was only 160lbs to begin with.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Odin, she did, on Friday, according to testimony submitted to the Florida court.

Testimony that A) wasn't brought forth until a WEEK after it occured, despite all the legal wrangling going on at that time, B) was simply that she uttered two incoherent sounds and C) was dismissed by the court as not relevant or credible. The testimony came from people who are in a desperate bid.

It's amazing to me how you consistently take BS being spouted and regurgitate it here as if it were proven truth. You're buying into the propaganda machine the religious right has built up around Schiavo's case hook, line and sinker.

So here's more on your claims that she is "communicatimg:"

To understand the emotional reaction to the tapes of Terri Schiavo, one need only spend a few minutes with Kismet.


People who spend time with the robot at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites) lab walk away feeling like they've made a new friend. Kismet is nothing but a mechanical head made out of metal and plastic, but it has been cleverly programmed by scientists to mimic human social interactions.


Sit down across from Kismet and it gives you a pleasant smile. Step too close and it jumps back with a startled expression on its face. Introduce yourself and it waits patiently for you to finish talking, then replies with a few syllables of speech that sounds like a higher-pitched version of the language spoken by the teachers in 'Charlie Brown' cartoons.


Kismet is no more conscious than a dishwasher or a microwave oven. But its vaguely human behavior has a powerful effect on brains that are predisposed to attach meaning to gesture, facial expression and vocal tone.





"This ... system that we have is so automatic and so powerful, sometimes it ends up being triggered by things that aren't people and don't have minds at all," said Martha J. Farah, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "It's very hard to suppress the impression that there's somebody there."

People in persistent vegetative states are no more aware than Kismet, but they retain a handful of primitive reflexes that are naturally misinterpreted as conscious behavior.

"The mere noise of walking will make the eyes flicker," said Lawrence J. Schneiderman, a professor at the University of California, San Diego medical school who specializes in the bioethics of medical futility and end-of-life care. "And there may be a grimace, so the relatives will say, 'Oh, she's happy to see me.'"

But all of those apparent signs of awareness are the product of a brain so damaged that by medical definition it has no capability of thought, no sensory awareness, no sense of its own existence in the world.

In Schiavo's condition, only the most primitive part of the brain survives. That region, known as the brain stem, merely sustains the vital functions of breathing, heart rate, sleep-wake cycles and primitive reflexes such as coughing and blinking.

"I think the term should be permanent unconsciousness," Schneiderman said.

Prockop prefers the phrase "coma vigil."

"If you put your finger in their hand, they reflexively grasp it," he says. "The analogy can be made to infancy."

But while a newborn's frontal lobes are present but undeveloped, Schiavo's frontal lobes are damaged beyond repair, Prockop says.

Prockop says the video clips he's seen are consistent with a diagnosis of coma vigil. But he cautions that he would not use them to make a diagnosis.

This is all substantiated by the numerous independent doctors who have actually examined Schiavo. She is not aware of anything going on around her. You may be a lawyer, Ned, but you're not a doctor. Why not leave the diagnoses up to them?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned
Odin, she did, on Friday, according to testimony submitted to the Florida court.

Which goes to show you the absurdist quality of the family's legal claims as they lose and lose and lose.

Anyways, let this woman die already. She has served her purpose to the "cause" (a great fundraising tool for the rightwingnuts), and there is no reason left for her protoplasm to be sucking up any more resources.

I doubt that an autopsy will be done, but it would be interesting to find just how much of her brain was left.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Bosko, I think most of her brain is missing. But she does talk, does laugh, does cry. Doesn't this indicate that some of her higher brain functions survived?

No, it's involuntary reactions to stimuli. Read the article I posted. It's amazing to me how little you know about brain function. Well, on second thought, it's not that surprising. But here's a clue: Fried cerebral cortex = no awareness. All she has left is her brain stem, which simply produces reflexive responses.

There is a strong dispute among experts on Terri. This has characterized this case from the beginning. How are we the public to decide which side is right on this issue without personal observation?

No there isn't. There are a few "experts" that the family has brought forward to make outlandish claims, but ALL of the independent experts who have actually examined Schiavo agree--she's in PVS, there is no conscious brain function going on.

On this score, Michael had denied anyone the right to photograph or video record Terri for the last five years. What does this imply?

Hmmm, maybe he doesn't want people exploiting his wife with heavily-edited videos like the Schindlers did? Why not ask the Schindlers why they refuse to release the entire 4 hours of footage, unedited, that they shot of Terri? Could it be because when the court saw all the footage, it was singularly unimpressed with the claims she was in any way responsive?

[Boris Godunov]

BTW, the "expert" the faimly has brought forward to support their claims is a liar:

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum identified Dr. William Hammesfahr, a Florida neurologist who claims he can help Terri Schiavo, as a "Nobel Prize-nominated neurologist," despite the fact that Hammesfahr was never actually nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Hammesfahr, who was disciplined in 2003 by the Florida Board of Medicine, testified during an October 2002 court hearing on the Schiavo case that his claim to be a Nobel nominee is based on a letter written to the "Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine" by Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-FL) recommending Hammesfahr for a "Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine." But that award does not exist (the Nobel Assembly awards separate prizes in peace and medicine), and assuming Bilirakis intended to nominate Hammesfahr for the prize for medicine, as Hammesfahr claims, the nomination is meaningless because Bilirakis is not qualified to nominate anyone for that award.

According to an explanation of the nomination process posted on the Nobel Prize website, the Nobel Assembly sends out invitations to approximately 3,000 people who are allowed to propose candidates for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. The 3,000 are "mainly members of the Nobel Assembly, previous prize winners, and a selection of professors at universities around the world" -- not U.S. congressmen. Furthermore, the Nobel Assembly's "Nomination and Selection" criteria make clear that "[i]nformation about the nominations, investigations, and opinions concerning the award is kept secret for fifty years," so if Hammesfahr had received an actual nomination, he presumably would not know about it.

On March 21, Fox News host Sean Hannity referred to Hammesfahr as a Nobel Prize nominee eight times during a single hour-long edition of Hannity & Colmes.

And more:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200503220002

In February 2003, the Florida Board of Medicine ruled that he violated state law by charging a patient for services that were not provided (Finding of Fact No. 71, PDF p. 40). The board fined Hammesfahr $2,000, placed him on probation for six months, and ordered him to pay approximately $52,000 in administrative costs and to perform 100 hours of community service. While the board also ruled that Hammesfahr's treatment of stroke patients, using a procedure he has claimed could help Terri Schiavo, was "not within the generally accepted standard of care" (Finding of Fact No. 55, PDF p. 33), it declined to rule that the treatment was harmful to his patients and noted that some patients improved after treatment.

An October 23, 2002, Tampa Tribune article reported that during an October 2002 hearing, George Felos, attorney for Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, questioned Hammesfahr's qualifications, noting that he "charges cash for treatments and advertises himself as a nominee for a Nobel Prize based on a letter his congressman wrote to the Nobel committee." An October 25, 2003, St. Petersburg Times article noted that Greer, who presided over the hearing, called Hammesfahr a "self-promoter" who "offered no names, no case studies, no videos and no test results to support his claim" that he had treated patients worse off than Terri Schiavo.

[Sava]

Ned is going down with the ship it seems

[chequita guevara]

I just hope she doesn't die tomorrow.

[Odin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I just hope she doesn't die tomorrow.

That would be a field day for the fundies if she dies on Easter.