The Next Terri Schiavo Case
The Next Terri Schiavo Case
The announcement in the journal Science that a comatose woman’s brain showed consistent activity while being scanned following verbal cues, sets the stage for the next Terri Schiavo case. When being told to imagine she was playing tennis, for example, the same parts of her brain were activatived that would be activated in a healthy person thinking about playing tennis.
Conservatives will likely jump on this case to undermine the rights of patients to decide in advance what medical interventions they don’t want if they are unable to speak for themselves. But that would be putting politics above science, as the facts show:
– Scientists warn that their findings should not be generalized. For several years, neuroscientists have been working on the idea that there are “minimally conscious states” in which there may be awareness though the person appears not to have any contact with the environment. Many of these same scientists have also cautioned that their findings, including the results just published, should not be generalized to many other cases and especially not to a case like that of Ms. Schiavo.
– The case described in Science does not resemble cases such as Schiavo. While the woman in the recent study had only been unconscious for a few months, the patients in all the classic legal cases — Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan and Terri Schiavo — were in vegetative states for years. Scans of Terri Schiavo’s brain showed that much of it had disappeared, lacking the physical basis of any awareness at all.
Many more studies need to be done to correlate these apparent reactions with factors like length of time of the unconscious state and the physicial condition of the patient’s brain. Policymakers and the public need to rely on the neuroscientists themselves — not right-wing advocates — for guidance on these cases.
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Another GOP smokescreen? I don’t think we should give this any energy when there are far more important issues on the burner right now…..This doesn’t compare with the new Senate report debunking the WH’s rationale for war in Iraq, the ABC/Disney propaganda mockumentary and the Burbank Demonstration, or the falling number of citizens who believe that this country is “on the right track”……this is definitely a GOP smokescreen tactic.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:14 amOk enough is enough with the phoney 911 story theres much much more interestiing topic around..are you being paid to do this ?????
September 9th, 2006 at 9:26 amdamn those scientists….speaking the truth again. When will they learn that there is no place for truth and facts in our modern cult of republicanism reality.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:30 am.
Well, thanks for loudly suggesting this to them!
September 9th, 2006 at 9:31 amdamn those scientists….speaking the truth again. When will they learn that truth and facts have no place in our modern cult of republicanism reality.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:32 am.
i read this story the other day… it seemed much too inconclusive to have even made it to the printer…
bottom line – get your living will made out and signed… several copies where they can be easily found…
September 9th, 2006 at 9:42 amThe problem with persistant vegatative states is that a physician, the patient’s personal physician needs to make a judgement call. Everyone sees news stories about the patient in a coma for “years” and suddenly wakes up, but that is very very rare. If the body was left to it’s own natural progression, paople in comas would pass away naturally. Our ability to interfere with the “natural” progression needs to be used carefully. A personal physician who knows you, knows your wishes, and can assist your family come to grips with “your decision” is imperitive. We could “save” millions on ventilators, heart pumps, automatic defibrillators, pacemakers – but again what is the realistic expectation for recovery and what would have been the “natural” outcome of this disease/injury prior to our ability to intervene. Plenty of our grandparents passed “naturally” just like Ms Schiavo did, it wasn’t a sin or barbaric or evil. Grandma became so weak and hard to wake she couldn’t eat or drink and passed away. That’s 1 generation ago, so the arguement that someone “killed” Ms Schiavo doesn’t hold up.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:43 amYes, please let the righties take another run at this issue the way Tom DeLay & Bill Frist tried with Terri Schiavo
After all, we saw just how successful those efforts were last year when DeLay & Frist thought they knew better than the overwhelming majority of the public regarding Terri Schiavo
And then DeLay & Frist decided to STFU, and slink quietly away after getting smacked around for their efforts
Putting idiots like DeLay, Frist & Randall Terry in their proper place is always good for the country
September 9th, 2006 at 10:08 amIn order to have your living will wishes honored by the neocon hypocrites, start your living will with the following declaration:
“As a communistic Devil Worshipper who tithes 20% of my annual salary to help fund abortion clinics, AIDS awareness programs in Africa, Muslim scholarships to flight schools in America, and the Democrats, I would like, in the event I should become a human vegetable, to have all life support terminated.”
No one conservative will fight against your wishes to die.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:15 amBut aren’t the righties opposed to Science? Or was that some other group of extremists bashing all the scientific evidence about global warming and evolution? Didn’t they want to replace Science with the Bible?
September 9th, 2006 at 10:18 amThat’s showing some balls red wolf, I will go kill unarmed civilians, but maybe not so much in joining the army to fight in Iraq.
ROFL
September 9th, 2006 at 12:06 pmI had similar thoughts when I read that article.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:10 pmThis will add fuel to the arguments of the uneducated who think they KNOW medicine.
Of course, the autopsy showed severe deterioration of the Scihiavo brain, and there was no way her brain could have been restored, absolutely none. But that won’t stop the Santorums, the Frists, the politcians, and the christianistas from using information like this to promote themselves.
Naw, they don’t care about soldiers dying in Iraq or Afghanistan or lebanon, nor of the death of innocent civilians, which they rationalize away as collateral damage, why would they care about this?
Besides her brain was damaged by a car crash. Unlike Terri Schiavo whose injuries were something of a rumour mill that the neo-crazies could latch onto and pit the husband against the parents for a media melee.
My condolences to the family of this woman and only some sick twisted politico, like Rove would try to use this poor women as a wedge issue. Neo-cons are subhuman slime.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:18 pmExcellent timing, since “progressives” thirst for the moment they can yank feeding tubes from cripple’s throats. The voters need to be reminded of this.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:23 pmExcellent timing, since “progressives†thirst for the moment they can yank feeding tubes from cripple’s throats. The voters need to be reminded of this.
Comment by Jason M. Hendler
==
Your a moron Jason, a neo-con insaniac, no one ‘thirts’ to ‘Yank’ anything from anyone. That wil be choice made by the family and not by ‘progressives’
Only a war monger wacko such as yourself would endorse the killing of thousands of innocent civilians and then try to claim some kind of moral highground that only exists in a twisted brain such as yours. If this woman turned out to be a muslim you would be the one ‘Thirsting’ to ‘Yank’ the feeding tube and laughing while you do it..your sick Jason, a very sick man.
Let me ask you Jason,[Freddy Kreuger], if that were you lying in that vegeatative state would you want to continue to live that way? I will state here and now that if that was me, I would want someone to put an end to my suffering.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:35 pm#16, t,
I have no problem with muslims, I have problems with those who would deny liberty through their actions – not race, creed or other affiliation. Terrorists and those who harbor them will suffer the consequences of their actions.
On the other hand, cripples are victims of their condition, and shouldn’t be wheeled into the gas chambers, as progressives are want to do.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:41 pmJason is a typical sicko who has no problem with bush killing tens of thousands of innocents in a war of lies and then try to claim that he actually cares about this issue.
True to form Jason, who wants to kill millions so he can go wafting off into heaven, thinks that he is being sentimental and that his blaming someone else, as always, for this womens state that he is somehow forgiven.
Guess what Pal, their is a special place in hell for people like you.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:44 pmOn the other hand, cripples are victims of their condition, and shouldn’t be wheeled into the gas chambers, as progressives are want to do.
Comment by Jason M. Hendler
That was you right wing wackos that wheeled people into gas chambers,,and once again your just being stupid and making wild and unhinged statements that YOU know are not true.
It was the liberals that your man, Hitler, put into slave labor camps and tortured and killed, just like bush tortures and kills you have no problem with.
That makes you a hypocrite, liar and sociopath to boot.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:49 pmOn the other hand, neo-cons are victims of their mental condition, and should be wheeled into the gas chambers, as republicans are want to do with the jewish and muslims as well.
Comment by Jason M. Hendler
September 9th, 2006 at 1:53 pmWhen I look in the mirror my face looks like two faces, I put a piece of paper over the left side and I look evil, when I put paper over the right side I look insane. I am extremely unbalanced in my looks and my brain, I am Sybil, I am crazy, I am insane.
I am Charles Jason Manson
September 9th, 2006 at 2:01 pmJason’s utter ignorance is apparent in his use of the word “cripples” to describe people with sever brain trauma.
Guess he learned that ridiculously inaccurate terminology while attending Stanford? The university reknown for its medical schools…
Jason, by the way, no one uses the word ‘cripple’ anymore. But it was only meant to apply to physical handicaps which rendered conscious people unable to function in normal capacities. They didn’t required feeding tubes or life support for being ‘crippled’.
And you wonder why no one believes you are either smart or accomplished… Sheesh the ignorance on the right is absurd!
September 9th, 2006 at 2:12 pmJason M Hendler – discussion is more than making ridiculous sounds and calling it arguement. Since this particular form involves typing, it involves more than hitting keys because they make random words.
September 9th, 2006 at 2:34 pmJason’s post, to which my second comment at #23 was made has since disappeared…
What in the world is going on?
September 9th, 2006 at 2:43 pmAs a journalist, who lives in Florida, I studied the court record of the Terri Schiavo case. I spoke to people who had visited her — and interacted with her — who were not members of her family. I have seen evidence that only those others who bothered slogging through thousands of court documents have seen (in the middle of the media circus, I was the only reporter looking at the court documents; court employees told me that nobody had delved into the records for as long or as deeply). So, I can tell you this, although I know that almost no one will be willing to believe it:
Terri Schiavo was NOT in a vegetative state for years. She was in a minimally conscious state. According to one of the most prominent researchers in the field of neuro-rehabilitation (who, ironically, co-authored several papers with a neurologist who pronounced her vegetative, but did not follow his own protocol in doing so), minimally conscious patients can lapse in and out of vegetative states, in his experience. This is why the protocol requires patients to be examined by the neurologist at least twice before calling them vegetative.
Her brain, contrary to what was stated above, did NOT lack the physical basis for consciousness. While she was profoundly brain-damaged, what made her appear more so was her husband’s refusal to allow any therapy whatosoever for about 10 years, so that muscles atrophied to the point where they were unusable. Add to that, she was aphasic (unable to speak) due to her brain injury, and you have the fiction presented as fact: the persistent vegetative state of Terri Schiavo.
I am a liberal. I believe in the right to die, even if the patient is not terminally ill. We all have the rights to control our bodies. It’s the most basic right anyone can have. Without it, we cannot be free.
I do not, however, believe in the right to kill without the consent of the party whose life is to be taken. Schiavo was killed, without her consent.
September 9th, 2006 at 2:59 pmSchiavo was killed, without her consent.
Comment by ABart — September 9, 2006 @ 2:59 pm
She couldn’t give it. Her husband knew her wishes, supposedly, and was able to give it for her.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know anyone who would want to subsist like that. I can’t imagine that had she been able to consent that she would have chosen to continue to live like that.
Sometimes death is a very viable alternative.
And I’m not convinced that you’re a liberal, or a reporter.
September 9th, 2006 at 3:07 pmComment by ABart — September 9, 2006 @ 2:59 pm
As this is the first time this has ever been brought out I do believe it is fair to require links before believeing your claims.
If it could have been PROVEN (not hearsay) that her husband refused therapy as you say this would have been shouted from the rooftops by neocons AND would have been taken into account by courts hearing the case – it was not.
The autopsy proved what Michael Shiavo had been arguing, she was in a vegatative state. What about that? Was that wrong also?
You would not be the first troll to come to this site and argue you are a progressive then argue neocon talking points.
September 9th, 2006 at 3:13 pm#26 Abart – now you see why unchallanged propoganda is dangerous. EVERYTHING Abart said above is a fascist talking point and unfortunately for Abart he doesn’t even know everything he just repeated is a lie. Schiavo was conclusively a member of the living dead, her brain was liquified. She wasn’t in there. All the baloney about anything else is just that a lie perpetrated by fascists to control life and death. And the biggest lie repeated here is that Mr Schiavo didn’t allow physical therapy for years, Mr Schiavo allowed and even paid for tremendous amounts of all kinds of standarad and extrodinary therapies that didn’t work because the woman’s brain was LIQUIFIED. Your brain doesn’t get that way from “lack of therapy”. Mr Schiavo didn’t “kill” anyone. he is the next of kin and legally he can make the decision to terminate treatment, no on else. Everything in post 26 above is bull and repeating bull is still bull.
September 9th, 2006 at 4:20 pmComment by Jules — September 9, 2006 @ 3:13 pm
Absolutely Jules. Republican swine like this will look you in the eye and straight facedly LIE to you. They screamed and yelled Mr Schiavo was a bad rotten money grubbing husband, but numerous judges heard numerous contested decisions and found him fit, and by the way repudiated the parent’s assertions. republican Congressmen and Senators called him unfit on TV and lied about the entire case only to be proven WRONG at autopsy and now Abart looks right at us and LIES – Abart, if the human brain is liquified she was in a persistant vegatative state, there is NO arguement you can make that refutes the science. Period.And now all this time later, they pop back up and make the same old tired lies and think everyone who saw the autopsy results is as stupid as they are.
September 9th, 2006 at 4:26 pmbottom line – get your living will made out and signed… several copies where they can be easily found…
Comment by katy
I agree whole-heartedly, katy. Do a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care also, if it’s not included in the Living Will forms.
Keep the documents current! There may be new HIPPA language in the forms.
Let your chosen “agent” know what is going on! Give them copies. The time to find out you are expected to carry out instructions, is not in the moment of crisis.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:42 pmI forgot to add that most hospitals have these documents available at no charge. Just make sure you follow the directions TO THE LETTER.
September 9th, 2006 at 10:58 pmI have additional information which shows that Abart is either very misinformed or is lying.
Schiavo’s catscans were mounted on the web, and I saw them. I’m not a neurologist, but am a medical librarian. I’ve seen many examples of normal and abnormal brain scans in neurology books, and have helped physicians, faculty, and students to find information in these books.
I would not claim to be able to look at a given brain scan and say that it indicates a tumor in say, the right occipital lobe. But I’ve seen enough examples that I can say that a scan is basically normal, and quite abnormal scans are also obvious.
Schiavo’s brain scan showed much smaller gray matter, and much larger black areas. All brain scans show some black, but it’s usually around the edges of the brain close to the skull, down the midline by the corpus callosum, and small areas of black in the fissures or folds of the brain. But normal brains have brain matter, not black areas, filling up probably 80% of the cranium. Schiavo’s brain scan showed massive areas of black, around the edges, down the midline, and massive cisterns or “holes” as well. The scan was grossly abnormal, obvious to me after having seen many normal brain scans. In fact, even the diseased scans I’ve seen didn’t have the huge black areas. Schiavo’s brain was the most shrunken I’ve ever seen in a scan.
There is NO WAY that she was in a state of minimal consciousness. For that, you would expect to see the brain filling up most of the skull. I was not at all surprised that the autopsy showed more than half her brain liquefied.
September 10th, 2006 at 2:38 amComment by Wolfdaughter — September 10, 2006 @ 2:38 am
Exactly, obvious to any reputable physician. But remember Wolfdaughter this involves science, and the republofascists are against all that “sciencey” stuff.
September 10th, 2006 at 7:35 amYou on the so-called “left” blogosphere will never get it through your heads that the judge in the Schiavo case was wrong, the courts were wrong in letting Greer’s wrongheaded decision stand because they could not rule on findings of fact, and the autopsy report did not–REPEAT, did NOT–support Michael Schiavo and his attorney’s lying contention that she was PVS (it couldn’t).
See, this is why I will ALWAYS attack people on my alleged side of the political spectrum on this case; you guys clearly know NOTHING about the facts. And you don’t WANT to know, for you will not give the alleged “other side” any credit at all for seeing through Michael Schiavo’s lies about it. You’re been conned from the get-go, as have the media starting with the St. Petersburg Times (which has a prominent “bioethicist,” Dr. Art Caplan, on the advisory board of the Poynter Institute, the owner of the paper) and the Associated Press. These outlets out-and-out lied about the case, repeating the New Age crackpot attorney George Felos’ talking points. You all decided to create your own reality, just as the right does on so many things, and lyingly claimed this was a right-wing political issue. It wasn’t, as many such as Tom Harkin and Ralph Nader and numerous disability groups came out against Terri Schiavo being starved and dehydrated to death. It wasn’t a political issue at ALL, but most of you in the blogosphere thought you had a perfect wedge issue to use against the so-called theocrats. Facts and humanity be damned.
Well, you guys were wrong, and deep down you all know it. I warned you all long ago, when this case came to national prominence, that the left should stay away from it because of the dubious claims by the “loving husband,” and that this was a test case for the euthanasia–excuse me, “right to die” movement. This was a disability rights case all along, and I was extremely disheartened to see the idiocy spewed by the left bloggers who could NOT and would not understand disability and bioethics issues and how bioethics is ultimately a movement to deny an entire class of people their civil rights.
You will NEVER get it as long as you try to create your own reality and refuse think outside of your ideological box.
September 10th, 2006 at 1:13 pmComment by Susan Nunes — September 10, 2006 @ 1:13
1.”Well, you guys were wrong, and deep down you all know it”
– No we aren’t and so we don’t “know it”. You are a Christofascist who doesn’t recognize that 90% of the population of this planet does not share your fascist religious views but you don’t care and you’ll try to shove your relious views down their throats. WWJD? Yeah, he’d shove his religious views down people’s throats even if they didn’t want it.
2.”You on the so-called “left†blogosphere will never get it through your heads that the judge in the Schiavo case was wrong, the courts were wrong in letting Greer’s wrongheaded decision stand because they could not rule on findings of fact”
Everybody is wrong but you, can we say arrogant fascist?
3. and the autopsy report did not–REPEAT, did NOT–support Michael Schiavo and his attorney’s lying contention that she was PVS
Ah, you’re wrong again. I am a physician and can tell you the autopsy absolutely supported the Schiavo decision. Her brain was liquified. Your steadfast “belief” that Mrs Schiavo was in that body is “faith” not science. Don’t presume to denegrate the work of the physicians that cared for her, the pathologist, and the court ordered physicians who examined her unless you yourself are a physician who personally took care of Mrs Schiavo and have FACTUAL evidence not in evidence. Again your arrogance and blind faith are not “proof” of anything.
I could go on but your “belief” will not allow you to have a reasonable discussion, evidenced by your post. Suffice it to say (1) next of kin speaks for a person who is incapacitated that’s long standing law, (2) a “right to die” is world wide a topic that most countries take seriously and honor as a basic human right, (3) any besmirching of Mr Schiavo was waltzed through our courts NUMEROUS times, and despite your “belief”, multiple courts found NO EVIDENCE for any suspicion Mr Schiavo did anything wrong, again that’s our legal system period. You want to change the law, great- try, but give up the false belief every judge is stupid except you.
September 10th, 2006 at 1:50 pmSusan Nunes,
Like it says at the top of your blog: Unfair and Unbalanced
If I had to choose, I’d put the emphasis on “Unbalanced.”
September 10th, 2006 at 2:11 pmcar crash injuries
Interestingly, this was on CNN last week.
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