Text 10625, 51 rader
Skriven 2005-03-30 00:39:10 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av VERN HUMPHREY
Ärende: Bo Gritz
================
 EC>Every credible medical expert that I have read or seen interviewed
 EC>has
 EC>said exactly the opposite: she lost consciousness in 1990, she has never
 EC>regained consciousness since then, and given the massive atrophy
 EC>of the cortex and brain stem she never will.

-> That's not what the video clips show -- she moves, both head and eyes
-> and appears to smile and try to communicate.
  
The fact that she is in a PVS was established in 2000 based on expert
medical testimony.  It was unrefuted.  Two years later, the parents
tried to deny the dianosis.  Each side was to find two expert
neurologists.  The court got a neutral fifth expert.

The parents could only find one neurologist, so their second "expert"
was a radiologist!  "Although the physicians are not in complete
agreement concerning the extent of Mrs. Schiavo's brain damage, they all
agree that the brain scans show extensive permanent damage to her brain.
The only debate between the doctors is whether she has a small amount of
isolated living tissue in her cerebral cortex or whether she has no
living tissue in her cerebral cortex."

The two witnesses for the parents relied not on the CAT scans or the
EEGs or any other objective medical evidence but on their subjective
viewing of the videotape you mentioned.  [I don't know if they knew THEN
what we know NOW - that those were selectively edited clips from hours
of videotaping.  We have no way of knowing how many times, someone waved
a balloon in front of her WITHOUT any head movement.]

Problem is, the judge knew then what everyone who follows the news knows
now: such movements and reflexes are common in PVS patients, and involve
no conscious thought.  The judge also noticed that in the tape he viewed
there were nearly 200 questions or commands given to her, with
absolutely no pattern to her reactions or lack of reactions.


 EC>Given the condition of the cortex and stem, there can be no issue as
 EC>to whether she seems conscious or not at any given moment.  The
 EC>parts of the brain that control conscious thought are gone.

-> Or not.  What we don't know about how the brain functions would fill
-> a library.

There are some things that modern medicine can be fairly sure of.  One
is that brain functions cannot be performed by dead, atrophied tissue.
The reports I have read indicate that patients in a PVS typically have
very low EEGs, in the range of five percent of normal.  Hers is zero.
Flat.  None.

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