North Country Gazette

Terri Schiavo: Unjustified Homicide

Posted on Monday, 23 of November , 2009 at 6:52 pm

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No Reprints Allowed

 How can Michael Schiavo live with himself?

 How can you methodically and intentionally kill someone while the whole world watches and claim that you are justified in doing so, escaping criminal consequences?

With more and more medical evidence coming forth of mistaken PVS diagnoses, how can Michael Schiavo continue to assert that he was justified in killing his wife?

As cases continue to be reported such as the Belgian man who has emerged after 23 years from what was a mistaken diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state (PVS), the real condition of Terri Schiavo becomes more and more questionable.

Under Florida law, PVS is defined as a permanent irreversible condition of unconsciousness in which there is the absence of voluntary action or cognitive behavior of ANY kind and an inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment.

Even the autopsy results on which Michael Schiavo supporters so heavily rely to try to justify her death rule indicated that there was a very real chance that she was in a minimally conscious state rather than PVS; that she was not terminal, that she could have lived for at least another 10 years.

Neuropathologist Dr. Stephen Nelson said he could not rule out that Terri may have been in a minimally conscious state (MCS) which is a higher level of consciousness than PVS.

If Terri had been provided the rehabilitation and therapy which she had been denied for the last 12 years of her life and had been afforded the advantages of medical advances and new testing, who knows if Terri Schiavo could have improved. 

Michael Schiavo didn’t want to take that chance.

Michael Schiavo was determined to kill his wife by withdrawing her feeding tube, fighting in the courts for nearly 10 years for a court order to remove all nutrition and dehydration from his brain injured wife, rejecting all attempts for new medical testing, especially in the last year of her life.

And he succeeded in killing her as was his intent.

More and more evidence is developing that patients who have been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state are actually aware of their environment and can communicate.

Kate Adamson’s story garnered national media attention when she suffered from a double brain-stem stroke, was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (the same as Terri Schiavo’s diagnosis), but recovered. She recounts the pain and agony that she suffered as a patient who was fully aware of her pain, but was incapable of communicating with her physicians or family.

“I was on life support and receiving all my food through a tube that, at one point in time, was turned off for eight days and I suffered all the pains and agonies of starvation,” recounted Kate. “I was in excruciating pain, in silence. I was on the inside screaming out: I do not want to die. Don’t starve me. I want to live. Feed me something.” www.katesjourney.com

Not only do studies validate that there is a pervasive misdiagnosis of brain injured patients as being in a vegetative state but so do people like Kate Adamson and Rom Houben.

Houben, now 46, of Brussels, was seriously injured in a 1983 car crash and doctors labeled him as PVS, wrote him off, saying he had no chance of improving.

How wrong those doctors were.  His family didn’t buy the PVS diagnosis and sought other medical advice. Today, 23 years later, Houben can communicate through a special keyboard, thanks to Professor Steven Laureys of Belgium’s Coma Science Group.  

His mother says that the initial PVS diagnosis was wrong and that for 23 years her son knew everything that was going on around him but could not respond because he was paralyzed.  Paralyzed, but not vegetative. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/europe/24iht-coma.html

In July, Professor Laureys and his colleagues at the coma science group at the University of Liège in Belgium had published a new study, “BioMed Central Neurology” indicating that many patients, such as Terri Schindler Schiavo, have their lives terminated when they show signs of awareness such as Terri.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2377/9/35

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=6slC-zp50Qg

The new studies published over the last several years have caused people to revisit the Schiavo case and people are increasingly questioning her premature death as well as the actions of Michael Schiavo.   This new medical research and such cases as Rom Houben’s create disturbing questions about the moral status of the Schiavo death and the medical treatment of brain damaged patients. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/11/26/media-still-trying-to-justify-killing-of-terri-schiavo/

No longer is Terri Schindler Schiavo dehumanized as many tried to do, labeled as a “vegetable” with no chance for recovery, existing in body only. Now there is credible medical evidence that people like Terri may have been misdiagnosed as PVS do have brain activity, are aware and can communicate in their own way, that they are not a “vegetable” but a human being, a person who deserves to live and establish their own quality of life. Regrettably, it will never be known if such testing and treatment could have aided in the recovery of Terri Schiavo, incapacitated at age 26 on Feb. 25, 1990 under mysterious circumstances at her home with only her husband present, a man with whom she had been arguing all day.

Misdiagnosis can lead to grave consequences, especially in end-of-life decision-making.  Contrary to patients in VS, those in MCS retain some capacity for cognitive processing and activate similar brain networks relatives to controls following painful stimulation; suggesting that they can experience pain. Moreover, the prognosis of patients in MCS is significantly more favorable relative to those in VS. End-of-life decisions, therefore, are likely to be influenced by whether one is diagnosed with MCS or VS.

Previously published studies have reported that up to 43% of patients with disorders of consciousness are erroneously assigned a diagnosis of vegetative state (VS). However, until this current study, no recent studies investigated the accuracy of this grave clinical diagnosis.  

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/07/30/misdiagnosis_pvs/

Michael Schiavo and his attorney, euthanasia advocate, George Felos, were successful in having Florida probate court judge George Greer label Terri Schindler Schiavo as being in a persistent vegetative state with no hope for recovery, a diagnosis her parents and many neurologists and physicians disputed, saying that Terri was in a minimally conscious state. 

Greer repeatedly refused requests by Terri’s parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, for new testing of their daughter.

The mainstream media continues to try and justify the death of Terri Schindler Schiavo on March 31, 2005, at the hands of her husband who had been living with another woman for over 10 years. It was not a justifiable homicide.

As the medical advances continue in the treatment of people with brain injuries, the mainstream media seems determined to try to convince America—-and itself—that killing a disabled woman without giving her treatment and therapy was okay because she had been deemed “hopeless”, in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) and with no hope of recovery, regardless of any and all evidence to the contrary.

Because of Michael Schiavo. George Felos and George Greer, Terri was never given a chance, denied all therapy and rehab for more than a dozen years before Schiavo was successful in removing her feeding tube to intentionally cause her death.

Nicholas D. Schiff, a neurologist at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, revealed in 2007 that recent studies indicate that people deemed PVS have frequently been misdiagnosed as much as 40% of the time.  Schiff says the misdiagnosis results because “you have to examine them repeatedly and at different times of the day, and sometimes just changing a patient’s posture, or giving them a tendon massage, may change their level sufficiently to elicit some response”.

Doctors produced by Michael Schiavo such as Dr. Ronald Cranford who deemed Terri Schiavo as PVS, with no hope of recovery, did only a cursory examination of her, certainly not at different times of the day or spending any length of time with her.

In 2006, Dr. Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist from the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, stunned the world when it was reported in Science Magazine that advanced brain scanning showed that a 23-year-old woman who had sustained brain damage and serious head injuries in a car accident in July 2005 had startling signs of awareness.

For the first time, scientists had been able to show that patients who have been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state are actually aware of their environment and can communicate. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/090706PVSAware.html 

The Cambridge team had discovered that a patient in a vegetative state can communicate through their thoughts. Researchers at the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and in Academic Neurosurgery in Cambridge, in collaboration with colleagues in Liege have for the first time discovered a way to show preserved conscious awareness in a patient who has been diagnosed as vegetative.

The 23-year-old woman was physically unresponsive and fulfilled all the criteria for a diagnosis of vegetative state according to international guidelines.

Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, Cambridge, her brain activity was mapped while the patient was asked to imagine playing tennis or moving around her home. The scientists found she was able to do this, activating different areas of her brain in the same way as healthy volunteers.

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/091006PrematureDeath.html

Numerous medical professionals expressed doubts about the accuracy of the PVS diagnosis in the Schiavo case because the conclusion was reached without the benefit of the MRI testing that most neurologists consider standard for PVS diagnosis.

Terri Schindler Schiavo was never given an MRI or PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan because Michael Schaivo repeatedly refused to consent to one, a fact that many neurologists consider neglect and should have by itself constituted grounds for removal of him as guardian.

With Schiavo’s attorney Felos and Judge Greer likewise blocking all efforts for MRI and PET testing, it seemed clear that they didn’t want to learn the truth about Terri’s cognitiveness and if she was PVS as they claimed or aware and able to communicate, in a minimally conscious state, as the Schindlers and numerous medical professionals believed.

Many medical professionals have stated that before they could make such a diagnosis of PVS, particularly in a situation such as Terri Schiavo, a life or death decision, that they would have felt ethically obligated to perform MRI and/or PET scans. In Terri’s case, only CT scans were done, (Computer-Aided Tomography).

CT scans are less expensive and do not provide such comprehensive data as an MRI. According to neurologists, a CT scan is often the test used in an emergency room setting to initially determine the extent of brain damage but if the damage has been caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, such as in Terri’s case, a MRI and PET scan are necessitated.

Without the benefit of MRI and PET scans and simply on the basis of an antiquated CT scan of Terri, Felos, Schiavo and Greer along with Dr. Ronald Cranford, Dr. Peter Bambikidis and Dr. Melvin Greer maintained that Terri’s cerebral cortex had “liquefied” and that parts of her cerebral cortex had been replaced by fluid. However, medical professionals say that a CT scan can’t produce the kind of detail needed to make such a determination.

Felos and Schiavo had argued that an MRI couldn’t be performed on Terri because of the platinum electrodes which had been implanted in her brain in late 1990 by Dr. Yoschio Hosobuchi of the University of California at San Francisco.

Those electrodes were never removed and had remained in Terri’s brain for 15 years but Mary Schindler, Terri’s mother, says that after Hosobuchi’s assistant, CD Yingling made the determination that the electrodes weren’t working and failed to send Terri to Shands Health Care Center in Gainsville, Fla., for additional testing, the electrodes should have been removed. She says that Yingling had stated that the electrodes should not have been left in Terri’s brain for more than a year.

Essentially the only reason that PET scan couldn’t have been performed is because Michael Schiavo refused to allow it, apparently afraid that the results would definitively reveal that Terri Schiavo was NOT PVS.

There’s blood on the hands of Judge George Greer too who doggedly refused to allow any new medical tests for Terri Schiavo and who ignored the Vatican, Congress, the White House and U.S. Marshals in his quest to insure that the disabled woman die.

When a new brain imaging study was published in the journal Neurology in the spring of 2005, before Terri’s death,  David Gibbs III of Seminole, Fla., attorney for Mary and Robert Schindler Sr., Terri’s parents, filed a motion asking Greer to allow new medical tests for Terri based on the findings of the new study which indicated that people such as Terri, treated as though they are unaware of their environment and labeled in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) may in fact hear and understand what goes on around them but be unable to respond, much like Rom Houben of Brussels.

James Bernat, professor of neurology at Dartmouth College had said that the brain imaging study results were relevant to the Schiavo case and that a brain image test could determine if she was in a persistent vegetative state as Greer, Michael Schiavo and Felos had mislabeled her.

Of course Greer, Schiavo and Felos refused to allow any new testing, the same as they had refused to allow new swallowing tests, no doubt because they were afraid that it might prove that they was wrong, that Terri wasn’t PVS at all.

The key issue in the Terri Schiavo case was what Terri would have wanted, Terri’s wish. Don’t you think that it would have been her desire to undergo that brain image test and other new testing if there was a chance for recovery or minimally, improvement?

The Schiavo case was neverabout what Terri wanted, it was always all about what Michael Schiavo wanted.

Terri Schiavo deserved to have had the opportunity to undergo the brain imaging study and other testing and we’re reasonably certain that would have been her wish.

In South Africa, a 28-year-old man who had been comatose for three years after an accident awakened. He was able to talk and recognize friends. He had been in a persistent vegetative state since 2003 with massive head injuries after being struck by a truck. After Zolpidem was prescribed for him, he awoke and his brain function began improving. He’s given half a dose of Zolpidem in the morning and again at noon which keeps him awake eight hours a day.

Terri Schiavo had valiantly struggled to say that she wanted to live on March 18, 2005, the day her feeding tube was removed for the last time  but Felos, Schiavo and others claimed it was impossible.

According to the Belgium study and Rom Houben it was not.

“Terri was alert, she was aware”, Terri’s father Bob Schindler Sr. had said. “I think the bottom line was that Terri deserved to get these tests. It was unconscionable for Judge Greer or any other judge to order her death without these tests”.

And then there were the cases of Terry Wallis and Jesse Ramizez, both living proof of of pvs misdiagnosis.

Terri Schiavo was not PVS.  Her death was an unjustified homicide. An innocent, conscious, disabled woman was wrongly dehydrated to death.

Where’s there’s life, there’s hope.  Jesse Ramirez is the living proof as are Kate Adamson, Rom Houben and others.

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/071206TerryToTerri.html

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/07/11/please-don%E2%80%99t-confuse-this-story-with-terri-schiavo/

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/10/23/jesse-ramirez-living-proof-of-pvs-misdiagnosis/

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2007/06/27/jesse-ramirez-conscious-moved-to-rehab-facility/

© The North Country Gazette  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  This article may not be reprinted or reproduced in its entirety without the express written permission of The North Country Gazette.  The link and a few paragraphs may be used.

NOTICE: http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/11/22/moving_on/

Category: Courts, Disabled, Family, Florida, Health, Schiavo, Technology

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