MSM: Cheerleaders of Death
Headline at Yahoo! News:
Schaivo Not Likely To Experience Painful Death Neurologists Say (ephemeral Yahoo! link to USA TODAY story).
Here are some statements taken from the article:
“She’s not experiencing hunger – she’s not experiencing anything,” (U of Mich Neurologist) Albin says.
“Patients in such a state don’t get better because the body is unable to repair such a massive injury to the brain, says James Bernat, a neurologist at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H.”
“But those movements (facial movements) are merely reflexes, says Bruce Sigsbee, a neurologist in Rockport, Maine.”
There is one statement in the article that acknowledges the opposition to these diagnoses:
“That point is disputed by Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler”
In the sidebar of this article, there is a link to this story (yet another ephemeral Yahoo! link that may or may not be here in a week):
Neurologists disagree with state specialist on Terri’s brain damage
What I find even more interesting than the headline in this article is an image of a CT scan taken of Terri’s skull. The CT scan is used to explain the roots of her illness, but something else about it struck me:
It’s dated May 9, 1996.
An eight year old CT scan can tell you nothing beyond the state of her condition on May 9, 1996. At best you can use it as a reference or baseline for further tests, but beyond that, it’s useless to understand her condition today.
However, the thing that bothers me most about the first article noted above is this fact:
If it’s impossible to get 5 dentists to agree on sugarless gum, how on earth are we to trust statements like “Schaivo Not Likely To Experience Painful Death Neurologists Say”?
