PVS

Study Shows People in “Vegetative” State Were Incorrectly Diagnosed

by Bobby Schindler

There is more encouraging news coming out of Canada regarding the very unscientific persistent vegetative state (PVS) diagnosis. Once again there has been a study regarding three people who were incorrectly thought to be in a PVS.

Why is this so important? One reason is that the PVS diagnosis can be used as a motive to kill a person with a brain injury, as it was in my sister, Terri Schiavo’s case. This is not the first time this type of testing has taken place with similar types of results.

From the story, “Brain scans reveal which ‘vegetative’ patients are alert, trapped in bodies”:
A man who had appeared to have been in a vegetative state for 12 years knew his name and knew where he was, Canadian researchers report in a study showing it’s possible to use MRI brain scans to establish communication with people who seem completely unconscious. Three people tested using a special form of MRI called functional magnetic resonance imaging were able to answer simple “yes” or “no” questions, the team at Western University in London, Ontario report.
And once again, just like most of these reports where they find people have been wrongly diagnosed as being in a PVS, they felt it necessary to point out that there is no way possible that they were wrong when Terri Schiavo was diagnosed as being in PVS and then subsequently killed because of it.
In fact, they often say, as in this report, the autopsy proved it. To help strengthen their claim, they bring in the “experts” like the “omniscient” bioethicist, Art Caplan who believes it was okay to deny Terri the same tests he seems to approve for others in similar conditions:

“It is important to keep in mind that not all persons who are not responsive fit these findings,” said Art Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center and a frequent NBC News contributor. Those who have gone without oxygen for long periods of time, like Terri Schiavo, will not be mentally present inside unresponsive bodies since their brains will have been too damaged,” Caplan said.

It has been almost nine years since Terri’s death and she is still being referenced in articles throughout the mainstream media, and the vast majority of time what is reported or what people are saying is wrong. In many of these instances, the statements made are egregiously inaccurate, just as in the case of what Caplan said.
Unfortunately, many of those in the media who were responding to these inaccuracies about Terri back when her case was making news, have moved on. However, those with a death agenda have not, and as much as my family tries to correct what is being said, most of what is reported or said is never corrected.

First of all Terri was not “unresponsive” as Caplan states (as if that would justify her death anyway). That couldn’t be further from the truth. It is amazing how all of these people who assert that Terri was unresponsive, never once visited her. The truth is that Terri was very much alive and at times, very responsive. All you have to do is watch just this one example of Terri responding to a neurologist back in 2002, to realize how foolish it is what Caplan said and all of these other claims that Terri wasn’t responsive and in a PVS.

Even more, if you took the time to read Terri’s medical records when she was getting aggressive rehabilitation – this was in the early 90’s – Terri was improving, so much so, that she was beginning to form words. Not to mention the 40 affidavits from physicians that were admitted into the court, some being from the most prominent neurologists in the nation, all believing the Terri was not in a PVS and/or could have benefited from ongoing therapy and rehabilitation. In reality, there were more physicians on record that believed Terri was not in a PVS and could have been helped, than physicians who thought otherwise.
The sad truth is that despite Terri improving when she was receiving therapy, and despite how responsive she was, and the dozens of doctors who wanted to help her, all of Terri’s rehabilitation and therapy subsequent to 1992 was denied to her by her guardian and estranged husband, Michael Schiavo. For what turned out to be almost 13 years, Terri was warehoused, abandoned and neglected until her death in 2005.

To try and use the autopsy or the “irreversible brain damage” claim (what about the part of the brain that was not damaged?) to support Caplan’s belief that Terri was unresponsive or in a PVS and could not have benefited from help or from the type of testing referenced in this article, is disingenuous and a deflection from the truth. No person that has already died can ever be diagnosed as being in PVS because the person must be alive for this diagnosis. Something that this reporter or Caplan fails to mention.

The simple truth is that we just don’t know how much Terri could have benefited from these studies because she was deliberately and purposely killed by these same people who now claim she could never have been helped.

It is my belief that when we see these types of media reports and remarks by some of these so-called experts, it is to somehow justify the barbaric and torturous death in the minds of people who can never fully admit that they deliberately starved and dehydrated to death a woman who simply had a disability.

Source: LifeSite News