On November 2, Newsweek published an excellent op-ed by Matt Valliere, Executive Director of the Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF), entitled The Brutal, Tragic, Consequences of Quality of Life Judgements. Though PRAF’s mission is focused on opposing assisted suicide laws, the op-ed does an uncommonly good job discussing other discriminatory and harmful medical practices that […]
[Ed. note: We previously reported on the court case discussed in the article below here: Not Dead Yet, NMD United, et al. Sue NY Governor On Ventilator Re-Allocation Guidelines.] The Pandemic Threatened Their Ventilators. Will NY Officials Change Course Before The Next Crisis? BY CAROLINE LEWIS MAY 27, 2021 When COVID-19 struck New York last spring, […]
On October 7, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice filed a class action complaint on behalf of Not Dead Yet, NMD United, Disability Rights New York, NDY Board member Mike Volkman and other individual plaintiffs against New York Governor Cuomo and the NY Department of Health to challenge the state’s Ventilator Allocation Guidelines […]
September 4, 2020 Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 500 5th St NW Washington, DC 20001 Committee Members: Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Discussion Draft of the Preliminary Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine. Not Dead Yet is a […]
NDY member Carol Cleigh’s timely and pointed letter below will appear in her local North Carolina paper, Clay County Progress: For those who are advocating for lifting of restrictions due to Covid-19 before or without considering the WHO criteria for safely lifting those restrictions, please understand that you’re asking for a devil’s bargain. What you, […]
The following is expanded from remarks prepared for oral testimony at the April 22 hearing. I am adding information from the hearing testimony of the Massachusetts Coalition on Health Equity. Additional information is drawn from the Bay State Banner article on the hearing. A hearing on the proposed guidelines for ventilator distribution and ICU beds […]
On this day, April 27, 24 years ago, I was at a national disability rights conference in Dallas. ADAPT organizer Bob Kafka called out to me and said, “I’ve got a name for your group,” a group that increasingly seemed to be needed to combat the growing public sentiment that disabled people are better off […]
I first wrote on March 17th about my fear that the non-invasive ventilator I use everyday might be taken from me if I sought hospital care during this pandemic. The New York “Ventilator Allocation Guidelines”, developed in 2015 to address shortages in a pandemic, specifically state at page 42: In its consideration to protect vulnerable […]
With the looming and imminent threat of insufficient hospital and ICU beds, medical equipment and healthcare staff, I found myself recalling an old favorite TV show from my college years. MASH (mobile army surgical hospital) created both comedy and drama around the reality of having three operating room beds in an army tent on the […]
Art Caplan, Director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, dropped me a line to give me his reaction to Warnock’s comments about people with dementia. He gave these to a reporter at ABC but says they weren’t used in whatever coverage they ended up giving to Warnock: No one has a duty to […]
