It’s Faustian – giving a nondisabled or slightly disabled person a chance to deny themselves access to food and water if they become significantly disabled and have resulting functional impairments. End of Life Choices New York, a leading supporter of legalized assisted suicide, has developed an “Advance Directive for Receiving Oral Feeding and Fluids in […]
A 2007 Not Dead Yet blog described “rush to judgment” cases where people who had sustained a major brain injury were denied life sustaining treatment before appropriate time had passed to determine if they could become conscious. It referred to an article co-authored by Dr. Joel Frader, now a member of the Northwestern Center […]
On September 16, ABC News in Oakland, California reported on a hospital’s threat to remove breathing support from six-month-old Kingston Holmes. The infant needed a ventilator due to a brain injury following a cardiac arrest at home. The first thing I ask when I read a story like that is when did the cardiac arrest […]
Readers of this blog will hopefully remember the story of Haleigh Poutre, a child in Massachusetts who was abused and then neglected, failed and abandoned by just about every professional whose job it was to act to safeguard her welfare and safety. She became the subject of a life and death* court battle that sanctioned […]
By now, most readers of this blog are probably familiar with the story of Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old girl who underwent surgery on December 9, 2013 at Oakland Children’s Hospital. During post-op recovery, she started bleeding. Eventually, she went into cardiac arrest. She was then put on a ventilator. Two days later doctors made a […]
It’s become fairly clear over the past few years that two trends in medicine are in conflict, albeit mostly under the radar. On one hand, several promising research and clinical developments have given reason to be cautiously optimistic about the recovery potential of at least some people with significant brain damage, and has led to […]
