Preventing the Starvation of Patients

Not Dead Yet, an Illinois-based organization, says no one should be starved or dehydrated to death unless tested under a protocol described in a study published in the February issue of the journal Neurology. Using special brain-imaging technology – magnetic resonance imaging – neuroscientists discovered high levels of brain activity in two men thought to be minimally conscious and essentially brain-dead. The MRI scans of the patients revealed that under certain stimuli their patterns of brain-activity were comparable to those of healthy people.

In a New York Times article, Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center, referred to an earlier report from the United Kingdom that showed as many as 30 percent of patients identified as being unaware and in a persistent vegetative state were not PVS but minimally conscious.

Fins told the paper the recent study "gave [him] goose bumps, because it shows the possibility of this profound isolation, that these people are there, that they've been there all along, even though we've been treating them as if they're not."
_____________________________________
Permitting the starvation of thousands of brain-injured patients, who did not specify directives as to their wishes in the event of injury or illness, is unconscionable. Hopefully, congressional hearings will lead to legislation protecting people like Terri Schiavo and her family from individuals and courts which seek to kill the disabled.