DescentBB

New York Times wrote: Debate Over Legislative Actions Is Renewed

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
Published: June 16, 2005

WASHINGTON, June 15 - The autopsy of Terri Schiavo - particularly the findings that she had irreversible brain damage and was blind - left Republicans who had pushed so aggressively for federal intervention struggling on Wednesday to defend their argument that she should have been kept alive.

Senator Mel Martinez, the Florida Republican who pressed the case most, said he has since had second thoughts about Congress's involvement.

"I really probably come to the view this has to be more resolved at the state level, seems like the kind of issue the state courts deal with," Mr. Martinez said.

Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, said that in his five years in office, he saw Congress do its "worst job communicating" during the Schiavo episode.

The case has reverberated politically for months, contributing to a sharp drop in approval ratings for the Republican-controlled Congress, whose leaders convened an extraordinary emergency session in March to pass legislation protecting Ms. Schiavo, a dying Florida woman.

With the autopsy concluding that no treatment could have improved her condition and that she was unaware of her surroundings when her feeding tube was removed, lawmakers backed away from their earlier comments and said they had simply wanted to give her family proper access to the courts.

The case has also given Democrats ammunition to use against the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, a transplant surgeon who, on the Senate floor, voiced his opinion about Ms. Schiavo's condition based on videotapes in which she appears reactive to some stimuli.

Aides to Dr. Frist, a likely presidential candidate in 2008, angrily said he had never made a formal diagnosis and thus had nothing to retract.

Democrats cited the autopsy results as proof that Ms. Schiavo's husband - and critics of federal intervention - had been vindicated.

"I think it will be seen at some point as a turning point in America about what's going on with the Republican Party - namely that you have this fanatical party willing to impose its own views on people, and frankly, powerful enough to do it," said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was among the most vocal critics of the Schiavo bill. "This is particularly a problem for Dr. Frist. This is a direct refutation of his TV diagnosis."

Dr. Frist did not respond to questions about the autopsy findings, saying he had not had time to review them. His spokeswoman, Amy Call, sought out reporters who asked about the case to assert that Dr. Frist "never made a diagnosis."

Throughout the floor debates on Ms. Schiavo's fate, Republicans asserted that she was responsive to external stimuli and that the removal of her feeding and hydration tubes would lead to the murder of a conscious woman. Emotional speeches on the floors of both chambers took her mental state into account, portraying her as alert and lively.

Dr. Frist, in his floor statement on March 17, said that after viewing videotape of Ms. Schiavo, it was clear she was responsive. "To be able to make a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state - which is not brain dead; it is not coma; it is a specific diagnosis and typically takes multiple examinations over a period of time because you are looking for responsiveness - I have looked at the video footage," Dr. Frist said. "Based on the footage provided to me, which was part of the facts of the case, she does respond."

Bob Stevenson, a spokesman for Dr. Frist, said: "The autopsy results remind us of the terrible toll that this tragedy has taken on all those close to Terri Schiavo. Having seen the news reports today, it's clear that the autopsy provides additional medical information on her condition at the time her feeding tube was removed."

After a seven-year legal struggle, Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for the last time on March 18. Three days later, in a bid to bring her case into federal court, Congress held its emergency session and passed the Terri Schiavo bill, which allowed her case to be considered by a federal judge. President Bush flew back from his ranch Texas on Palm Sunday to sign it into law.

Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader who broke a long silence during ethical troubles to speak out for Ms. Schiavo, called it the "Palm Sunday compromise."

"Ms. Schiavo's condition, I believe, has been misrepresented by the media," Mr. DeLay said on March 20. "Terri Schiavo is not brain dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life support."

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay declined to answer any questions about the autopsy, except to say that his "thoughts and prayers remain with the family and friends of Terri Schiavo."

A similarly muted message came from the White House. "It doesn't change the position that the president took," said its spokesman, Scott McClellan. "The president believes we should stand on the side of defending and protecting life."

Genghis wrote:but these results and this issue are so black and white now that any spin attempted by a conservative source would just be embarassing.

bash wrote:Lord help us if an autopsy remains the only definitive test for these sorts of dilemmas.

bash wrote:Apparently one was done and revealed what would later be found by the autopsy. I can only guess that the MRI presented insufficient proof regarding what the medical folks/courts were looking for.

"The frontal temporal and temporal poles and insular-cortex demonstrated relative preservation."

"What this tells us is that her cortex retained function and that her brain was more normal in the area that controls higher-level thinking..."

[T]he brain's frontal lobe plays a part in impulse control, judgment, language, memory, motor function, problem solving, sexual behavior, socialization and spontaneity.

"It is very possible that she remained cognizant of sounds and other things without being able to communicate," Ward said. "It's possible Terri was aware of everything being done to her -- yet could do little to make people aware that she was there."

Ward pointed out that major damage to Schiavo's brain was shown to be toward the back -- the areas that affects motor skills.

So the question remains, says Ward, was Terri Schiavo still a thinking, aware human being?

In fact, neuropathologist Stephen Nelson, whose assessment is included in the report, conceded there is no way of determining through an autopsy whether a person was in a persistent vegetative state.

Compare that with what Dr. Boyle at Code Blue Blog said about the CT Scan:

HAVE SEEN MANY WALKING, TALKING, FAIRLY COHERENT PEOPLE WITH WORSE CEREBRAL/CORTICAL ATROPHY. THEREFORE, THIS IS IN NO WAY PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE THAT TERRI SCHIAVO'S MENTAL ABILITIES OR/OR CAPABILITIES ARE COMPLETELY ERADICATED. I CANNOT BELIEVE SUCH TESTIMONY HAS BEEN GIVEN ON THE BASIS OF THIS SCAN.

djordan wrote:If only the world were as simple as Genghis would like to believe.

djordan wrote:I don't have the time to get into BBS debates.

Genghis wrote:Of course if that is the case I would think her racing mind would have been saying "let me die, let me die!"

Stryker wrote:Makes one think that the dems weren't beating the WMD issue over the head for all it was worth.

Stryker wrote:What I'm saying is, of course politicians are going to milk an issue for all it's worth. They wouldn't be politicians if they didn't.

roid wrote:actually beo, brain cells can regenerate *iirc. just VERY VERY slowly (if unaided). i'd even go as far as accusing the whole "brain calls don't grow back" theory as an urban myth.
however, cells naturally replacing themselves is a long way from self-reconstructing organs.


*i recommend researching this yourself before quoting me on this as factual. i just have a distant memory of once being surprised when i learnt that "brain cells actually do grow back", coz it surprised me too.

maybe the theory involved stem cell research. which would be very ironic given the players in this battle (the very anti-stem cell research - american religious right)

NEUROBIOLOGY:
New Leads to Brain Neuron Regeneration

Two sets of findings published this week are raising hopes that contrary to neurobiologists' belief, it may be possible for neurons in the adult brain to regenerate. In one, two research teams independently isolated what appear to be the first human cells that can differentiate into all the cell types found in the brain--so-called neural stem cells; in the other an international team found a small area of the human brain that produces new neurons into old age. Both neural stem cells and the birth of neurons in adult brains have been seen in other mammals, but identifying them in humans was a demonstration that could be critical to future therapies for diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.