Story on brain activity continues to have life

The results out of England that a brain-injured woman actually had signs of brain imaging threw the biomedical world into a spin mode for more than the past week. Terri Schiavo’s name and unnecessary death have come up in many of the news stories, interestingly even those medical ones in which doctors who favor life-ending measures now feel the need to backpedal and still justify killing Terri.

Her father, Bob Schindler, has spoken out about the link between the report and the media reports on Terri last year (and since). He calls attention to the importance of this for other disabled patients.

“This new case is not surprising to our family,” Schindler said.

“We are seeing a growing amount of evidence indicating that the diagnosis of ‘Persistent Vegetative State’ (PVS) is often misdiagnosed, resulting in dangerous and potentially fatal consequences for people with brain injuries, as documented in this new account of a brain injured woman,” he explained.

“The danger of this diagnosis is that it is being used as a reason to kill innocent people with disabilities, like Terri,” her father added. “We believe that this PVS diagnosis is inhumane and it should be abolished.”

So did Pope John Paul II.