70 patients died under Washington state’s assisted-suicide law in 2011

News in brief - May 14, 2012 - amednews.com: The number of Washington state residents who died of physician-assisted suicide rose to 70 in 2011, up from 51 in 2010 and 36 in 2009, when the state’s Death With Dignity Act took effect. The Washington State Dept. of Health reported in May that 103 patients requested and received lethal doses of medications from 80 different physicians in 2011.

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Testing a Drug That May Stop Alzheimer’s Before It Starts

Testing a Drug That May Stop Alzheimer’s Before It Starts - NYTimes.com: In a clinical trial that could lead to treatments that prevent Alzheimer’s disease, people who are genetically guaranteed to suffer from the disease years from now — but who do not yet have any symptoms — will for the first time be given a drug intended to stop them from developing it, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Related: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025

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Biblical perspective on death

When her mother died, Georgia Purdom's whole world fell apart. "I cried, screamed, and shook my fist at God. It seemed so unfair, and I couldn’t understand why God would do this to me." She asked the question that many Christians do at times like this, “How do you explain death and suffering in a world where an all-powerful, loving, and just God exists?” She goes on:

I found the answer several years later when I really understood for the first time that death is man’s fault, not God’s. God made the world “very good” (Genesis 1:31—meaning no death, disease and suffering). There was only one thing Adam and Eve had to do to keep it that way—obey God by not eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16–17). Adam and Eve disobeyed God and the punishment for Adam’s sin was death, not just to man (Romans 5:12) but to all of creation (Romans 8:22). Scripture says that “in Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22), so the answer to my question was, “You explain it with sin: Adam’s sin and our personal sin.”

German Judge Opens Assisted Suicide Door

German Judge Opens Assisted Suicide Door » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: An administrative court in Berlin has given German doctors the power to use  their own judgment in cases involving terminally ill patients who want to  die. The court lifted a physician’s association ban on assisted suicide that  included fines of up to $65,722 on doctors who provided their patients with  enough drugs to kill themselves.The judges found the ban “too  general.” Euthanasia is currently illegal in Germany. However, if a doctor is certain a  dying patient wishes to end his or her life, a physician can provide that  patient with the means to commit suicide.

Wesley Smith notes that although the aim has been to stop suicide tourism (to Switzerland), it's just encouraging the practice at home. 

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Brain Injury Gives Man A Second Chance To Be Kind

Brain Injury Gives Man A Second Chance To Be Kind | KQED Public Media for Northern CA: "You didn't walk, you didn't talk, and you couldn't feed yourself for seven months," Wendy Tucker says to her husband during a visit to StoryCorps in San Francisco. "Since then, it's just been getting better all the time."

But Ferreira, a former lawyer, remembers nothing from the time of the accident and doesn't feel like he's getting better. "My mind, I feel, is so damaged; it's kind of made my life very hard to live, really. I tried to commit suicide, because I thought that I'd lost so much of my life, why be alive? Why? So I took a drug overdose, but you took me to the hospital."

When she asks if he's sorry she saved his life, however, he says no. "You did the right thing. You saved my life, and you're still saving it. Every day you save it."

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The Trouble With Futile Care Theory

The Trouble With Futile Care Theory » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog:

1. Futility is not a medical determination; it is a value judgment. Treatment is refused  based on “quality of life” judgmentalism and/or “cost-benefit” analysis.

2. Futility makes patient autonomy a one-way street. For years, we have been told that patients should state in writing what they want or don’t want in the event they become incapacitated. Futile Care Theory makes refusing treatment binding for  patients who want to die, but allows doctors/bioethicists the final say over the care of patients who expressed a desire to live.

3. Futility strips  from patients and families the power to make medicine’s most important health  care decisions and give it to strangers.

4. Futile Care Theory is only the first step toward a coming duty to die.

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Heart disease and dementia

Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia: The second most common type of dementia, vascular dementia, develops when blood vessels do not supply adequate oxygen to the brain. Typically, small blockages deprive some brain cells of oxygen, causing them to die. Most of the time, the brain damage occurs in small enough amounts that it goes unobserved by the patient, family members, or friends. In effect, the patient is experiencing a series of small strokes.

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Alzheimer's Patients Turn To Stories Instead Of Memories

Alzheimer's Patients Turn To Stories Instead Of Memories : Shots - Health Blog : NPR: The idea is to show photos to people with memory loss, and get them to imagine what's going on — not to try to remember anything, but to make up a story. Storytelling is one of the most ancient forms of communication — it's how we learn about the world. It turns out that for people with dementia, storytelling can be therapeutic. It gives people who don't communicate well a chance to communicate. And you don't need any training to run a session.

Learn more at TimeSlips

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POLST: "Self-Determination" or Imposed Death?

LifeTree: “POLST” is short for “Physician’s Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment.” It is a so-called “advance care planning” document; a page or two of medical instructions designed to follow a patient from one setting to another. In Oregon the form is still called POLST, but in other states it has taken on a variety of names such as POST, MOLST, or MOST.  It was devised for sick and elderly people, and lists treatments they might wish to forgo. Any patient in a nursing home or a patient with an “advanced illness” would qualify.

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Argentina Senate passes 'dignified death' law

BBC News - Argentina Senate passes 'dignified death' law: The Argentine Senate has approved a "dignified death" law to give the terminally ill and their families more say in end-of-life decisions. The legislation means patients who are dying or suffering incurable illness or injury can refuse treatment, if there is an existing signed consent form. Until now, a court order was needed to end treatment or life support.

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Can a Sense of Purpose Slow Alzheimer's?

Can a Sense of Purpose Slow Alzheimer's? - Lane Wallace - Health - The Atlantic: Medical researchers have found that a strong sense of purpose and well-being correlates with better physical health, especially in older adults. But now there's another reason to rethink that stable but meaningless job versus a more meaningful job, life path, or vocation: it appears that a sense that your life has purpose, and that what you do matters, may actually protect your brain from the clinical effects of Alzheimer's disease.

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Organ harvesting in light of questionable ‘brain death’ criterion

Vatican Radio tackles organ harvesting in light of questionable ‘brain death’ criterion | LifeSiteNews.com: The dubious criterion of ‘brain death,’ invented in 1968 to accommodate the need to acquire vital organs in their “freshest” state from a donor who some argue is still very much alive, made headlines two weeks ago when a young British man revealed to the media that he owed his life to his insistent father who would not allow his son’s organs to be removed from his body, despite assurances from four doctors that his son could not recover from the wounds he had suffered in a car accident.

Related:
Rebuttal and response
Making organ donations a thing of the past, British lab grows spare parts

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Palliative care: Underused therapy yields surprising benefits

Harvard Health Letters: Palliative care: Underused therapy yields surprising benefits: The word palliate is derived from the Latin word for a cloak or coverlet. Perhaps that's one reason many people, both health care professionals and their patients, assume its goal is to simply mask or cover up symptoms when a remedy or cure is unavailable. But reducing discomfort and suffering is very different from and much more important than merely hiding distress from view -- and palliative care can go hand-in-hand with curative care and life-extending therapies.

Curative care focuses on the disease, while palliative care focuses on the patient. Modern palliative care strives to relieve physical and emotional suffering and to enhance the quality of life for patients and their families. It's a team effort.

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Minnesota Grand Jury To Review Right-To-Die Case

Minnesota Grand Jury To Review Right-To-Die Case « CBS Minnesota: A grand jury is expected to hear evidence this week about the involvement of a national assisted suicide group in the death of a Minnesota woman in 2007. The case is expected to hinge on a Minnesota law that prohibits aiding, advising or encouraging a suicide.

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RATIONING NEWS: EFFORT TO LIMIT WHAT WE SPEND TO SAVE OUR FAMILIES’ LIVES MIGHT BE SUCCEEDING

RATIONING NEWS: EFFORT TO LIMIT WHAT WE SPEND TO SAVE OUR FAMILIES’ LIVES MIGHT BE SUCCEEDING | NRL News Today: Under the Obama Health Care Law (ObamaCare), the federal government is empowered to impose so-called “quality” standards on all health care providers, standards based on recommendations on how to prevent Americans’ private health care spending from being allowed to keep up with the rate of medical inflation.  Those recommendations are to be  issued in 2015 and every two years thereafter by the 18-member “Independent Payment Advisory Board.” [See www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/ObamaHCRationingBasicDOCUMENTATION.pdf.]

What happens to doctors who violate a “quality” standard by prescribing more lifesaving medical treatment than the IPAB permits? They will be disqualified from contracting with any of the health insurance plans that individual Americans, under the Obama Health Care Law, will be mandated to purchase. Few doctors would be able to remain in practice if subjected to that penalty.

Editor: While I'm opposed to rationing in principle, I'm curious about that line, "limit what we spend." Who's we? If the government or an insurance company is footing they bill, guess what! They get to decide. I doubt if you or I were footing the bill that anyone would say no. Why do we expect someone else to care as much for our lives as we do?

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Woman who sold suicide kits pleads guilty for failing to file taxes

Woman who sold suicide kits pleads guilty for failing to file taxes | NRL News Today: Sharlotte Hydorn, the 92-year-old woman who sold suicide kits, faces sentencing in San Diego for failing to file federal tax returns. Hydorn sold the kits under the name “GLADD Group.” In court, she admitted she made $66,717 in 2010 and paid no taxes on that.

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Aggressive end-of-life care for Medicare dialysis patients is pervasive

Aggressive end-of-life care for Medicare dialysis patients is pervasive - amednews.com: Only 20% of the kidney-failure patients were referred to hospice, compared with 40% of the patients dying of heart failure and 55% of cancer patients.

“It’s really a shame that these elderly patients go through such intensive, aggressive treatment, and I’m sure they suffered more because of that rather than being comfortable and dying at home,” said Alvin H. Moss, MD, a Morgantown, W.Va., nephrologist and palliative medicine physician who did not participate in the study. . . . The hospice use by these elderly patients is less than half the national average, which is 45% now. The hospice use for cancer patients is above the national average, and people are more accepting of the fact that cancer patients might be referred to hospice. What most people don’t realize is that most dialysis patients are sicker than cancer patients.”

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Video on marriage and disability

Ian and Larissa weren't even engaged when he suffered a debilitating accident. In this video, they tell why they decided to unite their lives.

Children and death

Weak and Loved: training: To the children, death means little. They hear about it often, but death is defined for them not by the cemetery, or by grief, or by their own personal losses. The word death, for them, is always connected to Jesus' death and resurrection.

Before their hearts are broken by death, they hear of Him who was broken to destroy it. Before they taste great suffering, they taste and see that the Lord is good.  Before they are bowed down by death’s reality, their feet are anchored into the reality of God’s love for us in Christ.

. . . For the Christian, darkness does not overcome. Even in the depths of sorrow, we have been trained to look forward. We know what comes next.

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Can you help the Calvary Care Home AIDS Hospice?

Rambles and Run-ons: A FEW NEEDS: The AIDS hospice ministry in Richards Bay, South Africa could use a few items:

• 10 water-proof pillow covers (standard size) like those at http://bedwettingstore.com/vinyl-waterproof-pillow-covers.html.
• Peppermint tea- can be removed from box and packaged in a ziplock bag

A team of college students is going over the end of June and would be able to carry these items over in a suitcase. If you would like to purchase either of these items, please contact Heather Farran and she will give you a US address to ship them to.

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New Zealand Medical Association states: Euthanasia is unethical

New Zealand Medical Association states: Euthanasia is unethical | NRL News Today: The chair of the New Zealand Medical Association, Paul Ockelford stated: “Even if the law changed, euthanasia is unethical and cannot be condoned by the NZMA as a professional body.”

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Jesus and the disabled

Joni Eareckson Tada, in ECFA's Focus on Nonprofit Accountability, 2012 2nd quarter, page 1: "The greatest leader Who ever lived loved hanging around with weak people. He went out of His way to connect with the blind and the lame. He avoided the movers-and-shakers of His day and, instead, poured His energy into the ill-equipped and unskilled."

Paralysed man ‘wins’ court battle to end life by having respirator removed

Paralysed man ‘wins’ court battle to end life by having respirator removed | LifeSiteNews.com: The man, identified in court documents only as “XB,” has suffered from motor neuron disease for ten years. In 2010, the court was told, in discussions over what life-sustaining treatment he wanted after becoming incapacitated, XB said he would want treatment to be withdrawn. In November last year, he indicated before witnesses, including a social worker and a physician, that he consented to the removal of a respirator.

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Georgia Right to Life Hails Assisted Suicide Ban Signing

Georgia Right to Life Hails Assisted Suicide Ban Signing - Christian Newswire: HB 1114 sponsored by Rep. Ed Setzler (District 35), was passed in response to last February's decision by the Georgia Supreme Court that struck down the state's previous weak and ineffective law. The law becomes effective immediately. The old law only prevented advertising assisted suicide services, but did not prohibit the procedure itself.

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Role of nurses in Third Reich "overlooked"

Role of nurses in Third Reich "overlooked": comment: Survivor testimonies and available documents state that nurses actively and voluntarily participated in Nazi euthanasia programs, killing over 10,000 people, many of them children. Some estimates are as high as 30,000 victims. While it is impossible to find exact figures on the number of nurses involved - as most of the information was destroyed after the war - it was a minority of nurses but most have not been held to account for their crimes.

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Pro-life encompasses all life: accompanying my dad through Alzheimer’s

Pro-life encompasses all life: accompanying my dad through Alzheimer’s | LifeSiteNews.com: Often, when we hear about Alzheimer’s disease, we hear of “the loss of dignity” or that our loved one “isn’t really there anymore.” I reject that characterization. No disease can take away a person’s humanity. Ask anyone who encountered my mom and dad during his illness; to a person they will attest to the dignity and beauty exhibited by the obvious and total self-giving love between my parents.

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Avery's Bucket List: Blog for baby dying of spinal muscular atrophy

Avery's Bucket List: Parents pen blog for baby dying of spinal muscular atrophy - HealthPop - CBS News: At only 5 months old, Avery Canahuati has already had her first kiss, her first tattoo (temporary), and her first trip to college. That's because after their daughter was diagnosed with an incurable genetic disorder and told she had only 13 months, at best, left to live, Laura and Michael Canahuati decided to launch Avery's Bucket List.

Update: Baby with bucket list dies

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Let’s give intellectually disabled the right to euthanasia, say Belgian humanists

BioEdge: Let’s give intellectually disabled the right to euthanasia, say Belgian humanists: People with intellectual disabilities, all children and people with dementia should be able to request euthanasia, the Belgian Liberal Humanist Association has declared. Its president, Jacinta De Roeck, a former senator who helped to draft the current law, says: “We can not accept that a certain group of people should be completely excluded from self-determination over life and death.” This is an especially touchy topic in Belgium because of  the euthanasia of mentally handicapped people in neighboring Germany under the Nazis.

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A Conference on Stealth Euthanasia

2012: A Conference on Stealth Euthanasia: Human Life Alliance and United for Life of Minnesota are excited to announce Imposed Death: A Conference on Stealth Euthanasia to be held Saturday, June 2, 2012 in New Brighton, Minnesota. This full-day conference boasts a line-up of exceptional speakers covering a wide range of end-of-life topics.

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Critical organ donation warnings and guidance in new pamphlet: “Do not do an Apnea test!”

Critical organ donation warnings and guidance in new pamphlet: “Do not do an Apnea test!” | LifeSiteNews.com: Dr. Paul Byrne has been on a personal mission for many years to warn the public about the alarming facts and dangers of the $20 billion dollar-a-year organ transplant industry. Dr. Byrne has addressed serious concerns regarding so-called “brain death,” the apnea test, and organ transplantation. He also introduced a new 29-page booklet containing crucial information to assist the public in making informed decisions about organ donation.

Editor: He makes this interesting comment about ventilators --

“The ventilator can be effective only in someone living” emphasizes Byrne. “The ventilator pushes air into the lungs; the air goes out (exhaled) only when and because the living body pushes it out. This does not occur in a cadaver/corpse/dead body.”

Related: Rebuttal and response

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