Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

Health

Was football player Terrance Howard really dead? His parents didn’t think so.

Published

2 months ago

10 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Heidi Klessig, M.D.

The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) states that there must be an irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain for a declaration of brain death. The way doctors currently diagnose brain death does not comply with the law under the UDDA.

North Carolina Central University football player Terrance Howard died recently after a car accident reportedly left him “brain dead.” But his family disputed this diagnosis and requested that their son be transferred to another facility for treatment of his brain injury, leading to conflict with Terrance’s doctors and hospital. According to News One, his parents claimed that Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center wanted to kill their son for his organs, and accused doctors of snickering and laughing while refusing to help him. His father, Anthony Allen, told News One that the hospital removed Terrance from life support against his family’s wishes and forcibly ejected his family from his room. The family posted videos on social media of apparent police officers entering Terrance’s hospital room, and said that the hospital threatened them with criminal action for trespassing.

If these allegations are true, the Howard family has every right to be outraged at the disrespectful treatment they received at Atrium Health. Especially now, as the legitimacy of brain death is coming under increasing scrutiny, it is outrageous that hospitals and doctors continue being so heavy-handed. The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), formerly a staunch supporter of “brain death,” released a statement in April 2024, saying:

Events in the last several months have revealed a decisive breakdown in a shared understanding of brain death (death by neurological criteria) which has been critical in shaping the ethical practice of organ transplantation. At stake now is whether clinicians, potential organ donors, and society can agree on what it means to be dead before vital organs are procured.

The NCBC statement was prompted by the newest brain death guideline which explicitly allows people with partial brain function to be declared brain dead. But the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) states that there must be an irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain for a declaration of brain death. The way doctors currently diagnose brain death does not comply with the law under the UDDA.

Terrance Howard’s story is reminiscent of the mistreatment of another Black teenager, Jahi McMath. In 2013, Jahi was a quiet, cautious teenager with sleep apnea who underwent a tonsillectomy and palate reconstruction to improve her airflow while sleeping. An hour after the surgery, she started spitting up blood. Her parents requested repeatedly to see a doctor without success. Her mother, Nailah Winkfield, said, “No one was listening to us, and I can’t prove it, but I really feel in my heart: if Jahi was a little white girl, I feel we would have gotten a little more help and attention.”

Jahi continued to bleed until she had a cardiac arrest just after midnight. She was pulseless for ten minutes during her “code blue” resuscitation. Two days later, her electroencephalogram (EEG) was flatline, and it was clear that Jahi had suffered a severe brain injury which was worsening. But rather than treating these findings aggressively, her doctors proceeded toward a diagnosis of brain death. Three days after her surgery, her parents were informed that their daughter was “dead” and that Jahi could now become an organ donor. The family was stunned. How could Jahi be dead? She was warm, she was moving occasionally, and her heart was still beating. As a Christian, Nailah believed her daughter’s spirit remained in her body as long as her heart continued to beat. While the family sought medical and legal assistance, Children’s Hospital Oakland doubled down, refusing to feed Jahi for three weeks. The hospital finally agreed to release Jahi to the county coroner for a death certificate, following which her family would be responsible for her.

On January 3, 2014, Jahi received a death certificate from California, listing her cause of death as “Pending Investigation.” Why was the hospital so adamant about insisting Jahi was dead, even to the point of issuing a death certificate? Possibly because California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act limits noneconomic damages to $250,000. If Jahi was “dead,” the hospital and its malpractice insurer would only be liable for $250,000. But if Jahi was alive, there would be no limit to the amount her family could claim for her ongoing care.

After Jahi was transferred to New Jersey, the only US state with a religious exemption to a diagnosis of brain death, she began to improve. After noticing that Jahi’s heart rate would decrease at the sound of her mother’s voice, the family began asking her to respond to commands, and videoed her correct responses. Jahi went through puberty and began to menstruate — something not seen in corpses! By August 2014 she was stable enough to move into her mother’s apartment for continuing care. Subsequently Jahi was examined by two neurologists (Dr. Calixto Machado and Dr. D. Alan Shewmon) who found that she had definitely improved: she no longer met the criteria for brain death and was in a minimally conscious state. Jahi continued responding to her family in a meaningful way until her death in June 2018 from complications of liver failure.

How could Jahi McMath, who was declared brain dead by three doctors, who failed three apnea tests, and who had four flatline EEGs and a radioisotope scan showing no intracranial blood flow, go on to recover neurologic function? Very likely, due to a condition called Global Ischemic Penumbra, or GIP. Like every other organ, the brain shuts down its function when its blood flow is reduced in order to conserve energy. At 70 percent of normal blood flow, the brain’s neurological functioning is reduced, and at a 50 percent reduction the EEG becomes flatline. But tissue damage doesn’t begin until blood flow to the brain drops below 20 percent of normal for several hours. GIP is a term doctors use to refer to that interval when the brain’s blood flow is between 20 and 50 percent of normal. During GIP the brain will not respond to neurological testing and has no electrical activity on EEG, but still has enough blood flow to maintain tissue viability — meaning that recovery is still possible. During GIP, a person will appear “brain dead” using the current medical guidelines and testing, but with continuing care they could potentially improve.

This [GIP] is not a hypothesis but a mathematical necessity. The clinically relevant question is therefore not whether GIP occurs but how long it might last. If, in some patients, it could last more than a few hours, then it would be a supreme mimicker of brain death by bedside clinical examination, yet the non-function (or at least some of it) would be in principle reversible.

Dr. Cicero Coimbra first described GIP in 1999, but in the never-ending quest for transplantable organs, his work has been largely ignored. There is absolutely no medical or moral certainty in a brain death diagnosis, and people need to be made aware of this. “Brain dead” people are very ill, and their prognosis may be death, but they deserve to be treated aggressively until they either recover or succumb to natural death. Unfortunately, as the family of Terrance Howard seems to have experienced, doctors are continuing to use a brain death guideline that ignores the reality of GIP and does not comply with brain death law under the UDDA.

Heidi Klessig MD is a retired anesthesiologist and pain management specialist who writes and speaks on the ethics of organ harvesting and transplantation. She is the author of “The Brain Death Fallacy” and her work may be found at respectforhumanlife.com.

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
John Stossel / 16 mins ago

Free Money? What a UBI Would Really Do to People … and the National Debt

Economy / 2 hours ago

Federal mismanagement to blame for Canada’s immigration backlash

Frontier Centre for Public Policy / 4 hours ago

Did the CBC prove in 1962 that no children are buried at Kamloops?

Alberta

Danielle Smith hits back at Liberal ‘gender’ minister who attacked Alberta’s pro-family legislation

Published on October 4, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Alberta premier fact-checked pro-LGBT Minister of Women and Gender Equality Marci Ien’s condemnation of pro-family legislation, pointing out that children who undergo irreversible gender surgeries and drugs suffer from the repercussions for life.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith blasted a Liberal minister for spreading the false claim that legislation will hurt gender-confused kids.

In an Oct. 1 exchange on X, formerly known as Twitter, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fact-checked  pro-LGBT Minister of Women and Gender Equality Marci Ien’s condemnation of pro-family legislation, pointing out that children who undergo irreversible gender surgeries and drugs suffer from the repercussions for life.

“Premier Smith is doubling down on her plans to target trans youth,” Ien had written. “She says this conversation is only for ‘adults.’ That’s because she knows that if she listened to the people affected by these policies, she would have to face how many kids she is hurting.”

“Do you mean like listening to children going through this, @MarciIen?” Smith questioned, linking to a National Post article highlighting the pain and regret by detransitioners who made irreversible decision to take drugs and surgeries to change their bodies as young teens.

Later, Smith doubled down on her stance, saying, “In Alberta, we believe children should wait until adulthood before making physical changes to their body.”

“Furthermore, we believe in the rights of loving parents to be meaningfully engaged with their children’s education when sensitive issues are taught,” she continued. “And women and girls deserve the opportunity to compete fairly and safely in female-only divisions.”

Smith’s new legislation, which will take effect later this month, far surpasses other provinces in its protection of children and would make Alberta’s parental rights laws the strongest in the country.

Licensed doctors are prohibited from performing sex-change surgeries on youth under age 18 in Alberta. Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will be prohibited for minors under the age of 16 unless the minors have already begun taking those drugs.

Those “born biologically male” will be prohibited from competing against women and girls in competitive sports. Parental opt-in will be required for “each instance” a teacher wishes to discuss gender identity, sexual orientation, or human sexuality.

Parental notification is required for “socially transitioning” a student — that is, changing a student’s given name or pronouns. Unfortunately, 16- and 17-year-olds are still allowed to decide to change their name or pronouns in school, but parents must be notified.

While Smith has received severe backlash from LGBT activists, she revealed in February that the new legislation was a result of hearing of the horrors that took place at the U.K.’s Tavistock Centre, the National Health Service’s “gender clinic” for children who believe they are “transgender.”

In 2019, the clinic was exposed for approving “life-changing medical intervention” for children and teens “without sufficient evidence of its long-term effects.” Shortly after, the clinic was forced to shut down.

Smith was especially touched by the story of Keira Bell, who was given puberty blockers and testosterone injections by the Tavistock clinic and underwent a double mastectomy at age 20. She now “very seriously regrets the process” and has joined a lawsuit against the clinic.

Unfortunately, Bell’s story is not unique, as overwhelming evidence reveals that those who undergo so-called “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent so-called “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.

In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.

Indeed, there is proof that the most loving and helpful approach to people who think they are a different sex is not to validate them in their confusion but to show them the truth.

A new study on the side effects of transgender “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who had undergone “sex change” surgeries in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movement in the weeks and months that followed — and that many other side effects manifest as well.

Continue Reading

COVID-19

Will We Fall For The Same Old PCR Tricks Again?

Published on October 2, 2024

By

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By John Carpay

As with the number of COVID-19 “cases,” the number of “Covid deaths” proclaimed by politicians, government health officials and government-funded media is also based on highly unreliable PCR testing, using an undisclosed number of cycles.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. How long will Canadians continue falling for the same media tricks that they fell for during the years of lockdowns and vaccine passports?

“Alberta’s COVID-19 death toll more than 4 times higher than flu over past year,” exclaimed the CBC on September 9. This was followed two days later by Global News exclaiming: “New Alberta COVID data highlights value of getting newly formulated vaccine once available: expert.”

These media stories claim there were 23,933 COVID-19 “cases” in the past year, with 6,070 people hospitalized “for COVID.” Media claim that 732 Albertans died of COVID-19 during the past year, compared to 177 from the flu. University of Calgary professor Craig Jenne describes this as “continual evidence that COVID-19 is not just another flu” and laments that viruses “continue to take lives at a really unacceptable rate.”

It’s the same narrative that we were fed in 2020 and the years that followed: creating and then maintaining unfounded fear of COVID-19. This unnecessarily high level of fear, in turn, generated support for the violations of our Charter freedoms of association, expression, religion, conscience, mobility, and peaceful assembly, and the right to choose freely what will or will not be injected into our bodies.

What is missing from these stories by government-funded media is significant and relevant.

Firstly, government-funded media make no mention of the number of cycles used in the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing that was used to generate these 23,933 so-called “cases” of COVID-19.

The percentage of people testing “positive” for COVID-19 by way of the PCR test depends on the number of times that a viral remnant in a person’s nose or throat is doubled (amplified). If a COVID-19 viral remnant is amplified 40 times, almost everyone will test positive for COVID-19. Conversely, if that very same viral remnant is amplified only 20 times, very few people will test positive for COVID-19. The PCR test does not and cannot determine whether someone is sick with COVID-19, or a spreader of COVID-19.

As explained by expert witness Dr. Joel Kettner in Gateway v. Manitoba:[1] “the outcome of a PCR test depends on Cycle thresholds (Ct), which is the number of cycles of amplification needed to strengthen a weak signal, so as to enable the identification of the amino acid sequence of the virus being tested for. The higher the Ct to obtain a positive signal, the lower the volume of genetic material in the sample.”[2]

In the same court case, expert witness Dr. Jay Bhattacharya explained that the unavoidable errors in PCR testing render the PCR test unfit for public health decision-making: “A reliance on a test that is run up to 40 cycles, (or any number of cycles higher than 30) — is certain to produce a very large proportion of false positive outcomes. Lockdowns that are imposed on the basis of ‘case’ counts derived from PCR tests will be only marginally related to the threat posed by the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”

Neither Alberta Health Services nor the media will inform the public about how many times a viral remnant was doubled to generate these 23,933 “cases” of COVID-19. A large but willfully undisclosed number of these COVID-19 “cases” pertain to people who are not sick with COVID-19 and not spreading COVID-19. This includes large numbers of people who have had COVID-19 and who have fully recovered, acquiring natural immunity along the way. Governments which claim to love science should freely and readily disclose this information to the public, as well as to each individual receiving her or his PCR test result. And yet, since 2020, Canada’s federal and provincial governments have kept this information a state secret, typically divulged only under duress in court, when governments get sued by Justice Centre lawyers who defend Charter freedoms.

In Gateway v. Manitoba, for example, government officials admitted under oath that at least 40% of their “Covid cases” were people who were not sick with COVID-19 and not spreading it. Governments and their health authorities can easily generate high numbers of “Covid cases” simply by running PCR tests at 40 (or more) cycles, and encouraging (or requiring) large numbers of people to take the PCR test.

As with the number of COVID-19 “cases,” the number of “Covid deaths” proclaimed by politicians, government health officials and government-funded media is also based on highly unreliable PCR testing, using an undisclosed number of cycles.

The second glaring omission from government-funded media reports is the relevant context. Over 33,000 Albertans die each year, which is what you might expect in a province of 4.8 million people. The leading causes of death in Canada are cancer, heart diseases, lung diseases and strokes. This fact did not change with the arrival of COVID-19 and lockdowns in 2020. If it’s true that 732 Albertans died of COVID-19 (and thanks to PCR testing we really don’t know) that would be just over 2% of deaths in Alberta, with 87% of these deaths among people 70 and over. Compare this 2% with the more than 10% of deaths in Alberta from “ill-defined and unknown” causes in 2021. Professor Craig Jenne states that viruses “continue to take lives at a really unacceptable rate.” The same could be said of cancer, heart diseases, lung diseases and strokes, not to mention suicides, alcoholism, obesity and car accidents.

The omission of relevant facts, combined with a blind and erroneous faith in the accuracy of PCR testing, is what government-funded media used in 2020 to spread unfounded fear. They are trying to do the same thing now. Will we fall for it again?

First published in the Western Standard here.

John Carpay, B.A., LL.B. is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

Continue Reading

Trending

X