Euthanasia and assisted suicide (2018) a year in review.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide (2018) a year in review.

There were many developments in 2018. This list represents a year in review with the most important articles on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Click the Link above and check them out!

[alert] Please read from Sara: PCHETA may be moving in Senate - Need you to contact Senators

[alert] Please read from Sara: PCHETA may be moving in Senate - Need you to contact Senators

 

Subject: PCHETA may be moving in Senate - Need you to contact Senators

In the last week, 23 Senate Democrats have signed onto the bill as co-sponsors.

The bill is Palliative Care and Hospice Education Act (PCHETA) HR 1676/S693, 115th Congress.

The 115th Congress stays in power through January 2. There is a Senate floor period tomorrow.

As you may recall, the bill funds grants for educating doctors and nurses about palliative care and an option for promoting it with the general public.

Talking points I put together are attached.

Also there are 15 pro life Senators who co sponsored earlier. Their contact info is attached.

Opposing The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, H.R. 1676/S. 693 (2017-18) Talking Points Background: Palliative care includes hospice care with an earlier pathway for non-dying patients. The bill federally funds medical education and provides for “selling” palliative care to patients. 1. Hospice, an existing palliative care program, is plagued by fraud, poor quality care and wasted taxpayer money. Federal investigators found hospices enrolling patients who are not terminally ill without their knowledge or under false pretenses, providing poor quality care, and inappropriately billing Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars.1 The bill does not require patients to be notified when their care changes to hospice care. A federal grand jury issued a $60 million Medicare fraud indictment against Novus Health Services where patients were billed at the highest hospice rate and nurses administered controlled substances whether or not patients needed them, leading to patient deaths.2 Nearly half of hospices are unsure they could pass a government audit.3 Enrolling people who are classified as not terminal is the biggest concern. Id. In 2016, more than half of all Medicare hospice spending, $9.5 billion, was for patients who outlived their terminal prognosis. Id. 2. Palliative care is often a self-fulfilling pathway to death. Palliative care leading to the deaths of people who were not otherwise dying typically involves patients being casually assessed as terminal, placed in hospice, heavily sedated, and denied water so the diagnosis becomes self-fulfilling. These practices are so prevalent they were described by the Washington Post in a 2014 series,4 identified as a serious problem by Duke University professor Farr Curlin, M.D.in 2015,5 and identified as a patient safety problem by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2017.6 3. The bill moves the determination and control of medical ethics to federal bureaucrats without conscience protections. 4. The bill lacks definitions and criteria, leaving the qualifying phrase, “serious or lifethreatening illness,” to be defined after enactment by federal bureaucrats in consultation with palliative care organizations;7 most likely the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care Medicine, and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the legal successor of the Euthanasia Society of America,8 both recipients of Soros’ Open Society funds.9 5. The ban on using federal funds for assisted suicide, euthanasia and mercy killing relied on by the bill (Bill Section 6) has no mechanism for enforcement and is openly bypassed. For example, work to produce an article about how to hasten death through “voluntary” cessation of food and fluids, i.e. assist in suicides, was funded by a federal grant for another purpose.10 1 https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-02-16-00570.asp 2 https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/sixteen-individuals-charged-60-million-medicare-fraud-scheme 3 https://homehealthcarenews.com/2018/10/nearly-half-of-hospice-providers-uncertain-they-would-survive-an-audit/ 4 Peter Whoriskey, As More Hospices Enroll Patients Who Aren’t Dying, Questions about Lethal Doses Arise, Washington Post, August 21, 2014 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/21/as-more-hospicesenroll-patients-who-arent-dying-questions-about-lethal-doses-arise/ 5 Farr A. Curlin, M.D., Hospice and Palliative Medicine’s Attempt at an Art of Dying, chapter 4 in Dying in the TwentyFirst Century, edited by Lydia Dugdale, MD, MIT Press 2015 at pages 47-8. 6 https://psnet.ahrq.gov/webmm/case/425/Palliative-Care-Comfort-vs-Harm published November 2017. 7 Section 904(c)(3) to be created by the bill. 8 https://www.hospicepatients.org/euthanasia-soc-of-america-to-natl-hosp-and-palliative-care-org.pdf 9 https://capitalresearch.org/article/suicide_lobby/ ; http://aahpm.org/about/history ; https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/a_transforming.pdf 10 David A. Gruenewald, MD, Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking: A Practical Approach for Long-Term Care Facilities, Journal of Palliative Medicinehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28475406 2018 Sep;21(9):1214-1220.

Health Staff Emails for Prolife HR 1676 Sponsors

Worst Doctors Of 2018, According to WebMD

Medscape names 7 worst physicians of 2018 – sex abuse, kickbacks, illegal prescribing, murder

Becker’s Hospital Review – In its annual roundup of the best and worst physicians of the year, Medscape [published by WebMD] recognizes medical professionals who represented the brightest and darkest of their profession and made news for these reasons in 2018.

Doctors Increasingly Oppose Killing Patients in Assisted Suicide

Doctors Increasingly Oppose Killing Patients in Assisted Suicide

Shane E. Macaulay, MD, is a radiologist with Center for Diagnostic Imaging in Washington state, twice selected as one of Seattle’s Top Doctors, and an AMA Alternate Delegate from Washington state. Dr. Macaulay wrote an excellent article that was published by the MedPage on December 21.

Macaulay comments on the American Medical Association (AMA) assisted suicide debate. For more than two years pro-assisted suicide members of the AMA have been working to change the AMA position on Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) from opposed to neutral.

Macaulay opposes a change in the AMA position on PAS) and argues that the AMA is moving towards maintaining its opposition to PAS) rather than moving to a neutral position. 

This State Could Have the Most Radical Assisted Suicide Law, Allowing Non-Doctors to Kill Patients

This State Could Have the Most Radical Assisted Suicide Law, Allowing Non-Doctors to Kill Patients

Assisted suicide advocates pretend they just want a very limited death license, a “safety valve,” as they put it, for suffering in the terminally ill that cannot otherwise be alleviated (almost always, a false premise).

The problem is, their laws and proposals never actually read that way. And now a legalization bill in New Mexico shows the true radical heart of the assisted suicide/euthanasia agenda.

The bill would allow non-doctors to lethally prescribe. From HB 90:

DEATH PANELS? STUDY SUGGESTS ONE OBAMACARE PROVISION KILLED PEOPLE

• Decreases in hospital readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries may have come at the cost of some patients’ lives, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Tuesday.
• The decreases originated with an Obamacare program that fined hospitals with too-high readmission rates.
• Many of these hospitals served lower-income Americans who were less likely to have access to quality, regular care and more likely to be readmitted within a month of being discharged.

An Affordable Care Act program that penalized hospitals for readmitting Medicare patients within a month of being discharged may have led to increased mortality rates among adults who experienced pneumonia and heart failure, according to a study published Tuesday.

The program was changed in September so that hospitals serving lower-income, older adults were not hit as hard by the penalties, but the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that damage may have already been done, and not just to hospitals’ bottom lines.

Physicians of the Year 2018: Best & Worst

MEDSCAPE EXCLUSIVE

Best and Worst Physicians of 2018: See who made the list and why

Organ Trafficking: The Unseen Form of Human Trafficking

Organ trafficking, a lucrative global illicit trade, is often a lesser discussed form of human trafficking among anti-human trafficking stakeholders due to its intricate and often stealth nature. Trafficking sex and/or labor are the more commonly thought of forms of human trafficking among public policy leaders and general awareness campaigns. However, organ trafficking holds a critical place with transnational organized crime groups due to high demand and relatively low rates of law enforcement.

Today is the 20 Month Anniversary of the Medical Murder of my Husband Bill Knightly by NON-consensual Circle of Life (DEATH) Palliative Medicine at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, NH

Today is the 20 month Anniversary of my husband's senseless death. Medically Murdered by NON-consensual Hospice/Palliative care at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, NH. Every day get's harder and harder. I can't understand how so-called Doctor's can kill patients on purpose. Denying treatment is Murder!
Non-consensual, meaning we refused. We signed absolutely NOTHING, but he was UN-knowingly forced into it against our wishes. Illegal, according to Federal law, yet no-one is being held accountable. The Murderers still practicing ILLEGAL Stealth Euthanasia on so many of our loved ones. 
Why is the Medical Community allowed to kill our loved ones and still walk freely? Killing more and more every day and the Federal Government doesn't even step in to stop it.?
My husband WILL get the justice he deserves and so will so many other's. We must expose this evil and put a stop to it. My husband didn't want to die and he wouldn't have if he had been treated for the illnesses daily lab test's found. Instead, we were told Nothing and he was treated for Nothing. Overdosed with Morphine until he was too weak to ever walk again. Denied the right to live by the so-called Doctor's we trusted to help him. There is no more trust. All Doctor's think about these day's is money. If they can make more money by killing off their patient's, they will. My husband's murder proves just that. My husband had so much to live for and was loved and cherished by all. A life taken way to soon. All for the love of MONEY! Hold on to your Loved ones and steer clear of these Murderers!
 I Love you My Sweetheart! I Always Will!

Extremely Pissed off Wife of Bill Knightly, Murdered by Non-consensual Illegal Hospice/Palliative Care at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, NH

Millions of Women Given Incorrect UTI Test Results

UTI test often fails to detect infection, study says

| Study finds standard test, widely used since 1950s, often gives false results

| Sarah Boseley, The Guardian – The “gold standard” test for urinary tract infections (UTIs) is not fit for purpose, according to research which suggests that it fails to diagnose most chronic sufferers.

Doctors Who Got Rich Scamming The System

Falsifying data, taking bribes, betraying our trust

| By Robert Pearl, M.D., FORBES

| Insider deals, million dollar payoffs plague healthcare providers in 2018

| Another year, another set of scandals making headlines in American medicine.

Adding to the already endless stream of improprieties that rocked U.S. healthcare in 2018 is a pair of tawdry tales involving researchers and clinicians at two of healthcare’s most respected institutions.

To My Knight-Another Christmas Eve is here, Without you by my side,

                                               My Knight, I Love and Miss you and always will.

Another Christmas Eve is here,
Without you by my side,
Twenty month's since you've been gone,
The pain just won't subside.

I miss your arm's around me,
Your smile that I adored,
Your laughter and your joking,
I feel nothing but discord.

The day that you left me,
Was the worst day of my life,
How do I keep going,
When I feel nothing but strife?

Another Christmas Eve is here,
I feel so all alone,
How much  longer must I wait,
For the Murderers to atone?

I love you and I miss you,
More and more every day,
I just want this nightmare over,
I want you home to stay.

I'm fighting for your justice,
A fight I won't give up,
I know you and God depend on me,
To make these Murder's stop.

 My love for you will never end,
This I guarantee,
Please don't forget me,
Please wait for me.

For now until we meet again,
I won't give up this fight,
When this fight is over,
I'll meet you in the light.

Extremely Pissed off Wife of Bill Knightly, Murdered by Non-consensual Illegal Hospice/Palliative Care at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, NH

Exposing Bad Docs Who Hide From Their Past

One proposed solution: open the National Practitioner Data Bank to the public

When it comes to improving the nation's broken system of physician discipline, many advocates say the starting point should be fixing something that was created to do the job in the first place.

In 1986, Congress created the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), pledging it would improve healthcare and reduce fraud and abuse. The data bank records all sorts of things: malpractice payments, disciplinary action, restrictions of hospital privileges, and other transgressions.

There are just three problems:

• The system can be gamed, so not all problem physicians appear on the list.
• State medical boards don't always check the data bank.
• And, the information is off limits to those who are most at risk: patients.

New Mexico assisted suicide bill is the most dangerous bill ever.

New Mexico assisted suicide bill is the most dangerous bill ever.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

House Bill 90 was introduced in New Mexico by Deborah Armstrong (Dem) to legalize assisted suicide. The bill is referred to as The Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act.

HB 90 is the most dangerous assisted suicide bill I have ever seen. 

It allows assisted suicide for psychiatric conditions, to be done to someone with an undefined "terminal prognosis," to be done by nurses and physician assistants, and it even allows it to be approved via telemedicine.

Doctors Who Make Sh*t Up-Quacks!

Doctors Who Make Sh*t Up

“It’s bad. It’s very bad.”

CNN – When 7-year-old Bailey Sheehan arrived at a hospital in Oregon partially paralyzed, a doctor said the girl was faking her symptoms to get her parents’ attention because she was jealous of her new baby sister.

But that doctor was proved wrong when an MRI showed that the girl had acute flaccid myelitis or AFM, a polio-like disease that’s struck hundreds of children since 2014.

What ever Happened to Saving Lives? No Longer the Norm!

I thought Doctor's were "supposed" to try to save people? Not make them worse and ultimately Kill them!
First pic is of my husband shortly after being admitted to St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, NH. Second pic is after Dr. Death started overdosing him with Morphine. The third pic is after suffering a heart attack at home that we were never told about, after being harassed with death rants by a Hospice/Palliative Care APRN that wasn't supposed to be in our home, but was sent illegally and never consented to, never told she was Hospice/Palliative care. Very graphic and heartbreaking, but this is how she left him and walked out.Fourth pic, ALL treatment denied and just left to die. All in a matter of Five weeks.

Euthanasia activist pressuring Catholic Hospital to permit euthanasia. (Already being Permitted ILLEGALLY at a Catholic Hospital in Nashua, NH)

Euthanasia activist pressuring Catholic Hospital to permit euthanasia.(Already being Permitted ILLEGALLY at a Catholic Hospital in Nashua, NH)

Jocelyn Downie, the long-time euthanasia activist and academic is now turning her attention to forcing Saint Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish Nova Scotia and the Sisters of St Martha to permit euthanasia.

Cipro (ciprofloxacin)-Side Effects

Cipro (ciprofloxacin)-Side Effects

Contact your doctor if you experience these side effects and they are severe or bothersome. Your pharmacist may be able to advise you on managing side effects.

My husband had all of them in RED. He was also prescribed both Oxycontin AND Oxycodone by the quack Oncologist. Taking all three at the same time!

• dizziness
• general feeling of being unwell
• increased skin sensitivity to the sun
• loss of appetite
• mild diarrhea
• nausea
• pain at the injection site (injection form)
• rash (injection form)
• ringing in the ears
• stomach discomfort or gas
• sweating
• trouble sleeping
• vomiting
• Although most of the side effects listed below don't happen very often, they could lead to serious problems if you do not seek medical attention.
  Check with your doctor as soon as possible if any of the following side effects occur:
  • coordination problems (unsteady walk)
  • fainting
  • hallucinations (hearing or seeing things that aren’t there)
  • irregular or fast heart rate
  • joint pain
  • migraine
  • muscle pain
  • numbness or burning, tingling pain
  • pain, inflammation, or swelling in the shoulders, hands, or calves of legs
  • pain, swelling, or rupture of a tendon
  • severe abdominal or stomach cramps or pain
  • signs of depression (e.g., poor concentration, changes in weight, changes in sleep, decreased interest in activities, thoughts of suicide)
  • signs of liver problems (e.g., nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes, dark urine, pale stools)
  • symptoms of high blood sugar (e.g., frequent urination, increased thirst, excessive eating, unexplained weight loss, poor wound healing, infections, fruity breath odour)
  • symptoms of low blood sugar (e.g., cold sweat, cool pale skin, headache, fast heartbeat, weakness)
  • vision changes
  • Stop using the medication and seek immediate medical attention if any of the following occur:
    • confusion or changes in thought patterns
    • diarrhea (watery and severe; may also be bloody)
    • seizures
    • signs of a serious allergic reaction (e.g., abdominal cramps, difficulty breathing, nausea and vomiting, or swelling of the face and throat)
    • signs of a severe skin reaction (e.g., blistering, peeling, a rash covering a large area of the body, a rash that spreads quickly, or a rash combined with fever or discomfort)

FDA requires new labels on popular antibiotic after Channel 2 investigation

The Food and Drug Administration is warning doctors that the drugs exposed in a 2015 Channel 2 consumer investigation are too risky for many common infections. 

The agency will require new labels on fluoroquinolone antibiotics, including the drug levofloxacin.

Related Headlines

• 

  Local woman says popular antibiotic killed her husband

"For somebody else not to have to go through what I went through, that would be great," said Jeff Stephens, of Villa Rica.

[WATCH: Channel 2 investigates complaints about popular antibiotic]

Side effects from seven pills of the medication left Stephens permanently disabled. It severely damaged his nervous system and put him in a wheelchair. He'd been prescribed the drug for a sinus infection.

The FDA warning said for routine ailments like sinus infections, bronchitis, and common urinary tract infections, the risks outweigh the benefits.

Woman says popular antibiotic levofloxacin killed her husband

COVINGTON, Ga. - Another Georgia woman is coming forward with evidence claiming a popular antibiotic is to blame for her husband's death.

She's one of the thousands to have contacted Channel 2 consumer investigator Jim Strickland through Facebook.

Clark Howard says near-fatal disease possibly caused by popular antibiotic-ciprofloxacin

My husband was also prescribed Ciprofloxacin by his quack Oncologist on February 21st, 2017 after having a lung biopsy. March 16th, 2017 he was admitted into the Hospital with all the same symptom's Mr. Howard experienced, but his quack Doctor never looked into the Cipro. My husband was left UN-treated, written off and left to die. He wound up with SEPSIS, again left UN-treated and succumbed to  Medical Murder on April 26th, 2017.

ATLANTA - Consumer adviser Clark Howard is speaking out about the mysterious sudden illness that threatened his life.

The same disease killed a Gwinnett County man. He and Clark had each taken a powerful antibiotic only days before falling ill.

If Only We Hadn't Listened to the Quack Oncologist, My Husband Would Still be Alive(Edited)

                               
We should never have listened to the Quack my husband was referred to by his PCP, but the Quack was an Oncologist at the Hospital we always trusted. The Hospital that ultimately killed him. The Hospital I wouldn't send my worst enemy to. All trust is gone.
The Quack laughed when we first walked in with a list of vitamin's my husband was taking. He thought it was a big joke that everyone coming to see him had turned to vitamins. First thing he did was tell my husband to stop taking them. That they might have aspirin in them and in case he had to have surgery they would thin out his blood. My husband never had surgery and was even denied a feeding tube, because we were told he couldn't have surgery. My husband did as he was told and stopped taking the vitamins. He should never have listened to the quack. He felt so much better taking them. He had no weakness and wasn't in much pain at all. He had a cold that wouldn't go away, which is why he went to see his PCP in the first place. Once he stopped taking the vitamins, his health took a turn for the worse. And to top it all off, once he was admitted for the pain and weakness he was now experiencing, he was given a shot in his stomach every day to stop his blood from clotting. What sense did that make? Were Big Pharma's products supposed to be better than Natural Vitamins? No, in fact they  helped cause my husband's death.
To anybody and everybody out there, beware of what the Quack Doctor's tell you. The vitamins were helping my husband and he should have staid on them.  I'm quite sure he would still be alive today.
Watch out for Quack Oncologist's who make fake diagnoses, who are just in it for the money and care nothing about the patient. Vitamin's WORK and so does CBD oil.

Extremely Pissed off Wife of Bill Knightly, Murdered by Illegal, NON-consensual Hospice/Palliative Care.

Third Report From Québec’s Euthanasia Commission - 142 unaccounted deaths.

Third Report From Québec’s Euthanasia Commission - 142 unaccounted deaths.

Three years ago, on December 10, 2015, Québec’s euthanasia program went into effect. Unlike the federal law, Québec provides euthanasia upon request to eligible persons, as well as “Continuous Palliative Sedation” without the eligibility requirements and safeguards connected to a euthanasia request.

The quiet acceptance of 'mercy killings' in the US: Even in states where euthanasia is illegal, courts are often turning a blind eye

The quiet acceptance of 'mercy killings' in the US: Even in states where euthanasia is illegal, courts are often turning a blind eye
Elderly accused of murdering spouses shown their own mercy in sentencing
Assisted suicide is illegal in most of the United States. Yet, tragic cases where spouses are accused of killing their longtime loves in the name of mercy show that judges in America are reluctant to hand down punishment for such crimes.

U.S. life expectancy declines again, a dismal trend not seen since World War I

U.S. life expectancy declines again, a dismal trend not seen since World War I

Between drug overdoses and Hospice/Palliative care committing ILLEGAL Stealth Euthanasia, I'm NOT surprised!

Life expectancy in the United States declined again in 2017, the government said Thursday in a bleak series of reports that showed a nation still in the grip of escalating drug and suicide crises.

The data continued the longest sustained decline in expected life span at birth in a century, an appalling performance not seen in the United States since 1915 through 1918. That four-year period included World War I and a flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in the United States and perhaps 50 million worldwide.

Politics, Voter Suppression, and Modern Killing Fields

This article is about the many forms of VOTER SUPPRESSION, starting with the most cruel and disgusting. I cover this topic because to fix U.S. healthcare, we must fix our politics, and I begin with this widely shared Facebook post by Dr. Wallach, who calls out unscrupulous doctors. I then follow with my own perspective of public policy as a cause of that, along with a list of other forms of voter suppression.

THE KILLING FIELDS…. Dr. Joel Wallach

“The United States had lost 56,000 military personnel in Vietnam over a ten-year period, for an average of 5,600 per year. Millions of people poured out into the streets to protest these lost lives. We had political anarchy for the last three years of the Vietnam war because of these deaths. And because of these deaths, God forgive us, we shot and killed American students at Kent State in Ohio, who were just exercising their First Amendment rights to free assembly and free speech. YET NO GROUP WAS OUT MARCHING IN THE STREETS WITH PLACARDS PROTESTING THE KILLINGS BY THE MEDICAL PROFESSION [OR POLITICIANS].

In July, 1994, another Ralph Nader survey pointed out that 70 percent of doctors who treat Medicare patients flunked the exam on how to treat seniors safely and effectively. What would happen to American Airlines if 70 percent of their pilots flunked the exam on how to fly. What would happen to American Airlines if they killed 150,000 to 300,000 passengers per year? Everyone [even Congress] would ‘go Greyhound!’

Medical doctors reacted violently to the Ralph Nader statistics that I routinely quoted in my “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie” tape. They wrote articles in their own defense and went on talk radio to try to reduce the amount of damage to their image as all-knowing saviors of the American public.

Doctors [finally] admitted killing 80,000 Americans each year, but it was too late. The genie was out of the bottle and the spin-doctors couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty, M.D. back together again!”

BreakPoint: Now They’re Euthanizing Asperger’s Patients The Deadly Threat of Assisted Suicide

BreakPoint: Now They’re Euthanizing Asperger’s Patients

The Deadly Threat of Assisted Suicide

Another week… another example of how physician-assisted suicide targets the vulnerable. This time: Asperger’s patients.

In 2010, 38-year-old Tine Nys was one of approximately 1,000 people euthanized in Belgium. Nys was not suffering from a terminal illness. In fact, she wasn’t sick at all.

Hospital, lab collaborate on sepsis-detection AI

EARLY WARNING:A system introduced last year can predict sepsis about four hours before its onset, but with AI, the hospital hopes to automatically detect it earlier

Representatives Matsui and Guthrie Take Aim at Sepsis, Which Kills Almost 270,000 Americans Annually

House Resolution 1175 Seeks to Increase Sepsis Awareness and Speed Diagnosis and Treatment

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Stop Sepsis, Save Lives Coalition applauds Representatives Doris Matsui(D-CA) and Brett Guthrie (R-TN) for introducing House Resolution 1175 to support increased awareness of sepsis and highlight the importance of early diagnosis and appropriate intervention. 

"By introducing this bipartisan resolution, Representatives Matsui and Guthrie have taken a critical first step to drive broader sepsis awareness and emphasize the urgent need to seek treatment when there are signs and symptoms of sepsis," said Thomas Heymann, President and Executive Director of Sepsis Alliance. 

'Who decides whether you're dead?': Ontario court case could prove precedent-setting

Taquisha McKitty's heart still beats and her arms and legs move, bishop says

The family of Taquisha McKitty will argue in the Ontario Court of Appeal Wednesday that she's still breathing and alive, even though a lower court has declared her dead.

"We're not convinced that she's dead," said Bishop Wendell Brereton from his church, the Breakthrough Temple in Brampton.

Adverse Events in Long-Term-Care Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries

WHAT WE FOUND

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that 21 percent of Medicare patients in LTCHs experienced adverse events, which are particularly serious instances of patient harm resulting from medical care. The four categories of adverse events include outcomes such as prolonging a patient's LTCH stay or necessitating transfer to another facility; requiring life saving intervention; resulting in permanent harm; and contributing to death. (Five percent of Medicare patients in LTCHs experienced adverse events that contributed to or resulted in their deaths.) An additional 25 percent of patients experienced temporary harm events, which are patient harm that required medical intervention but did not cause lasting harm.

Ex-physician assistant who got nearly $50K for prescribing fentanyl spray on trial for fraud in NH

CONCORD -- Greed was the motive for the kickbacks, according to both a prosecutor and defense lawyer who addressed the jury during the opening of the trial of Christopher Clough, one of the top prescribers in the country of a fentanyl spray.

To federal prosecutor Seth Aframe, it was the greed of Clough, a one-time Somersworth physician assistant who received nearly $50,000 in kickbacks for writing more than 700 prescriptions of the Subsys fentanyl spray.

Overwhelming Opposition Confirmed On Assisted Suicide Bill

Family First NZ says that the overwhelming opposition to David Seymour’s assisted suicide bill by submitters to the Select Committee is no surprise and was already indicated during the earlier Inquiry by the Health Select Committee.

According to an analysis of a substantial number of the submissions by the Care Alliance, a whopping 92% of submissions are against David Seymour’s bill, and is significantly higher than the already-high 77% opposition during the Health Select Committee's earlier investigation.

Massachusetts Seeks to Disbar and Silence Attorney Fighting to Expose Corruption in Senior Medical Kidnappings

Massachusetts Seeks to Disbar and Silence Attorney Fighting to Expose Corruption in Senior Medical Kidnappings

Attorneys and guardians have plundered the estate of Marvin Siegel, a retired attorney from Boxford, Massachusetts. At the same time they have gone through the courts to isolate him from his children and essentially imprison him in his own home.His youngest daughter Lisa Belanger followed in his footsteps in becoming an attorney, inspired by her father’s principles of fighting for what is right. She says: He taught me to not be silent when wrongs are being done to others. She and her sister Devora Kaiser were shocked to see the strong arm of the state in keeping them away from their beloved father when he was captured from his family in 2011.

Doc Charged In Woman’s Death, Medicaid Fraud

A Dracut, Mass. physician has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after a patient he is accused of illegally prescribing opioids to died.

Dr. Richard Miron, 76, a solo practitioner of internal medicine, was indicted on multiple charges.

He faces one count of involuntary manslaughter, 23 counts of illegal prescribing of controlled substances and 23 counts of filing false Medicaid claims.

Ohio mother’s cancer disappears after groundbreaking clinical trial

CLEVELAND – Denise and Jim Keenan recently celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary, but this milestone has taken on an even greater meaning since Denise was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma back in 2009.

U.S. organ transplant rules get an overhaul

A powerful but obscure panel, which governs which chronically ill people get critical organ transplants and when, overhauled its rules for these decisions last week, transforming the long-time geography-based system.

No Cash, No Heart. Transplant Centers Require Proof Of Payment.

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When Patrick Mannion heard about the Michigan woman denied a heart transplant because she couldn’t afford the anti-rejection drugs, he knew what she was up against.

On social media posts of a letter that went viral last month, Hedda Martin, 60, of Grand Rapids, was informed that she was not a candidate for a heart transplant because of her finances. It recommended “a fundraising effort of $10,000.”