Killing the Pain Not the Patient: Palliative Care vs Assisted Suicide

Some time ago an ad appeared in a medical journal promoting a new pain-killing drug. To emphasize that this new product could relieve pain without sleepiness or other side-effects, the ad began with a slogan: "Stop the pain. Not the patient."

The outcome of our society's debate on physician-assisted suicide may depend on how well we communicate—and act upon—a similar message. We are living at a time when some doctors and lawmakers think that the best solution for some patients' suffering is to give them lethal drugs for suicide. Catholics committed to the dignity of each human person must insist: "Kill the pain. Not the patient."

Congressman Mark Green Under Fire for Seeking Vaccine Truth

Freedom is under attack. Freedom of speech, freedom to share information, and the freedom to disagree are under attack. And Mark Green, congressman-elect for my home state of Tennessee, is under attack.

Why?

Because he dared to question the safety of vaccines.

Not only is Mark an elected U.S. congressman, he’s also a state senator, a veteran who assisted in the capture and interrogation of Saddam Hussein, founder of a successful healthcare company, a philanthropist, and a medical doctor. Recently, the congressman-elect made statements that have resulted in a massive defamation campaign by the media.

At a town hall meeting, Dr. Green questioned the safety of vaccines and suggested that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) may not be as forthcoming as the American public assumes. During the speech, he said:

Let me say this about autism. I have committed to people in my community, up in Montgomery County, to stand on the CDC’s desk and get the real data on vaccines. Because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines. As a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against the CDC, if they really want to engage me on it.”

Click the above link for the article.

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: