Doctors deciding who will be allowed to fight to remain alive and who will be forced out of treatment is epidemic in the UK where nationalized health care combined with huge influence by utilitarian bioethicists results in some patients being thrown out of the lifeboat.

This is a case of a near miss. From the story:

Yvonne Sullivan, 28, lost consciousness suffering from severe blood poisoning moments after being told that baby Clinton had died. Despite grieving for their lost son, her husband Dominic, 37, kept a round-the-clock vigil at her bedside for two weeks as she lay in intensive care.

But when doctors told him they could have to switch off her life support machine, Mr Sullivan took drastic action–by giving his wife a firm telling-off. He held his wife’s hand and demanded: “You start fighting. Don’t you dare give up on me now. I’ve had enough, stop mucking around and start breathing. Come back to me.”

Two hours later she started to breathe steadily again.

This case is also an example of a supposedly unconscious woman–who wasn’t:

She even remembers hearing her husband yelling at her as she lay in a coma and says it gave her the strength to pull through.

She said: “I can’t remember exactly what he said but I never liked getting told off by Dom. Something inside me just clicked and I began to fight again. When I came round I thought he’d been gone a few minutes, then he told me I’d been out for two weeks. It’s a miracle. I owe him so much.”

We will never know how many such cases there are when patients who might have come back were cut off by doctor decision making. This is our future, too if we don’t stop Futile Care Theory.

Science and Engineering Ethics (Volume 13 Number 3) is now available by subscription only.

Editorial
“The Ethics of Research in Emergency Medicine” by Michelle H. Biros, August 03, 2007, 279 - 280

Original Paper
“Balancing Ethical Principles in Emergency Medicine Research” by Eugenijus Gefenas, July 28, 2007, 281 - 288
“Has Emergency Medicine Research Benefited Patients? An Ethical Question” by Kenneth V. Iserson, July 26, 2007, 289 - 295
“Assessing the Ethics of Medical Research in Emergency Settings: How Do International Regulations Work in Practice?” by Ritva Halila, July 26, 2007, 305 - 313
“The Admissibility of Research in Emergency Medicine” by Agata Wnukiewicz-KozÅ‚owska, July 26, 2007, 315 - 332
“Informed Consent in Emergency Research: A Contradiction in Terms” by Malcolm G. Booth, August 03, 2007, 351 - 359
“Research without Consent: Exception from and Waiver of Informed Consent in Resuscitation Research” by Michelle H. Biros, July 28, 2007, 361 - 369
“‘No Time to be Lost!’” by Erwin J. O. Kompanje, July 31, 2007, 371 - 381

Poiesis & Praxis (Volume 5 Number 1) is now available by subscription only.

“Polymorphism-screening: genetic testing for predisposition—guidance for technology assessment” by Claudia Wild, June 20,2007, 1 - 14

UCLA scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells. The process doesn’t use human eggs or destroy human embryos, so you may not have heard of it. (Investor’s Business Daily)

Health care was the flash point of one of the most contentious exchanges between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday night, with Mrs. Clinton again taking the offensive. (New York Times)

A new strain of genetically engineered mice has allowed researchers to pinpoint, for the first time, the precise cellular connections that form as a memory is created. By tracing a protein tagged to glow fluorescent green as it migrates through individual neurons, from the cell body out through the branching dendrites, the researchers could see exactly which synapses–connections to other neurons–were involved when the mice learned to fear an electric shock. (Technology Review)

Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader. (Associated Press)

Samuel Golubchuk can’t talk and barely moves, but he is forcing a legal battle that some experts say hits on our most fundamental right to life. (Epoch Times)

Australian scientists have discovered tiny particles of pure silica coated with an active nanomaterial can be used to remove toxic materials from water. (UPI)

An international congress will consider the topic of care for dying persons. The ‘no’ to euthanasia, and the right to refuse aggressive therapies. (Asia News)