Demonstrating the subversive nature of the euthanasia/assisted suicide movement on proper medical care, Dutch doctors are switching from lethally injecting patients to sedating them into a permanent coma so they die by dehydration over a period of days or weeks. This is the angle being taken in new proposals in CA and Vermont, demonstrating that what we are really dealing with here is a form of euthanasia. From the story:

Terminally-ill patients in the Netherlands increasingly receive drugs to render them unconscious until death, according to a study that suggests people are substituting deep sedation for legal euthanasia. The researchers found that 1,800 people–7.1 percent of all deaths in the Netherlands in 2005– were drugged into so-called continuous deep sedation shortly before dying. This compares with 5.6 percent of cases in 2001.

At the same time, the use of euthanasia fell from 2.6 percent of all deaths to 1.7 percent, representing a decrease of 1,200 cases, the researchers reported in the British Medical Journal on Friday. “The increased use of continuous deep sedation for patients nearing death in the Netherlands and the limited use of palliative consultation suggests that this practice is increasingly considered as part of a regular medical practice,” Judith Rietjens of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam and colleagues wrote.

I suspect that Dutch doctors are switching euthanasia methods because in formal euthanasia, they have to be present at the bedside at death, meaning they watch as the killing actions they take terminate life. With terminal sedation, they don’t have to be present.

This intentional co-opting of a proper palliative measure, rarely needed, at the very end of life–known as palliative sedation–in which the disease causes death, not dehydration, is scandalous. But why should we be surprised? The killing agenda corrupts all it touches.

For shame! Assemblywoman Patti Berg and Assemblyman Lloyd Levine are at it again in the California Legislature. Soon to be term limited out of office, desperate to pass a bill–any bill– that will open the door to assisted suicide/euthanasia, thwarted in their desire by a powerful and diverse strange political bedfellow coalition including disability rights activists, medical professionals, activists for the poor, pro lifers, and the Catholic Church, they have found a new way to undermine the delivery of proper medical care.

In place of assisted suicide, they now want to legalize doctors placing their patients into drug-induced comas and dehydrating them to death. Just as bad, they co-opt the good and proper medical practice of “palliative sedation,” which they redefine as a method of killing.

The bill is AB 2747. First, Berg and Levine define terminal illness as having one year or less to live–an extremely problematic matter since at that distance from death it can be very difficult to determine expected lifespan.

Then, comes the disgraceful redefinition of palliative sedation, which is properly used in rare cases at the very end of life for irremediable suffering such as agitation, at a time in which the patient generally dies of the disease, not denial of sustenance.

442 (d) “Palliative sedation” means the use of sedative medications to relieve extreme suffering by making the patient unaware and unconscious, while artificial food and hydration are withheld, during the progression of the disease leading to the death of the patient.

Then, this is tied with a diagnosis of terminal illness, which you will recall is now a 1 year window:

442.5 (5) The patient’s right to comprehensive pain and symptom management at the end of life, including, but not limited to, adequate pain medication, treatment of nausea, palliative chemotherapy, relief of shortness of breath and fatigue, VSED [voluntary self starvation and dehydration], and palliative sedation.

So, what this bill would do is allow people with a one year life expectancy to request to be put into a coma by their doctors for the purpose of being dehydrated to death. Proving the intent of the bill, AB 2747 requires that if a doctor doesn’t wish to comply with request, he or she must assist in transfer to a doctor who will:

442.7. If a physician does not wish to comply with his or her patient’s choice of end-of-life options, the health care provider shall do both of the following: (a) Refer or transfer a patient to an alternative health care provider. (b) Provide the patient with information on procedures to transfer to an alternative health care provider.

The medical profession should be up in arms. These petty politicians are corrupting medicine by establishing a false political definition for a proper palliative technique that, if passed, would result in terrible public confusion and distrust in palliative medicine overall. I repeat: For shame!

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it was investigating the possibility of an increased risk of mood changes and suicidal behavior among those who take the highly popular asthma drug Singulair. (HealthDay)

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are genetically unstable over time in culture, which raises concerns about their clinical safety. Epigenetic changes, heritable controls over gene expression that do not alter DNA sequence, in hESCs may contribute significantly to this instability. Two studies published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used complementary methods to examine X-chromosome inactivation in hESCs, reporting that this particular epigenetic change shows an incredible amount of variability between hESC lines regardless of the source of derivation. (Nature)

She said, for instance, that it “might be appropriate” to require insurers to spend a heavy proportion of every premium dollar on health care as opposed to overhead and profit. Several governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, have proposed requiring that insurers spend 85 percent of premiums on health care. (New York Times)

Medical tourism soars as Americans seek major savings on health care in hospitals abroad. (Chicago Tribune)

A survey released this week came to the unsurprising conclusion that people are having a hard time paying for healthcare. The totally nonrandom sample of more than 26,000 people who took the online survey skewed heavily toward the insured (77 percent), unionized (57 percent), college educated (80 percent), and white (86 percent). If anybody should be able to afford healthcare, it would be these folks, right? So it was interesting to see that a third of them said they’d skipped getting necessary medical care because it was too expensive, and half of those with health insurance said it doesn’t cover what they need at a price they can afford. (US News)

These “embryo clauses” will allow the creation of human embryos for no other purpose than to harvest their body parts. Similarly, a growing number of MPs have concerns about clauses that will allow human tissue to be fertilised with animal tissue, and vice versa. These so-called hybrid embryos strike at the very heart of bio-ethics. Some church leaders have labelled them “Frankenstein clauses”. While I support the development of wider embryology research, I will only do so if the life status of the human embryo is fully protected. The draft Bill puts that special status in peril. (Telegraph)