Thursday, March 24, 2005

Politics & Religion & Medicine: Schiavo has a new Savior

In addition, in a petition by the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), a neurologist who examined Schiavo's medical records found she was "most likely in a state of minimal consciousness," rather than the persistent vegetative state previous doctors have diagnosed. According to the petition, the agency's board-certified neurologist, Dr. William Polk Cheshire, has information "that seriously challenges the diagnosis that Mrs. Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state," as courts have upheld.
I was curious, wanted to make sure this Dr. William Polk Cheshire is actually a doctor (and has never claimed to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize). Turns out he is, and is even board certified in Neurology. Works at Mayo in Jackson and is a bioethics faculty there. Click here for full record. He's also kind of a religious nut. Having authored, "Returning to the Judaic Roots of the Christian Faith". He's also published in more mainstream journals, arguing that media coverage of human embryo research is biased against life and that Jesus Christ is responsible for the advent of hospitals.
Concerned readers should take notice when any category of humanity becomes subject to prejudicial and disparaging language and the value of vulnerable human life is trivialized alongside sensational assertions of anticipatedmedical cures (Am J Bioeth. 2004 Winter;4(1):1-5.)
The emergence of hospitals during the first few centuries of the Christian era testifies to the earnestness and, if the reader will accept it, also the validity of the conviction of their founders that Jesus of Nazareth, descendent of Abraham and David, the wounded healer of Isaiah 53, assuredly was thelong-awaited Messiah of Israel (Ethics & Medicine. Highland Park: Fall 2003.Vol.19, Iss. 3; pg. 143)

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