CA - Parents Of Toddler Declared Brain-Dead Convinced He’s Still Alive

[al66pine]

New message from 6 hours ago on the fundraising site started by Nate Stinson. Jonee Fonseca has words of thanks and appreciation for donors, harsh words for the court system and medical system, and is asking for more donations to fund the funeral and "home going service".

As K_Z posted from Update #9 at ^fund raising site:
"After 5 long hard months of fighting to give our son a chance he so badly deserved, we lost our battle on August 25th when the decision to continue my sons life was left up to a judge."

 

[katydid23]

As K_Z posted from Update #9 at ^fund raising site:
"After 5 long hard months of fighting to give our son a chance he so badly deserved, we lost our battle on August 25th when the decision to continue my sons life was left up to a judge."

So now they are blaming the judge? Did he cancel the follow up doctors appointments and neglect to give the toddler the necessary steroids prescribed him?

I am sure that if there was even a shred of evidence that this baby was not brain dead, the judge would have ruled in their favor. :heartbeat:

 

[al66pine]

August 18, 2016, Los Angeles Superior Court issued a TRO, prohibiting CHLA from stopping physiological support to Israel Stinson.

from Prof. Pope Aug 30: http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/#!/2016/08/the-la-superior-court-order-in-stinson.html
"But on August 25, 2016, the same court dissolved the TRO. ..determined that the issues in the Los Angeles court case were collateral estoppel and res judicata based on the Placer County court decision. In other words, the Placer County Superior Court had already determined that Israel was dead on April 29, 2016 (see pages 225-226 of this PDF). That could not be re-litigated.
But it is unclear why the family did not make the same arguments that were successfully made in the Jahi McMath case."

Just in case, links in ^text-quote do not work:
http://thaddeuspope.com/images/Stinson_v_CHLA_LASC_08-25-16_.pdf
http://thaddeuspope.com/images/1661182639.pdf

Also see archive of several cases at http://thaddeuspope.com/braindeath/courtcases.html

 

[K_Z]

Mother of Baby Israel Speaks Out After His Death

Still too distraught to speak on camera, Jonee Fonseca spoke to FOX40 by phone Monday.

"They pulled the plug about 3:10 p.m., that day. They gave me till 4 o'clock to say my goodbyes," Fonseca said.

Israel's battle over brain death declarations and contradictory reports led his family into medical centers and courtrooms around the region. Then recently to a Guatemalan hospital, where his lawyers say the definitive brain death test, an electroencephalogram or EEG, proved he was very much alive.

Next came consultation with Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.

Doctors there agreed to admit the Vacaville toddler.

"Right when we got there they discussed home care with us, and not even two days later they, started telling us they wanted to perform their own test, but they never did their own test," said Fonseca.

Instead Israel's mom, says Children's L.A. suddenly deemed her son's Guatemalan medical records invalid and rushed to court to disconnect him from life support.

"That's something that still confuses me. I don't understand why they would even accept us," she said.

"I could have still been in Guatemala, fighting for my son's life, if we didn't come back."

"They wanted him gone. He was just wasting money and it just, it just doesn't make sense. It's so corrupt they way they went about it," she said.

"It was so terrible the way everything played out. They had no sympathy for us. They treated us like criminals in there. They had security around as if we're, you know... they're killing my child, and they're treating me like, like I'm overreacting, like I'm doing something wrong," Fonseca said.

http://fox40.com/2016/08/29/mother-of-baby-israel-speaks-out-after-his-death/

Blue color by me for emphasis.

There is so much *astonishingly* incorrect, unethical, and irresponsible "journalism" in this piece, it's literally jaw dropping. I don't even know where to begin-- I'd end up with a post of over 1000 words at least. This kind of one sided and inaccurate "reporting" is just shocking to me. So incredibly irresponsible. SMH. And we wonder why some members of the public, with less education are confused about these issues??? Why less educated people seem to be more inclined to be suspicious and distrustful of medical care?? Maybe this has something to do with that? Instead of making efforts to EDUCATE the public, and show BOTH sides, they choose to publish rubbish pieces that only promote distrust and suspicion. It's sickening and shameful.

Good grief-- an EEG is not even close to "a definitive test" for brain death! Remember, a lemon can produce measurable electricity! Since exactly when is an attorney an authority in medical tests and evaluation??

Although nearly everyone understands that the hospital cannot comment about a particular case, NOTHING prevents a journalist from contacting other EXPERTS in the field to get a balancing opinion about the legal and medical issues in general related to brain death determination, international medical records, laws, court proceedings, etc.

I may fire off an email to the author of this deplorable piece, I'm so incensed.

IMO, this is just another piece of media manipulation to help the lawyers and the mother with their lawsuits by tainting public opinion with inaccurate and one sided information. It's shameful.

 

[K_Z]

International medical tourism has been growing for at least 15 years, particularly for elective surgical procedures which are often much cheaper than in the U.S.

So, I was looking at Guatemala, and found this. Interesting what is offered. I might consider IVF, or a cheap breast augmentation, dental implants, or something fairly low risk like that, but I'd be hard pressed to agree to neurosurgery tourism in a developing nation. But that's just me!

One of the issues with international medical tourism is that when there are complications, the U.S. citizens don't return to the country where the surgery was performed-- they come to their local hospitals and clinics in the U.S. and use their government assistance or private insurance. And medical records are often not available from the original country, and standards of care, are not always the same.

http://www.medicaltourismguatemala.com/

http://www.medicaltourismguatemala.com/medical-procedures/neuro-surgery/

 

[ninij9]

I have wonders lately if Israel's parents were told in Guatemala that this was the "end of the line" and perhaps may even had been aware that pulling the plug was the outcome if they returned. Could they have done so purposefully in order to set up the hospital for a long drawn out lawsuit resulting at least in more publicity, fame and book/tour deals? I know this sounds terrible, but if the hospital cannot speak due to Hippa laws, anything is possible.

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[Doghairrules]

http://fox40.com/2016/08/29/mother-of-baby-israel-speaks-out-after-his-death/

Blue color by me for emphasis.

There is so much *astonishingly* incorrect, unethical, and irresponsible "journalism" in this piece, it's literally jaw dropping. I don't even know where to begin-- I'd end up with a post of over 1000 words at least. This kind of one sided and inaccurate "reporting" is just shocking to me. So incredibly irresponsible. SMH. And we wonder why some members of the public, with less education are confused about these issues??? Why less educated people seem to be more inclined to be suspicious and distrustful of medical care?? Maybe this has something to do with that? Instead of making efforts to EDUCATE the public, and show BOTH sides, they choose to publish rubbish pieces that only promote distrust and suspicion. It's sickening and shameful.

Good grief-- an EEG is not even close to "a definitive test" for brain death! Remember, a lemon can produce measurable electricity! Since exactly when is an attorney an authority in medical tests and evaluation??

Although nearly everyone understands that the hospital cannot comment about a particular case, NOTHING prevents a journalist from contacting other EXPERTS in the field to get a balancing opinion about the legal and medical issues in general related to brain death determination, international medical records, laws, court proceedings, etc.

I may fire off an email to the author of this deplorable piece, I'm so incensed.

IMO, this is just another piece of media manipulation to help the lawyers and the mother with their lawsuits by tainting public opinion with inaccurate and one sided information. It's shameful.

I think you should contact the reporter. If they are going to make definitive statements like that, they need to have done their homework.


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[K_Z]

I have wonders lately if Israel's parents were told in Guatemala that this was the "end of the line" and perhaps may even had been aware that pulling the plug was the outcome if they returned. Could they have done so purposefully in order to set up the hospital for a long drawn out lawsuit resulting at least in more publicity, fame and book/tour deals? I know this sounds terrible, but if the hospital cannot speak due to Hippa laws, anything is possible.

Interestingly, in the court filings on Professor Pope's site linked above, Jonee Fonseca states she was told by doctors in Guatemala that Israel was in a "persistent vegetative state." And every country defines brain death by neurologic criteria differently.

So, after reading the following research article (from 2007), I have to wonder if Guatemala was chosen by Jonee and her attorneys specifically because Guatemala does not have well-defined brain death criteria. Originally, I had thought they went to Cuba, but from this research article, Cuba has fairly well-defined brain death criteria. In Central America, Guatemala and Honduras have the least well-defined criteria, according to this research.

Brain death worldwide
Accepted fact but no global consensus in diagnostic criteria

Abstract—
Objective: To survey brain death criteria throughout the world.

Background: The clinical diagnosis of brain death allows organ donation or withdrawal of support. Declaration of brain death follows a certain set of examinations. The code of practice throughout the world has not been systematically investigated. Methods: Brain death guidelines in adults in 80 countries were obtained through review of literature and legal standards and personal contacts with physicians.

Results: Legal standards on organ transplantation were present in 55 of 80 countries (69%). Practice guidelines
for brain death for adults were present in 70 of 80 countries (88%). More than one physician was required to declare
brain death in half of the practice guidelines. Countries with guidelines all specifically specified exclusion of confounders,
irreversible coma, absent motor response, and absent brainstem reflexes. Apnea testing, using a PCO2 target, was
recommended in 59% of the surveyed countries. Differences were also found in time of observation and required expertise
of examining physicians. Additional provisions existed when brain death was due to anoxia. Confirmatory laboratory
testing was mandatory in 28 of 70 practice guidelines (40%).

Conclusions: There is uniform agreement on the neurologic examination with exception of the apnea test. However, this survey found other major differences in the procedures for diagnosing brain death in adults. Standardization should be considered.

Table on page 22 of the article (page 4 of 8 in the pdf) shows that Guatemala has absent criteria across the board in law, guidelines, apnea testing, number of physicians involved with diagnosis, observational time, and confirmatory testing.

So, it makes perfect sense, legally and medically, that CHLA follows U.S. laws and the California UDDA. They HAVE to. Just because a physician in Guatemala diagnoses a patient with "persistent vegetative state", does not mean that this diagnosis is at all legal or valid in the U.S. Physicians at CHLA have the responsibility to evaluate the patient and make a diagnosis, which they did-- they had all of the previous testing and results (tons of it, according to court filings, very much exceeding the basic diagnostic process). They are not obligated in any way to repeat any or all of that when there is a legal and valid death certificate from months earlier, just because the family wants. The standard of care was NOT to do anything further.

The goal of Jonee and her attorneys, as I understand it from their filings, was to overturn California UDDA as invalid, and thereby petition to revoke the existing death certificate-- from their July 1 filings. Again, as in the McMath case, to get state or federal money to pay for his care in perpetuity. I think they somehow thought (or hoped) that a diagnosis from a doctor in a different country would be enough "force" to invalidate U.S. law, and the other court decisions from months ago. I think they may have wanted to go to New Jersey, like the McMaths-- but whereever on the east coast they wanted to go, it appears there was not a facility willing to take him.

Perhaps NJ is now more wary of becoming a destination for medical tourism for brain dead people. It's a small state-- that would be very burdensome, financially, to the taxpayers of NJ, if they became the desired destination for anyone who rejects brain death for their loved one, because NJ will hand out medicaid money to keep organ support in place "forever."

We won't ever know for sure what happened in Guatemala, but I strongly suspect that if they diagnosed Israel with persistent vegetative state, his time in the hospital there in Guatemala was rapidly coming to an end. There was likely nothing else that could be offered to them, and I also strongly suspect bills were piling up unpaid, and a Guatemalan hospital is not going to maintain a patient (who is not a citizen, nor is the family citizens) in an ICU on a ventilator in perpetuity. They probably were told they had to make arrangements to remove/ discharge Israel somewhere, IMO. They may have been given a deadline there, because IMO, that is a possibility why the July 8 trip to the east coast was planned. I think Jonee's comments that Israel was "well enough to return to the U.S." (from the fundraising update) indicate that the Guatemala hospital was wanting him discharged somewhere. JMO.

The fact that Jonee says they faced the same issues (home care discussions) immediately on arrival at CHLA confirms that for me. I think they had no desire to live permanently in Guatemala, no residency status there, no income or other money, and were faced with trying to set up a life there, or return to the U.S. They chose to return to the U.S. They HAD a choice. No one forced them. They had a choice to take him home BEFORE they went to Guatemala, too.

And they had a choice, again, when the medevac plane landed in Los Angeles. No one forced them to go to CHLA. They CHOSE to go to a mainstream, large university hospital-- not home care, extended care, etc.

The fact remains that if Jonee had taken Israel directly to a home care situation from the flightline (even to a hotel or apartment,or inpatient hospice center), OR moved him from CHLA to home care before Aug 18, when she filed the emergency injunction petition, she could have cared for him at home as long as she wished, and NO ONE would have barged into her home and taken Israel off "life support." She CHOSE to go to CHLA PICU, and it is abundantly clear to me that whoever her mystery doctor is that was so willing to do home visits and write prescriptions, that he or she was unable or unwilling to motivate them to get set up with home care anywhere (Vacaville, their home, or LA). Or, Jonee actively avoided/ delayed setting up home care because she didn't really want that outcome, or responsibility, despite her comments.

I think they chose CHLA so that there are "deep pockets" to sue for money. They absolutely knew that this would be the outcome, IMO. Granted, home care is an monumental task to face, but not impossible-- and it leaves one with nearly complete control of the situation. And they could have had lots of help setting up and caring for Israel, from churches, sympathetic volunteers, and pro life nonprofits, at least for a few months or years. They were trying to force the legal and the medical system to do their bidding, rather than working within the constraints of the law and the medical system. This was a predictable outcome.

What I really wish I knew, to put an end to the story, is how and why CHLA admitted Israel to their PICU. I think that would be very interesting to know.

 

[nrdsb4]

http://fox40.com/2016/08/29/mother-of-baby-israel-speaks-out-after-his-death/

I may fire off an email to the author of this deplorable piece, I'm so incensed.

IMO, this is just another piece of media manipulation to help the lawyers and the mother with their lawsuits by tainting public opinion with inaccurate and one sided information. It's shameful.

I really wish you would contact him, and also correct the article's blatant misrepresentations of fact while you're at it.

 

[Doghairrules]

Interestingly, in the court filings on Professor Pope's site linked above, Jonee Fonseca states she was told by doctors in Guatemala that Israel was in a "persistent vegetative state." And every country defines brain death by neurologic criteria differently.

So, after reading the following research article (from 2007), I have to wonder if Guatemala was chosen by Jonee and her attorneys specifically because Guatemala does not have well-defined brain death criteria. Originally, I had thought they went to Cuba, but from this research article, Cuba has fairly well-defined brain death criteria. In Central America, Guatemala and Honduras have the least well-defined criteria, according to this research.



Table on page 22 of the article (page 4 of 8 in the pdf) shows that Guatemala has absent criteria across the board in law, guidelines, apnea testing, number of physicians involved with diagnosis, observational time, and confirmatory testing.

So, it makes perfect sense, legally and medically, that CHLA follows U.S. laws and the California UDDA. They HAVE to. Just because a physician in Guatemala diagnoses a patient with "persistent vegetative state", does not mean that this diagnosis is at all legal or valid in the U.S. Physicians at CHLA have the responsibility to evaluate the patient and make a diagnosis, which they did-- they had all of the previous testing and results (tons of it, according to court filings, very much exceeding the basic diagnostic process). They are not obligated in any way to repeat any or all of that when there is a legal and valid death certificate from months earlier, just because the family wants. The standard of care was NOT to do anything further.

The goal of Jonee and her attorneys, as I understand it from their filings, was to overturn California UDDA as invalid, and thereby petition to revoke the existing death certificate-- from their July 1 filings. Again, as in the McMath case, to get state or federal money to pay for his care in perpetuity. I think they somehow thought (or hoped) that a diagnosis from a doctor in a different country would be enough "force" to invalidate U.S. law, and the other court decisions from months ago. I think they may have wanted to go to New Jersey, like the McMaths-- but whereever on the east coast they wanted to go, it appears there was not a facility willing to take him.

Perhaps NJ is now more wary of becoming a destination for medical tourism for brain dead people. It's a small state-- that would be very burdensome, financially, to the taxpayers of NJ, if they became the desired destination for anyone who rejects brain death for their loved one, because NJ will hand out medicaid money to keep organ support in place "forever."

We won't ever know for sure what happened in Guatemala, but I strongly suspect that if they diagnosed Israel with persistent vegetative state, his time in the hospital there in Guatemala was rapidly coming to an end. There was likely nothing else that could be offered to them, and I also strongly suspect bills were piling up unpaid, and a Guatemalan hospital is not going to maintain a patient (who is not a citizen, nor is the family citizens) in an ICU on a ventilator in perpetuity. They probably were told they had to make arrangements to remove/ discharge Israel somewhere, IMO. They may have been given a deadline there, because IMO, that is a possibility why the July 8 trip to the east coast was planned. I think Jonee's comments that Israel was "well enough to return to the U.S." (from the fundraising update) indicate that the Guatemala hospital was wanting him discharged somewhere. JMO.

The fact that Jonee says they faced the same issues (home care discussions) immediately on arrival at CHLA confirms that for me. I think they had no desire to live permanently in Guatemala, no residency status there, no income or other money, and were faced with trying to set up a life there, or return to the U.S. They chose to return to the U.S. They HAD a choice. No one forced them. They had a choice to take him home BEFORE they went to Guatemala, too.

And they had a choice, again, when the medevac plane landed in Los Angeles. No one forced them to go to CHLA. They CHOSE to go to a mainstream, large university hospital-- not home care, extended care, etc.

The fact remains that if Jonee had taken Israel directly to a home care situation from the flightline (even to a hotel or apartment,or inpatient hospice center), OR moved him from CHLA to home care before Aug 18, when she filed the emergency injunction petition, she could have cared for him at home as long as she wished, and NO ONE would have barged into her home and taken Israel off "life support." She CHOSE to go to CHLA PICU, and it is abundantly clear to me that whoever her mystery doctor is that was so willing to do home visits and write prescriptions, that he or she was unable or unwilling to motivate them to get set up with home care anywhere (Vacaville, their home, or LA). Or, Jonee actively avoided/ delayed setting up home care because she didn't really want that outcome, or responsibility, despite her comments.

I think they chose CHLA so that there are "deep pockets" to sue for money. They absolutely knew that this would be the outcome, IMO. Granted, home care is an monumental task to face, but not impossible-- and it leaves one with nearly complete control of the situation. And they could have had lots of help setting up and caring for Israel, from churches, sympathetic volunteers, and pro life nonprofits, at least for a few months or years. They were trying to force the legal and the medical system to do their bidding, rather than working within the constraints of the law and the medical system. This was a predictable outcome.

What I really wish I knew, to put an end to the story, is how and why CHLA admitted Israel to their PICU. I think that would be very interesting to know.

This begs the question of how anyone thought jonee could be his primary caregiver in an at home situation when she apparently wasn't able to consistently give him meds or take him to the doctor before all this happened.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[i.b.nora]

I have been doing a little research this afternoon focusing on trying to answer the question of why it appears to me that Children's Hospital of Los Angeles was targeted (by the attorney).

First of all, I didn't realize until today that the attorney Alexandra Snyder with Life Legal Defense has been involved with this case from the very beginning. I was thinking it was another similar but different group in the beginning.

So, what I think is this: With the latest ploy, I think the attorney was shopping for a hospital with Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Care. There are five in California.

Before I list the five, I will list the previous hospitals that cared for Israel:

1. Sacramento Mercy General Hospital Emergency Room
2. University of California Davis - transferred here for its Pediatric Unit
3. Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center, Sacramento - transferred here at request of parents because UCDavis declared him brain dead.
4. Flown to Guatemala.
5. Children's Hospital of Los Angeles

Now, the five Level 1 Pediatric Trama Care Hospital Centers are:
Northern California
1. University of California Davis (can't go back there)
2. University of California San Francisco Benioff's Children's Hospital - formerly Oalkand Children's and home to Jahi Mcmath for awhile. (They were previously rejected from there for obvious reasons, including Jahi and owned by University of California.

Southern California
3. Ronald Reagan University of California Los Angeles (UCLA - California University system, burned that bridge)
4. Loma Linda Medical Center - a private Christian faith based University and Hospital. It would be uncouth to prey upon your own.
5. Children's Hospital of Los Angeles - a private hospital, funded by old money and lots of it, donations, and associated with University of Southern California, (USC) a private old money school. BINGO!!!

 

[al66pine]

This begs the question of how anyone thought jonee could be his primary caregiver in an at home situation when she apparently wasn't able to consistently give him meds or take him to the doctor before all this happened.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

^^^^ Ex-act-ly.^^^^ What doghairrules said.

 

[otto]

Or they could have brought him to New Jersey. There is a reason JM's family took her to New Jersey. It's really hard to understand why they would bring him back to Ca, when he was legally dead there.

What a novel idea! ... travelling from one State to another could result in a person no longer being legally dead!

 

[K_Z]

Professor Pope has linked a newly published study that could have interesting implications for the ongoing debate about families who deny brain death and fight to force hospitals to continue "life sustaining treatment". It could also have implications for how the law in NJ is interpreted that allows families with "religious objections" to request to have ventilator and other organ support continued after brain death. While the NJ law does not specifically state that it was designed to accommodate the requests of the large population of orthodox Jewish citizens of NJ, it's clear to pretty much everyone that this was definitely the historic basis for the NJ exception-- they just couldn't say that in the law because they would be favoring one religion over another.

The researchers separated religiously based requests for continued treatment into 2 categories:

1. Requests for continued care based on a specific and particular religious community or tradition (such as orthodox judaism)

versus

2. Requests for continued care based on expectations of divine healing.

U.S. Physicians' Opinions About Accommodating Religiously Based Requests for Continued Life-Sustaining Treatment.

(From the abstract)

RESULTS:
For the patient meeting brain death criteria, physicians were more likely to accommodate the request to continue LST when the family mentioned their Orthodox Jewish community (85% vs. 70%, P < 0.001). For the patient with metastatic cancer, physicians were more likely to accommodate the request when the son said his religious faith does not permit discontinuing LST (65% vs. 46%, P < 0.001), but not when he said he expected divine healing (50% vs. 46%).

CONCLUSION:
Physicians appear more willing to accommodate requests to continue LST when those requests are based on particular religious communities or traditions, but not when based on expectations of divine healing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27039013

I think an interesting companion study would be looking at the same 2 issues with judges. Would they be inclined to interpret the law differently based on claims of expectation of divine healing, versus adherence to a specific religious community or tradition?

Many people feel that some "secular" families who "reject" brain death, and recruit media attention as they battle the hospitals, do so partly because they have been "advised" by their pro-life attorneys that they must claim a religious basis for their rejection, AND claim to believe in divine healing, in order to have a chance at winning court petitions to continue treatment after brain death.

Some secular families who have been prominent in the media have claimed that they hold generalist (vague or non-denominational) religious ideas about rejecting brain death, but do not belong to a particular or specific religious community. Some of these families state strongly that they believe in expectations of divine healing.

This kind of "teasing apart" the basis or motivation for a continuing request to continue futile treatment could be interpreted as a "religious test", which has a whole lot of other implications and ramifications, legally. As in, does a claim of affiliation with no evidence of adherence to a specific religious community or tradition (which could be interpreted as an affirmation of convenience), along with expectations of divine healing, meet the same legal criteria as those who have historically belonged to a specific religious community?

It seems to me that this study is examining exactly that-- applying a "religious test." Physicians perceptions of how "devout", or how "real" the family's claims of religious affiliation are, when faced with rejection of brain death and requests for continued treatment. As in, does this family REALLY belong to a specific religious community or tradition that rejects brain death, or are they making these claims in an attempt to manipulate the medical system into continuing treatment? Is the "religious claim" REAL, or merely convenient?

So, for those reasons, I think this is a very interesting study!

Unfortunately, I can't link the full text article, but it's available if someone is interested and doesn't have a subscription to the journal or database. (Looks like $39.95.)

 

[Lippy]

This is really brilliant!
There were two other facilities that they claimed had agreed to take Israel but backed out. One of them was just before they left Guatemala. I don't recall the names of those facilities.

 

[Lippy]

I meant to reply to this post in my above reply...sorry!
Really brilliant post. (Yours, not mine

 

[stormshine]

New documents from the hospital. They did not know Israel had previously been declared brain dead when they accepted him. He was at CHLA since July 22nd and the hospital had notified the family a week in advance that they planned to disconnect support on 18 August. So it was not, as the family claimed, them rushing to disconnect him after the TRO was dissolved. The "independent" review the family wanted was Dr. Shewmon, who doesn't believe in brain death. The hospital also offered to cooperate with moving Israel to another facility that would accept him.
http://www.thaddeuspope.com/images/Childrens_Hosp_App_to_Dissolve_TRO_08-25-16.pdf

 

[K_Z]

Professor Pope has a new post. Apparently, the July 1 federal lawsuit filed while the family was in Guatemala, is not automatically dismissed after cardiopulmonary cessation. That lawsuit specifically challenges the constitutionality of brain death criteria. The State of CA his filed a motion to dismiss. Prof. Pope seems to believe that these suits should continue in the courts anyway, as they never make much progress before the brain dead patient experiences cardiac arrest.

Personally, I think that re-examining and re-defining brain death (or amending statutes) would be an issue for the various legislatures to take on, not a lawsuit to be litigated on behalf of a deceased person. It feels like an end run around the legislature, IMO.

http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/2016/09/israel-stinson-and-constitutionality-of.html

 

[jjenny]

New documents from the hospital. They did not know Israel had previously been declared brain dead when they accepted him. He was at CHLA since July 22nd and the hospital had notified the family a week in advance that they planned to disconnect support on 18 August. So it was not, as the family claimed, them rushing to disconnect him after the TRO was dissolved. The "independent" review the family wanted was Dr. Shewmon, who doesn't believe in brain death. The hospital also offered to cooperate with moving Israel to another facility that would accept him.
http://www.thaddeuspope.com/images/Childrens_Hosp_App_to_Dissolve_TRO_08-25-16.pdf

I guess sometimes it pays to pay attention to the news. This case was on the news. I am surprised that they didn't know Israel was determined to be brain dead.

 

[K_Z]

New documents from the hospital. They did not know Israel had previously been declared brain dead when they accepted him. He was at CHLA since July 22nd and the hospital had notified the family a week in advance that they planned to disconnect support on 18 August. So it was not, as the family claimed, them rushing to disconnect him after the TRO was dissolved. The "independent" review the family wanted was Dr. Shewmon, who doesn't believe in brain death. The hospital also offered to cooperate with moving Israel to another facility that would accept him.
http://www.thaddeuspope.com/images/Childrens_Hosp_App_to_Dissolve_TRO_08-25-16.pdf

Thank you! Absolutely fascinating read. (218 pages)

It just boggles the mind that CHLA claims that they did not know Israel had been determined in California (by 3 docs) to be legally brain dead, when they accepted him for admission from Guatemala. I honestly can't imagine how that is even remotely possible. You can bet that there will certainly be policies and procedures changing there! And most definitely, there have been some very....ummm... "direct and frank" discussions between administrators and staff docs.

i.b.nora was correct in suspecting Alan Shewmon was the "mystery doc" Jonee wanted to examing Israel at CHLA.