The Day Fox News Fell Into Self-Parody

John Edward, the ‘psychic’, declared that Terri Schiavo was aware the events surrounding her.

WTF? I always wondered why CNN allows King to put on these fruitbats, but on an actual news show?

Even better is the doctor who points out that the arguments circulated around about the actual medical tests were largely made up by charlatans and kooks. The entire deal surrounding the events in Florida appears to be built on the same kind of bizarre post modern view of science as creationism.

What’s worse is that a couple of quacks promoting treatments for which there is no scientific evidence have hijacked a tragic situation for a family and turned it into a sales job on quackery.

The Court record is incredibly damning on this point

Hyperbaric therapy has been in use for more than a century. It is used abroad far more than it is used domestically. Medicare recognizes only eleven procedures involving hyperbaric therapy while Russia recognizes almost seven times that many. Dr. Maxfield felt there was an 80% chance of improvement in Spect Scan results from hyperbaric therapy. He has seen such with similar patients. Also, he felt there was a significant probability Terry Schiavo would improve cognitive ability with hyperbaric treatment. Drs. Greer, Bambakidis and Cranford have all referred patients for hyperbaric therapy but none for this type of brain injury. They felt that such therapy would have no affect on Terry Schiavo. It is interesting to note the absence of any case studies since this therapy is not new and this condition has long been in the medical arena.

Dr. Hammesfahr feels his vasodilatation therapy will have a positive affect on Terry Schiavo. Drs. Greer, Bambakidis and Cranford do not feel it will have such an affect. It is clear that this therapy is not recognized in the medical community. Dr. Hammesfahr operates his clinic on a cash basis in advance which made the discussion regarding Medicare eligibility quite irrelevant. A lot of the time also was spent regarding his nominations for a Nobel Prize. While he certainly is a self-promoter and should have had for the court’s review a copy of the letter from the Nobel committee in Stockholm, Sweden, the truth of the matter is that he is probably the only person involved in these proceedings who had a United States Congressman recommend him for such an award. Whether the committee “accepted” the nomination, “received” the nomination or whatever, it is not that significant. What is significant, however, and what [undermines] his creditability is that he did not present to this court any evidence other than his generalized statements as to the efficacy of his therapy on brain damaged individuals like Terry Schiavo. He testified that he has treated about 50 patients in the same or worse condition than Terry Schiavo since 1994 but he offered no names, no case studies, no videos and no tests results to support his claim that he had success in all but one of them. If his therapy is as effective as he would lead this court to believe, it is inconceivable that he would not produce clinical results of these patients he has treated. And surely the medical literature would be replete with this new, now patented, procedure. Yet, he has only published one article and that was in 1995 involving some 63 patients, 60% of whom were suffering from whiplash. None of these patients were in a persistent vegetative state and all were conversant. Even he acknowledges that he is aware of no article or study that shows vasodilatation therapy to be an effective treatment for persistent vegetative state patients. The court can only assume that such substantiations are not available, not just catalogued in such a way that they can not be readily identified as he testified.

Neither Dr. Hammesfahr nor Dr. Maxfield was able to credibly testify that the treatment options that they offered would significantly improve Terry Schiavo’s quality of life. While Dr. Hammesfahr blithely stated he should be able to get her to talk, he admitted he was not sure in what way he can improve her condition although he feels certain her can. He also told the court that “only rarely” do his patients have no improvement. Again, he is extremely short of specifics. Dr. Maxfield spoke of a “chance” of recovery although he stated there was a significant probability that hyperbaric therapy would improve her condition. It is clear from the evidence that these therapies are experimental insofar as the medical community is concerned with regard to patients like Terry Schiavo which is borne out by the total absence of supporting case studies or medical literature. The Mandate requires something more than a belief, hope or “some” improvement. It requires this court to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the treatment offers such sufficient promise of increased cognitive function in Mrs. Schiavo’s cerebral cortex so as to significantly improve her quality of life. There is no such testimony, much less a preponderance of the evidence to that effect. The other doctors, by contrast, all testified that there was no treatment available to improve her quality of life. They were also able to credibly testify that neither hyperbaric therapy nor vasodilatation therapy was an effective treatment for this sort of injury. That being the case, the court concludes that the Respondents have not met the burden of proof cast upon them by the Mandate and their Motion. Accordingly, it is

If these doctors had observed patients improving under such conditions they certainly would find it in their interest to publish professional articles on it. That they haven’t ‘bothered’ is incredibly telling about the type of medicine the two practice.

That Scarborough attacked the credibility of doctor who wasn’t promoting speculative therapies with no empirical support demonstrates that MSNBC can’t be considered a news channel either.