CHICAGO, May 5, 2008
Who Should Doctors Let Die In A Pandemic?
Report: The Very Elderly, Seriously Hurt Trauma Victims Among Those Who Wouldn't Be Treated
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(CBS/iStockphoto)
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Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia.
The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.
The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources - including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses - are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.
Their recommendations appear in a report appearing Monday in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
"If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing," the report states.
To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:
Dr. Kevin Yeskey, director of the preparedness and emergency operations office at the Department of Health and Human Services, was on the task force. He said the report would be among many the agency reviews as part of preparedness efforts.
Public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the report an important initiative but also "a political minefield and a legal minefield."
Fast Fact
The recommendations would probably violate federal laws against age discrimination and disability discrimination, said Gostin, who was not on the task force.If followed to a tee, such rules could exclude care for the poorest, most disadvantaged citizens who suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and disability.
If followed to a tee, such rules could exclude care for the poorest, most disadvantaged citizens who suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and disability, he said. While health care rationing will be necessary in a mass disaster, "there are some real ethical concerns here."
James Bentley, a senior vice president at American Hospital Association, said the report will give guidance to hospitals in shaping their own preparedness plans even if they don't follow all the suggestions.
He said the proposals resemble a battlefield approach in which limited health care resources are reserved for those most likely to survive.
Bentley said it's not the first time this type of approach has been recommended for a catastrophic pandemic, but that "this is the most detailed one I have seen from a professional group."
While the notion of rationing health care is unpleasant, the report could help the public understand that it will be necessary, Bentley said.
Devereaux said compiling the list "was emotionally difficult for everyone."
That's partly because members believe it's just a matter of time before such a health care disaster hits, she said.
"You never know," Devereaux said. "SARS took a lot of folks by surprise. We didn't even know it existed."
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 163 CommentsWhether you have insurance or not is not an issue.
Chapter 68. Title 42 Puts FEMA in Charge
The federal gov. controls the Vaccines and allocates them to states.
Section 120.54, F.S. allows state agencies to adopt temporary emergency rules when there is immediate danger to public health, safety, or welfare without going through the normal rule making process!
There are 16 million FL residents but 32 million in Florida counting tourists and workers. Non FL residents are not eligible for Vaccine in FL
If you live, You can''t sue ever- the people administering vaccines have total immunity by Section 768.28, F.S.
Sovereign Immunity for State Officers and Employees
Group 1. Health care workers and public health persons involved in the distribution of vaccine.
Group 2: Persons responsible for community safety and security. police, fire, and Military
Group 3: Persons with specialized skills that provide essential community services. Telecom workers, Nuclear and power plant workers, elected officials.
Group 4: Persons traditionally considered being at increased risk of severe influenza illness and mortality. Pregnant women,infants, and a BIG contradiction: people of any age with high-risk medical conditions and Persons age 65 or older without high-risk medical conditions, Persons in nursing homes, Rationale: The ability to reduce the mortality caused by a pandemic is contingent on vaccinating those persons most likely to experience severe complications or death. This is opposite of the rationale of the article!
Group 5: Persons who, in the judgment of state and local health officials, provide critical community services. Utility, Funeral, truck operators, garbage men,
Group 6: Household contacts of persons in the first three groups.
Group 7: Pre-school age children, those attending daycare centers
Group 8: Healthy persons between the ages of 18-64
Rationale: are the majority of the working class and therefore an increase in mortality would lead to a significant impact on the economy.
Group 9: School age children (the population least likely to have severe illness)
Unmutated H5N1 Avian Flu: This form may cause disease that affects multiple internal organs and has a mortality rate that can reach 90-100% often within 48 hours - CDC.gov
Currently, there are many confirmed cases of human to human transfer but We are being told it is difficult to catch- pandemicflu.gov.
Please Research the FEMA plan for when this virus mutates to a form EASILY transferred from human to human and you will understand the magnitude of the situation and that it goes much deeper than some bunk hospital plan for keeping a few of the strong folks alive!
How do we handle the weak and infected besides offering the option of death? How does one ensure they don%u2019t spead it to others?
Quarantine? Where?
%u201CEase their suffering%u201D How?
Release them to infect others? REX-84 detention, operation garden plot, cable spice, or similar?
Why wouldn%u2019t the weak need a gun if they chose to try and live? Please no sarcasm in this answer as some of you don%u2019t have a strong grasp of it.
in more than one individual.
Ask nicely.
Call your insurance company
Sue them (yes,during the pandemic.)
Die.
Posted by impeach_w at 03:12 PM : May 06, 2008
I think a big issue in us discussing this whole pandemic/triage issue is one of not comprehending the scale of the problem. Let me put it into some perspective to try to illustrate just how bad things could get and why your "asking nicely" or "calling your insurance company" ideas probably won''t do you any good.
The 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic infected about 50% of people who were exposed and ended up killing about 50 million. Unlike most flu strains which kill a low percentage of infected people, this killed between 2-20% of those infected. I''m getting all these numbers from the Wikipedia article on Spanish flu (quite interesting in a morbid way). So if 50% of Americans got infected with one of these nasty flu bugs (150M people) and if 2%-20% of those die, we''d have 3-30 million dead and millions more extremely ill. This is what the medical profession would be dealing with in a bad pandemic. How many hospital beds are there in this country? Asking nicely or suing someone under those circumstances would get you nowhere.
Have a nice day. LOL!
I thought of some others options besides pulling guns or shooting folks! Here they are: Let me know if you have some more.
Ask nicely.
Call your insurance company
Sue them (yes,during the pandemic.)
Die.
Posted by impeach_w at 03:12 PM : May 06, 2008
If it''s a pandemic I''d avoid contact with others as much as possible. Hole up in your house with the rest of your family. Don''t let anyone in!
I thought of some others options besides pulling guns or shooting folks! Here they are: Let me know if you have some more.
Ask nicely.
Call your insurance company
Sue them (yes,during the pandemic.)
Die.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by impeach_w at 11:57 AM : May 05, 2008
I thought of some others options besides pulling guns or shooting folks! Here they are: Let me know if you have some more.
Ask nicely.
Call your insurance company
Sue them (yes,during the pandemic.)
Die.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by impeach_w at 11:57 AM : May 05, 2008
Posted by impeach_w at 12:38 PM : May 06, 2008
It''s easy to attack someone else, so why don''t we hear exactly how you would handle things instead. If you don''t like the triage plans outlined in this article, why not enlighten us with your plans for the distribution of rare medical resources during a pandemic?
Martial law suspends the Constitution and Bill of Rights which are the two most impotant items in making America a country of laws.. When Military law is in effect, there is no recourse for a civilian and no courts to hear your case either. This document gives a president his power and control of the military. If there No constitution in effect, the government, president and military have no authority to act under the Constitution.
If you%u2019re not treated with medical care, or resist the %u201Cplan%u201D You will likely die in some REX 84 type FEMA camp or if your lucky, right then when your suffering is %u201Ceased%u201D. Do you truly believe they will release the untreated infectious out to infect others with a deadly pathogen before they die? My dear, that is not part of any plan.
In this situation, Wolves like Susan Helit, apparently a strong advocate of martial law, gun confiscation, euthanasia, the young eating the old to survive, and some potential Nazi like ideals will be the enemy of us Patriotic American Lambs.
Susan, Quit squeezing out all those kids. You are only making a potential catastrophe worse since odds are your kids will be the first infected, and fastest spreaders of whatever epidemic hits us.
Posted by drinuk at 10:50 AM : May 06, 2008
Oh, you''re talking about Mathias Rath, who believes vitamins and nutritional supplements can cure AIDS. Ya, let me know how that lawsuit turns out; somehow I doubt Rath will prevail. Why should I believe Rath over a bunch of immunologists and virologists who believe he''s a crackpot?
And, before you go around calling other people cretins, you might want to get your facts straight; this lawsuit is not being filed by South Africa, it is being filed by one Mathias Rath.
This complaint is submitted to the International Criminal Court by Matthias Rath MD and others on behalf of the people of the world
The Hague, June 14, 2003
To the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,
Senator Louis Moreno-Ocampo,
c/o International Court, Maanweg 174
NL-2516 AB Den Haag/The Hague
Posted by godseyesore at 10:57 AM : May 06, 2008
If the doctors fall under the criteria not to be treated, then so be it. However, have you considered the utility to you and your relatives, of actually making sure there are doctors around during a pandemic? Incidentally, in case you''re wondering, I''m not an M.D. , so I don''t have a vested interest.
Posted by drinuk at 10:50 AM : May 06, 2008
The supposed MMR/Austism link is non-existent. Type in "MMR vaccine controversy" into Wikipedia and you can read a whole article (with references) on this. Here''s a short quote "The Centers for Disease Control,the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the UK National Health Service have all concluded that there is no evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism." You really should read that article - it lists (with references) many studies showing no link between the MMR vaccine and autism and also illustrates what happens to kids when vaccine compliance drops (such as measles encephalitis and death). First it was thimerosal in the vaccines, now just the vaccines. Did you know that autism rates in CA rose after thimerosal was removed from MMR?
I have no idea what you''re talking about regarding Big Pharma/cancer (sounds like paranoia), and no one has any good idea just what Morgellons is, with some dermatologists thinking it''s just manifestations of other dermatological disorders or delusional parasitosis. Anyway, how exactly do you think physicians are responsible for it?
As for Aids you cretin, the jury is out, go look at the forth coming cases listed in the International Criminal Court in the Hague. You will find the SA government suing for GENOCIDE.
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