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Who should MDs let die in a pandemic? Report offers answers
AP ^ | 05/04/08 | Lindsey Tanner

Posted on 04/26/2009 12:14:37 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3

CHICAGO – Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die. 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at rds.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bho44; bhocdc; bhodhs; blackhitler; deathpanels; die; epidemic; eugenics; genocide; holocaust; mds; moralabsolutes; nazism; obamacare; pandemic; psychiatry; swineflu; t4; triage; vitamind
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To: Marie

I am sorry that you have this position, since modified versions of this triage process are used every day in every ER in the world. In these non-emergency times those in the greatest and most immediate need of medical attention go to the head of the line. In the case of an emergency involving a great shortage of medical resources, the triage procedure always has and always will operate the way discussed in this article. Those who do not like it are free to start their own hospital.


41 posted on 04/26/2009 2:18:25 AM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla ("men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." -- Edmund Burke)
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To: ccmay
However, if doctors across the country chose to let healthy young men and women die in a pandemic so they could save the nursing home patients, retarded children, elderly multi-drug dependent cardiac cripples, and lunatics, who would rebuild civilization and look after all the others?

If we can coldly allow the people who raised us and who taught us G-d and morals, the innocents with Down's Syndrome, children who have diabetes, and all the other vulnerable people among us to die without even *trying* to save them, then we're not worth rebuilding.

This "Logical" and "Rational" way of thinking gave us Nazi Germany, Planned Parenthood and Professor Singer. "Life not Worthy of Life" they called it. These same people can just as easily decide that people of a certain political persuasion have a mental illness (where have we heard that recently?) and also need to be culled.

Hitler began his killing spree with disabled *children* for the love of G-d! Whether it's by the ovens or by simple neglect, the crime against humanity is the same.

The difference between a conservative and a liberal is that we VALUE life - ALL LIFE. We kill the murderer because he *took* a life and that is the only crime that has the punishment. We champion the unborn, the baby with Down's Syndrome, the coma patient. We fight the killing of our elderly. We take great care when it comes to "pulling the plug" or donating organs because we hold human life as sacred and precious.

When we become disheartened and even consider a situation where we can't champion *all* life, we become G-dless liberals and we've lost ALL faith.

42 posted on 04/26/2009 2:26:35 AM PDT by Marie ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: Quix

ping!


43 posted on 04/26/2009 2:27:27 AM PDT by Marie ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: randomhero97

I take a Vitamin Shoppe 2000 IU softgel. It is tiny, so anyone of any age can swallow it.


44 posted on 04/26/2009 2:45:03 AM PDT by devere
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To: Marie

So you’re a doctor, and you have 3 doses of Tamiflu left in your medicine cabinet, and the following 4 patients:

- A comatose 87-year-old with multi-organ failure, who in all likelihood will die within the next week no matter what you do
-A previously healthy 23-year-old mother of 3 small children
-A previously healthy 35-year-old fireman and father of two
-A previously healthy 9-year-old boy.

Who gets the Tamiflu? If you choose the obvious answer, congratulations, you just performed an act of triage, you Godless liberal.

If you’d give the medicine to the 87-year-old, I’d like for you to explain your reasoning, and I’d like for you not to be in charge of anything more complicated than a hot dog cart during a real pandemic.


45 posted on 04/26/2009 2:47:29 AM PDT by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
So, according to you, Sarah Palin's Down's Syndrome baby is "Life not worthy of life".

Guess she should've aborted him after all. Saved everyone the trouble.

We are no longer human in America.

Nine months of pregnancy - six of those months on bedrest. Quit college. Quit my job. Fifteen years of dedication. Teaching, loving, arguing with doctors... Five years of sleepless nights monitoring blood sugar. Watching him grow into a moral and beautiful young man. Watching a soul develop.

All for nothing.

Why don't you just come on over and put a bullet in his head if he's worth so little to you? But I'm sure he's not the only one... could get messy. I know! We'll build OVENS to dispose of the bodies! Much cleaner...

Sure, he's already saved one healthy, productive life, but how much more good could he *really* do? How much could he actually contribute to the State? After all, his immune system isn't quite perfect. He does have trouble keeping his blood sugars "just so". He still has to finish high school and go to college before he really has a Value as a Citizen. And he does burn up about $400 a month in medical expenses... and that Universal Health Care is a bit pricey. Perhaps we should look at the bottom line a little closer -

- instead of looking at the gift he offers humanity by just being HIM.

46 posted on 04/26/2009 3:02:33 AM PDT by Marie (I'd die for Sara Palin's Down's Syndrome baby.)
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To: ccmay
That is NOT what they're saying! They're not saying, "if you're down to X you do Y". They're saying, "In case of disease, don't worry about anyone with a disability, diabetes or the elderly."

Don't you see? They're taking it to a whole new level. If there's a pandemic, automatically stop treating X.

This is NOT OK. Why can't you people see that we're not dealing with rational, humane people? They're saying, if there is and emergency AND if you have a "normal adult" with a 20% chance of survival and a child with Down's Syndrome with a 75% if survival, you are to treat the "normal" person. Both may die, but they don't care.

They don't want the Down's Syndrome child to live.

In normal triage situations, the Down's child would get the treatment, because he wouldn't be devalued as a human being. Triage just looks at the odds of surviving a certain situation, not the person surviving it. Triage doesn't give a crap is the person who survives is good for the gene pool, or the state. It only cares who will survive the crisis in question.

This mandate changes all that. Now doctors are supposed to look at the value of the human being.

This is a SIN.

47 posted on 04/26/2009 3:14:25 AM PDT by Marie (I'd die for Sara Palin's Down's Syndrome baby.)
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To: randomhero97

I am sorry your gf left you. That hurts.


48 posted on 04/26/2009 3:24:01 AM PDT by cajungirl (no)
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To: Marie

In big and small ways, rationing is a form of triage and with the new health care, there will be a govt bureau encharged with deciding what treatments are given, which are not. A form of everyday triage.

I do think “ethicists” are people who love to talk about who gets “culled” and appointed themselves to do so.

It sickens me {mostly because I will be culled right off the bat}


49 posted on 04/26/2009 3:27:08 AM PDT by cajungirl (no)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
Hey. This is the Son of Marie. My mom wanted me to read this thread and y'all need to start thinking like Captain Kirk in the Kobayashi Maru scenario. If you can't win you need to cheat. Don't accept defeat! :-) Where there's breath, there's hope.

Now stop upsetting my mom! She thinks I'm dying ten times a day! lol!

50 posted on 04/26/2009 3:30:01 AM PDT by Marie (I'd die for Sara Palin's Down's Syndrome baby.)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Most decent people would “self choose” treatment or not.

If my grandchildren or children or sons in law were seriously ill as I was I and there was a shortage of available treatment, I would without reservation say “treat them first” out of love. I think all of us would do such.


51 posted on 04/26/2009 3:30:48 AM PDT by cajungirl (no)
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To: ccmay

Make your case harder.

You have one or two doses of tamiflu


52 posted on 04/26/2009 3:35:34 AM PDT by cajungirl (no)
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To: TornadoAlley3
Ironically, in the coming nationalized medical care system with its expected shortage of personnel, we'll likely see the same list of criteria applied sans any epidemic. There won't be enough trained medical personnel to treat all, so there will be choices as to who to treat.

I'm sure that politics won't play a role in those decisions. [/s]

53 posted on 04/26/2009 3:39:52 AM PDT by meyer (Obama is to the USA as Mugabe is to Zimbabwe.)
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To: devere
.... come up with an effective flu treatment

The effective treatment was to have closed the effing borders in the first place.

54 posted on 04/26/2009 3:41:52 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: All

I remember a war movie in which a doctor declined to treat an seemingly mortally wounded soldier, only to reconsider when he found himself staring down the barrel of the soldier’s buddy’s pistol.

If we find ourselves in such a dire situation, take your .45 to the hospital with your loved one. It might improve your loved one’s odds in triage.

I was trained in triage as a medic, and thank God never had to apply my training in the real world. One thing that will make you cynical about triage: health care workers go to the front of the line (got to have them fit to help care for the sick and wounded, don’t you know).


55 posted on 04/26/2009 3:58:04 AM PDT by Spartan79
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To: Marie

Change your first line to:

- A comatose 87-year-old with multi-organ failure, who in all likelihood will die within the next week no matter what you do WHO IS A MAJOR DONOR TO DEMOCRATIC PARTY POLITICIANS.

Under Obamacare will this change the result? If you think it won’t you’re hopelessly naive.


56 posted on 04/26/2009 3:58:04 AM PDT by Spartan79
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To: TornadoAlley3
In a real pandemic, we won't be "letting" people die. They'll be doing that all by themselves.

There will have to be some sort of orderly way to select hospital level of care, once all the hospitals are full.

57 posted on 04/26/2009 3:59:09 AM PDT by Jim Noble (They are willing to kill for socialism...but not to die for it.)
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To: TornadoAlley3

AP reporters?


58 posted on 04/26/2009 4:03:34 AM PDT by Tribune7 (Obama wants to put the same crowd that ran Fannie Mae in charge of health care)
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To: TornadoAlley3

IMHO, this situation is somehow being “used” at this point by whom or for what purposes, I don’t know. Media frenzy, political distraction, who knows, but from what I’ve read of those who have contacted the disease and are living in the US, none have died, and very few have been hospitalized.
The description of the disease has been “mild.”

Yet we see article after article about “pandemics” and discussion of “who should be allowed to die.”

It reminds me of the “never waste a crisis” strategy of the WH.

Every year a flu spreads through the country during flu season and people die. Why the Mexico illness is more severe than the US illness who knows...could it be that’s it’s a Third World Country, and people don’t have medical support or knowledge.

For exxample, Cholera kills, yet in a “civilized” country because of medical support for the dehydration you wouldn’t see the huge death toll that you see in a Third World country. It just seems odd to me, the hype that is, and the discussion of mortality rate, when no one in the US has died from this yet.


59 posted on 04/26/2009 4:12:07 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: Marie

Do you own a gun? If so, one would think that your loved ones would get care if you have a gentle talk, with said gun in hand, with the docs.


60 posted on 04/26/2009 4:27:10 AM PDT by Yorlik803 ( If this be treason, then lets make the best of it.)
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