HeLa cells? I do not believe I have ever mentioned a specific cell line, nor have I ever grown that one.
When you get right down to it, the body is just an amalgamation of several different cell types. They behave according to the chemical signals they receive from their environment, interacting with the various cell components that are encoded in the DNA. Cells, even in groups of trillions, are insignificant. The only way those cells have any value is if they are supporting the life of a person. And there has not been a person in Jahi's body since December 2013, when she suffered a catastrophic and lethal brain injury.
Just because a body can be kept on a respirator and nutrients and hormones delivered through IV can keep the heart beating for a prolonged period of time after death does not mean that doing so is a good idea. It's ghoulish, in fact.
Regarding the MRI I linked in my previous post--you do not have to be a medical expert to see that the remaining brain tissue revealed in her MRI is fragmented and shrunken and that any part of the brain that is necessary to support life is long gone. The reason Dolan did not proceed with the lawsuit in 2014, and the reason I would be surprised if he actually goes ahead with a lawsuit now, is that any medical expert who takes one look at that MRI (or any other medical evidence he might produce) is going to point out everything I have already mentioned, and more. A judge will want independent experts to examine Jahi--Dolan is not going that route. He is after money, and nothing else.
Please do not insult our intelligence.
If you feel that trying to explain complicated technical concepts to people in a way that they can understand is "insulting your intelligence," then so be it. When I write professionally, I actually tone down the technical language a lot more than I do here--members of Congress might have to read it.
You made definitive statements two years ago.
I do not know what statements you are referring to. I looked over the posts that you pinged to me, and some of your other posts, and did not see these statements. In one of your posts (not addressed to me), I did see one statement that I had quoted from a blog written by an MD, who would know more than I about neurological issues and brain anatomy--perhaps you mistook that quote for something I said about the topic? In any case, I am limited to speaking from my knowledge of the subject, mostly from the point of view of the biochemistry. As I said before, I have been following this case intently. If anything new about it turns up, I will find out and that new knowledge will be incorporated into future discussions.
I'd fail you on your orals if you tried to avoid a question as you are here.
The interesting thing about the oral examination that all graduate students at my alma mater had to take in order to progress to PhD candidate is that whether the student answered the question "correctly" was not as important as how the student answered the question. Whatever the student's answer, he or she had to be able to provide evidence and logic to support it. To this day, I always support my thoughts on a topic with as much evidence as I can find, coupled with logical extrapolation from the known facts. I might not present all of my evidence and reasoning, but I *always* go through the process of developing the answer as thoroughly as I can. This is why it can take me hours to compose a single post... and why I so often end up going to work late, after making the mistake of thinking that I'll just post one little comment on FR.
Crazy flights of fancy that she is secretly buried etc... Is just that. Nutty and unfounded.
It is a natural suspicion. I see a money-grubbing lawyer--and while I hate to speak badly of a grieving family, they strike me as money-grubbing, as well. Someone who is part of this saga posts on the Facebook page infrequently, and usually the content is rather bland: a Christmas prayer today, a new link to an old video on Dec 8. What I do NOT see is any kind of substantive update on Jahi's condition posted there. If she were really improving, wouldn't evidence be posted? If she were not dead, but vegetative like Terry Schindler, with a corresponding minimum level of consciousness, wouldn't they post videos of her responding to actual items in her environment, like Terry Schindler did? In this case, what they don't post is much more informative than what they do post. They have not posted any verifiable recent photos or videos. No one outside of the family and their lawyer knows what is really going on with Jahi's corpse--so the suspicion that they may have already buried her is natural.
“perhaps you mistook that quote for something I said about the topic?”
You are trying to cop out this way?
You posted specific things that would happen if she were brain dead.
They did not happen.
A retraction is in order.
“HeLa cells? I do not believe I have ever mentioned a specific cell line, nor have I ever grown that one.”
See post 38 on the following thread
Hospital Agrees to Let Family Move Jahi McMath to New Medical Facility
Life News ^ | Steven Ertelt
Posted on January 5, 2014 at 6:46:51 PM PST by Morgana
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3108741/posts?page=38#38
Quote from that post using HelLa cells an an analogy to Jahi McMath’s condition:
As a scientist, I have worked with cell lines removed, in some cases, from dead humans or animals. The cell lines will live indefinitely as long as they are kept warm, fed, and sterile, and provided with sufficient carbon dioxide. The Hela cell line was taken from a woman who died in the early 1950s. The cells are alive, but she is not.
This little girl, Jahi, died on Dec. 12. What is going on now is more fitting to a Steven King novel than real life. The judge who has allowed the family to keep her corpse ventilated is irresponsible.