<?xml version="1.0" ?><html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> This is what I found on Cranford.  He is well  known to the </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> disability activists.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> marta</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Meet Ronald Cranford, Doctor of Death</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Ronald Cranford, the medical expert in the Terri Schiavo case who </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >delivered the diagnosis of PVS, is certainly not a neutral expert. </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >He apparently has been stumping the country arguing for withdrawal </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >of feeding tubes left and right.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Here is an article in which he argues that feeding tubes should be </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >removed - not only from PVS patients, but from Alzheimers patients </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >as well.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >It's astonishing that someone sworn to heal takes such an aggressive </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >stance towards assisting death - most of it is his personal opinion </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >that the lives of the disabled are not worth living. The article </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >makes clear that Cranford is truly a doctor of death - a strong </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >advocate of physician assisted suicide.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >He rails against the "right to lifers" interfering with his desire </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >to hasten the deaths of patients. But those troublesome "Right to </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Lifers" now includes the Pope - who has issued a directive that </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >supplying food and water are not "artificial means".</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Cranford may have a point - when older people are truly at the end </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >of life and are only being kept alive by artificial means. But he </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >strongly considers a feeding tube to be "artificial means". And it </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >seems he wants to spread his doctrine to all persons suffering </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >disability - not just those near the end of life. If you are </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >impaired, he would rather be rid of you.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >People at the end of life are one thing. But Schiavo is perfectly </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >healthy, and just requires food and water. And how about the </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Wendland case? There, a wife wanted to pull the feeding tubes on her </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >husband. He was not in PVS; he was able to interact with his </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >environment. He could play with a ball, watched sports on TV, he </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >painted, he responded to commands, he had various moods - but </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >Cranford thought he should be killed.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> ></span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >There appears to be an entire underground industry devoted to </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >killing the crippled on the theory that they are being kind to them </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >by killing them.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><br/></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">By what weird standard is Schiavo "perfectly healthy"? A nonexistent cerebral cortex hardly qualifies one as the picture of health. It isn't just non-functional, it has degraded to the point that its existence is highly questionable.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">Since there is no possibility of recovering from Alzheimers letting patients severely afflicted die seems more than reasonable also. This stance doesn't seem to make Cranford anti-disabled as this article tries to suggest. Where does Cranford say that "all persons suffering from disabilities, not just those nearing the end" should be terminated? What person wrote this crap above?</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">Another personal tale. Rex, an very elderly gentlemen, is in a long term care facility. He needs to be sedated and restrained as he is extremely combative. He has had Alzheimers for some years now. He is a WWII vet who spent two years in a concentration camp. His mind has regressed to the point that he believes he is in that camp again. That is part of the reason for his combativeness. He has escaped several times only to be caught running through a field nearby, generally naked. He is confused when the police return him to the "camp". He no longer remembers family members. His quality of life is something less than excellent. Why should this man be put through the horror of believing he is in a concentration camp? Wasn't once enough? We know he isn't in one but, since he truly believes he is, he is suffering as much mental anguish as if he were. Why do we have this squeamishness over killing people like this? Why isn't Schiavos husbands desire for closure and a return to a better quality of life more important that keeping a person alive who physically cannot recover? A person is their mind not their body. Lose the mind and you have lost the person.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">I'm glad there are doctors like Cranford "</span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">stumping the country arguing for withdrawal of feeding </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">tubes left and right". </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">I wish there were more doctors willing to do so.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><br/> </div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">John Thornton </span></font></div> </body> </html>