Awakened?

As some have said over and over again..when it comes to the human mind...you just never know.

A drug commonly used as a sleeping pill appears to have had a miraculous effect on brain-damaged patients who have been in a permanent vegetative state for years, arousing them to the point where some are able to speak to their families, scientists report today.

The dramatic improvement occurs within 20 minutes of taking the drug, Zolpidem, and wears off after around four hours - at which point the patients return to their permanent vegetative state, according to a paper published in the medical journal NeuroRehabilitation.

According to Wesley Smith, the drug is Ambien:

This definitely needs to be researched and after proper vetting, put into appropriate clinical trials. It also illustrates that we really don't know what is going on inside the minds of people diagnosed as permanently unconscious. Moreover, if this is real--and it sure appears that it is--it should give us great pause before pulling the tube feeding of people diagnosed as PVS. The doctors involved also claimed that the drug could have wider application, hoping that "the drug could have uses in all kinds of brain damage, including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's."

Go check out Smith's blog for more bioethics news - on more "futile care" cases brewing in Texas and a link to an article by Will Saletan last week in Slate (gee how did I miss that...) about our "gentle descent into eugenics"

We've just taken another step down the slippery slope toward eugenics.

The step involves "preimplantation genetic diagnosis," in which clinics take sperm and eggs, make embryos in lab dishes, and screen them for genetic flaws. Embryos without flaws are implanted in the mother's womb. Those with flaws are frozen or discarded.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority regulates PGD in Britain. Previously, it had approved PGD only to weed out genes that were nearly certain to cause a grave childhood disease or were certain to cause a grave adult disease. Last week, the HFEA stepped across that line. You can now chuck embryos in Britain for diseases that are more treatable, less likely to strike early in life, and less likely ever to occur in the person whom the embryo would become.

And in some good news..Stephen Hand updates (as of 5/17) us on the condition of his son Jeremy:

The nurse, Paula, and I were delighted, despite the fact that our Lazarus's first words since his anoxia-coma amounted to two words: "it hurts," as he was being hoyered from a chair back into his bed. He has been laughing at jokes, attentive and responsive to questions when he has the strength, nodding yes or no, and has two very strong handshakes when his hands are clasped. Speech therapy begins immediately. Today he is alert, moves his head off the pillow and easily to the right and left, sometimes appears worried, responsive in many ways. He is not able to move his legs yet and his hands only a little (despite that very strong handshake). People can think what they want, but we cannot but thank the Lord through the prayers of St. Walburga and John Paul II. The process continues. The neurologists at Saints Memorial, Lowell, in good faith, gave him no realistic hope and urged us to withdraw all life support, based on a CAT Scan and time lapse in coma, as you may recall. It is all in the record.