Frist Flip-Flopping

[xadrez]

Frist on Schiavo Possibly Recovering: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist several times questioned Schiavo's diagnosis, saying he had reviewed a videotape of her and her case file and wasn't sure whether she really was beyond recovery.

"Remember, Terri is alive. She is not in a coma," Frist said Sunday. "Although there are a range of opinions, neurologists who have examined her insist today that she is not in a persistent vegetative state. She breathes on her own - like you and me. She is not on a respirator. She is not on life support of any type. She does not have a terminal condition." (The Tennessean, 3/22/05)

Frist Attacking Edwards: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attacked Sen. John Edwards for saying that stem cell research would enable people like Christopher Reeve to “get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”

Frist responded on a conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush-Cheney campaign: "I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people… We should be offering people hope, but neither physicians, scientists, public servants or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype.

“It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope." (CNN.com, 10/12/04)

Link (http://dcinsidescoop.blogspot.com/2005/03/frists-schiavo-assertion-at-odds-with.html)

[Daliman]

Big surprise the standard righty guys have no comments on this...

[cardcounter0]

Funny Fox News hasn't picked up on this story.

[Stock Whiz]

In the game of life, Democrats are the rake.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
In the game of life, Democrats are the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

That quote is the poster-child of "trying to sound clever, but really sounding like a moron."

[whiskeytown]

How about GWB signing a bill in Texas that let's a physician make the decision to pull the plug on people in a vegative state and then changing his mind in 2005.

I don't blame GWB though - GWB reminds me of Derek Zoolander - people are throwing bananas at him and telling him to dance and he just does it /images/graemlins/grin.gif

RB

[Felix_Nietsche]

So Frist is:
1. Against over-hyping stem cell research.
2. Expressed concerned over the accuracy of the diagnoses regarding T.Sciavo.

So.....where is the flip-flop?
If this is the best you got on a Republican 'flip-flop', then you libs are getting desperate.

[whiskeytown]

maybe hypocritical is a better word then flip flop or irony -

RB

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
maybe hypocritical is a better word then flip flop or irony -

RB

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually neither one is any bit better. This is a non-story. I think the term best used is "grasping at straws".

[QuadsOverQuads]

[ QUOTE ]
Big surprise the standard righty guys have no comments on this...

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't worry, they'll chime in just as soon as Party Headquarters tells them what the Official Party Response is supposed to be.


q/q

[sirio11]

For conservatives, when one of their own flip-flops is called wisdom.

[cardcounter0]

I thought you just denied that there could be any notion of a conflict, then blame Clinton.
/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[bholdr]

No, Frist is:
1: saying: "We should be offering people hope, but neither physicians, scientists, public servants or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype."
2: doing exactly that in regards to terry schrivo.

it's not a flip-flop, technicly. but it should be clear that it's politics at it's worst.

[Felix_Nietsche]

"...it should be clear that it's politics at it's worst."
***************************
I see no signs of "politics at it's worst" nor hypocrisy.
Stem cell research is seen by many as research with big potential...BUT...so far there have been no tangible results . Frist expressed his dispapproval towards people who may be over-hyping the possible benefits of stem cell research.

As for Terry Schiavo, he has expressed his reservations about diagnoses about T.Sciavo.
Is the point that Frist is too pessamistic towards stem cell research and too optimistic towards Schiavo's condition?

Personally, I think the Republicans are violating the Constitution by intervening in a State's right issue and I am VERY irritated with them for doing so. BUT...I see no beneficial politics in doing so. They may make a few Right-to-Lifers happy (who vote republican anyway) at the expense of ticking off 70% of the country but I hardly call that playing politics. To me playing politics is reading a poll and pandering to the majority at the expense of your core values.... The republicans leaders may be stupid and acting unconstitutional but I would not call this politics.
Perhaps dumb politics.... /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Voltron87]

I like it how Frist violated a ridiculous amount of medical ethics by attempting to diagnose a patient he had not reviewed in real life, only seen in video (any Mds want to back me up on how truly ridiculous that is). He knew what he was saying was bullshit, because he wouldn't testify it in court (he knows he would get sued).

[Felix_Nietsche]

"I like it how Frist violated a ridiculous amount of medical ethics by attempting to diagnose a patient he had not reviewed in real life,"
*************************************
Care to back up your claims?
1. That Frist gave a diagnosis.
2. That Frist violated medical ethics.

Do you even know what a the defintion of a medical diagnosis is?
Do you even have an basic understanding of medical 'ethics'?

I wonder....

[Voltron87]

He attempted to diagnose her when he said that Terri was not in a persistant vegitative state.

That is seriously out of line for a doctor, when you have not examined a patient.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Are you going to back up your silly claims or not?

PS
I already know you can not, so just let it go...

[Voltron87]

What silly claim? Is this a joke?

[cardcounter0]

You are attempting to make a blind and deaf man see and hear. If it isn't on Fox News, it hasn't happened.

[Voltron87]

[ QUOTE ]
Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a renowned heart surgeon before becoming Senate majority leader, went to the floor late Thursday night for the second time in 12 hours to argue that Florida doctors had erred in saying Terri Schiavo is in a "persistent vegetative state."

"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office," he said in a lengthy speech in which he quoted medical texts and standards. "She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."

His comments raised eyebrows in medical and political circles alike. It is not every day that a high-profile physician relies on family videotapes to challenge the diagnosis of doctors who examined a severely brain-damaged patient in person.


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Some medical professionals questioned the appropriateness of Frist challenging court-approved doctors who have treated Schiavo. Laurie Zoloth, director of bioethics for the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University, said she was surprised to hear Frist weigh in, given that he has not examined Schiavo. "It is extremely unusual -- and by a non-neurologist, I might add," Zoloth said in an interview.

[/ QUOTE ]

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48119-2005Mar18.html)

[Felix_Nietsche]

"She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."
*************************************************
You call this a medical diagnosis?!
I'll ask the question again: Do you even know what a medical diagnosis is?
Frist has the right to express his opinions like everyone else. The fact that he is a medical doctor gives his opinions more weight...

"Some medical professionals questioned the appropriateness of Frist challenging court-approved doctors..."
**********************************************
You claiming "appropriateness" equates to a violation of medical ethics?! Where does is say he violated "medical ethics"?
Again I challenge you to back up your statement. This is your most silly claim.

You certainly like to exaggerate...
It is OK to disagree with Frist and the other Republicans interfering in this case (I DISAGREE WITH THEM!). The assertion on Frist making a diagnosis can be chalked up to semantics on what a diagnosis actually is. Most people are not word smiths so the your first claim is a minor foul.

BUT...attacking the medical ethics of Frist for expressing an opinion is at best an ignorant exaggeration and shows you have no clue about what constitutes a breach of medical ethics....

[bholdr]

yes, dumb politics. I personally think that the republican hyping of the schrivo case was more PR motivated than ideologically so, esp since, as you mentioned, it's a pretty clear violation of some of their other ideological stands.

they are paying back their debts to the religious wing of the party, IMO.