Feds Spending $1.5 Million on NY Pilot Program of "Body Snatching"

*Filed under Freaky Friday 
*Updated 12/4
If a reader had not alerted us to it, we would not have believed this story. It sounds more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers than it does reality and we can think of a lot of reasons it should not be happening. First and foremost, is that the government thinks it's a good idea. Second, any governmental sanctioned program that has it's fingers in the arena of life and death is way out of bounds.

We already have an organ donor system in this country and it's voluntary. Is there a shortage of organs for donation? Sure. But do we really want an Organ Preservation Unit in our faces at a time of tragedy pressuring us for an immediate decision on our loved ones organs? Probably not. Has checking a driver's license (where organ donor is indicated) become too much trouble now?

Families choosing whether to donate a loved one's organs usually have days to grapple with their decision, all while the patient lies hooked up to machines in a hospital bed.But they would have only about 20 minutes to make the choice in a new pilot program meant to recover organs from patients who die at home.

"Think about it," said Dr. Hasan Yersiz. "You have somebody dying and you have to make that decision very fast. It's not an easy situation."

That's an understatement Dr. Twenty minutes in the midst of immense grief and psychological stress. That makes sense? It does if you want to coerce someone to make a decision at a time of vulnerability.

Similar programs are already in place in France and Spain, where there are fewer barriers because people in those countries are considered organ donors unless they opt out, Goldfrank said.

France and Spain routinely harvest organs through presumed consent and do not require an organ donor registration or consent. If you don't want to be a donor, you must get on an opt-out list. Spain has one of the hardest opt-out programs, almost forcing donation. Is this we want in America?

We have huge issues with the OPU trailing behind rescue vehicles like predators after a wounded animal. This sounds more like a plot on a Fringe episode rather than real life and we wish it was fiction, but it isn't. Who made the decision to green light this program?

The project is "very, very modest but has the potential to prove a concept that could be revolutionary," said Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, director of emergency services at Bellevue Hospital Center and the leader of the pilot, which is being funded with a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health Resources and Services Administration.

He's got the "Frank" in his name right. All that's missing if the "Stein" part. We're not even going to start on HHR Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, we'd be here all day and into the night.

Everyone in America should remember (thanks to the MSM harping on it constantly) that Sarah Palin took a lot of ridicule and heat for her warnings of death panels, if she had said this might happen instead, we wonder how the press would have responded to it.

But here's the former Senator Daschle-D in a very recent radio interview saying this:
During a recent radio interview, the former Senate Democrat admitted that if an elderly patient might need a heart transplant, that patient should be encouraged to seek options such as oral medication or “hospice.” For those unfamiliar with hospice, and as the radio host rightly points out, “hospice is where you go to die.”
*(Video included of the interview.) 

Where's the press pouncers on Daschle's comments? ***crickets***

This is absolutely chilling...

"Quit breathing already fella I got a quota to meet."

From Natural News Dec 3, 2010

The City of New York recently launched a new emergency services pilot program that seems more like something out of a science fiction movie than a real-life initiative. According to a recent New York Times report, the city has begun deploying two emergency ambulances in response to 911 calls -- one to try to save the lives of those involved, and the other to harvest their vital organs should the rescue efforts fail or be deemed likely to fail.

The city's new ambulances are emblazoned with the words "Organ Preservation Unit" (OPU), and they now trail behind primary rescue vehicles headed to situations where there could be valuable organs involved. And city officials insist that the whole procedure is perfectly ethical because the first rescue vehicle is unaware that the second one is there until a supervisor decides to stop the rescue efforts and make the announcement, which allegedly eliminates the possibility that rescuers will purposely allow a victim to die in order to gain access to the valuable organs.

The pilot program team has been told they have 50 minutes from the time a person's heart stops beating to the time his or her body must be placed in the ambulance and hooked up to a machine that creates blood circulation. Once at Bellevue, another machine will increase body oxygen.
Only residents of the island of Manhattan who are between 18 and 59 will be eligible for the pilot program.

The government has been after our parts for a long time. This is from the 1998 testimony of Claude Earl Fox, M.D. before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Subcommittee on Human Resources:

The Nation's failure to obtain optimal donation rates for transplantable organs is unquestionably the biggest problem facing the transplant community. Addressing the shortage of organs is a priority of this Administration. Last December, the *Vice President announced a nationwide initiative to increase organ donations. The initiative is focused on known barriers to donation by creating a national partnership of public, private and volunteer organizations. The partnership emphasizes the need to share personal decisions on organ donation with one's family. Even if an individual agrees during his or her lifetime to be an organ donor, the agreement is not always honored without family consent. As part of the initiative, HHS convened a conference on best practices last week, with experts from throughout the country discussing successful solutions for increasing organ donations.
*(Al Gore)

Such irony in these names...

Dr. Fox makes it sound so noble doesn't he? It will strike chords with the public because transplantation does save lives, but the government is not in the business of public service in our opinion, and they are no Marcus Welby's by a long shot.

They're in it for some backroom deal made with the transplant community that will do one of two things for them, if not both simultaneously:
1. Save them money (as Daschle's comments suggest)
2. Make them money (through a deal we have yet to be informed about)

"Some 911 calls in Manhattan will now bring out two ambulances, one hurrying to the scene and one lagging slightly behind.
patient's kidneys in case the first ambulance fails."

But it will be "ethical because the rescue unit won't know"...sure they will, this is in the press isn't it?

How did the NY Times writer keep a straight face when writing this? It's absurd beyond belief and no different than they way the ambulance services used to function in the first half of the twentieth century. We've been down this strange road before: up until the 1960's it was not uncommon to have ambulance services operating out of funeral homes and mortuaries. It was a serious conflict of interest, but it was the way things were before we knew better.

Obviously there is regression afoot with this ghoulish proposal.

*Update Fri pm--a link to a previous writer on this subject thanks to the commenter hoagy62. Complete lives systems & Meat for the state.
Serious dark stuff going on here...

Then there's this story from July 2010 of a murderer that sparked outrage for his crimes and according to the thinking of the author, should have received a transplant after attempting suicide from rat poison, when he was captured for committing the gruesome murder of an innocent woman:
"Let it stand as a beacon to all that is good and wise inside us that a man who took the life of a loving mother of three was himself saved from certain death by highly trained surgeons and an anonymous organ donor, none of whom would hazard playing judge and jury."
*(This is a "what if" situation, the man did not get the transplant and the original story was retracted that reported that he did. This article is arguing, after the fact, that he should have been a candidate despite his heinous crime.)

Does the word experimentation start to sound just a little bit plausible? Big Pharma uses organs not going to transplants for medical studies and we'll agree those studies can result in medical breakthroughs, but the question of who determines which "life (is) unworthy of life" merits some consideration. There will be a progression, an expansion into other areas of what they are trying in NY, eventually. Particularly if they claim it "successful" and all it will take is one life saved. One high profile, tug at your heart strings America for maximum effect, life.

That, in our opinions, is what will lead to societal acceptance of getting the organs by any government defined acceptable means possible for the "greater good."

*Update--The following is important to consider as things that are out of the norm to the human psyche are usually introduced in increments to desensitize their effects and bring about an acceptance--like the limited area of this "pilot program" in NY. If this is hailed a "success" where will we go next and what pitfalls (to put it mildly) are we heading for?
  
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE Volume 100 March 2007 

Tom Treasure 
“The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the Holocaust and ourselves”

How have we arrived at this point? Medical ethics are neither absolute nor static. In the West we have repeatedly challenged prior beliefs and stretched the norms of behavior in the last few decades. For example, termination of pregnancy and manipulation of fertility (in both directions) have attracted extensive negotiation and there is still no unanimity on many points. The distinction between life and death has been redefined, specifically for the benefit of transplantation.

In the 1930s the first steps on the road to the holocaust were taken—and they were taken with the complicity of doctors. How this came about merits attention for, if we do not recognize the facts and understand how it happened, how can we guard against it happening again? 

In Germany, as everywhere, there were people in long-term institutional care. Such patients vary in their capacity for interaction with their careers: at one end of the spectrum there is no evidence of awareness or any capacity for sensate being.

The view arose, as it inevitably does, that if their lives were to slip quietly away it would be no loss. Perhaps it would be a blessing. It would surely be a relief for their families. And then there were the saved resources of time, money and love and devotion from parents and nurses that could be released for a better purpose. Their state was captured in the German phrase lebensunwertes Leben meaning ‘life unworthy of life’.

The ethical question was whether it was permissible to take any active steps to bring about their end; in parallel, the medical question that arose was how it might be done. This in itself is important because, if the stark truth of what we are doing can be masked by the argument of secondary intent, it may be found permissible to bring about the end of life.

Read more here and the serious transplant issues in the US only a few years ago with Kaiser Permanente in California.

Big Pharma is an integral part of the global transplant push: Wyeth, Roche, Genzyme, Astellas Pharma, Inc., Novartis. That should be a huge red flag to all of us because NY admits they are following the European models. 

*Presumed consent for organ donation in uncontrolled donation after cardiac death: a public policy with serious consequences 2009