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Article #5958Re: "Near Proof for Near-Death?"
From: Ian Goddard
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 17:12
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 17:12
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On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, "John H." <John@faraway.com.au> wrote: >One possible explanation might be the finding earlier this year that human >brains have some sort of in built oxygen storage, perhaps this is what >allows function at a very low level, not sufficient to show up on scans but >enough to keep just enough cellular activity going to create memories??? IAN: Interesting. Indeed, that's virtually indicated because it is the existence of oxygen that prevents sudden and massive damage resulting from hypoxia. Therefore, if the brains survived intact, it tends to follow that they weren't oxygen deprived, and moreover that they therefore were never brain dead. What's really amazing is that the media reports state that there was "no brain activity" in patients. However, I cannot find any such statements in the actual study. In fact, the criteria for "clinical death" is stated as such: "We defined clinical death as a period of unconsciousness caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain because of inadequate blood circulation, breathing, or both." See the sections "procedures" and "patients" for this and more. Media reports lead us to believe that brain-activity measures were recorded by some means, but that is not the case. All that the study did was determine that a patient had cardiac arrest, ie, their heart stopped, for some time during which they were unconscious, or "clinically dead." So the media claims of "no brain activity" are an extrapolation without direct evidence. And even if we assume the patients were brain dead for some period, there is the problem of proving that the NDEs occurred at the same time that there was no brain activity. Yet all the study did was ask people after they were resuscitated if they remember any NDE-like events, which could have occurred at any time during their cardiac event. The study is seriously flawed relative to the extraordinary conclusions being derived from it. http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol358/iss9298/full/llan.358.9298.original_research.18751.1 http://IanGoddard.net "To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals." Benjamin Franklin
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f44bc,d7d60c28eab87be X-Google-Attributes: gidf44bc,public X-Google-Thread: f88c3,d7d60c28eab87be X-Google-Attributes: gidf88c3,public X-Google-Thread: 1045ed,d7d60c28eab87be X-Google-Attributes: gid1045ed,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-12-18 09:10:01 PST Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail From: igoddard@erols.mom (Ian Goddard) Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.consciousness.mysticism,bionet.neuroscience Subject: Re: "Near Proof for Near-Death?" Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 17:12:41 GMT Organization: IanGoddard.net Lines: 45 Message-ID: <3c1f7154.70736849@news.erols.com> References: <3c1e54cd.44797375@news.erols.com> <3c1eb8c9.23487579@news.erols.com> <7%GT7.95940$li3.909546@ozemail.com.au> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVaQaJaur2lzO21Oef3tEjZtbbX05iwlZ9y1kU4ZVUt5WEpiYPsqyVOj X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Dec 2001 17:09:25 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235