DOCTOR WHO INTENTIONALLY KILLED PATIENTS WITH FENTANYL FOUND NOT GUILTY OF MURDER
from: LiveAction News

(25 Apr.) Former Dr. William Husel, who intentionally gave overdoses of fentanyl to patients, has been found not guilty of murder in Ohio was accused of killing at least 14 terminally ill patients and his medical license was suspended by the State Medical Board of Ohio earlier this year.

In 2018, the Mount Carmel Health System began investigating Husel. At the time, 34 patients were known to be affected. Ron O'Brien, then-prosecutor for Franklin County, said that Husel was "administering doses of fentanyl at a level that they internally believed were inappropriate and not for a legitimate medical purpose."

Authorities had been notified by Mount Carmel executives, according to former CEO and president Ed Lamb. O'Brien said the fentanyl dosages "were designed to hasten the death of the patients that were being treated." Some patients were given dosages as high as 2,000 micrograms, causing the patient to die with just five minutes. This, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, is known to be a fatal dose.

Husel originally received 25 murder charges, but 11 of them - with fentanyl doses below 1,000 micrograms - were dropped, leading to anger among the victims' families. "It doesn't make sense. It's not enough? It was enough to kill her but it's not enough to prosecute him," Nicole Thomas, whose mother Jan was killed, told CNN. Her brother Sean added, "[T]o hear that 11 of these cases were dismissed, she is dying all over again."

Chris Allison, whose husband Troy was one of the patients to whom Husel administered 1,000 micrograms of fentanyl, said there was no consent. "They said they're going to give him something to make him comfortable," she said. "Then fine, give him something. He didn't say 'I'm going to give him 1,000 micrograms of fentanyl and he'll be dead before you enter the room.' That would've been a different conversation."

Many of the patients were on ventilators and intensive care, and their families previously told WBNS that Husel pressured them to approve do-not-resuscitate orders.

Franklin County prosecutor David Zeyen argued that it isn't acceptable to kill someone simply because they're elderly, seriously ill, or already dying. "If you hasten a person's death, even if their death is as sure as the sun is going to rise in the morning, if you hasten that along, you have caused their death under the eyes of the law," he said. Over 50 witnesses, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who worked with Husel, testified for the prosecution. Just one person testified for the defense. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This confirms the link between the practice of "assisted suicide" - euphemistically called "death with dignity" - and the killing of elderly patients without their consent. The trend is to consider it acceptable to kill someone because they are elderly, ill, or disabled. Human life is thus treated as a commodity: if the human "resource" isn't producing economic value, get rid of it.

TERRY AND TERRI: CAN PEOPLE RECOVER FROM DEVASTATING BRAIN INJURIES?
from: BioEdge.org

(1 May) The New York Times recently ran an obituary of Terry Wallis, a 57-year-old Arkansas man who died in a rehabilitation facility on March 29. What made Mr. Wallis remarkable was that he was a kind of neurological Rip Van Winkle - he woke up in 2003 after 19 years in a minimally conscious state.

In 1984, Mr. Wallis, then aged 20 and married with an infant daughter, was driving a pickup with two passengers. It skidded, smashed through the railing of a bridge over a dry riverbed. One passenger died, the other escaped without serious injury, and Mr. Wallis emerged from the wreck comatose and quadriplegic. He was visited regularly by his family but was always unresponsive. But suddenly, on June 11, 2003, he greeted his mother and quickly began to communicate with the people around him, including his wife and daughter, now aged 19, with a child of her own.

"Within a three-day period, from saying 'Mom' and 'Pepsi,' he had regained verbal fluency," said Dr Nicholas Schiff, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan who studied Mr. Wallis's brain. "He was disoriented," Dr Schiff told the NYTimes, and "he thought it was still 1984, but otherwise he knew all the people in his family and had that fluency."

He even regained some movement in his arms and legs. After his awakening, he was cared for by his parents and his daughter. (His marriage had ended in divorce.)

"I think Terry's legacy to neuroscience at the highest level," Dr Schiff said, "is to instill our enduring, undiluted and deep interest in understanding how human consciousness may recover after serious brain injury."

Mr Wallis recovered two years before Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman was allowed to starve to death in 2005 - a case which went to the US Supreme Court and was reported around the world. Naturally, many people asked why she wouldn't recover as well. Some doctors insisted that it was possible; others, just as fervently, that she could not. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that Terry Wallis was in a "minimally conscious state" - his injury was less serious and some of his brain managed to regenerate. Terri Schiavo may have been in a persistent vegetative state. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Should the medical system have kept Terri Schiavo alive in the hope that she might regain consciousness? Should they have allowed Terry Wallis to starve to death before he awakened that 19-year deep sleep? If the answer to the second question is "No," then the answer to the first question must also be "No." We just don't know if or when a person in deep coma might regain consciousness.

UZBEKISTAN: "POLICE WATCH US LIKE WE ARE IN THE PALM OF THEIR HANDS"
from: Forum 18 News Service

(3 May) People of different faiths feel under pressure from Internet Protocol (IP) surveillance cameras the Interior Ministry has ordered them to install inside and outside places of worship. Mosques - all of which are state-controlled - were ordered to install surveillance cameras in 2018. In early 2022, the Interior Ministry also ordered state-registered non-Muslim religious communities of a wide variety of beliefs to install them.

Muslim and non-Muslim religious communities and followers have told Forum 18 that some people had stopped attending meetings for worship, for fear of being identified and then facing state reprisals. Police have specified that "they should be able 24 hours a day to watch what is going on inside our building, and who is entering and leaving the building," one religious community stated.

A member of another religious community told Forum 18 that "the police can see who leads prayers, who preaches sermons, who is present at our meetings for worship, whether any under-18-year-olds and their parents are present." They commented that "this makes us very vulnerable, as police will be able to identify any of those people and punish them if they decide so." Another community also noted that the police were particularly interested in whether under-18-year-olds participate in its meetings for worship. "The surveillance cameras make it easy to find the parents and to punish them," they said.

A member of another community told Forum 18 that the local police claimed to them that they will not watch them online. However, the police also stated that they must be able to remotely access and control the surveillance cameras and recordings. Another community commented that "the police want to identify everyone who attends our place of worship, so that if they want to punish particular people who attend our meetings for worship they can."

Community members explained that the police can identify: preachers; under-18-year-olds; people who discuss their faith with others; those who may be suspected by police as belonging to another faith; those who may have religious literature; and others. "The police can use this as 'evidence' to punish people associated with religious communities."

Religious communities have been forced to buy the surveillance cameras. One Muslim stated that "it is ridiculous to ask community members to buy surveillance cameras, so that the police can watch them with these cameras" [read more...]

COMMENTARY: It may seem really bizarre that police are forcing religious believers to buy the surveillance cameras that police use to spy on them, but in the West we voluntarily buy smartphones and video equipment that can easily be used by security services to spy on us. Also, note the special emphasis on identifying under-18-year-olds: it is at this stage of life when a person's beliefs and life goals are being formed, so the authorities want to stifle any religious beliefs. In the West, our public educational systems do a good job of this.

Another Forum18 article that just arrived is "RUSSIA: RELIGIOUS OPPOSITION TO WAR IN UKRAINE - PROSECUTIONS AND DETENTIONS" - it's a must-read!

ED DEPARTMENT CRACKS DOWN ON SPECIAL ED FAILURES DURING COVID-19
from: Disability Scoop

(29 Apr.) Federal officials have reached an agreement with one of the nation's largest school districts after students with disabilities were shortchanged during the COVID-19 pandemic and advocates say the deal should prompt other districts to re-examine their actions too.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights said this week that it found that the Los Angeles Unified School District failed to provide students with disabilities the services promised in their individualized education programs, or IEPs, and Section 504 plans while classes were offered remotely.

Services were limited for reasons other than the individualized needs of students and the district did not properly track what was provided to students with disabilities, the agency found. In addition, the investigation determined that schools counted emails and phone calls to students and parents as the provision of services, staff were told that the district was not responsible for compensatory education during COVID-19 school closures because they were not at fault for the closure and the district did not develop or implement a plan to address circumstances where students did not receive a free appropriate public education, or FAPE, during remote learning.

Under the agreement, the Los Angeles schools have committed to establish, implement and publicize a plan for providing compensatory education to children who did not receive FAPE during the pandemic. The district will convene IEP and Section 504 teams to assess whether students were provided with the services to meet their needs and determine whether compensatory education is warranted.

"Today's resolution will ensure that the more than 66,000 Los Angeles Unified students with disabilities will receive the equal access to education to which federal civil rights law entitles them, including compensatory education for any services the district did not provide during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. "I am deeply grateful for the district' s commitment now to meet the needs of its students with disabilities." [read more...]

COMMENTARY: The simple fact that these students with disabilities got short shrift during the pandemic indicates the all-to-common attitude that such people aren't worth anything, so why go to all the trouble and extra effort?

SINCE THE WAR IN THE ZHYTOMYR REGION, NINE COMMUNITIES OF THE UOC-MP HAVE JOINED THE OCU
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(5 May) Information about the transition of religious communities is posted on the website of the Zhytomyr-Ovruch Eparchy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.

On April 29, 2022, in the premises of the Diocesan Administration, Bishop Paisiy received representatives of two religious communities of the Malyn region: St. Alexander Nevsky. Dibrova and St. John the Theologian village Yosypivka of the Korosten district. Both communities at the meeting unanimously voted to leave the MP and move to the OCU. The abbots of the temples did not support the decisions of the faithful and remained in the hands of the Russian Church.

Thus, the following joined the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the Zhymor region: the community of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Vaskovichi , Korosten district, community of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica Buki, Korosten district, the community of the Holy Intercession Church in the village of Tetirka, Zhytomyr district, community of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Dolynivka, Zhytomyr district, the community of the Nativity of the Virgin in the village of Ivankiv, Zhytomyr district, the community of the church of the great martyr Dmitry of Thessalonica Natalivka, Novohrad-Volynskyi district, as well as the community of St. Alexander Nevsky village Dibrova, Korosten district, St. John the Theologian village Yosypivka, Korosten district and the community of the Archangel Michael of the village of Ukrainka of Korosten district. [read more...]

In another RISU article, "We need a new architecture of church life," Fr. Andriy Ponomarenko describes his personal decision to leave the UOC-MP and join the OCU: "Actually, the understanding that the only way to achieve the unity of Orthodoxy in Ukraine is the 'road map' proposed by Patriarch Bartholomew had before the Constituent Assembly of the OCU."

"On Holy Saturday, I personally felt that all the doors were closed behind me and there was only one way left - to join the only Local Orthodox Church of Ukraine. I am happy that the faithful of our community also supported my determination (because who is a pastor without a flock?) But this joy is overshadowed by the pain of suffering of the people of Ukraine, who now pay a high price for self-knowledge. The wounded, the dead defenders of our land, the innocent civilian victims, are all our relatives."

COMMENTARY: I can hardly imagine the internal pain and struggle these communities and their pastors are experiencing, in addition to the physical and material turmoil and destruction wrought upon them by the invading Russian armed forces. But the Moscow Patriarchate's efforts to "unify" (slaughter and digest) the Orthodox people of Ukraine is backfiring and achieving the opposite result.

"GEORGE TO THE RESCUE" SHOW RENOVATES HOME OF QUADRIPLEGIC STUDENT
from: Disabled World

(30 Apr.) George Oliphant, the host of the popular NBC home renovation show "George to the Rescue," and the all-volunteer team of designer Steven Andersen, Principal of New York City-based interior design studio Montroy Andersen DeMarco (MADGI) and leading national contractor JRM Construction Management have completed an extensive renovation and accessibility upgrade of a family home of the 21-year-old quadriplegic college student Rebecca Koltun. Rebecca suffered a severe spinal cord injury during a skiing accident in 2021.

Hosted by Oliphant, NBC's Emmy Award-winning human interest/home renovation series has elevated the human spirit while celebrating and showcasing the power of community since 2010. Oliphant's design-build transformations have supported countless individuals, families, and organizations in need across the United States. The Koltun residence episode aired in April. All episodes are streamed on Peacock and YouTube.com/George2Rescue.

Oliphant recruited Andersen and JRM to assist with redesigning and rebuilding the Koltun family home to accommodate Rebecca's accessibility needs upon completion of her lengthy physical therapy. MADGI, JRM, and their team of subcontractors have generously donated all labor and materials for the project.

"Shortly after Rebecca's accident took place, our phones started ringing. George to the Rescue really wanted to help, but JRM Construction Management and Montroy Andersen DeMarco were the dream team who went above and beyond to make this possible," shared Oliphant. "Rebecca's community support has been so inspiring, but the family needed this extra push. It's an honor to spotlight Rebecca's resilient spirit and the teamwork involved in bringing the Koltuns back home."

"Improving the lives of individuals, especially those with mobility and other special needs, is one of the main responsibilities of design and architectural professionals. We were delighted to join George Oliphant and the excellent construction team of JRM in this undertaking. The enthusiastic support of the community and the building crew for this project has been incredible," said Andersen.

"Words cannot describe how grateful we are for all the effort and hard work that went into providing our family with such a beautiful and functional place to live. Thank you!" said Rebecca's father Scott Koltun. "I am humbled by all the time, energy, and creativity the "George to the Rescue" team has given to allow us to go home and live together. The caring, kindness, and generosity has been unimaginable," added Audrey Koltun, Rebecca's mother. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: This is quite the contrast to our previous article that tells of the willful disabling of thousands of people, leaving them to suffer and die. Thank the Lord for the "milk of human kindness" that remains in the West.

"Ageism is just as much a subconscious bias as is racism." This is a quotation from the conclusion of my M.Th. thesis that I recently completed: you can find it in the middle of this paragraph, where it delves into the implications of St. Augustine's misinterpretation of Romans 5:12 that became the foundation for his doctrine of predestination. Read it!

Predestination is a form of fatalism: that's just the way God made you and there is nothing you can do about it, it's your fate. What does predestination have to do with ageism? Like racism, which is too often so embedded in our culture that we are unconscious of it, ageism is a subconscious bias. Western Christianity has trained us to think in terms of "the elect" versus "the damned" or "us" versus "them" – "we" are the good guys and "they" are the bad guys. Human differences such as age or race or nationality or religion or political positions can often divide people into "us" versus "them." We want to associate with people who are "like us."

Racism has become a hot topic in the U.S., so now it's "cool" to be anti-racist. But most people are still totally unaware of their ageism bias. Many children and younger adults feel somewhat uncomfortable around elderly people and avoid them. Why? Because they're different. This is the same reason that many people avoid disabled people or poor people: we don't want to think about falling into poverty, or having an accident or illness that leaves ourselves disabled, or growing old and dying. Psychologists call this "the normalcy bias" – when things are going well for us, we want to think that our situation is "normal" and things will always continue on as normal, being just like they always have been.

But what is the result of this subconscious bias of ageism? When we are in a group of people and see an older person, we might tend to look the other way, we turn to talk with someone else, in other words, we ignore "those people." It sometimes even comes out in crude, hurtful words such as – "You're using up too much Social Security!" or "You're breathing our oxygen!" – both which are just another way of saying – "I wish you were dead!" Christina Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund has been quoted as saying, “Old people live too long and this is a risk for the global community."

As I have mentioned before, to hate someone doesn't need to result in doing mean things or saying such crude, hurtful words. The word "hate" in Russian is "nenavidet" which translated literally is "not look at" or in other words, to look the other way, to ignore someone. Elderly people who are placed in nursing homes and don't receive visits from family or friends can sometimes die of loneliness, a real diagnosis that doctors can put on a death certificate. You don't have to shoot, stab or poison someone to hate or kill him – just ignore him! I saw a sign once in a dentist's office – "Ignore your teeth and they'll go away." And if you ignore elderly people, they'll go away too, but sometimes not without a struggle.

In psychology, there is a phenomenon called "spread" – for example, someone sees a person with Down syndrome and subconsciously thinks of him as "a mongoloid idiot." Some people with Down syndrome, however, have a higher education and successful careers, but the stereotype image of the Mongol-like flattened facial shape is often associated with mental disability, so people "spread" the latter condition to everyone having the former condition. The same is true of ageism: when people think of growing old (which they try not to think of!), they have a mental image of someone who is experiencing mental decline, is forgetful, unstable on his feet, or likely has one disability or another: "One foot in the grave" is a common expression. But there are many older people who go to the gym or exercise outdoors and whose minds are sharp and their bodies are healthy. In Job 12:2-4a we read: "No doubt, but you are the people, And wisdom shall die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not Inferior to you: Yes, who doesn't know such things as these? I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor." Job’s friends thought he was less than human or stupid, a butt of jokes: he must have done something bad for all those calamities to come on him. Don't spread!

My wife Cheryl is a nurse who has worked occasionally in nursing homes: she loves to listen to the older folks' stories. Their lives are full of stories, they have experienced some amazing things and learned valuable lessons – they want to tell their story to someone before they pass away. They are lonely. So Cheryl sits with them and listens. It's good therapy... for both of them! And the elderly just might have some gems of wisdom to share with the younger generations that could save the young a great deal of pain, distress, and expense! Job 12:12 states: "With aged men is wisdom, In length of days understanding." Recall the saying – “He who will not learn from the mistakes of history is bound to repeat them.” Both euthanasia and abortion are a denial of the sacredness of human life because we are not just animals or assets and liabilities on a balance sheet, we are created in God's image to be able to partake of the Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

In Acts ch. 19, we read about how the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel in Ephesus, it rankled "a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen" (v. 24). Artemis was a sex goddess, similar to the pagan fertility goddess Astarte in the Old Testament. Pagan idol worship was quite often linked to temple prostitution and human sacrifice because polytheism leads to polyamory (polygamy, polyandry, and homosexual acts) and the sacrifice of unwanted babies to Moloch: what you really believe determines how you behave. We read about this evil practice in the OT book of 2 Kings 23:6-7 (ERV) – "Josiah removed the Asherah pole from the Lord's Temple. He took the Asherah pole outside the city to the Kidron Valley and burned it there. Then he beat the burned pieces into dust and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. Then King Josiah broke down the houses of the male prostitutes who were in the Lord's Temple. Women also used these houses and made little tent covers to honor the false goddess Asherah." The Asherah pole was a phallic symbol used for pagan worship that included prostitution and homosexual acts.

Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen made a good deal of money off idolatry and the sex trade linked to it, and didn't want their business threatened – "Not only is there danger that this our trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be counted as nothing, and her majesty destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worships" (Acts 19:27). This led to a huge riot in the city of Ephesus. In today's terms, the pagan practice of abortion and selling slaughtered babies' body parts is big business, so limiting it really upsets both the sex addicts and the moneymakers. Moneygrubbing is also involved in the euthanasia of elderly and disabled people who "cost too much to keep alive" – so an overdose of narcotics "will take care of that problem."

Human life must be considered sacred from conception to natural death. The recent U.S. Supreme Court's decision that cancels the Roe v. Wade ruling has caused a great uproar of rioting leftists who for the past five decades have aided and abetted the murder of over 63,000,000 unborn babies (and an unknown number of babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions). That would come to over 1,200,000 people being murdered every year for the past five decades: if we think of it in terms of one major city in the U.S. being obliterated every year for 50 years, we begin to comprehend the awful, enormous, horrifying magnitude of this genocide. And because a disproportionately high percentage of these murders are Afro-Americans, we should consider it a form of ethnic cleansing. America needs to repent of and stop these pagan atrocities! Find out more here: Here's How to Reach the World.

(Get this as a separate article in our "ARC-News" blog at blogspot.com.)