Cheating Death

by Sanjay Gupta

3. Mark Roth in interview with the author.

  4. Roth was named a 2007 Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

  5. Brett Giroir, former DARPA director, and Jon Mogford, director of DARPA’s Surviving Blood Loss Program, in interviews with the author’s team.

  6. In 2007, Ikaria merged with a more established biotech company, New Jersey–based INO Therapeutics, which had existing facilities for the production of gas-based medical therapies. Several news reports put the value of the merged company, Ikaria Holdings, at $670 million. The company has approximately 300 employees.

  7. Many news outlets, including CNN, covered Uchikoshi’s hospital news conference on December 20, 2006. That remains the only time he has spoken of the incident in public.

  8. The precise triggers of apoptosis remain a subject of intense research, but the role of cytochrome c has been detailed by several scientists. The primary source for this description is an interview I conducted with Dr. Lance Becker of the Center for Resuscitation Science.

  9. Roth, interview.

  10. Roth, interview.

  11. Roth, interview; Pamela A. Padilla and Mark B. Roth, “Oxygen deprivation causes suspended animation in the zebrafish embryo,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, no. 13 (March 2001): 7331–7335.

  12. Roth, interview. The television documentary was “The Mysterious Life of Caves,” on Nova.

  13. Some scientists believe that our cells naturally produce minute quantities of hydrogen sulfide, and that our ability to use the molecule may be an artifact of prehistoric evolution, when certain microbes used it as a nutrient, in the absence of oxygen. See Katharine Sanderson, “Emissions Control,” Nature 459 (May 2009): 500–502.

  14. Roth, interview.

  15. Eric Blackstone, Mike Morrison, and Mark B. Roth, “H2S induces a suspended animation–like state in mice,” Science 308, no.5721 (April 2005): 518.

  16. Atul Gawande, “Casualties of war: Military care for the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan,” New England Journal of Medicine 351, no. 24 (2004): 2471–2475.

  17. Giroir, interview.

  18. Michael Morrison and others, “Surviving blood loss using hydrogen sulfide,” Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care 65, no. 1 (2008): 183–188.

  19. Neel R. Sodha and others, “The effects of therapeutic sulfide on myocardial apoptosis in response to ischemia-reperfusion injury,” European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery 33 (May 2008): 906–913; Florian Simon and others, “Hemodynamic and metabolic effects of hydrogen sulfide during porcine ischemia/reperfusion injury,” Shock 30, no. 4 (2008): 359–364.

  20. Ralf Rosskamp, MD, Ikaria Vice President of Research and Development, in interview with author’s team.

  21. National Institutes of Health website. The updated status for Ikaria trials can be found by visiting www.clinicaltrials.gov and searching for Ikaria. http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=ikaria

  22. David Lefer in interview with the author.

  23. “Severe heart attack damage limited by hydrogen sulfide, study shows,” ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 17, 2009, from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070919093319.htm.

  24. Lefer, interview.

  25. Matt Andrews in interview with the author’s team.

  26. Kathrin Dausmann and others, “Physiology: Hibernation in a tropical primate,” Nature 429 (June 24, 2004): 825–826.

  27. Jeff Williams, CEO of VitalMedix, in interview with author’s team.

  28. Andrews, interview.

  29. A signature paper of Chaudry’s appeared in the Archives of General Surgery, vol. 138 in 2003 (pages 727–734). An overview of his work can be seen by running a PubMed search: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Search&db=pubmed&term=Chaudry%20IH

  30. Irshad Chaudry in interview with the author.

  31. A CNN crew interviewed Dr. Alam and filmed one of his swine surgeries for a story that aired November 10, 2006.

  32. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, WISQARS Leading Cause of Death Reports, 1999–2005: http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html.

  33. Philip Bickler in interview with the author.

  34. Roth, interview.

  35. I explored the science of survival at high altitude in the 2004 CNN documentary Life Beyond Limits.

  CHAPTER FOUR: BEYOND DEATH

  1. The description of Duane Dupre’s heart attack, near-death experience, and subsequent resuscitation is based on his own account, given in an interview with the author’s team.

  2. International Association for Near-Death Studies website, http://www.iands.org.

  3. Raymond Moody, Life After Life (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1976).

  4. Sam Parnia in interview with the author.

  5. Parnia, interview; Desmond Smith’s case is described more fully in Parnia’s book What Happens When We Die? (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2006).

  6. Parnia, What Happens When We Die?

  7. Parnia, What Happens When We Die?

  8. Bruce Greyson and others, “Failure to elicit near-death experiences in induced cardiac arrest,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25, no. 2 (2006): 85–98.

  9. Jean Potter, a woman we met through an Atlanta group affiliated with the International Association for Near-Death Studies, in an interview with the author’s team.

  10. Dirk de Ridder and others, “Visualizing out-of-body-experience in the brain,” The New England Journal of Medicine 357, no. 18 (2007): 1829–1833.

  11. Strassman has written extensively about this theory, most completely in his book DMT: The Spirit Molecule (Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2000).

  12. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili, Why God Won’t Go Away (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001).

  13. Kevin Nelson in interview with the author’s team.

  14. Moody, Life After Life (2001 ed.), 16.

  15. The author explored this subject in detail for CNN’s 2006 documentary Sleep.

  16. Kenneth Parks was acquitted of murder on May 26, 1988. The case was widely covered at the time.

  17. Anahad O’Connor, “The Claim: Blind People Do Not See Images in Their Dreams,” New York Times, December 15, 2008.

  18. Kevin Nelson and others, “Does the arousal system contribute to near-death experience?” Neurology 266, no. 66 (2006): 1003–1009.

  19. In addition to medical science at high altitude, the authors explored extreme cold-water swimming for CNN’s 2004 Life Beyond Limits documentary.

  20. Jeffrey Long and Janice Miner Holden, “Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences? A Summary and Response,” available at http://www.nderf.org/longholdenremintrusion.pdf.

  21. Jeffrey Long in interview with the author’s team.

  22. Pim van Lommel and others, “Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358, no. 9298 (2001): 2039–2045.

  23. Pim van Lommel in interview with the author’s team.

  24. Pim van Lommel, “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness,” available on the website of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, http://www.iands.org/research/important_studies.

  25. Michael Sabom, Light and Death (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).

  26. http://www.myspace.com/pamreynoldslive. Along with a personal account of her NDE, the website includes music tracks from Side Effects of Dying, a 2005 CD she released as half of the duo Reynolds Robinson.

  27. Nelson, “Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death Experience?”

  28. Susan Clancy, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2005).

  29. Larry Squire in interview with the author’s team.

  30. Post-traumatic stress and other intense memories were examined in the 2005 CNN documentary Memory.

  31. CNN’s Memory.

  32. Pamela Wedding in interview with the author’s team.

  33.
Nelson, interview.

  34. William Kuchler, a near-death experiencer who was introduced to me by Dr. Sam Parnia, in interview with author’s team.

  35. Van Lommel, “Near-death experience.”

  36. Van Lommel, interview; Van Lommel, “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness.”

  37. Van Lommel, “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness.”

  38. The so-called AWARE study (Awareness during Resuscitation) was announced at a United Nations symposium, September 11, 2008.

  CHAPTER FIVE: WHAT LIES BENEATH

  1. Unless otherwise noted, the information on Mark Ragucci’s case came from the following: interviews by the author and his team with Dr. Stephan Mayer and Dr. Mark Ragucci; “Against All Odds,” NYU Physician (NYU in-house magazine), Summer 2008; and Thomas M. Burton, “In a Stroke Patient, Doctor Sees Power of Brain to Recover,” Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2005.

  2. We chose not to identify the hospital where Mark Ragucci was initially treated, due to the sensitive nature of his story.

  3. Donald McRae, Every Second Counts (New York: Putnam, 2006).

  4. McRae, Every Second Counts.

  5. The Mohonk Report (2006)

  6. Joseph Fins in interview with the author’s team.

  7. Jerome Groopman, “Silent Minds,” The New Yorker, October 15, 2007.

  8. Groopman, “Silent Minds”; “Man Speaks After 19-Year Silence,” CNN.com, July 8, 2003.

  9. Nicholas Schiff in interview with the author’s team; Henning U. Voss, “Possible axonal regrowth in late recovery from the minimally conscious state,” Journal of Clinical Investigation 116, no. 7 (July 2006): 2005–2011.

  10. Fins, interview; Schiff, interview.

  11. Unless otherwise noted, the information on Zeyad Barazanji’s case comes from the following: interviews with Stephan Mayer and Zeyad Barazanji, and Barazanji’s medical records.

  12. A note on names: As is common in Syria, Raoua has officially kept her maiden name, Sadat. However, she frequently uses the last name Barazanji; and that is what I’ve used, for the ease of the reader.

  13. Anderson Cooper, “Awakening,” 60 Minutes, November 25, 2007.

  14. Matthew H. Davis and others, “Dissociating speech perception and comprehension at reduced levels of awareness,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (2007): 16032–16037.

  15. Voss, “Possible axonal regrowth.”

  16. Gary Greenberg, “Back From the Dead,” Wired, September 2006.

  17. N.D. Schiff, “Behavioral improvements with thalamic stimulation after severe brain injury,” Nature 448 (2007): 600–603.

  18. Mayer, interview.

  19. K.J. Becker and others, “Withdrawal of support in intra-cerebral hemorrhage may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies,” Neurology 56 (2001): 766–772.

  20. Claude Hemphill III and others, “Hospital usage of early do-not-resuscitate orders and outcome after intracerebral hemorrhage,” Stroke 35 (2004): 1130–1134.

  21. Justin Zivin in interview with the author’s team.

  CHAPTER SIX: CHEATING DEATH IN THE WOMB

  1. Michael Harrison, “The University of California at San Francisco Fetal Treatment Center: a personal perspective,” Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy 19, no. 6 (2004): 513–24

  2. Unless otherwise noted, descriptions of the early fetal surgery program at the University of California at San Francisco are based on interviews with Michael Harrison by the author and his team.

  3. I first reported portions of Anders’ story on the CBS Evening News, February 28, 2007. Unless otherwise noted, the story told here is based on interviews with the following people: Sally (Grogono) Wiley, Jay Wiley, and Dr. Louise Wilkins-Haug.

  4. Children’s Hospital website, http://web1.tch.harvard.edu/clinicalservices/Site457/mainpageS457P5sublevel6.html

  5. Denise Grady, “Operation on Fetus’s Heart Valve Called a ‘Science-Fiction Success,’ ” New York Times, February 25, 2002.

  6. Scott Allen, “A Medical First Helps Baby Girl Beat Odds,” Boston Globe, January 28, 2006.

  7. Michael Harrison, “Personal Perspective,” Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy.

  8. Hanmin Lee in interview with the author’s team.

  9. Michael Harrison, “A Randomized Trial of Fetal Endoscopic Tracheal Occlusion for Severe Fetal Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia,” New England Journal of Medicine 349, no. 20 (2003): 1916–1924.

  10. Lee, interview.

  11. Monica J. Casper, “Fetal Surgery Then and Now,” Conscience, September 22, 2007.

  12. Monica Casper in interview with the author’s team.

  13. Michael Harrison in correspondence with the author.

  14. “Surgery in the Womb,” Time, August 10, 1981.

  15. Mark J. Bliton, “Parental hope confronting scientific uncertainty: a test of ethics in maternal-fetal surgery for spina bifida,” Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology 48, no. 3 (2005): 595–607.

  16. Associated Press, “Kansas Governor Signs Abortion Ultrasound Bill,” March 28, 2009.

  17. Neela Banerjee, “Church Groups Turn to Sonogram to Turn Women From Abortions,” New York Times, February 2, 2005.

  18. Harrison, interview.

  19. Sabin Russell, “First Fetal Surgery Survivor Finally Meets His Doctor,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 2005.

  20. Michael Harrison, “Personal Perspective,” Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy.

  21. Casper, interview.

  22. Pedro del Nido in interview with the author’s team.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: WHAT IS A MIRACLE?

  1. Unless otherwise noted, information on Matthew Pfenninger’s case comes from interviews with Jack Pfenninger and Matthew Pfenninger, conducted by the author and/or his team.

  2. There are numerous studies to this effect. Not only do Americans pray a great deal, according to a 2004 National Institutes of Health Survey of more than 31,000 people, prayer is the most commonly used “alternative medicine.” (NIH newsletter, http://nccam.nih.gov/news/newsletter/2005_winter/prayer.htm)

  3. Herbert Benson and others, “Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer… ,” American Heart Journal 51, no. 4 (April 2006): 934–942.

  4. Adam C. Randolph, Erin M. Tharalson, and Nooman Gilani, “Spontaneous regression of heptocellular carcinoma is possible and might have implications for future therapies,” European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology 20, no. 8 (August 2008): 804–809; Nooman Gilani in interview with the author’s team.

  5. Gilani, interview.

  6. Jeanne Lenzer, “The Body Can Beat Terminal Cancer—Sometimes,” Discover, August 21, 2007

  7. Alcides Moreno’s brother Edgar died in the same incident.

  8. David Gorski in interview with the author’s team.

  9. Not uncommon for a blog, Respectful Insolence has changed its archiving process a number of times and it would not be surprising if it changed again. Rather than post a full link, anyone interested in reading the posts on medical miracles and Abraham Cherrix is encouraged to go to the main page, http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/ and run a search for the topic of their choice.

  10. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoxsey_Therapy

  11. Michael Hardy, “Kaine Signs Bills, Including ‘Abraham’s Law,’ ” Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 22, 2007

  12. www.powerball.com

  13. Unless otherwise noted, information on David Bailey’s case comes from the following: interviews with David Bailey and Dr. Henry Friedman conducted by the author and/or his team, and correspondence with David Bailey.

  14. Darrell Bigner in interview with the author; Dietmar Krex, “Long-term survival with glioblastoma multiforme,” Brain 130, no. 10 (2007): 2596–2606.

  15. Henry Friedman, interview.

  16. Krex, “Long-term survival…” Brain, 130.

  17. Henry Friedman, interview.

  18. The most dramatic evidence of extended survival comes from trials involving a vaccine that targets a substance EGFRvIII, produce
d by the tumor cells. It’s discussed in more depth, a bit later in this chapter.

  19. National Cancer Institute, http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/treatment/brain/malignantglioma

  20. Roger Stupp, “Radiotherapy plus concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide for glioblastoma,” New England Journal of Medicine 352, no. 10 (2005): 987–996.

  21. Henry Friedman, interview.

  22. John Sampson in interview with the author.

  23. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2008 ASCO Annual Meeting Proceedings (Post-Meeting Edition). Volume 26, Number 15S (May 20 Supplement). Abstract #2011.

  24. Henry Friedman, interview.

  25. Much of Bailey’s music is available to hear at www.davidmbailey.com

  CHAPTER EIGHT: ANOTHER DAY

  1. The account of Zeyad Barazanji’s treatment is based on interviews with Barazanji and Dr. Stephan Mayer, and a reading of Barazanji’s medical records.

  2. Mayer, interview.

  3. Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow (New York: Harper-Collins, 1986).

  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Davis

  5. David Abel, “Line Between Life and Death Can Be Thin,” Boston Globe, January 26, 2001.

  6. A more detailed explanation of the bureaucratic catch-22 is laid out in Chapter One of this book.

  7. Theresa Olasveengen and others, “Abstract 13: A prospective randomized controlled trial on the effects of intravenous drug administration on survival to hospital discharge after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest,” Circulation, 2008; 118:S_1447.

  8. The program, Brennpunkt, is aired by the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The story on the cardiac arrest experiment was reported on January 8, 2008.

  9. Gilbert, interview.

  10. Hans Husum and others, “Rural prehospital trauma systems improve trauma outcome in low-income countries; a prospective study from North Iraq and Cambodia,” Journal of Trauma 54, no. 6 (2003): 1188–1196.

  11. Robert Kastenbaum, Death, Society, and Human Experience, 7th edition (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2001).

  Acknowledgments

  AS A DOCTOR, reporter, husband, and father, I know it is the families of my patients that are often forgotten and overlooked. Over the last two years, we directly entered the lives of the characters in this book. We took valuable time, and asked for them to recount sometimes painful stories. We called on weekends, at night, and during holidays just to get another fact nailed down and to get the story straight. The children, parents, spouses, and other relatives were universally patient with us, and for that I thank you. I hope you think this book honors your loved one, and all those who cheat death.