� In 1990, Theresa Schiavo, an American citizen, had a cardiac check that caused irreversible brainiac damage which led to a haunting vegetative province diagnosis. A few years later, this diagnosis became a reservoir of dispute over the interruption of artificial alimentation. The "Schiavo Case" was widely discussed from a medical, ethical and social standpoint in the United States and elsewhere. In an article to be published in the September 23 issue of Neurology, the illustrious journal of the American Academy of Neurology, and available online today, a team of bioethicists composed of Dr. �ric Racine of the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montr�al (IRCM) and experts from Stanford University, in California, and the University of British Columbia examines the media coverage featuring this famous grammatical case.
The study reviewed American daily newspapers that were most prolific about this story: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times. A total of 1 141 articles and over 400 letters to the editor were analyzed. Never before had the media coverage of such a clinical case been studied so extensively. The accuracy and the nature of the statements on Terri Schiavo's neurological condition, her behaviours, her behavioural repertoire, her prognosis and the withdrawal of treatment were examined. "In the course of our research, we were surprised by the amount of medical inaccuracies that these newspapers had published, aforementioned Dr. Racine. Some journalists even wrote about Mrs. Schiavo's reactions to specific words or expressions supposedly showing that she was conscious." More than scientific and medical information, the legal, political and ethical dimensions made the headlines.
Only 1% of the articles examined gave a definition of the "pertinacious vegetative state," an essential concept to understand the issues at stake. The persistent vegetative state is an established neurological status characterized by severe lesions to the cerebral cerebral cortex, which eliminate higher functions: inability to communicate, absence of memory, absence of pain, etc. However, the brain stem responsible for vital functions is non damaged, which accounts for the patients' reflexes and their power to emit and unsay independently. Despite the fact that Terri Schiavo's aesculapian condition did not allow for any reasonable hope of recovery, a fifth of all articles (21%) contained statements according to which her condition would amend. "Our observations show that the
