Interesting question before a Wisconsin appeals court. In it’s decision the appeals court upheld an earlier lower court decision that allowed a man’s wife and daughter to inherit his estate even though they assisted him to commit suicide.

In what some legal analysts say is a precedent setting case in the nation, the court held that while state law prohibits anyone who “intentionally kills” another person from inheriting and benefiting from the death, Wisconsin’s District 4 Court of Appeals said that provision isn’t applicable to cases of assisted suicide.

Edward Schunk suffered from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and had been hospitalized. His doctor allowed him a one-day pass to go home and see his dogs one last time. His wife and daughter took him home.

Later that day he was found dead from a gunshot wound - self inflicted. His entire estate, about half a million dollars, was left entirely to his wife and daughter with nothing being left to his other five children. They contested the will saying that his wife and daughter assisted in his death by providing the shotgun and therefore should not be entitled, under Wisconsin law, to inherit because it’s a felony to assist another to commit suicide. The law provides that anyone who “intentionally kills” another cannot inherit from that person.

The Court held that that provision of law is not applicable to assisted suicide. The key phrase for purposes of this appeal is “unlawful and intentional killing of the decedent”, the court held. “The objectors contend that this plainly includes assisting the decedent to commit suicide. We disagree and conclude the phrase plainly does not include this conduct……”unlawful” and “intentional” modify “killing” by limiting its meaning. If, as we have concluded, assisting another to commit suicide is not “killing” another, it does not become so because the conduct is unlawful and intentional.

The three judge panel was unanimous in the decision and concluded that Edward deprived himself of life by shooting himself with the shotgun.

Pro-lifers are upset because they think that this does not hold those who assist in suicide to be accountable and gives them financial motive to assist the suicide.

Some interesting Leukemia stories while reading some other leukemia stories on blogs

• NFL Coaching Legend, SF 49ers Bill Walsh Dies at 75 from Leukemia … - Diagnosed with leukemia in 2004, Walsh had been in failing health for several months, according to Stanford …. ScaredMonkeys.Com is powered by WordPress. …
• Brazil’s great stem-cell experiment - [Editor’s note: David Hamilton, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, has covered the biotech sector for years and we’re delighted to have him as a contributor on news and trends in biotech, health and science (we’ve already run a few …

Biopure Corporation in Cambridge Massachusetts announced that it has had discussions with the Food and Drug Administration about starting a new human trial for it’s Hemopure product, a product already approved to treat anemia in dogs. The product is already approved for human testing in Europe and South Africa and has been for sale commercially in South Africa since 2001.

Hemopure is an oxygen therapeutic which was developed from chemically stabilized bovine hemoglobin and designed to be used as a blood substitute either because of short blood supply or for patients who for some reason refuse transfusions with human blood components.

Hemopure has been tested on humans in the United States but there were some safety concerns so further human testing was not allowed. The FDA and Biopure reached an agreement to do further animal testing to study those concerns and determine if another human trial could be started. Biopure wants to do a study of the product with patients who have Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML).

“Currently, AML patients who do not accept blood transfusions are unable to undergo potentially life-saving induction chemotherapy because of the profound anemia the chemotherapy causes,” the company said in a press release.

Zafiris G. Zafirelis, Biopure chief executive and president, added in a statement, “By serving as an oxygen delivery bridge following chemotherapy-induced suppression of red blood cell count, use of Hemopure, as part of a bloodless treatment regimen, may potentially reduce mortality in these patients, who currently have no hope.”

The U.S. Naval Medical Research Center has received congressional funding - four million dollars, FY 2006, 22.5 million dollars so far - to continue research and development of Hemopure. Under its research agreement with Biopure, the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) has primary responsibility for designing, seeking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acceptance of and conducting a proposed Phase 2/3 clinical trial of Hemopure in trauma patients with severe hemorrhagic shock in the out-of-hospital setting. Hemopure attributes would seem to make it an ideal medical component fot the military branches.

It is stable for 36 months (three years) at room temperature.

It does not require refrigeration, warming or reconstitution.

It is compatible with all blood types.

It does not require blood typing, testing or cross-matching.

It is ultra-purified through a patented pharmaceutical manufacturing process that has been demonstrated to remove or inactivate potential contaminants, including infectious agents.