ArticleNeurocritical care2018
Truly Reconciling the Case of Jahi McMath.
Article in Neurocritical care, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 63 citations in OpenAlex.
- When does life end? Consensus and controversy in defining death.Monash bioethics review · 2026Article
- How Did Denise Darvall Die? A Contribution to the History of the First Heart Transplant.The Linacre quarterly · 2025Article
- Jahi McMath case: A comprehensive and updated narrative.World journal of critical care medicine · 2025Review
- Death as the extinction of the source of value: the constructivist theory of death as an irreversible loss of moral status.Theoretical medicine and bioethics · 2024Article
- Beyond the surface: unveiling the complexity of brain death and misdiagnoses in clinical practice.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2024Article
- Death as the Cessation of an Organism and the Moral Status Alternative.The Journal of medicine and philosophy · 2023Article
- Spinal reflexes and brain death.Clinical neurophysiology practice · 2022Article
- The intractable problems with brain death and possible solutions.Philosophy, ethics, and humanities in medicine : PEHM · 2021Review
- Pediatric brain death certification: a narrative review.Translational pediatrics · 2021Review
- A Framework for Revisiting Brain Death: Evaluating Awareness and Attitudes Toward the Neuroscientific and Ethical Debate Around the American Academy of Neurology Brain Death Criteria.Journal of intensive care medicine · 2021Article
- Brain death in early pregnancy: A legal and ethical challenge coming to your intensive care unit?Journal of the Intensive Care Society · 2021Article
- Double Effect Donation.The Linacre quarterly · 2021Article
- [Irreversible brain death-Part 2. Spinalization phenomena].Der Nervenarzt · 2021Review
- Integration of Routine Parental Request of Organ Donation in End-of-Life Care of Children with Neurologic Disorders in the UK: Unresolved Medical, Legal, Cultural, and Religious Challenges.Neurocritical care · 2020Article
- Refinements in the Organism as a Whole Rationale for Brain Death.The Linacre quarterly · 2019Article
- Humility before New Scientific Evidence: We No Longer Have Moral Certainty that "Brain Death" Is True Death.The Linacre quarterly · 2019Article
- [Diagnosis of irreversible loss of brain function ("brain death")-what is new?]Der Nervenarzt · 2019Review
- Neuroimaging of Intracranial Perfusion and the Clinical Diagnosis of Brain Death: Setting the Gold Standard in Humans.Clinical neuroradiology · 2019Article
- Reply to Letter to the Editor "Neuroimaging of Intracranial Perfusion and the Clinical Diagnosis of Brain Death: Setting the Gold Standard in Humans".Clinical neuroradiology · 2019Article
- Response to Lewis A: Reconciling the Case of Jahi Mcmath.Neurocritical care · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Comment on
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article clarifies some issues raised by Dr. Ariane Lewis in her recent "Current Opinion/Arguments" article on the case of Jahi McMath. Review of case materials. Jahi's case most likely represents an instance of global ischemic penumbra (GIP) mimicking brain death (BD), with intracranial blood flow too low to support neuronal function or to be detected by radionuclide scan but sufficient to prevent widespread necrosis. Her MRI scan 9 months after the ischemic insult showed gross preservation of cortical and internal structures, incompatible with there ever having been a period of completely absent blood flow. Regarding Jahi's alleged intermittent responsiveness, the set of videos, unsystematic as they are, constitutes convincing evidence that her movements in seeming response to command are not of spinal cord origin and are indeed voluntary responses, placing her in the category of minimally conscious state (MCS). In the absence of serial examinations by experts in MCS, the benefit of the doubt should be given. Unfortunately, her death on June 22, 2018, 4½ years after the diagnosis of BD, precludes such examinations. During those 4½ years, Jahi underwent menarche, with three documented menstrual periods, and ongoing pubertal development. Her case is an important example of false-positive diagnosis of BD, demonstrating the inability of current diagnostic standards to distinguish true BD from potentially reversible brain nonfunction due to GIP. The incidence of such mimicry is impossible to determine, because in most cases a BD diagnosis becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.