Experts: Sharon has irreversible damage; best-case scenario: "vegetable"

Israel Insider has an update on Sharon's condition. Remember to take this with a grain of salt.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's vital signs, including cranial pressure, continued to decline Friday, following a third round of emergency brain surgery.
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Sharon remained in serious condition and was to be kept in a medically-induced coma and on a respirator, probably until Sunday, to allow him time to heal, said Dr. Shmuel Shapira, deputy director of Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital where Sharon is being treated. Shapira told Army Radio it would take time to determine how much damage was caused by the widespread stroke that Sharon suffered Wednesday night. "This is a stage the requires much patience. We don't expect a tremendous turnaround. We're hoping for the best," he said.
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Israel Insider reported -- citing media, hospital and defense sources -- that Sharon's cerebral brain activity ceased as of Thursday, January 5, at 11 am. Other mainstream Israeli media sources were slower to bring news of the massive, irreversible brain damage caused by the massive hemorrhage. Haaretz reported in its morning editions: "Unofficially, however, Sharon's doctors echoed the assessment given to Haaretz earlier by other senior doctors who had not personally examined the premier, but were relying on media reports of his condition. These doctors told Haaretz that the prime minister appeared to have suffered extensive and irreversible brain damage. " Yediot Aharonot, citing anonymous senior medical sources, also reported that Sharon had suffered massive, irreversible brain damage. The Jerusalem Post quoted "sources at Hadassah Hospital" as saying "late Thursday night that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered extensive damage to the right lobe of his brain during the hemorrhage."
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Dr. J. Martin Rabey, Chairman of the Assaf Rofeh Neurology Department, confirmed decisively that Sharon will never think as "homo sapiens" nor be able to speak, hear or be conscious. When asked whether the most optimistic scenario is that Sharon would be kept alive by breathing apparatus and be a non-conscious "vegetable," he answered in the affirmative.

Read the whole article here.