Could a misdiagnosis lead to euthanasia?

Caryn Lipson

September 12, 2024

The mortal danger of misdiagnosis

Assisted suicide and, to a more limited extent, euthanasia have been decriminalized in several countries and many US states for people who are expected to die within a short time.

However, doctors often make diagnoses based upon the presenting constellation of symptoms without considering why those symptoms are occurring. The underlying cause, of course, needs to be accurately identifed so that the doctor can treat the patient properly and correctly inform the patient the nature of their illness.

Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Mark Liponis addressed this issue in their book "Ultraprevention" (chapter 2), explaining that a symptom, such as high cholesterol, can have different causes.

What must be identified are the interrelationships between a given condition and a variety of other factors and conditions. . . . Our bodies operate like an old Rube Goldberg contraption in which moving one little lever in one location causes another to move, then another, and soon every other piece of the machinery is in motion.

For instance, the disease known as hypercholesterolemia (a high level of cholesterol) is often considered a likely cause of heart problems. But we believe that heart disease is a multifactorial problem, arising from such issues as inflammation, insulin resistance, oxidative stress, high levels of homocysteine (from a functional deficiency of B vitamins), occult infection (such as bad teeth or gum disease), depression, and/or stress. So when you’re labeled as having hypercholesterolemia, you’re liable to believe that you know your problem, and it’s a simple one. Not true.

In order for a doctor to diagnose properly he must focus on the patient rather than the disease, Hyman and Liponis explain. That is the way they practice medicine, but it is not common practice.

The difference between a diagnosis and its actual symptoms is similar to the variance between the current practice of medicine, which is disease-centered, and our model of medicine, which is patient-centered. We feel that, rather than just try to make a diagnosis, or assign a name on which to blame someone’s symptoms, doctors should try to identify and understand the factors that led to the development of symptoms or illness in each individual.

What happens, however, when the doctor is disease-centered, relies on blood test results, and whips out the prescription pad prescribing, for example, a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? How frequently do doctors misdiagnose an illness as incurable when it is in fact curable. Could such a misdiagnosis cause a person to choose assisted suicide when they would reject that option if they knew there was a path to better health?

Statins' adverse effects appearing to be new illnesses?

Statins are a class of drugs called HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. HMG-CoA reduction inhibitors inhibit the Mevalonate Pathway which initiates many life-sustaining processes and products including cholesterol. If you believe that a new symptom you have may be related to the statin drug you are taking, you msy be quite right. When the HMG-CoA is inhibited by statins, as shown in the first image by Q10 Facts below, we can see that the synthesis of ubiquinone (CoQ10), dolichols, and cholesterol are all reduced; that includes anything they synthesize, as well. The inhibition of each of them has serious adverse effects on health.

The second, more complex, image by doki below, shows that statins affect synthesis of vitamins such as D3 and K2, bile acids (affecting digestion), insulin (possibly causing Type 2 diabetes), sex and other hormones (steroidgenesis [sic]) (possibly affecting gender identity, fertility, and reproduction), bone formation (which could lead to osteoporosis), and more.

Statins and neurodegenerative diseases

It's also important to know that HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors not only slow down or stop important processes but can also induce harmful ones. Statins induce abnormal tau protein phosphorylation which can lead to motor neuron degeneration, as Dr. Duane Graveline explained on his website Space Doc. Dr. Graveline died of statin-induced ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).

It seems that a consequence of the inhibitory effect of statin drugs on the mevalonate pathway is the induction of abnormal tau protein phosphorylation. Tau protein phosphorylation goes on to form neurofibrillatory tangles, long known to be the prime suspect in causing the slowly progressive neuronal degeneration of Alzheimer's disease.

Sometimes this process is accompanied by beta amyloid deposition but more commonly not. Research scientists are now finding that this mechanism appears to be true for ALS and many other forms of neurodegenerative diseases as well. They have even coined a new word for this, the taupathies.

Statin associated taupathies or tauopathies may well be additional gross evidence of collateral damage to existing cellular chemistry that researchers were unable to predict when they originally created statins. All this from a class of drugs originally designed simply to inhibit the biosynthesis of cholesterol, which is a vital substance now proven to be largely irrelevant to the atherosclerotic process.

Since we were warned by the World Health Organization back in October 2007, researchers have confirmed the special tendency of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS in statin users.

It became known in 2008, he explained, that people with ALS had significantly improved survival if they had high LDL cholesterol levels.

Reuters reported on 28 April 2008 that elevated lipid levels (also called hyperlipidemia and high cholesterol) appear to significantly improve survival in patients with ALS. Investigators have found that when patients with ALS have a hyperlipidemic profile, their survival is much better. Further confusing traditional medical philosophy, when their LDL cholesterol level is high and HDL low, their survival is the best — just the opposite of prevailing medical opinion. (Emphases added,)

Other drugs can have neurodegenerative effects, too

Other drugs can also be responsible for neurodegenerative effects. Director of Pharmacy Services at Buffalo Psychiatric Center Tammie Lee Demler, BS, PharmD, MBA, BCPP, writes in the journal US Pharmacist, that new neurological symptoms are often diagnosed as a new illness.

The emergence of new neurologic side effects of drugs heightens the challenges prescribers face when considering drug therapy. These side effects can result in potential misdiagnoses, including false psychiatric diagnoses, in the case of some drugs. Unexpected and unpredictable drug interactions can result in a confusing range of symptoms that may be identified as a new medical condition. (Emphasis added.)

. . . Changes in the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord) or peripheral nerves can cause a wide variety of symptoms, including loss of coordination and muscle strength, numbness, loss of consciousness, seizures, and paralysis (TABLE 1) [below].

Not just drugs

Scientific World Info lists other causes of neurodegenerative diseases in adults such as,

. . . gluten sensitivity, brain injury, spinal cord injury, nerve injury, unhealthy lifestyle choices, or environmental health problems and infectious diseases caused by germs, viruses (ie, HIV, intestinal viruses, West Nile virus, zika virus), fungi and parasites.

ALS - diagnosis or misdiagnosis?

What would happen if you went to your doctor with symptoms of a neurodegenerative disease? Would s/he do all the testing needed to determine the cause? Or would your doctor look at your constellation of symptoms and tell you that you have a fatal degenerative motor neuron disease and months to live? That's what happened to one man whose story was recounted in an essay by Dr. Jack King in his book "Why they want to kill us," published by permission on Expose News.

The essay highlights the concern of misdiagnoses in light of euthanasia. When a person is diagnosed with a terminal illness and elects euthanasia before they become unable to care for themselves, how do we know s/he wasn't misdiagnosed?

Patients often agree to euthanasia when their doctor has told them they have a terminal illness and will soon die. But what if the doctor(s) made a mistake? What if their illness was highly curable? Perhaps misdiagnosis is not an exception to the rule?

. . .

A 65-year-old man was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and told that he was terminally ill with just six months to live. He was told to choose a hospice. He later found that his symptoms were caused by the statins he was taking. When he’d been told he was terminally ill, he stopped the statins and his symptoms disappeared.

. . .

These case histories are by no means unusual. In countries where assisted killing is in place there will, without doubt, be instances where misdiagnosed patients will choose euthanasia and will die quite unnecessarily. One of the main objections to capital punishment (a process which often takes many years and repeated examinations of the evidence) is the fear that a mistake will be made and an innocent person will be killed. The same objection can and should be raised about medically assisted dying. (Emphasis added.)

Did an ALS misdiagnosis lead to euthanasia?

The following CBC News: The National video shares the story of a Canadian man, Brian Wadsworth, who was diagnosed with ALS and chose to die by MAiD (medical assistance in dying) before he became too infirm.

CBC News anchor:

Wadsworth lived life to the limit. He didn't let much slow him down until he got sick on a sailing trip in Florida last winter.

From Wadsworth's blog, read by friend Rob Molyneux:

Last winter I began a new section on my blog. Things have changed very drastically for me in the last six months.

CBC News anchor:

Wadsworth was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. The outgoing adventurer's health deteriorated quickly, weakening muscles. Facing paralysis, Wadsworth wanted medical assistance in dying.

Could his diagnosis have been wrong? Did his disease progress quicker than usual for ALS patients? Do people suddenly "get sick with ALS" or do they "first notice symptoms?"

According to ALS News Today, the initial stage of the disease ordinarily lasts about a year (there are four stages), and because it takes time to get diagnosed they may have already passed that stage when they receive it. It is unclear at what point he received his diagnosis but he seems to have been deteriorating more rapidly than most during the first year.

The majority of patients retain a fair amount of functionality and independence during the early stage of ALS, which typically lasts about a year. But because it often takes many months for patients to get a formal ALS diagnosis, many have already progressed past the early stage by the time the disease is confirmed.

Since he "got sick" on a sailing trip, could it be possible that he got an infectious disease caused by an intestinal virus, fungi, or parasite from the water, which can also cause neurodegenerative diseases, as listed above? Did he suffer from the adverse effects of a medicine he was taking? Could he have been cured instead of killed?

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In short, should the quickly accelerating move to approve, and even push, assisted suicide be reconsidered? Should the healthcare industry focus more on underlying causes than on symptoms of illnesses?