Frist Plagued Again by Comments on Schiavo
WASHINGTON — In the wake of the Terri Schiavo autopsy results, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has come under renewed fire for past statements that questioned her doctors' dire assessment of her medical condition, based on his own review of a videotape.
Frist, a surgeon and potential presidential candidate in 2008, on Thursday denied that he had contradicted doctors who had said the brain-damaged Florida woman was in a persistent vegetative state before her feeding tube was removed March 18. She died March 31.
"I never made the diagnosis," Frist said to reporters Thursday. "I wouldn't even attempt to make a diagnosis based on a videotape."
But Democratic political operatives circulated transcripts of Frist's statements in March that clearly questioned the doctors' diagnosis after he had watched the video footage of Schiavo.
"That footage, to me, depicted something very different than persistent vegetative state," Frist said March 17 on the Senate floor.
Frist made the comments in March as he and other GOP leaders pushed Congress to approve a bill that aimed, in vain, to prolong Schiavo's life by allowing federal courts to review her parents' request that her feeding tube be reattached. President Bush signed the bill into law March 21.
Frist's statements during debate on that bill drew criticism from medical professionals at the time, and he and his staff previously have insisted his remarks did not represent a diagnosis.
But his comments came under fresh scrutiny after the autopsy results released Wednesday showed she had massive and irreversible brain damage that the medical examiner said was consistent with a persistent vegetative state.
The additional finding that she was blind and oblivious to what was happening around her was at odds with Frist's comment in his March 17 remarks in the Senate that "she certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."
But queried about that comment in an interview Thursday on NBC's "Today" show, Frist insisted, "I never said she responded."
The Schiavo matter could prove troublesome to Frist in a presidential campaign if opponents use it to raise questions about his credibility.
"It is never good when you say you didn't do something when you are on camera doing it," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican political strategist.
Frist's adversaries, Fabrizio predicted, "will use it time and time again."
