Terminally Ill

IT was a simple visit to a sick friend. In the morning, Kate Munger weeded Larry's garden and did chores around his house. In the afternoon, she sang sweet, soothing songs at his bedside. For a music teacher and lifelong member of one chorus or another, singing was as natural as herbal tea. But over those hours in 1990, she felt she was delving into deep reaches of herself and pulling out glittering, unexpected gifts for her comatose friend, a San Francisco quilter who was dying of AIDS.

FOR the last couple of years, Vailia Dennis, 87, has wondered if there existed, on the face of the earth, even one other human being who thought as she did about death. Then she read about Art Buchwald, the newspaper columnist who died at the age of 81 on Jan. 18, nearly a year after he opted out of further medical treatment, preferring to put himself in the hands of fate. At last, Dennis thought. A soul mate.

Calling himself a "Johnny-come-lately" to the issue, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez announced Thursday that he will back a bill to allow terminally ill people to hasten their deaths with lethal prescriptions. Similar bills have failed in the last two years, but supporters say Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat, could make the difference. "We are more hopeful now than ever that we can get this bill signed into law," said the bill's author, Assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka).

Backers of a proposal to allow terminally ill Californians to hasten their deaths with lethal drugs pointed Thursday to legalized assisted suicide in Oregon, where a new report shows it is used sparingly. Forty-six Oregon residents, most of them cancer patients, used the law to end their lives in 2006, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services' ninth annual report on the so-called Death with Dignity Act that voters there passed in 1994. That law is unique in the country.

Far fewer Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos than whites use hospice care for terminal illnesses, according to a study released Thursday on how end-of-life care in California differs by race and ethnicity. And a disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans die suddenly and unexpectedly of accidents or assaults, often in hospital emergency rooms that lack family support programs or bereavement counseling.

What is the value of a few months of life? That question is at the center of one of the most controversial debates in medicine today involving a new generation of hyper-expensive cancer drugs. On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved GlaxoSmithKline's Tykerb, a once-a-day pill for late-stage breast cancer patients that costs nearly $35,000 a year.

Elizabeth Edwards, facing invasive cancer, has said that she doesn't intend to let the disease "be the boss of me." That brand of courage is on display in "So Much So Fast," a documentary about a remarkable young man who's diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) but who won't be deterred from living a full life. The film, from Academy Award-nominated directors Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan, airs as part of PBS' "Frontline" series at 9 tonight on KCET.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez announced in February that he was "ready to buck my church" and push legislation allowing terminally ill people to speed up their deaths with lethal drugs. But he wasn't ready for this -- not from holy leaders. The church is bucking back and looking like an ugly old political attack dog. We're seeing a collision of church and state, both of which serve society best -- with all our religious diversity -- when they operate separately. As the nation's founders planned.

Despite the efforts of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, legislation to allow terminally ill people to hasten their deaths was shelved Thursday for lack of support. Certain they didn't have the votes to pass it, the bill's authors in effect killed it, at least until January, by not bringing it up for a vote on the Assembly floor. Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat, co-wrote the bill, to the consternation of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other Catholic leaders.

People who are dying do not have the right to obtain unapproved drugs that are potentially lifesaving, even if their doctors say the treatment offers their best hope for survival, a U.S. appeals court here ruled Tuesday. In an 8-2 decision, the court said federal drug regulators were entrusted by law with deciding when new drugs were safe for wide use. The families of terminally ill patients, several of whom died after they were denied promising drugs that were still in tests, filed suit.