More on the Belgian coma man. Steven Laureys, the University of Liège neurologist who publicised the case of Rom Houben with much fanfare last week, responds to his critics in the New Scientist - and completely fails to deal with the facilitated communication criticisms, pleading, in effect, client confidentiality. Quite clearly, from the video, Houben's finger is being guided swiftly across the keys by the facilitator, even though for much of the time Houben is not even looking at the keyboard, or has his eyes closed.
Neurologist Steven Novella (via) tears Laureys' latest effort apart. As he notes, there are two issues here: the question of Houben's level of consciousness - clearly of significant interest, and about which there is room for debate - and the claim that he's communicating through the facilitator, Linda Wouters:
I appreciate that Laureys is in a difficult position. However, that does not justify his evasiveness on this case. Laureys wants Houben to be the human face on his campaign to improve the standard of care regarding diagnosis of impaired consciousness. While I applaud his research and his efforts to improve care, the Houben case is not the case to use to make the points that Laureys wants to make. At least, it cannot be such a case while the FC [Facilitated Communication] controversy is hanging over it.
Laureys cannot have it both ways – he cannot make Houben a public case, but then claim confidentiality on all the important details – details that an appropriately curious and skeptical public want to know in order to make sense of this case. Laureys wants us to just ignore what we see in the videos – even though they assault basic common sense. Further, the FC controversy has been a bitter one for scientists, because of how cruel and abusive it is, and the fact that proponents continue to use it even after it has been scientifically shown to be without any validity. Laureys cannot ask us to just ignore that, and to take his word for it that this case is legitimate.
As far as using the case of Rom Houben as a representative case to highlight the complexity of diagnosing impaired consciousness – this has been an utter disaster. I primarily blame Linda Wouters – she is the facilitator who has inserted herself into this case and, self-deluded or not, is now victimizing Rom Houben with pseudoscience. I truly feel sorry for Dr. Laureys, who is seeing his representative case buried under the FC controversy, and I can understand his frustration and (sort of) his attempts to redirect public attention at his issues.
But Laureys can no longer ignore the FC controversy or expect the public and the scientific community to just pretend it is not there, ignore the breach of ethics it may represent, and the further victimization of Rom Houben. Science demands transparency. This case demands transparency – it is too much in the public to do otherwise.
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