Home / News & Updates / Dr. Stefanie Green disproves content in anti-MAID video
A misleading video – The Horrifying Truth about MAID They Aren’t Telling You, with Kelsi Sheren and Jordan B. Peterson – has been circulating and getting some significant attention. It is rife with untruths, disinformation, and the purposeful conflating of unrelated matters to create negative associations about medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada, along with some otherwise nonsensical content. We know that this video has caused unnecessary concern and harm to those who have supported someone through MAID, and those who champion Canada’s MAID legislation.
Dr. Stefanie Green, a MAID assessor and provider and author of, “This Is Assisted Dying,” viewed the video and offers a great deal of clarification and debunking of the misleading information presented in the video.
DEFINITIONS
Misinformation refers to false or inaccurate information.
Disinformation refers to false information that is intended to manipulate, cause damage and guide people, organizations and countries in the wrong direction.
Conflation is the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, or ideas, often in error but sometimes purposefully to affect overall thought/feeling (ex: beer ads conflate fun on a sunny beach with drinking beer).
Examples of false information, nonsensical content and conflation of unrelated ideas within this video are listed below, indicating at what time they are mentioned in the video:
1:36 False content: Sheren refers to “sodium theropental” (likely meaning sodium thiopental), adding “an anesthesiologist in the U.S. is concerned with its use in MAID.”
FACT: Sodium thiopental is not used in MAID in Canada.
2:04 An example of conflating unrelated matters for negative effect: Sheren states, “You know, the Nazi euthanasia program started with compassion and care.”
FACT: The Nazis used the term “euthanasia” during World War II to euphemistically, and inaccurately, describe their killing campaign. Detractors of assisted dying will sometimes default to this terminology in order to evoke that repugnant history and conflate the two unrelated issues of the obscene Nazi practice and assisted dying programs of today. Modern use of the term euthanasia, the preferred term for assisted dying in Europe, refers to the voluntary, legalized, clinician-administered assisted death of a person under specifically safeguarded circumstances (including capable and informed consent).
2:37 False content and conflation: Sheren states, “The sodium thiopental ‘is going missing.’ We can’t get it anymore all of a sudden over the past few years. Canada and the U.S. had been using it for execution.”
FACT: Canada has not had an execution since 1962. The last execution in Canada was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin on December 11, 1962, at Toronto’s Don Jail. And again, this is not a drug used in MAID in Canada, so why are we talking about it? This, again, is purposeful conflation of unrelated topics – this time about MAID and capital punishment which may be the entire purpose of this “journalism.”
3:10Conflation: Sheren states that, “A freedom of information request got results of 300 autopsies of people executed in America.”
FACT: Capital punishment in the U.S. has nothing to do with MAID in Canada; different drugs, used in different patient populations, in different countries, for different purpose, with different levels of consent.
3:35 Misinformation: Sheren states, “Showed 2x increase in water in the lungs” and “when this drug is pushed, it causes a drowning.” Not that it’s in any way relevant, but what would make her conclude this? Even if autopsies do show fluid in the lungs after capital punishment in the U.S., what makes Sheren – a non-scientist with no medical background – conclude it’s due to the use of this particular drug, which is NOT used in MAID in Canada? Aren’t other drugs simultaneously used in executions in the U.S.?
FACT: Here’s what a Canadian anesthesiologist said about her words:
“In these executions, they are using massive amounts of either midazolam (pH about 3), usual dosing for execution 500 mg, (SG adds: midazolam is a drug we do use in MAID in Canada at doses of 10-20 mg to optionally relax a patient at the start of the procedure. The indication is anti-anxiety, and its use is optional but commonplace; about 95% of patients receiving this medication fall into a comfortable sleep with use) or pentobarbitone (pH about 11). In the U.S. context, the dosing is 2500 to 5000 mg. Fatal blood concentrations are around 30 mg/L. If these people have circulating volumes of 5L, we are talking about a blood concentration of 500-1000 mg/L . The pulmonary edema (seen at autopsy) is a direct chemical effect of the huge acid or base load injected into these poor criminals.”
Again, sodium thiopental, the drug Sheren is talking about, is not used in MAID in Canada. And, when using midazolam, Canadian protocols use 25-50x less than U.S. protocols for capital punishment. Important to also note that midazolam is a medication used around the world, in palliative care patients, on a daily basis.
3:48 False content: Sheren states, “Meaning the reason people in Canada given MAID seem peaceful is that they’re given a paralytic first.”
FACT: This is completely false. Sheren has no idea what she is talking about. There is not a single protocol or any instance when a paralytic is ever used first in MAID.
3:50 False content: Sheren states, “So they’re completed paralyzed, then this drug (sodium thiopental) is administered as one of the four, and they start drowning.”
FACT: This is also completely false on every level. No paralytic is used first, and sodium thiopental is not used at all.
4:28 False content: Sheren suggests an assisted death is “drowning people chemically to death.”
FACT: There is no basis for this whatsoever.
4:58 Uninformed statement: “Fraser Health will not give the autopsy report to the family.”
FACT: Privacy exists for our medical records for reasons including legal, ethical, and confidentiality issues.
5:21 False content: Sheren states, “If you take MAID orally, it takes between 30 min and 24 hours.”
FACT: Untrue in Canada. We use different medication for oral MAID in Canada vs the U.S. Oral MAID is uncommon – over 99.9% of all MAID in Canada is clinician-administered. Time to death with oral MAID can vary and has been reported to be between 30 min and 2 hours.
5:22 False content: Sheren states, “24 hours drowning while you’re under a paralytic.”
FACT: This is not possible, Sheren is (supposedly) talking about oral self-administered MAID…no paralytic is used in oral MAID, in any country.
7:38 False and nonsensical content: Sheren states, “Gross reduction in health care of 109.2 million dollars. When they did MAID, they saved/cut out another 22 million. So, by the end of the year they saved 82 million dollars alone, that’s just 1 year providing MAID instead of palliative care.”
FACT: There is no such thing as ‘MAID instead of palliative care;’ data consistently shows over 80% of MAID recipients are already receiving palliative care and 96% of patients receiving MAID have access to it (whether they accept it or not) 1
Her numbers don’t add up; is she suggesting health care spending went down in 2021 by 109 million dollars? Fabulous. Is she saying government saves 22 million dollars (more, or within that number?) due to providing MAID? It’s unclear where these numbers come from.
Let’s assume the number is accurate and the federal government saved 22 million dollars by providing MAID (or even 82 million dollars, or even 109 million…!) In 2021, the federal government was estimated to be spending: “Total health spending in Canada is expected to reach a new level at $308 billion in 2021”
That’s 109/308,000= 0.0003539, or 0.035% of spending; a very, very, very, small drop in the health spending bucket.2
One cannot reasonably argue anyone provides MAID for the financial “savings” with such low (and unreferenced) amounts of savings.
8:00 False content: Sheren tries to share some data citing the number of MAID deaths in 2021 was 10,500 and in 2022 it was ~13,000. She goes on to fabricate “and there’s been a 30% increase since then.”
FACT: We only have data until the end of 2022. She’s completely making up this statistic. It’s unpublished/unavailable.
8:07 Conflation: Sheren states there are, “High rates of MAID happening in B.C.”, and then lists off various social and economic issues in British Columbia with no reasoning to suggest they are related, let alone causal (e.g., expensive housing in B.C.)
FACT: I can list many other more likely/relevant/at least as relevant reasons why I believe MAID rates are high in BC:
It is the home of Sue Rodriguez and her court challenge.
It is home to the Carter case and court challenge that changed the law (i.e., B.C. has been discussing this issue for over 30 years now; people are well informed and aware of the issue).
The demographics in general; people in B.C. are older and more MAID happens in older people.
We have a significant retirement population with income and attitude (coming from western Canada to B.C. on purpose and with purpose).
We have prepared and supportive Health Authorities that did not wait for the implementation of new legislation before preparing for its arrival, meaning B.C. was ready for clinicians to act vs. many other regions which waited for legislation to come into effect and only then took the time to prepare an infrastructure.
B.C. was home to the few prepared, educated, and supportive clinicians.
B.C. is known for its progressive politics overall.
8:45 False content: Sheren states, “We are killing innocent people and children are on the chopping block.”
FACT: This is nonsense. A person must be an adult (over 18 years of age) to receive MAID in this country; it always has been, is true today, no change to that is currently being discussed at any level.
And more false content: Sheren states, “If we didn’t stop that Bill by the 17th, children down to the age of 12 years old with parent consent. A 17-year-old could walk into a hospital and say I want to die by MAID and guess what, if you try to stop it as a parent, you will be arrested.”
FACT: There is not one true word in those two sentences. No one under 18 can access MAID in Canada under any circumstances and Bill C-62 was not addressing MAID for mature minors; Sheren is just ranting pure falsehoods.
10:00 Nonsense: Sheren states, “Not one person has said this” regarding waterboarding/drowning.
FACT: That’s because attempting to conflate the action of waterboarding or drowning with assisted dying is purposeful deceit, it isn’t based in fact or relevant in any way to a discussion about to MAID in Canada.
She goes on to say, “And I found out about it yesterday.” Too bad Sheren didn’t take the time to fact-check her information before making false claims.
10:15 Inaccurate: Sheren states, “One of the Delta hospice centres is being shut down.”
FACT: Taxpayer funded facilities must provide a full range of health care. They cannot refuse to offer care (such as contraception, blood transfusions, or MAID) based on the personal belief system of their board members. Minister Dix gave Delta Hospice an ultimatum and a deadline. They refused to allow MAID on the premises, so the province took over the facility (which it funds) to ensure safe, legal, medical care was being provided to all.
False content: “It’s easier to put bricks around my feet and go jump in the ocean than to die by MAID.”
FACT: While it is always true that exceptions occur, assisted dying in Canada is consistently experienced as an often sad but peaceful, comfortable, empowering event for patients, family/loved ones and practitioners. Clinician-administered MAID – over 99.9% of all MAID in Canada – takes an average of 5-10 minutes from the start of medication administration to the death of the person.
Increasingly, we come up against mis-and disinformation in the media, and through other online sources, which requires a heightened ability to critically question what we read and hear. On Dying With Dignity Canada’s website, we provide all the facts on Canada’s MAID regime (criteria, safeguards) as well as facts to counter the various myths we hear about MAID. If you ever have a question or concern about something you heard or read about MAID in Canada, you can email us at info@dyingwithdignity.ca
Additional reading: Dr. Tim Holland explains Canada’s MAID drug protocol here.
