Spiro Nikolouzos case

Spiro Nikolouzos (1936 – May 30, 2005) was a Texas man incapacitated from bleeding related to a cerebral shunt, whose care was the subject of an appeal of The Texas Futile Care Law.

Nikolouzos was hospitalized on February 10, 2005, at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, and was in a persistent vegetative state. He was fed through a gastric feeding tube and respirated by a ventilator. The hospital wished to discontinue life support, allowing Nikolouzos to die. His family opposed this action and claimed the hospital's decision was related to the fact that Nikolouzos's Medicare funding was running out, a contention denied by the hospital.

Under the 1999 Advance Directives Act (also known as The Texas Futile Care Law), the hospital may override the family's wishes in such a matter should an ethics committee clear such an action. However, Nikolouzos's family won an emergency injunction preventing the removal of the life support apparatus, and on March 21, 2005, Spiro Nikolouzos was removed to Avalon Place Nursing Home in San Antonio, Texas. Avalon Place had rejected his application nine days earlier.

Nikolouzos subsequently died at Avalon on May 30, 2005.

The precedent set by the case of Sun Hudson may have helped to expedite the removal of Nikolouzos from artificial respiration prior to the move.

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Medical ethics cases

Assisted suicide	Betty and George Coumbias Dax Cowart Giovanni Nuvoli Sue Rodriguez Ramón Sampedro Piergiorgio Welby Jack Kevorkian

Euthanasia	Andrew Bedner Tony Bland Carol Carr Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health Baby Doe Law Eluana Englaro June Hartley Robert Latimer Karen Ann Quinlan Terri Schiavo case Gloria Taylor

Physician's opinion against patient wishes	Betancourt v. Trinitas Mordechai Dov Brody Lantz v. Coleman Tirhas Habtegiris Rom Houben Sun Hudson case Baby K Jesse Koochin Joseph Maraachli case Jahi McMath case Spiro Nikolouzos case Aruna Shanbaug case David Vetter Gillick competence

Research	Albert Stevens Albert Kligman's dermatology experiments Deep sleep therapy Doctors' trial Guatemala syphilis experiment Henrietta Lacks Human radiation experiments J. Marion Sims Jesse Gelsinger Joseph Gilbert Hamilton Moore v. Regents of the University of California Surgery to try to improve mental health Medical Experimentation on Black Americans Milgram experiment Radioactive iodine experiments Skid Row Cancer Study Stanford prison experiment Plutonium injections Tuskegee syphilis experiment Willowbrook State School Greenberg v. Miami Children's Hospital Research Institute

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Spiro Nikolouzos case

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