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Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: A Scientologist questions the death of Lisa
From: tfcvp@aol.com (TFC VP)
Date: 15 Nov 1998 13:02:25 GMT

For those of you who haven't heard about Safe4mulas, he's a Scientologist who posts to the AOL SCN Board. God love him, he's having a hell of time getting any response from his fellow members who he's addressing this to. I'll post his latest here (if you don't mind and excuse the formatting...HEY, it's AOL)

Subject: WHY? WHY? WHY?!!!
Date: Sun, Nov 15, 1998 7:18 AM
From: Safe4mulas
Message-id: <19981115021839.18464.00002441@ng-fi1.aol.com>

Hi Fellow Scientologists,

I've asked but have not received a statement from our own church on Lisa McPherson. So I've had to piece together what our PR people, namely Mike Rinder, said to the St. Pete TImes. I will comment ...

Mike Rinder "acknowledged it was a departure from church policy for someone in McPherson's condition to stay at the Fort Harrison. He said it will never happen again."

I say ...

1) What IS our church policy for somebody in Lisa McPhersons condition?
2) What POLICY did church staff depart from?
3) What ASSURANCES do public have it won't happen again. That could have been ME it happened to! Listen, this is a fellow Scientologist we're talking about. What NEW policy insures it won't happen again?
4) You need to come out and tell this to our members and quit trying to hide it.

It's not enough Mike Rinder, just to say it will never happen again. How can the public BELIEVE that? What ACTION will be DONE to back up your assurance?

Mike Rinder "also said church officials will meet with their attorneys and "work out what would be the best approach to resolving this."

ATTORNEYS? Do they establish our tech? Our policy? You have to work it out with attorneys? to TERMINATELY HANDLE this? to make sure it never happens again?

"Rinder noted the affidavit does not pointedly accuse the church or its members of causing McPherson's death. It does say the church "deprived Lisa of her only opportunity for survival" by not getting her to a hospital on time."

So Mr. Rinder, DEPRIVING Lisa of her only chance of survival isn't causing her death?

"Rinder called that a vindication of sorts."

What? Maybe a deep apology would be in place instead of saying we are vindicated.

Rinder said "There isn't anything in the affidavit about anybody trying to intentionally harm Lisa McPherson, which is really what we've said all along," he said. "What this actually says is the church blew it -- that she died and someone should have taken some other action. Well, that's something we can address and deal with. We can talk about how to approach that in the future."

Nice apologetic statement of somebody who has real remorse, huh?

You say "someone" should have taken some other action? You mean our church leaders and employees. Perhaps if we lived under the same mental health laws as licensed practitioners do, this would have been avoided.

Isnt' this PR great? Our first public handling of a "psychotic break" victim under guard and she dies. Perhaps we shouldn't criticize the psychiatric profession so hard anymore because they have to deal with situations like Lisa's EVERY day! Could it be there are more professionals than us regarding psychotic cases? Can we admit that? I haven't heard of a psychiatric patient dying lately from serious neglect of care, have you?

How long to you think it will take for Scientology to regain respect as a mental health alternative?

"They were following Hubbard's directives for dealing with psychotic people."

How much experience did Ron have in instituational cases? Were we following the right directives in the first place? How could the tech go wrong? Flag is the Meca of Technical perfection. Who CSed Lisa's case? Where is this CS? Are they declared? Are they still CSing flag cases?

"Dr. Minkoff, according to the affidavit, told the Scientology staff to get her to the closest hospital if she was seriously ill. Morton Plant was two minutes away."

WHO lied to Minkoff and said that Lisa wasn't serously ill? Are they declared an SP yet? This was 3 years ago. WHAT HAPPENED! Why haven't we been told what ethics have been enforced?

"McPherson's care was supervised by Janis Johnson, a former medical doctor who was Scientology's "medical liaison officer" in Clearwater, and Alain Kartuzinski, a Scientology "case supervisor." "

Is Alain Kartuzinski still CSing cases for our church? What happened to Janis Johnson? Have these people been disciplined? Again, why isn't this being told to us?

"The others recruited to help with McPherson's care were a collection of Scientology staff with varying backgrounds, including two librarians, a dentist, a chaplain and a secretary.

There also was a dental assistant who tried to hold McPherson's nose so she would be forced to swallow food; an accountant who broke down in tears and had to be taken from McPherson's room; and a 16-year-old girl assigned to watch McPherson as she became weaker during her final three days."

So WHO are the rest of these staff? There names please. WHY did they follow orders to imprison Lisa? WHY was they reasonable?

"Dr. David I. Minkoff, described the condition of her body as "horrific.""

WHY did staff fail to simply OBSERVE Lisa's body and see that it was "horrific" just as Minkoff said? WHY do we have staff with such low confront that they couldn't say "NO ... I'm taking Lisa to Morton Plant RIGHT NOW!" ?

WHO was ULTIMATELY responsible for making her stay their under church "watch."

Could there be a motive there that Lisa had data that could have been revealing but some authority didn't want to get let out? Has this possibility been investigated?

"Scientology's initial story about what happened to McPherson differs sharply from what is contained in records made public over the past two years, including Friday's affidavit."

WHY was our initial story a lie? WHO lied?

"The church first said she was free to come and go from the hotel. Records later showed she was under guard."

WHO said this lie?

"The church initially painted a benign portrait of McPherson's stay, saying she was there for rest and relaxation and that "nothing unusual" happened. Johnson, the "medical officer," first told investigators McPherson was "just upset but was "with it,' " the affidavit states. Missing were the grim details of her psychosis.

WHY did Johnson, our "medical officer" LIE? What disciplinary action has been done to correct him from lying? WHY aren't we told about this?

"The church has consistently said she was not dehydrated. But the affidavit says Minkoff, the Scientologist doctor, found her "severely dehydrated" and was "shocked" at her appearance."

WHY have we lied about this dehydration? WHO is doing all this LYING?

This is NOT ok. It looks like our church needs to get it's ethics in NOW.

I want these answers and I'm sure all other loyal, and dedicated people to authentic Scientology want to know too.

Us members are waiting for a statement of answers from our Church Leaders. We deserve that respect.

Yours for knowing the truth,
Safe