Experts: Brain-Dead Teen's Body is Deteriorating

(Newser) - The coroner's office has issued a death certificate for Jahi McMath, but her family's lawyer this week claimed that now that she is receiving nutrition via a feeding tube, her "health is improving" and her condition has stabilized.

But medical experts say that condition is undoubtedly a deteriorating one. Yesterday marked a month since since Jahi's Dec. 9 surgery, and the San Jose Mercury News and Los Angeles Times share notes written by a critical care pediatrician at Children's Hospital Oakland last week and contained in a court filing.

The notes indicate that the elasticity is fading from the tissues below Jahi's skin, that blankets are needed to keep her body temp above 95 degrees, that muscle contraction is occurring, and that "additional and more dramatic signs of the body's deterioration will continue to manifest over time, regardless of any procedures and regardless of any heroic measures."

Other medical experts agree. "This is basically organ support; it's not life support," says one neurologist. "Her organs are slowly dying. Her fate is written; it's just a question of when everything fails." Click for more on the McMath family's lawyer, who has been receiving death threats.