Rom Houben is a Belgian man believed to be comatose and in a vegetative state for 23 years after a near-fatal automobile accident, who was diagnosed with locked-in syndrome in 2006.
[7] Houben was only brought to wider public attention after German weekly magazine Der Spiegel ran a story on him in November 2009, which was subsequently picked up by media outlets around the world.
[14] Video footage showed the "facilitator", Linda Wouters, holding Houben's hand as his finger is being used to type at a rapid pace, while the subject appears to be slumped over with his eyes closed.
[15] Additionally, Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has stated that the statements Houben allegedly made through his facilitator seemed unnatural for someone disabled and unable to speak for decades.
He also stated that Houben's case was only made public because Der Spiegel wanted to report on his study and was looking for a "human element" to the story: "I knew that Rom and his family were willing to collaborate because they had done so before [for a Flemish TV channel]."
[20] Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel of New York University has suggested that the case may be either "a matter of wishful thinking", or "a cruel and manipulative hoax" that would be used by political conservatives in campaigns against the right to die.