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Terri Schiavo (search) is not the first person to have a feeding tube removed, although the public may be left with that impression because of intense media attention and her parents' emotional pleas to have the tube reinserted.

But getting an accurate picture of how often this procedure or stopping other forms of life support takes place in the United States is extremely difficult, partly because of privacy concerns.

No national or state statistics exist on the number of patients removed from life support each year. FOX News contacted  Tiffany Jewellery UK    more than 12 public and private organizations and agencies in search of this number and confirmed that such data is neither tracked nor recorded.

What officials can say is how many people depend on a feeding tube to stay alive.

In 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the National Center for Health Statistics (search) reports that 146,000 procedures were performed to insert permanent feeding tubes into patients. According to the Brain Injury Association, there are between 35,000 and 40,000 people diagnosed with being in a persistent vegetative state the same diagnosis that Terry Schiavo parents dispute.

These statistics, however, Tiffany Bracelets UK  can offer only a glimpse into just how many families may be struggling with decisions regarding keeping a loved one alive through artificial means.

not an uncommon occurrence, said Jon Radulovic, vice president of communications for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (search). Radulovic said that anecdotal evidence culled from doctors, families and other health care professionals confirms that and thousands of patients are removed from life support each year.

Hospital officials concur, characterizing life-support-removal decisions as everyday occurrences that rarely spark public or even private controversy.

"It happens all of the time, you just don't hear about it," said Amanda Engler, director of communications for the Texas Hospital Association. Engler said thousands of patients are removed from life support in Texas each year, either as a result of decisions reached by family members and doctors or because of the patients' own advanced directives or living wills.

"It's just like every other medical decision," she said.

The available statistics seem to bear this Cheap Tiffany Bangles out. For example, thousands of people are connected to forms of life support other than feeding tubes, such as respirators and ventilators, each year, and it can be concluded that some percentage of those patients will be among those removed from life support.

But just as it is impossible to know how many patients with permanent feeding tubes have them removed to facilitate death, it's impossible to know how many patients placed on respirators were done so temporarily for conditions from which they will recover, or how many will Cheap Tiffany Keys also be removed in a decision to end life support.