Belgian Rom Houben stays stays next to his mother Fina at't Weyerke institute in Heusden-Zolder

The case of Rom Houben, the Belgian man in a coma for 23 years who was reported to have been communicating, made a great Thanksgiving tale. At the time, though, I wasn’t convinced after seeing the videos of his finger being moved around a special keyboard by a ‘facilitator’, and said so on-air that day.

Now, multiple news reports (though far fewer than reported the good news a few months ago) are revealing that Houben has since failed every scientific test designed to confirm his facilitated communication.

Here’s my audio feature, including audio from my original radio segment on it, and news reports from NPR and others (3 mins long).