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Hmm. When I assumed that Houbens' quotes came from answers written with eye-tracking equipment, I was wrong. You can't blame me, though, because how they were actually written was slightly more... iffy, I guess.
Houbens' interview with Der Spiegel (where those quotes were drawn from), was conducted with the aid of a communication facilitator. The facilitator, basically, is someone who holds his hand and "helps" Rom type out messages on a touch screen. The quotation marks are there because lots of people think that facilitated communication isn't scientifically sound. Even if the facilitator isn't consciously directing the patient's hand, there's the thought that they might be subconsciously writing for them, like using a Ouija board. (Sorry about comparing a real person to a Ouija pointer, but that's the analogy that comes to mind.)
Houbens' scans do show the brain activity of someone who is at least minimally conscious, and he's able to answer yes and no by moving one of his feet, so nobody is saying that the whole thing is a hoax. And even Houbens' quotes might be genuine (although some doubt that 23 years in such extreme mental isolation could be followed by complete lucidity so quickly), but the facilitator ought to be looking away from the keyboard screen, and he or she shouldn't hear the questions Houbens is supposed to be answering. In the Der Spiegel interview, neither of these procedures were followed.
The article linked to above also says that Houbens' re-diagnosis (is that a word?) raises the possibility that, as some have suggested, as many as four out of ten people who are considered to be completely comatose may have been misdiagnosed. Yowza.
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