Posted on 03/21/2007 4:14:25 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Organ harvesting from patients before brain-death has been declared is a rapidly increasing trend in U. S. hospitals, the Washington Post reported March 18, alarming doctors and ethicists about the dubious ethics behind the practice.
Instead of waiting until brain function ceases and the patient is declared "brain-dead" by medical officials (itself a questionable practice since there is no universally-accepted definition of brain-death) surgeons have begun following an approach known as "donation after cardiac death." Organs are harvested once the heart has stopped beating and several minutes have passed without the heart spontaneously re-starting.
"The person is not dead yet," said Jerry A. Menikoff, an associate professor of law, ethics and medicine at the University of Kansas. "They are going to be dead, but we should be honest and say that we're starting to remove the organs a few minutes before they meet the legal definition of death."
"Non-beating heart" organ donations have more than doubled since 2003, from 268 to more than 605 in 2006, and the numbers are continuing to rise. The United Network for Organ Sharing and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations now require all hospitals to evaluate the practice and decide whether or not to adopt it.
The Alliance for Human Research Protection issued an alert Sunday warning that the policy is under consideration by hospitals without allowing for public input.
"The race to catch-up to China's policy of live vivisection organ removal from prisoners is underway right here in the US where, the Post reports, the trend is expected to accelerate this year," the AHRP stated.
"So far as we know, our right to informed consent--which means the right to say, NO--has been abrogated without so much as a public hearing!"
While doctors normally wait five minutes after the heart has stopped before pronouncing death, more and more doctors are shortening the wait period to maximize the quality of the organs. Surgeons at the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado wait only 75 seconds after infants' hearts stop beating before removing the heart for transplant, according to the Post. The demand for usable organs is a powerful incentive to push back the ethical boundaries of harvesting policies, say alarmed physicians.
"A lot of us are not particularly happy about cutting that line particularly close," said Gail A. Van Norman, an anesthesiologist and bioethicist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
"It's worrisome when you stop thinking of the person who is dying as a patient but rather as a set of organs, and start thinking more about what's best for the patient in the next room waiting for the organs."
While the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine approved the practice as ethical so long as strict guidelines are followed, opponents say it is difficult to ensure patients are not being killed by over-eager harvesting, particularly in pediatric situations. Van Norman and others said the practice could put pressure on families to stop care prematurely, especially when doctors and nurses are caring for both the potential donor and potential recipient.
David Crippen, a University of Pittsburgh critical-care specialist, told the Post he is concerned the changing definition of death will eventually lead to organ harvesting from the disabled.
"Now that we've established that we're going to take organs from patients who have a prognosis of death but who do not meet the strict definition of death, might we become more interested in taking organs from patients who are not dead at all but who are incapacitated or disabled?"
See coverage from the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03...
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Organ "Harvesting" Policy in Canada to Allow Terminal Patients to be Killed for Parts?
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/sep/05091604.html
Organ Harvesting from Chinese Prisoners Confirmed
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/apr/06042805.html
Russian Surgeons Removing Organs Saying Patients Almost Dead Anyways
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/sep/03090906.html
And that's EXACTLY what the culture of death thinks.
Pro-Life Ping
Ping
Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
Why not, if you can create human embryos and use them like lab mice, just go ahead and organ harvest from folks on their death beds. Heck, the chicoms use healthy folks for organ harvesting.
My Mom is in a comatose state and was for a week. Then last Thurs she woke up and ordered a cup of coffee, some orange juice and some nutritional drink. She carried on conversations with all of us just like her old self.
Now she has slipped back into the sleeping state.
I am so thankful I got to speak with her. I told her about the birthday party we had for the cat. Cat is eleven. We bought a nice cake and ate it for her. What else could we do? She weighs 20 pounds.
Mom got a good laugh out of that.
Tears, tears, tears.....
Well, quite a lot of them are brain dead even when visibly they appear alive, alert, and well, and that complicates.
Actually this is what needs to be done to terrorists,
part them out, let them know their Islamic heart is going to keep a jew or a kafir wounded in a suicide attack, alive.
They would die but not all at once.
Wither Paradise now?
Seems fitting some how.
It's not just not waiting for a possible donor to die; there was a case in California, in which a transplant surgeon, Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, in conjunction with Dr. Arturo Martinez, actually interfered with the recussitation efforts of 25 year old Ruben Navarro on 02.03.06.
Dr. Roozrokh allegedly directed the simultanious:
(1) administration of narcotics (which supress the urge to breathe and
(2) turning off "life support equipment," (which appears to have been a ventilator.
Either one was bad; doing both together is something you generally only do when the patient is ready to die.
Gotta go; at work
Who didn't see this coming? I have some space heaters for sale on Waikiki Beach.
So, your contention is that the technology doesn't exist to determine brain death, so doctors should simply assume they are brain dead?
My contention is that there are enough walking idiots who are already [and have long been] brain-dead, despite walking. Why, look at algore.
Sorry to hear about your mom. Our prayers will be with you and your family in the coming days.
Prayers for you and your mom.
Dumb idea. So if someone is not an organ donor they can no longer be a benefit society? All non-donors will die, along with all of their gifts. Besides, I would guess that many non-donors would change their mind after receiving an organ.
Why should one receive life if they are not willing to give life?
Who on this thread has experience in health care, particularly transplantation?
I see this "article" as a slander against heath care workers involved in transplantation.
To compare what they do with the Communist Chinese is shameful.
If any of you ethically are against transplantation, have the courage just to come out and say it instead of trying to demonize and stigmatize the dedicated, principled and hard working people who often devote their lives to this specialty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.