The Demise of "Brain Death"

LifeSiteNews ^ | 9/18/08 | Dr. Paul A. Byrne, M.D

[wagglebee]

Commentary by Dr. Paul A. Byrne, M.D.
http://www.thelifeguardian.org

We are bombarded with propaganda that encourages organ donation. For an organ to be suitable for transplantation it must be taken from a living person.

Recent reports in the literature include:

• Dr. KG Karakatsanis of Greece evaluated current clinical criteria and confirmatory tests for the diagnosis of "brain death" to determine if they satisfied the requirements for the irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain including the brain stem. He reviewed medical, philosophical and legal literature on the subject of "brain death." He presented four arguments: 
  1. Many clinically 'brain-dead' patients maintain residual vegetative functions that are mediated or coordinated by the brain or the brainstem.
  2. It is impossible to test for any cerebral function by clinical bedside exam, because the tracts of passage to and from the cerebrum through the brainstem are destroyed or nonfunctional. Furthermore, since there are limitations of clinical assessment of internal awareness in patients who otherwise lack the motor function to show their awareness, the diagnosis of 'brain death' is based on an unproved hypothesis. 
  3. Many patients maintain several stereotyped movements (the so-called complex spinal cord responses and automatisms) which may originate in the brainstem.
  4. Not one of the current confirmatory tests has the necessary positive predictive value for the reliable pronouncement of human death.
  5. Conclusion: According to the above arguments, the assumption that all functions of the entire brain (or those of the brainstem) in 'brain-dead' patients have ceased, is invalidated. Spinal Cord (2008) 46, 396-401.
• In the New England Journal of Medicine on 8-14-08 it was reported that infants who were not "brain dead" were pronounced dead after life support was discontinued. When there was no detected pulse for only 1.25 minutes, the heart was then excised for transplantation.
• Dr. David Greer reported in Neurology (Jan 2008) that many highly regarded hospitals in the U.S. routinely diagnose "brain death" without following the guidelines promulgated in 1995 by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital surveyed the top 50 neurology and neurosurgery departments nationwide; 82 percent responded. Results showed that "adherence to the AAN guidelines varied widely, leading to major differences in practice, which may have consequences for the determination of death and initiation of transplant procedures. Apnea testing was omitted by 27 percent; still more distressing is that many fail to even check for spontaneous respirations.

While the apnea test can only cause a patient with a neurologic problem to get worse, it is commonly done without full and explicit consent. The test involves turning off the ventilator to determine if he can breathe on his own; and if he cannot, the result is suffocation of this living human being. The sole purpose of the apnea test is to determine that the patient cannot breathe on his own in order to declare him "brain dead." It is illogical to do this stressful, possibly lethal, apnea test on a patient who has just undergone severe head trauma. To turn off the ventilator for up to 10 minutes as part of the declaration of "brain death" risks further damage and even killing a comatose patient, who might otherwise survive and resume spontaneous breathing if treated properly.

"In plain, straight talk," writes Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, "the survey indicates a high likelihood that some patients are being 'harvested' in some hospitals before they are dead! In hospitals with aggressive transplant programs (hospitals make a huge amount of money on transplant cases), making sure a patient is dead before going to the 'harvesting suite' may be viewed as a minor technicality/impediment."

In the largest study in the literature known as the Collaborative Study 10 % at autopsy had no pathology in the brain. Only 27% of patients on the ventilator for 1 week had a "respirator brain." From the beginning "brain death" was not based on data that was not sufficient and acceptable scientifically for destruction of the brain much less death of the person.

Now more than ever, there is great push to kill for organs. It was reported in the news that Zack Dunlap from Oklahoma was declared dead, and a transplant team was ready to take his organs until that young man moved. Instead of a calling it a reflex (as I have been told is commonly done), the transplant team was sent away. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23768436/)

This young man did not have a destroyed brain. Nevertheless, Zack would have been truly dead had they excised his heart for transplantation. He could hear the doctors discuss his "brain death," but he could not move at that time to tell them he was alive.

Brain death" never was, and never will be true death. This has been known by neurologists and organ transplanters since the beginning of the multi-billlion industry. So if a declaration of "brain death" is not true death, but organs are taken legally in accord with "accepted medical standards," why not continue to make "acceptable" this less stringent criteria?

In the 10 years after the ad hoc Committee conjured up the Harvard Criteria, 30 more sets were reported by 1978. Every set became less stringent. Less strict sets were reported until eventually there came about a criterion that does not fulfill any of the "brain death" criteria. This is known as donation by cardiac death (DCD). Organs are obtained for transplantation by first getting a DNR order, then taking the patient off life support and waiting until the patient is without a pulse. In the past the waiting time was 10 minutes, then shortened to 5 minutes, then 4, then 2 and now in the NEJM (8-14-08) the waiting time is only 1.25 minutes until they cut out the baby's heart.

How shameful can it get? Shame on the medical field for knowing and not protecting these patients! Shame on the transplantation organizations for valuing money over an innocent injured person's life! Shame on the US government, other governments, and clergy for allowing and even encouraging extracting vital organs for transplantation and research! When will doctors informed of the truth stand for life instead of being political creeps?

The transplant world no longer waits for "brain death." Now the goal is to get a DNR. Then they wait until the pulse stops for as short a time as 1.25 minutes.  Organs obtained deceptively, yet legally, are called donation by brain death (DBD) and donation by cardiac death (DCD).  It is the excision of vital organs that finalizes the death of the donor.

What is going to happen when it becomes better known that "brain death" was a hoax from the beginning? Do doctors and laymen not realize that destroying human life before its natural end is a heinous crime? Do they not realize that excision of an unpaired vital organ for transplantation or research is imposed death, also known as euthanasia? Have they not been reading the papers about all those "donors" about to be sacrificed who suddenly wake up minutes before their organs were going to be extracted?

No matter how generous one might want to be by donating his own self, or vital organs from someone else to save others, suicide or homicide to save another is not morally acceptable.

See related News:
 
Val Thomas from West Virginia wakes after heart stopped, rigor mortis set in 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357463,00.html

French man began breathing on own as docs prepared to harvest his organs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25081786

Woman Diagnosed as "Brain Dead" Walks and Talks after Awakening
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021508.html

Vatican Newspaper: Brain Death and thus Organ Donation Must be Reconsidered
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08090310.html

New England Journal of Medicine: 'Brain Death' is not Death - Organ Donors are Alive
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081406.html

Catholic medical authority raps 'brain death' criteria
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05021106.html

Woman's Waking After Brain Death Raises Many Questions About Organ Donation
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08052709.html

Doctor Says about "Brain Dead" Man Saved from Organ Harvesting - "Brain Death is Never Really Death"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08032709.html

[El Cid]

I'm sorry, I saw the title of this post, "The Demise of Brain Death", and I thought it had something to do with the demise of the Democrat party (this being a political website, and all...)

From the serious posts here I can see my attempt at a chuckle was probably misplaced.
For those who have lost loved ones, I can just point at the reminder in Second Corinthians:

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

We know our bodies are but temporal. Made of dust, and returning to dust. It is the Spirit of God that dwelleth in you, and which HE has given us, that is our treasure - and it will dwell in eternity.

1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

And more from 2nd Corinthians 4

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Trials and tribulations may abound - but keep eternity stamped on your eyeballs and your sight on Jesus.

[null and void]

Yeah.

I remember that disgusting performance.

Glad you stuck around.

[wagglebee]

Continue telling your story. Ping wagglebee and he’ll ping others. We’ll support pro-life all the time.

Xzins in EXACTLY right Machogirl. While there are still a few deathbots around, most of them are gone.

Regardless, we WILL defend you and life no matter what.

FR is a CONSERVATIVE, PRO-LIFE forum and I don't give a damn what those who are opposed to that think of me.

[piytar]

(Donning flame retardent suit.)

Not all doctors are money-grubbing monsters lurking bedside to kill someone so they can make an extra buck. In fact, most aren’t. They are often desperate to save one or more other lives for one they see as having ended.

Are there problems with “brain death”? You betcha. But the way this issue is cast here and in many of the comments, this other side of the issue seems to be completely discounted. I’m not saying that pre-mature diagnosis of “brain death” is justifiable, just that the doctors doing this aren’t necessarily evil money-grubbing monsters. Frankly, they are often in a helluva spot.

PS I agree with the poster above who said hopefully we will be able to just grow new organs in the near future. That would resolve the problem and end the moral dilemma.

[whershey]

Just a question. How many people here work on a transplant team?

[piytar]

“having some poster type: boo hoo and speak about my father as if he had no dignity even in death and was nothing was extremely painful.”

Those posters are scum and were hopefully zotted. I feel for your loss. Please don’t mistake my post above as meaning anything different.

[Lloyd227]

"Perhaps the lawyers will latch on to "this" and sue your "culture of death" into extinction. "

There is hope :-)

[Styria]

Bump.

[LikeLight]

machogirl, thanks for sharing your real life experience. I know what you mean about the reactions. I’ve been unpleasantly surprised by similar responses from some FReepers on threads I’ve posted, especially my writings about the dangers of living wills being mis-applied. I’m not sure if some of the posters are trolls or what. It is rather baffling.

[Dante3]

BUMP

[outofstyle]

what i understand they are attempting to do now, is if there is still some brain function, but life support (breathing) is needed, they will “harvest” under “beating heart” directive that is scary

This is scary and true. As I have posted previously, I have been put under extreme pressure to participate in this as an anesthesiologist in a large community hospital.

[BykrBayb]

Many of those posters who said vile things about your father, were likely the same posters who routinely said vile things about all that is good and right in the world. They had a tendency to opus out or get themselves zotted about a year ago, in a glorious mass exodus. The few who remain aren’t so cocky. They were too cowardly to join the exodus, and they have even less courage now that most of their fellow clowns are gone.

So please, feel free to tell your father’s story. I’m confident you won’t have to hear from the trolls.

[grey_whiskers]

Count me in too.

[cpforlife.org]

Pro-Life PING

Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[Sun]

Thank you for posting this piece by Dr. Byrne.

Here’s a story about him, and the “brain dead” issue, that I have posted (and will post again).

This was in a real newspaper, so I don’t have a link, “Our Sunday Visitor,” the April 10, 2005 edition, & the author is Lori Hadacek Chaplin.

It was suggested to a doctor that they pull the plug of a little baby’s ventilator, because he had flat brain waves. The doctor did not, and little Joseph not only lived, but went on to receive straight A’s in school, run track and play baseball.

STRAIGHT A’s. Now can you imagine how smart he would have been if he HAD brain waves when he was an infant? :)

The doctor, Dr. Byrne, is now a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Ohio and HAS BEEN A PERSISTENT VOICE against using brain-wave criteria for DETERMINING DEATH.

So we better think twice when allowing the doctors to give your loved ones’ organs, because they are declared “brain dead.”

Did you know that organs are more valuable when the patient is alive, but declared “brain dead?”

[Sun]

“this is what was done to my father.

While the apnea test can only cause a patient with a neurologic problem to get worse, it is commonly done without full and explicit consent. The test involves turning off the ventilator to determine if he can breathe on his own; and if he cannot, the result is suffocation of this living human being. The sole purpose of the apnea test is to determine that the patient cannot breathe on his own in order to declare him “brain dead.” It is illogical to do this stressful, possibly lethal, apnea test on a patient who has just undergone severe head trauma. To turn off the ventilator for up to 10 minutes as part of the declaration of “brain death” risks further damage and even killing a comatose patient, who might otherwise survive and resume spontaneous breathing if treated properly.”

I’m so sorry, and thank you so much for sharing this with us.

God bless!

[gost2]

It didn’t take a brilliant doctor to figure this out. I’ve always put NO on my drivers license and you should too if you know what’s good for you.

[Cacique]

btt

[Sun]

I would never trust strangers to take my organs, but I did tell my husband that he could make that decision, because I trust him.

And Dr. Byrne IS a brilliant doctor, and more importantly, an ethical one.

[machogirl]

this is the post that really upset me.

i’m all for organ donation; not grave robbing

To: machogirl

Oh the horror your relative saved several people from death waiting for organs.

Oh the horror.

Oh how horrible. People were saved when your relative died. How horrible.

People against organ donation are killers. Plain and simple.

I hope you have to have a donated organ and have to wait and wait because of selfish people like you.

All you can think of is shoot we didn’t get rich off my relative’s death. You didn’t care your relative died you only cared you didn’t get to profit.

29 posted on Sunday, January 13, 2008 09:11:00 AM by kerrywoodssecretwife