[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You talk about autopsy, which is something very different. Dont mix autopsy with organ donation. For an autopsy the body can be dead since long, and must be dead indeed (else it would be called murder). For organ donation, only the brain can be dead, but certain background functions of the body and metabolisjm still must be active, and the blood must still be circulating, artificially (machine) or all by itself. The time window is very short. Cell intoxication starts very quickly, thats why the organs must be separated very quickly and from a still living body.

And we know examples of just braindead people returning to life, and coma patients showing no brain activity usually nevertheless suddenly reacting to external stimuli - with activity in attributed brain areals. Brain death as a criterion for "totally dead" is not approprioate. And that is the problem and that is where the conflict with organ transplantation arises.

More and more doctors and medical scientists quesiton the brain death criterion for these many reasons indeed. Their numbers grew slowly, but constantly.

That so much money is in organ donation, doe snot help to defuse the situation. Is an industry, do not be mistaken. And quite some of it lies in the shades.

Sadly, I'm an expert on this now. The million dollar/Euro question is at what point/ how do you want to define death. There are too many factors for me.