A man on his way to be taken off of lifesupport so his organs can be used.

[Platapus]

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/watch-hospital-staff-from-janitors-to-surgeons-line-the-hallway-to-honor-organ-donor-in-walk-of-respect/

Watch Hospital Staff – From Janitors to Surgeons – Line Hallway to Honor Organ Donor in ‘Walk of Respect’





In an emotional gesture of support and respect, these hospital employees have a special way of honoring patients who choose to be organ donors.


A video that was released last week by St. Luke’s Medical Center in Meridian, Idaho shows the staff members lining the walls of the facility’s fourth floor so they can pay homage to a 53-year-old organ donor.

The man, whose family asked to remain anonymous, was on his way to being taken off of life support so that his organs could immediately benefit another patient.

Whenever a patient or a patient’s family agrees to organ donation, the hospital employees – from janitors to surgeons – quietly stand in the hallway as the donor is wheeled to the operating room.

The hospital has been performing the “Walk of Respect” tradition since they paid homage to an employee’s son who passed away a few years ago.
“It’s just a way we can honor the family who has made a difficult decision,” St. Luke’s spokeswoman Anita Kissée told the Idaho Statesman (https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article219142245.html). “The family said it was just one of the most special things.”

Since the video has been shared across social media, other hospitals have reached out to St. Luke’s to express their interest in starting up the tradition at their own facilities.

To choose to end your life so that your organs can be used to save someone you probably don't know. :salute:

https://youtu.be/hF5uPzkxsAM

Someone is cutting onions in my house.

[Gargamel]

Some countries are making organ donation an "opt out" policy. As in, if you don't specify that you don't want to donate, you are automatically an organ donor. I think a lot more places should be like this.

[Sean C]

A very nice gesture.

[Skybird]

Some countries are making organ donation an "opt out" policy. As in, if you don't specify that you don't want to donate, you are automatically an organ donor. I think a lot more places should be like this.
I have some serious criticism of this.


When an organization for prtecting the environment would access my bank account and bill 50 coins off my savings, and I confront them when finding out, they would not get away with "But you have not opted out in advance, so we think it is okay that we access your bank account and take your money". The money is no donation then, but loot. And they would be brought to court for being robbers.


Its the same with opt out organ donation schemes.


The death criterion over the past decades has been systematically altered, and always following demands from progressing medical options namely organ donations. Becasue fact is: organs taken form a really dead body cannot be used for trsnsplantation, the yhve to be taken from a body that is biologically still alive. And this life gets brought to an end in order to take its organs.



The death criterion based on brain activity is not safe, too, as a recent case form the uS has shown. A girl had fallen into coma years ago, still her body and her brain curves sometimes reacted to words spoken to her, and physical manipulations of her hands, body.


What s life, were does it end, were is death taking over? We more and more understand that it is no strict criterion at all, but a process that takes quite some longer time to complete.


State and others, society, have taken advantage of us all our life long. In many cases hey still will milk us for money after we "died", at leats in Germany were by law there is an obligation that you must be buried at a cemetery that gets paid for to and that taxed by the local community. In Germany it is not legal to take the ashes of you loved deceased ones home, the ymust be stored at a cemetery (that why some germans evade to the Netherlands in dfiance to the legal demands and where the laws are far more liberal). After a life full of getting mled on and on, it now is declared as natural that even in death you still must autmatically be taken advantage of?



Trust in the uncorrupted organisation of organ trade is not justified, many scandals over here have proven that.



Nobody here or elsewhere is to judge that this patient or old person now has to be brought to death for the benefit of another patient, just becasue the latter may be younger. Becareful with such underhanded arbitrary decision-making on life and death, you are dangerously close to very malicous terrain here: the claim for the total control of the individual usually is only made by dictatorships .



And again: the medical understanding of the dying process, is by far incomplete, and the death criterions have been opportunistically shifted in favour of the demands of advancing organ transplantation in past decades, repeatedly.


Nobody stops you to deicde for yourself. Set up a will and declare your inention, do so in advance. If you want to donate, do it, I do not stop you. But do not dare to make the body of a man the automatic property of the community in the name of an arbitrarily defind higher cause. I go even so far to say that those who want an opt-out model for organ donation have ni call anymore for opposing the detah penalty at the same time for mroal reasons.


Moral demands the unprovoked voluntary decision for self-sacrifice or early-dying by the affected donor.


It is also this automatism that some people want that ahs made me an ardent opponent of organ transplatation in general. Pltiics must teach us that you always have to expect the worst from politics and political manipulation. But here, once again people'S heart open up in joy just becasue another claim is made that it all is "for something good"? I say: this all allows both for abuse, and for massive commercial corruption. it already happens, we alreayc have hgad quite many eamples. If you think that opt out is the way to go, you demonstrate an attitude of wanting to rule over not ciotizensm but just subjects that is not different to that the Chiense state for exampel demnstrates towards its subjects in China.



A donation is not mandatory, and beign able to opt out does not make it a donation wher ein fact it is an obligation then (from which you can opt out).



The only thing I totally agre eon is that people who do not want to dinate at the end of their life, shall not have a claim to prfit from organ donatiosn themselves. But then, you need to make a decision early in your life here, and youth and the limited mindspan and different worldview that brings, holds its own complicaitons of this matter.


No automatisms here, no opt out. Keep donating voluntary from all beginning on, to all end. Nobody, neither young nor old, has any claim for that somebody else has to live and die for ones own benefit.


Altruism as a mandatory duty? No thanks.



I carry a card in my wallet, it says that I do not donate organs in case fate strikes me and takes me out and I cannot voice my will anymore, it also says: I do not want to be given organs. However, I am close to the family of a girlfriend I know since long. If her daughters would be in need, i would volunteer to get tested wether my biology is compatible with theirs, and then would will to donate a kidney, or bone marrow. And under certain conditions I could imagine to go even further than this. But you see, I reserve the right to chose on the when, what and for whom. And whether these factors are up to the views of some strangers, is compeltely uninteresting for me.



I oppose the generalisation and automatism and the official strawman story about death criterions and the goodness of donating. That arbitrary medicla opprtnism has so ver ymuch to do with all thsi is clear for anyone who takes the time and investigates the matter ver the past 40 years a bit deeper. And when human life becomes an opportune ressource, I start to be alarmed.


Leave it voluntary. Leave it to opt in. Opt out is not donating, bur force.



That the inventors of nudging could even win a Nobel prize for this, will allways be beyond me.It sounds more appropriate to throw them into jail.


In China, the state can decide that this or that prisoner can be turned into a volunteer organ donator. Thats the logical next step if you will opt in. The state already did so and does so in other areas as well: obligatory draft for the military , mandatory social "volunteer years", and always it gets given a positive twist. But its always about the total availability of the subject owned by the state, the higher good, a higher cause, the common interest.


Beware.

[Onkel Neal]

Some countries are making organ donation an "opt out" policy. As in, if you don't specify that you don't want to donate, you are automatically an organ donor. I think a lot more places should be like this.

I agree, and would go as far as it should not even be an option; if you are in a public hospital and you die, the doctors should have the option of harvesting your organs if they are viable and needed. After all, you are going to be using them anymore.

[Skybird]

Hospitals as the enemy of patients. Great idea, Neal.



Just because you or anyone thinks it is a great idea that person X has his de facto life ended artificially because somebody else would benefit from that (thats what it is about, whether oyu see that or not), does not mean you have any claim for making such a decision. I repeat: organss from already died bodies, cannot be tranbslpanted, the cdetah criterion has supiciously followed the demands of transplantation medicine in past decades and has been soften up accoridngly, and the fine line between detah and life has become blurry and anything but strict as it once appeared to be. Today, people can be reanimated, under certain and psotiive cicumstances even 20 minutes after "death", and their b rain not suffering at all, or only lightly dmaaged. The same patient, if getting struck by fate and no first class cooling available, would be "harvested", as you put it.


To-be-donors have to make that decision by themselves, voluntarily. That is the only way.


Else you could also say its a public hospital, so they may try experimental methods on you against yur will as well. If I would prorose that as German, the world immediately would call Nazi! and KZ-doctor!


What is life? What is death? Where do individual rights start, where do they end?


Careful with easy, quick, oh-so-reasonable answers here. We know one thing about life and death, we understand this one thing better and better since a few years: and that is that we cannot say, that we do not know as certain as we once assumed we would know.

[Jimbuna]

Utmost respect.

[ikalugin]

Some countries are making organ donation an "opt out" policy. As in, if you don't specify that you don't want to donate, you are automatically an organ donor. I think a lot more places should be like this.
I agree, and would go as far as it should not even be an option; if you are in a public hospital and you die, the doctors should have the option of harvesting your organs if they are viable and needed. After all, you are going to be using them anymore.
One of the issues is the potential for corruption, ie patients being de-facto murdered for their organs.


Which is why I would be explicitely against such regulation in say Russia and why such regulation in Ukraine (with authorisation to export such biological materiel abroad, to the rich payers) concerns me, as it already generates an increase in the organ trafficing related deaths.

[Skybird]

It is said that blood conserves in germany are kind of rare. However, regarding public blood donating, my hometown Münster ranks very high, is a hotspot in Germany, at leats the last time I read about it, which is maybe 1.5 or 2 years ago. But: it was supposed to be donation for a wellfare organisation, namely the Red Cross, which runs a huge blood bank over here. Two years ago it was found and reported that the blood donated by Münster people gets commercially sold around and far beyond the region - which is not legal and in violence of certain laws granting the Red cross and othe rsuch organizations certain privilieges and tax liberations due to their character as serving for the public welfare. Commercial profit interests are not tolerated by these laws, to avoid corruption and disruption of the wellfare charcater of these organizations. Which is illegal, because the Red Cross enjoys a certain legal status as an organisation that grounds on it not getting commercially active and not selling service or stuff for profit. They were not allowed to sold blood for profit - while telling the local population that they must donate blood because the regional reserves are running low.



We have already severla very hiuge, seirous scandals within the system of the transplantation industry. Favouritism for patients paying more, international export and import for commercial interest, illegal smuggling, and more.



Where corruption is possible in too big organisations and thus lacking transparency, corruption will occure, that is almost a natural law. However, that is not my basic point of criticsm of mandatory or even just opt-out- organ donation. What I point at regarding the arbitrary redefinition of death criterions that in themselves do not make that much sense as many still believe, but always follow the needs of a blossoming transplantation industry and the involved money (yes, a lot of money if involved in this, and hospitals get bonusses for being envovle din the system in any way) - that is my main criciticsm.



Leave it voluntary. Nobody is subject to somebody else's property interests in his life and body. Where this would get accepted directly or indirectly, no matter for what a reason, justificaiton or cause claimed good and noble, is an agent ob subjugating citizens into subjects and in fact: slaves. We have way too much state-run paternalism and commanding already, we do not need ever more of that, and even touching upon an individuals physical integrity and untouchability.



I am not against donating, I do not want to make my rejection a general obligation for everybody. If somebody wants to donate, so let him do it. Its a most personal decision and nobody shall interfere with it being formed. But I totally oppose the regulation that wants to press, push, nudge, bully, force people into more or less obedience with another ideologically demand. Altruism is no moral duty, but must be a free decision and voluntary action, to be actually altruism and not just enforced obedience. Where this is questioned, tyranny and inhumane crimes will and do rise.



Keep donating voluntary. Opt out models are not donating, but are about plundering everybody who is not up the tree when counting one-two-three.


And nobody here or elsehwhere is the authority to weigh one life span against another. If you need an organ, and get one, see it as a gift freely and voluntarily given by somebody who was not dead but still alive when the organ(s) was/were taken. But you never have had a claim for it. You have no claim for the life of somebody else.

So my model: voluntary opt in - and only when you have filed your willingness at a data base, you shall have access to organs being given to you, if need arrives, of course. This is the general rule, details not adressed in every- well, in every detail. Because of course you cannot expect to be given if you refuse to give in return, that is clear.Solidarity without reciprocity, is no solidarity, but one-sided abuse.

[August]

I carry a card in my wallet, it says that I do not donate organs in case fate strikes me and takes me out and I cannot voice my will anymore, it also says: I do not want to be given organs. However, I am close to the family of a girlfriend I know since long. If her daughters would be in need, i would volunteer to get tested wether my biology is compatible with theirs, and then would will to donate a kidney, or bone marrow. And under certain conditions I could imagine to go even further than this. But you see, I reserve the right to chose on the when, what and for whom. And whether these factors are up to the views of some strangers, is compeltely uninteresting for me.


All that on a card? :)

[Skybird]

Hehe, the profound info for emergency indeed on a card: my medication, adress and phone of my parents, that I do not donate and do not want organs transplanted on me - and where to find my patient's will with several pages of much more specific medical informaiton and rules on what goes and what I rule out.



I recommend everybody to have something like this, and to also fill a patient's will that rules what kind of medical treatments you accept and what not and under what circumstances. Do not leave critical decisions to foreigners, or friends and loved ones. Make them yourselve while you still can. Once fate has taken you out and you cannot articulate yourself any longer, or suffer brain damage, or lie in coma, its too late. Being of young age, is no excuse. When you are old enough to join the army or to vote or to found a family, you are old enough to think of your final end as well. I also think this holds a chance to maybe allow change to some of our usually unquestioned common beliefs and everyday assessments we normally take too easily for granted and do not spend any thinking on at all.

[Onkel Neal]

All that on a card? :)


Nah, once he's dead, we throw away the card and bring out the knives. :D

If a guy dies and there's another guy who needs a kidney or he will die, it would be a crime to let him die just so an already dead bloke can be buried (or cremated) with his organs. That's crazy selfish.

[August]

Nah, once he's dead, we throw away the card and bring out the knives. :D

If a guy dies and there's another guy who needs a kidney or he will die, it would be a crime to let him die just so an already dead bloke can be buried (or cremated) with his organs. That's crazy selfish.


I agree but it does pose some ethical questions when the patient ain't quite dead yet. Like for instance at what point should medical staff stop trying to keep a donor patient alive? or should organ damaging medicines say of limited effectiveness be given to terminally ill patients?

[Skybird]

Sigh of relief, at leats one guy, august, understood the depth of pandora'S box here.


And we have not even talked about claims for relgiously motivated motives, and their possible collision with medical and profit interests.


Neal, you maybe underestimate or ignore this one thing. You cannot transplant organs from a really already dead body. Th body must still be alive when you take them. And that means you actively end this life.


And there you have the link to the debate about euthanasia, both active and passive. Over here, its illegal. The US as well, I asuppose?


Its not that simple a thing as you imply, Neal. A rat tail of complications of both ethical and legal questions wait for you.


Keep it voluntary.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-pU8TFsg0

There are regions in the world where the above film is not just a joke - but bitter reality.

[Catfish]

[...] And we have not even talked about claims for relgiously motivated motives, and their possible collision with medical and profit interests.

Religious motives can go to hell (which unfortunately does not exist, but i digress), unless the terminally ill patient allows or refuses the donating due to his own religious motives.

But there is of course the problem of money-making, by declaring patients dead that would still have a chance, for personal profit. It is very naive to think this would not happen, in a western capitalist, or even in a "communist" society like China.
And we have just seen how high the Saudis respect a life.


"I think I could go for a walk!"
"You're not fooling anyone, you know"
:03:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs



I am almost sorry for posting this, because the OP really posted a link that could make one believe in humanity. :oops:

[Skybird]

Religious motives can go to hell
I would not be the one opposing that too much, but fact is that the legal codices of the Western world guarantee the free and unhindered practicing of faith and religion and even bows to special interest demands from these groups if they only get noisy enough and numerous enough. We bend the animal protection law on behalf of Jewish and Muhameddan faith-founded demands, for example. We allow mutilation of children for religious reasons, although premeditaded bodily injury is a punishable offence in the penalty code.



If sombody's faith demands him to not allow organ donating, but organ donation is declared a law as Neal wants it - what then? You then have a formidable culture clash between religion on the oen side and fascism on the other side. Maybe that is good - two monsters hanging at each others throat. Problem is I am sitting right in the midst of the crunch.



A donation is never mandatory, then it would not be a donation, but somebody else'S claim of any kind and format, may it be legal or illegal, natural or not - and having claim and asking for donation, well, are two different things. I wonder why this difference must even be explained. Its obvious. Give up the volunatriness, and the idea and definition of donating has been thrown out of the window all together.



Too many people here just do not think it to the end. And that is the best way to get either a tyrannic state, or bad laws, or both.


No state, no society, no individual has claim for your body without giving up indispensable pillars of a liberal, free order basing on the philosophical fundament of the ancient Greek heritage and modern definition of humanism. Nobody lives or must live for the sake of the benefit of somebody else. That would be slavery. Any willingness to live like that, must be allowed - but must form up all by itself, voluntarily.



However, what can be demanded, is reciprocity. Who wants to take something, must be willing to give back equally. If he refuses the latter, he has no right to demand the first. No harvesting without sowing first.

[u crank]

No state, no society, no individual has claim for your body without giving up indispensable pillars of a liberal, free order basing on the philosophical fundament of the ancient Greek heritage and modern definition of humanism.

Amen. Wait .. err sorry I mean 'here here'. :D

But yes I agree with that statement.

[Dowly]

Ok, I gotta know. Is it "here here" or "hear hear"? And why? They both make sense to me, though the latter seems more appropriate when you are in agreement with someone (as in "hear/listen to what he/she is saying").

[Jimbuna]

Hear, hear is an expression used as a short, repeated form of hear him. It represents a listener's agreement with the point being made by a speaker.

[Dowly]

Thank you, Mr. Wikipedia.

[u crank]

You are right Jim. I stand corrected. :yep:

[Dowly]

Though, I'm interested where the "here here" has come from, since I see a lot of people misspelling it on various forums. Is it something that was/is used or just a misspelling?

[u crank]

Though, I'm interested where the "here here" has come from, since I see a lot of people misspelling it on various forums. Is it something that was/is used or just a misspelling?

Well in my case it was a misspelling. I just never thought about it and my guess that is a common mistake.

It will never happen again. :O:

[Platapus]

Hear, hear is an expression used as a short, repeated form of hear him. It represents a listener's agreement with the point being made by a speaker.

Is it different from Harrumph Harrumph?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN99jshaQbY

[August]

Neal, you maybe underestimate or ignore this one thing. You cannot transplant organs from a really already dead body. Th body must still be alive when you take them. And that means you actively end this life.


According to the American Transplant Foundation organs that can be donated after death are the heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and small intestines. Tissues include corneas, skin, veins, heart valves, tendons, ligaments and bones.

[nikimcbee]

According to the American Transplant Foundation organs that can be donated after death are the heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and small intestines. Tissues include corneas, skin, veins, heart valves, tendons, ligaments and bones.


I'll chime in. I don't want to talk about it in detail. I just made this decision within the last 24 hours. Not everything is useful and it depends how healthy the donator is. It really depends on if they are donating for transplant or for science(training/learning). The science side is totally different. In my opinion, the main benefit is, if the donator had a problem (health issue/ defect of some sort), then there is so much benefit to studying them (the organs). If it gives the doctor more/better data to make a future decision(s), then I'm totally for it.


Plus, you need hands on material to train future doctors. This is just crazy, because I literally just talked to my brother about this (he's a medical doctor.)

[Skybird]

According to the American Transplant Foundation organs that can be donated after death are the heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and small intestines. Tissues include corneas, skin, veins, heart valves, tendons, ligaments and bones.
Yes, but what I try to say is that the death criterion is questionable and has been tailored several times to follow the demands of transplantation medicine as it evolved over the years and decades. The criterion got softened up. Fact is that while the brain may be without any traces of activity, several budy functiosn and metavblostzic fuinctiosn still can persist, no matter wqhether blood coiruclaiton is artifically enabled or runs naturally by itself. And only from such a still active body organs can be used for transplantation. If these "background functions" have come to an end as well, transplanting organs from it is no more possible. And that is why the brain death criterion has been established. It followed the demands and needs of progress in transplantation medicine.



It is tried very hard to hide this fact from public perception, because they - probably rightfully - assume that then many people would rethink their willingness to doinate.



Do not trust any lobby organisation on this. Your Transplant Forundation has an interest not to scare people or to raise their doubts, but to convince people. Its the same ovber here.


The criticvism of the brian detah as the criterion to define "death" is slwoly growing nayway amongst doctors. Many make experiences that question the exclusive validity of this and only this criterion. Morer and morte death also is understood a snot a fixed point in time before which we are alive and beyond which we are dead, but as a transition process over a longer time period. But these views are in strict opposition oif the demands and needs of transplantation mediicne, and would also raise ethical questions an dlegal quesitons that transplantation meidicne cannot answer in order to continue with business as usual.



I see it like this: if you donate your organs, you do not speak about what ir beign done to dead matter tha once held your life and mind, but you tlak about saqcrificiong a little - or long! - ammount of your life span, you shorten your life because you weigh your life quality remaining against the lifespan the receiver may benefit from if gaining it. And there are many scenarios where thse comparison, this assessment may justify yourf deicison to go a bit ealrier to allow another one much m ore time.



BUT THIS DECISION MUST BE YOUR DECISION, THE DONORS DECISION, and voluntarily so. Also, other factors and arguments may weigh in in the donor'S deicison as well. It does not matter of somebody else underdstand them, for it is not about this other peron'S life, but the donor'S life. He and he alone has the right to make this decision, free, and unpressed.



Organ donation can only be had at shortening the donor'S life artificially, no mjmatter how his life quality or remaining natural lifetime may be. The donor cannot be fully dead to donate organs - that is the important detail they try very hard to hide from public information. It opens a pandora's box of ethical and legal implications, obviously, but in the end it is indeed euthanasia at the end of his life. Only the donor himself can decide to opt for this.


I personally also oppose the refused freedom of people to end their lives voluntarily. Nobody has a right to senetence somebody else to a life that this somebody does not want. Courts have no right to deny people who want to die the right to end their lives, too. I must not ask for permission to die, if that is what I want. I have an inborn, natural right to end my life, if that is what I want. Like I have a right to own my body or to breath the air I need. An enforced or even just opt-out model of donating organs, is a contradiction to this refused freedom of msuicide. State even reserves the right to send you into psychiatry if you try to kill yourself, mind you. Its slippery ground. As a posyhcologist I know that suciide also can result from tem porary mental confusion and psychologicla isorders indeed, and one can argue that the others have an ethical mandate to chekc whether somebody want sot die diue to being mentally ill or being desperate or depressive, or wnats to end becasue he thinks he is old, suffers pain, or doe snot want to be a burden at high age or whatever. But I find it impossible to formulate any general blueprints for any rights by society or the state to hinder people from committing suicide no matter what circumstances. It is a situaiti nw here ever yisngle case always has to be chekced and assessed individually, even if that takes time and makes more work. You cannot formulate a general, always valid right to hinder people that want to die and are certain of it.



And can we ever be certain that somebody is certain of his death wish, or is just sufferign from desease, or juvenile immaturity? Nobody can really look into soembody else, no matter how close the other his. We can move close to each other as much as we want - sooner or latter we reahc the piojnt where ther eis only space for just one, and there we all are alone with yourselves again.


Be hesitent to enforce your sentence of living and dying easily on others. Its all a very, very perosnal deicison here. The needs of others, or an industry, are no argument here, sorry. That can lead to bitter outcomesl, yes. As humans in an imperfect world, we have to live with that. Its the price we have to pay for being human. Suffering can be fought against, yes. But if we push this fight too selfrightously and too far, we only create new suffering by this.

[Skybird]

I'll chime in. I don't want to talk about it in detail. I just made this decision within the last 24 hours. Not everything is useful and it depends how healthy the donator is. It really depends on if they are donating for transplant or for science(training/learning). The science side is totally different. In my opinion, the main benefit is, if the donator had a problem (health issue/ defect of some sort), then there is so much benefit to studying them (the organs). If it gives the doctor more/better data to make a future decision(s), then I'm totally for it.


Plus, you need hands on material to train future doctors. This is just crazy, because I literally just talked to my brother about this (he's a medical doctor.)


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.

[nikimcbee]

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.

[Skybird]

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.
Exactly. I was for some time engaged in a project on clinical and psychological research in thanatology, focussing on NDEs, and psychological reactions of dying patients to the knowedge they are dying, and the reacitons of their social environment to that. That is very long time ago, immediately after university, but I talked about these things a lot with two doctors who also were part in this project. What I say about organ donation is mostly founded by what they told me about it, and is over twenty years ago. But since then I repeatedly have read about the matter and saw the one or the other documentaiton as well, only strengthening the doubts that these two medical experts expressed already in the past. Nothing of what I say is that brandnew at all. Since then, doubts in the usefulness of the exclusive validity of brain death as the only death criterion have just grown.



Reading books like the Bardo Thödol makes thinking about this matter even more complicated. It describes a quite complex transition period during the dying process (and later, incarnation, but lets leave that out here).


If I read it right from your brief hint, you have had your recent experiences in real life with parts of what is being talked about in this thread. If so, I do not ask further, but wish you courage, and stamina - but before that, give the sadness its time as well, even if it hurts. Sadness has its rights, too, and exists for a reason. Sounds like a cliche, but is true. Best wishes.

[nikimcbee]

If I read it right from your brief hint, you have had your recent experiences in real life with parts of what is being talked about in this thread. If so, I do not ask further, but wish you courage, and stamina - but before that, give the sadness its time as well, even if it hurts. Sadness has its rights, too, and exists for a reason. Sounds like a cliche, but is true. Best wishes.


You are correct and I thank you.