How long should a DR. wait to remove organs for transplants. 10sec? 1 minute?

homebizseo Peon

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How long should a DR. wait to remove organs for transplants. 10sec? 1 minute? When is a person dead?

"Robert Truog, an ethicist who supports the Denver protocol, says this redefinition of death has gone too far. Let's accept that we're taking organs from living people and causing death in the process, he argues."

"doctors at Children's Hospital in Denver describe how they removed hearts from infants 75 seconds after they stopped. The infants were declared dead of heart failure, even as their hearts, in new bodies, resumed ticking. Is this wrong? "

But in medicine, lines move. "Dead" means irreversibly stopped, and stoppages are increasingly reversible. And when life support ends, says one bioethicist, "not using viable organs wastes precious life-saving resources" and "costs the lives of other babies." Failure to take body parts looks like lethal negligence.

How can we get more organs? By redefining death. First we coined "brain death," which let us take organs from people on ventilators. Then we proposed organ retrieval even if non-conscious brain functions persisted. Now we have "donation after cardiac death," the rule applied in Denver, which permits harvesting based on heart, rather than brain, stoppage.

But stoppage is complicated. There's no "moment" of death. Some transplant surgeons wait five minutes after the last heartbeat; others wait two. The Denver team waited 75 seconds, reasoning that no heart is known to have self-restarted after 60 seconds. Why push the envelope? Because every second counts. Mark Boucek, the doctor who led the Denver team, says that waiting even 75 seconds makes organs less useful.

So how can death be declared based on irreversible heart stoppage when the plan is to restart that heart in a new body? Boucek offers two answers. First, even if the heart resumes pumping in a new body, it couldn't have done so in the old one. (That used to be true, but today, hearts can be restarted by external stimulation well after two or even five minutes.) Second, Boucek says the heart is dead because the baby's parents have decided not to permit resuscitation. In other words, each family decides when its loved one is dead. In a commentary attached to the Denver report, another ethicist proposes extending this idea -- letting each family decide not just whether to resuscitate but also at what point organs can be harvested. Brain death? Cardiac death? Persistent vegetative state? Death is whatever you say it is.
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homebizseo, Oct 5, 2008 IP

pizzaman Active Member

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#2

no once the patient is pronounced dead that is the end of it. there is no reason to wait

pizzaman, Oct 5, 2008 IP

Barti1987 Well-Known Member

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#3

They must first try their best to recover the heartbeat. It doesn't mean they are children we shouldn't. Thousands of people who their heart stop recover by cardiac professionals.

This is what happens when you let abortion thrives.

Soon we might be seeing cloning for the specific reason of using the organs.

Peace,

Barti1987, Oct 5, 2008 IP

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How long should a DR. wait to remove organs for transplants. 10sec? 1 minute?

homebizseo Peon

pizzaman Active Member

Barti1987 Well-Known Member

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