© OrganFacts.net

The Brain Death Controversy

Melissa Noel Gallaher of Fort Collins, Colorado, suffered a brain injury in a car accident and later died at the hands of uncaring aggressive doctors, who neglected her proper care and treatment, on the pretext of supposed “brain death”. Melissa’s grieving mother decided to do some in-depth research about the “brain death” controversy. This is an edited account of what she found.

Why haven’t we the public been told that there is a controversy about brain death? The controversy is that many doctors do not believe that brain death is death and that it was concocted by 13 men made up of the Ad Hoc Committee at Harvard. Their report has been sealed away for 50 years. Only two men have been able to look at these documents that could have caused the premature death of many young people. It is said that they never scientifically proved their findings but that this was their opinion. They said , “their whole reason for brain death determination, was first to help a grieving family member end their misery of not knowing what to do with their loved who is hooked up to life support, and secondly, after we relieved the family by convincing them of brain death, next we can ask them if they want to donate their loved ones organs. By donating their organs something good can come out of a tragedy. And the person who invented the anti rejection drug can get wealthy. He is said to be an acquaintance of one the Ad Hoc members. And egos have to be satisfied, to be the first to transplant organs. And organs have to be profused to be successful that is why they needed to come up with a half dead person, this is how and why we got brain death.

The problem is this haste to obtain organs can lead to the death of a lot of people who could have survived if they were given time and treatment for their brain injury. But once the determination is made, it is almost impossible for the patient to survive. Because the patient is now being treated as a donor. Therefore the treatments like nutrition, which is a treatment for brain injury is withheld. The family is usually given a choice either donate or we will cut off life support.

Since my daughter did not get advanced treatment because she was a poor prognosis even though she was exhibiting brain stem function, breathing over the machine and a weak cough... she was left to lie there and die with only support care. She even breathed over the machine and had a weak cough the day before she died, yet not one doctor intervened on her behalf and gave her food. Because of her death, I began to do research and this is what I found out.

1. Clinical diagnosis is suppose to be done 6-24 hours after injury then repeated, they determined my daughter within two hours, and prescribed the treatment of a donor for her.
2. Only a trained requestor can ask for the organs, and it should be done decoupled, that is do not give the diagnosis and request the organs in the same breath, we were approached by the doctor, not a trained requestor and the diagnosis and request was in the same sentence. This is breaking the federal law.
3. All available treatments are to be done on you even if you are grave, my daughter got mannitol, oxygen, elevation of head, three out of many. These are the less aggressive. My daughter was acute: acute measures should have been done on her behalf. Treatments for brain injury are oxygen therapy, elevation of the head, mannitol, CSF drain, sedation, hypothermia therapy, nutrition, DE compressive craniotomy.
4. The donor operation is horrific and not dignified.
5. The donor is rolled into the surgical suite hooked up to a ventilator.
6. He is breathing, and his heart is beating
7. He is not give anesthesia, he is only given a neuron (brain) muscular blocking agent in his tummy to keep him from tightening it to the approaching knife. He is also given this drug to paralyze him so he can not move his limbs.
8. I believe he tries to move his limbs with the adrenaline rush we humans get when we face death.
9. It is said that the donors heart will rise from 100 to 220 when the knife is inserted. I believe this is as a result of sensing the oncoming knife and the pain that he feels from the knife. This happens in all donor operations, I have research on it, where the doctors are trying to figure out what causes the instability of the blood pressure and heartbeat.
10. The novice nurse has to be convinced that the patient is really dead after all the display of life.
11. The bones are replaced with steel rods, then the skin is sewn up.
12. The skin is peeled off with a dormatone from the under the nipples to the thigh, dormatone is like a big cheese slicer.
13. The morgues are paid more because of the butchering of the body, they fill the body cavity with some plastic stuff.
14. The nurses feel numb after participating in this harvesting of a loved one’s organs.
15. The number one donor will be a 24 year old male that just happens to be uninsured. How can only an uninsured person be the number one donor? Don’t insured people have brain injury to?
16. The government demands the hospitals notify the local donor bank of a potential donor.
17. The government demands the local donor store to maintain a quota. How can you put a quota on organs?
18. UNO’S says,“ they will make the little hospital come up to identifying the potential donor with carrots or sticks, carrots are incentives, the sticks are legislation.”
19. More than half of the organs go to people over 60. Why don’t we see the face of an aging recipient on the donor site?
20. The government says,“ they pay for more than half of the organs through Medicaid and Medicare.” This means we the tax payers are giving the organs freely and paying for them through our taxes.
21. The government tries to pair ethnic requestors to ethnic donors. Like a black requestor to a black family.
22. The government wants to educate people to be donors and shame the ones who do not.
23. The government wants to try to raise the acceptable age to be a donor from seventy to seventy- five – eighty. They say this could create a tier problem. You would have to tell the recipient the age of the organ. I think this could also, lead them to charge more for a newer younger organ verses an older one.
24. The number one supplier of all organs is the poor helpless defenseless brain injured victim who is just in trauma and shock, and with treatment could survive.

I have documentation to prove all I have written, I just cannot believe that the public has been left in total darkness concerning this important fact of life, and most of us will not know anything about it unless tragedy strikes us and then it is too late. Please do research on this, and tell the American public about the controversy. The White House holds meetings called the White Papers to discuss the ethics and morals of organ donation. Why have we not been told about this???

See also Melissa’s Story: How a young woman was betrayed by uncaring aggressive doctors