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… The truth behind organ donation & organ transplants

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Dr David W Evans , Retired Consultant in Cardiology, says: “Human organ transplantation is Wrong because it necessitates the abuse of the dying or harming the healthy. Doctors should not be involved in such things… I don’t know how any doctor can operate on his patient not for his good but knowingly to do him harm.” [more]

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Dr David J Hill , Retired consultant anaesthetist, says: “The Diagnosis of Death for Transplant Purposes has no international consensus and in the UK… depends upon testing only a few cubic centimetres of tissue in the brainstem for loss of function… Live organs can only come from living bodies. ” [more]

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Dr Paul A Byrne , neonatalogist and pediatrician, says: “In order to be suitable for transplant, (heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and pancreas) need to be removed from the donor before respiration and circulation cease. Otherwise, these organs are not suitable, since damage to the organs occurs within a brief time after circulation of blood with oxygen stops.” [more]

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Dr John B Shea , retired diagnostic radiologist & Fellow of Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, says: “Many physicians have serious and well-considered concerns about morality of human organ transplantation … the general public has not been properly informed about what really happens when organs are retrieved.” [more]

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Bereaved mother (Bernice Jones) says: “ Brain death is not death” and “organ donation is very deceptive”. “Families are led to believe that their loved ones are dead, but in fact they are alive. You must be alive to be a vital organ donor.” [more]

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Nurse Ellen B Linde , senior graduate teaching assistant, University of Scranton, says: “Some, believing that removing vital organs is what kills the patient, view organ donation… as an act of killing… not all nurses are comfortable with a value system driven primarily by the needs of transplant recipients rather than by the needs of the potential donor.” [more]

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Earl E. Appleby Jr , Director, Citizens United Resisting Euthanasia, says: “Anyone unwise enough to have signed an organ donor card also has legitimate cause for concern. Would you trust a doctor who regards your body “not as an organism in need of healing but as a container of biological useful materials” … That’s exactly what organ donors do. ” [more]

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Michael Potts , medical ethicist, says: “Any action that directly causes the death of a patient, even if it is for the good of others, opposes the goal of medicine not to harm that individual patient… It is precisely whether transplantation kills the donor that is the key issue that cuts to the heart of the goals of medicine.” [more]

The Nasty Side of Organ Transplanting

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An extract

Fear has basis in reason

By Michael Potts, head, Philosophy and Religion Department, Methodist College, Fayetteville, NC

(From British Medical Journal (BMJ 2002;325:598, 14 September 2002)

The fear of being declared dead while still alive, in the case of “brain dead”patients, is a fear with a basis in reason.¹ If such patients are not dead, they certainly will be after unpaired vital organs are removed for transplantation. Rather than being “settled,” the acceptability of criteria for brain death is the subject of intense international debate.

As early as 1974, the philosopher Hans Jonas wrote in opposition to brain death criteria² ; a lengthy article by Byrne et al followed nine years later (reprinted in an anthology by Potts et al³). More recently, the neurologist Alan Shewmon reversed his previous support for brain death criteria.⁴ …

There are many reasons for this growing opposition. …

This debate should raise serious doubts concerning whether brain dead people are dead and lead to a rethinking of the entire enterprise of removing vital organs from such patients. A fundamental goal of medicine is to do no harm (non-maleficence). Any action that directly causes the death of a patient, even if it is for the good of others, opposes the goal of medicine not to harm that individual patient. Any attempt to downplay the importance of the brain death debate in the interests of organ transplantation is therefore fundamentally wrong. It is precisely whether transplantation kills the donor that is the key issue that cuts to the heart of the goals of medicine.

References: (From original article)

1. Editor’s choice. Deep fears. BMJ 2002;324(7348). (8 June.)

2. Jonas H. Against the stream. In: Philosophical essays: from ancient creed to technological man. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974.

3. Potts M, Byrne PA, Nilges RG, eds. Beyond brain death: the case against brain based criteria for human death. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000.

4. Shewmon DA. “Brain stem death,” “brain death”and death: a critical reevaluation of the purported evidence. Issues Law Med 1998; 14: 125-145[Medline].

5. Coimbra CG. Implications of ischemic penumbra for the diagnosis of brain death. Braz J Med Bio Res 1999; 32: 1479-1487.

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