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Showing posts from March, 2008

Brain dead does not mean dead!

Please note the following article: Man declared dead, says he feels 'pretty good' And after you've digested that, check out this article from New Scientist a couple of years ago: Not brain-dead, but ripe for transplan t So in spite of the fact "brain dead" patients sometimes come "back to life" (ie, they were never dead in the first place), they are even contemplating making it easier to declare someone dead just to "increase the pool" of available organs. My favorite quote from that article: "Doctors are very pragmatic," says Christopher Doig, a critical care specialist at Canada's Foothills Hospital in Calgary, Alberta. "But there is something inherently bothersome about changing the way we are going to determine death so that we can increase the numbers of organs for donation." Isn' t that inspiring? At least Mr. Doig feels it is "bothersome" to murder people to harvest their organs.