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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Currently, people declared either brain dead or dead by cardiopulmonary criteria are a significant source of vital organs for transplantation; however, some say this accepted medical practice violates an ethical rule.
The dead donor rule declares that vital organs should only be taken from dead patients and that living patients should not be killed for their organs. Franklin G. Miller, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health, and Robert D. Truog, M.D., a professor at Harvard Medical School, argue that current donors are not really dead because lower brain functions persist and circulation can be regained.
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"This does not mean that we are unethically extracting vital organs from living patients; rather it means that we need to develop a coherent alternative ethical account of vital organ donation," the authors wrote.
They believe it would be ethical, however, to remove organs from patients on life support if the patients or their surrogate decision-makers have already decided to take them off life support. Dr. Miller and Dr. Truog say this approach to organ donation would be a dramatic departure from current standards but that it would expand the pool of eligible organ donors.
SOURCE: The Hastings Center Report, 2008;38,no.6
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