I wrote on this subject before, a post I titled "Why You May Not Want to Check the 'Organ Donor' Box On Your Driver's License."
Now David Fredosso writes more:
This story, written up in BioEdge, raises an important question. Is there some reason why medical professionals should consider themselves qualified to decide when a living human being's life is no longer valuable? Or should they limit themselves to what they actually studied in school â the practice of medicine?
[O]ver the last few months, the reputation of the American system for gathering organs has been tarnished. In the most dramatic story, an Oklahoma man recovered four hours after doctors had pronounced him "brain-dead" and were preparing to harvest his organs. Zach Dunlap, 21, sustained severe head injuries after a car accident last November. Since
he was a registered organ donor, his parents gave permission for his organs to be used. No brain activity was evident on a PET scan. Fortunately, relatives noticed small signs of life just as his tubes were being removed.
Despite a grim prognosis, he walked out of a rehabilitation unit. Four months later he was well enough to appear on the NBC Today show in New York â where he claimed that he heard the doctors pronouncing him dead.
And another disturbing story from the same compilation:
A San Francisco transplant surgeon is also in the news, charged with illegally hastening the death of a prospective organ donor. Dr Hootan Roozrokh, 34, has been accused of using drugs to speed the death of Ruben Navarro, a 25-year-old man with severe mental and physical disabilities. The doctor's surgical team was hoping to harvest his organs after cardiac death, but the man did not die as planned when his ventilator was removed. This is the first time that a transplant surgeon has been charged in the US and his colleagues are worried that the case could hurt the case for organ donation.