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When Are You Dead?
Hugh Pickens writes "Dick Teresi writes in the WSJ that becoming an organ donor seems like a noble act, but what doctors won't tell you is that checking yourself off as an organ donor when you renew your driver's license means you are giving up your right to informed consent, and that you may suffer for it, especially if you happen to become a victim of head trauma. Even though they comprise only 1% of deaths, victims of head trauma are the most likely organ donors. Patients who can be ruled brain dead usually have good organs, while organs from people who die from heart failure, circulation, or breathing deteriorate quickly. But here's the weird part. In at least two studies before the 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act, some 'brain-dead' patients were found to be emitting brain waves, and at least one doctor has reported a case in which a patient with severe head trauma began breathing spontaneously after being declared brain dead. Organ transplantation — from procurement of organs to transplant to the first year of postoperative care — is a $20 billion per year business, with average recipients charged $750,000 for a transplant. At an average of 3.3 donated organs per donor, that is more than $2 million per body. 'In order to be dead enough to bury but alive enough to be a donor, you must be irreversibly brain dead. If it's reversible, you're no longer dead; you're a patient,' writes David Crippen, M.D. 'And once you start messing around with this definition, you're on a slippery slope, and the question then becomes: How dead do you want patients to be before you start taking their organs?'"
... and I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by any of this. Frankly... If I'm braindead, or even slightly above braindead so that I can breathe myself, just kill me, mm'kay? There is no way in hell that I'll ever be "me" again. The "me" is dead, and that zombie-corpse-thing is not "me" anymore. Help others, save the financial cost and emotional burden to my family (even though I live in Europe, I expect the financial cost to be low... )... Take them, help someone. I am dead if my neocortex is not functioning correctly anymore.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The real question is how fast will this thread deteriorate into a Monty Python quote fest?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"Even though they compromise only 1% of deaths [...]"
Comprise. The word is 'comprise'.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Interesting article, but I'm going to categorize it under scare-mongering. I'll accept the next to nothing possibility of being still alive while they take my organs, if that means saving other's lives.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
My wife is a physician and she is not an organ donor and when we got married she made me opt out of organ donation.
She did a rotation in one of the largest and most respected shock-trauma units in the country (University of Maryland) as part of her residency and says that as soon as they wheel somebody in with head injury trauma the team goes to work to save them but at the same time one member of the team starts typing the organs for possible transplant.
She says she won't sign the card because she doesn't want somebody trying to "save" her when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars involved if it goes the other way.
When you stop pounding at the inside of your coffin.
It's a very dark ride.
I have a cousin who years ago was in a massive car accident and thrown through the windshield. Full coma and braindead. His family kept hope for a while and then had the plug pulled. Shockingly he kept breathing which seemed to give everyone hope. Here we are 15 years later and he is just as much brain dead as he was then but his direct family has been absoluetly through the ringer and his parents are absoutely broke. Looking back on what that has done to his family and what his quality of life is, I would absolutely say go ahead with the donation and make someone else's life better.
Okay, read that in whatever punny way you like but after seeing the prices organ donors' organs fetch, I want to be an organ donor but I want to be paid for it NOW.
The only one who doesn't benefit is the donor!! How wrong is that?! If I am going to be a donor and the medical industry is going to benefit from it, then they need to share that benefit with me. Sure. Put me on a health plan and require me to live within certain healthy standards. I don't drink that much anyway. I don't do drugs. I don't smoke. I don't run around having casual sex either... (not my choice really... I think I would if I could.) I'm a pretty healthy candidate all in all.
I know by my asking for this I'm setting myself up for one of the opening scenes from Monty Python, but I'm certainly not going to volunteer myself while other profit from it.
"He's feeling much better."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
They can have my organs when they pry them from my cold, dead... oh wait.
DUH! When Netcraft confirms it.
That's a lie in the article fabricated to shock. The cost of a transplant is $750,000, but they don't mention what that is, and then imply that's the cost of the organ. That's the cost of the doctors and drugs and tests and such to put an organ into someone, assuming the organ is free. Add $50,000 for the organ, and it'd move the cost to $800,000. Moving organs is expensive, and the article is written by an anti-transplant person trying to dissuade others from donating.
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During the French Revolution, betting on how far a headless noble would get was a popular gambler's game.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -