Free Republic

This week, the Globe and Mail asked General Lewis McKenzie (Retired) to write the obituary of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. It was a good idea. The two men had crossed paths more than once on the global stage of the Great Game. McKenzie declined. Holbrooke had just died and the general knew that what he had to say would hardly produce the standard panegyric. When I caught up with McKenzie, he was shoveling snow after a spell away from home. I asked for an interview and to my surprise, he agreed. “I’m just going to tell you what I thought...

"Her family was told she was brain dead..... Now she’s back at home cooking dinner with her family....The world of organ donation in Denmark is in turmoil. A documentary was aired earlier this month which showed family members reacting in anguish to the news that their 19-year-old daughter was brain dead after a car accident, agreeing to donate her organs and allowing doctors to turn off her respirator.....“But we made a mistake underway and made the family believe that their daughter and sister would die.”....The hospital acknowledged that the question of organ donation should not have been raised as there...

Loni Wells is desperately ill. The 20-year-old Canadian is among the nearly 3,000 Canadians who require a kidney transplant each year. Suffering from a rare kidney disease called Focal Membrano Proliferative Glomerionephritis (MPGN), Loni required 8 ½ hours of dialysis every day after her kidney's failed completely in February 2000, and later haemodialysis treatments directly to her heart. Because of her kidney disease, Loni suffers from low blood pressure and risks heart failure. She has been diagnosed with osteodystrophy, which is similar to osteoporosis and her body is no longer able to metabolize calcium. Loni requires constant medication, suffers from...

'Extended' criteria increase organ donations without compromising patient health In a related study from the University of Texas Health Science Center, researchers evaluated the clinical outcomes of lung transplants in patients receiving either extended or standard donor lungs. Donors were considered "extended" if they met any of the following criteria: donor age of 55 or older, smoking history of more than 20 pack-years, having a history of pulmonary disease, chest radiographic changes, purulent sputum on bronchoscopy, or a decrease in oxygenation on 100 percent oxygen. Donors were matched with recipients, resulting in 20 patients receiving extended donor lungs and 11...