That's exactly what led to the Harvard committee creating the new "death with a beating heart" back in the late 1960s. The so-called brain death. Without that, it's mighty hard to find any cadavers fresh enough for organ donation. Note that the Harvard conditions for brain death DO specify that even the brain stem is gone, meaning the patient would die immediately without the aid of a ventilator. Nevertheless, "brain death" is still somewhat controversial in medicine; some insist on the old definition of death -- all systems stop.
A probable moral lapse of the sort I mentioned occurred in my extended family, and I could not do a thing about it. The patient was found unconscious from carbon monoxide after a home fire. I am told by a Freeper nurse that if the heart is still beating -- and it was -- this is treatable (I think by hyperbaric oxygen treatment, but I'm not a medic). The patient, though breathing, was diagnosed as brain dead and was duly carved up for organs. The patient was young (early forties), so the organs were no doubt of the best sort, and lucrative. We'll never know for sure, but I'm reasonably sure the patient had a chance to recover. The lure of six-figure profits for organ harvest may have been too much for a meticulous diagnosis.
Thanks for your clarification and additional info, T'wit.
I think this is going to be a very big scandal when it is uncovered in several years.
People have no idea about what it really involved in organ donation... they are removed from living, breathing bodies. Otherwise, they are useless.
And the medical community is sure not trying to educate people on the realities...
Thanks! :-)