I would take some issue with your remark, that folks who are declared 'brain dead' are not really dead, but rather are declared so, so that organs may be harvested...
My son was declared 'brain dead'...and he was not banged around, mostly around the head...I dont know that I even believe that ever really happens, but I do know for a fact it never happened to my son...
First of all, there would be no financial reason for any hospital to declare my son 'brain dead', as his organs could not be harvested...he died of a cerebral hemmorhage, due to low platelettes, due to APL leukemia...his organs could have never been used, as he had cancer...people with cancer cannot donate their organs, not even their corneas...I know this for sure, as I even inquired and asked the doctor if at least his corneas could be used to give someone else sight...I was told absolutely not...nothing from a patient who dies from cancer, can ever be used for any type of a transplant...
And the tests that were done to determine brain death were not 'banging' my son around...thats insulting to me, and to others who have entrusted their dying children to the pediatric oncologists who treat these children, ,and suffer when they die...my son had his brain waves monitored constantly(there were no brain waves)...he had a test done to see if there was any oxygen going to his brain(there was not), he was taken off the ventilator to see if he would began breathing on his own(he did not)...
And even if I had not wanted to disconnect my son from the ventilator, because he was found to be 'brain dead', by several doctors, who had no vested financial interest in harvesting his organs, because he was found to be 'brain dead', in the state of Washington, that is considered legally 'dead', and the docs could have disconnected my son without my consent or approval(at least this is the way it was when he died in 1985)
It may be that some doctors have overstepped the line, in declaring someone dead who may not be actually dead, but you certainly do seem to think that what you have described is common practice...and I simply dont believe it...
My point was to rethink the whole practice and perhaps establish better safeguards for patients. The financial incentive to dismember them for their organs must be addressed.
The tests ("stimuli" in the following description from a medical site) are indeed pretty rough:
"Harvard Ad Hoc Committee on Brain Death... In 1968, this committee of the Harvard Medical School published a report describing the following characteristics of a permanently nonfunctioning brain, a condition it referred to as "irreversible coma," now known as brain death:
"1. Unreceptivity and unresponsitivity "2. --patient shows total unawareness to external stimuli and unresponsiveness to painful stimuli; No movements or breathing "3. --all spontaneous muscular movement, spontaneous respiration and response to stimuli are absent; No reflexes --fixed, dilated pupils; lack of eye movement even when hit or turned, or ice water is placed in the ear; lack of response to noxious stimuli; unelicitable tendon reflexes."