Controversial Organ Donation Method Begins in Canada - Organs Extracted 5 Minutes after Heart Stops

LifeSiteNews ^ | 6/27/06 | John-Henry Westen

[wagglebee]

OTTAWA, June 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a press conference at the Ottawa Hospital today, doctors announced the first-ever non-heart beating organ donation (NHBD) procedure preformed in Canada. 

The procedure, also known as donation after cardiac death (DCD), typically involves a person who requires a ventilator and, although he has measurable brain function, is determined to have no hope of recovery.  The doctors then remove ventilation from the patient and wait for the heart to stop beating.  If the heart stops for five minutes, death is pronounced and the organs are harvested by another surgical team. 

One of the major ethical problems with the procedure is that there are cases where the heart has recommenced beating and circulation after five minutes of stoppage; another is that the stoppage of the heart is caused by the removal of the ventilator.

Organ donation by "brain death" remains controversial after 30 years of the procedure being practiced, but DCD is even more controversial since there is very little time left for ethical considerations.  While with "brain death" organs can be harvested at leisure since machines keep air flowing into the lungs and blood circulating, with DCD the stoppage of the heart necessitates very quick harvesting as organs deteriorate without blood flow.

The presentation of Canada's first DCD sounded more like an emotion-laden sales pitch than a medical press conference.  The Therien family was on hand to lend support to the organ donation method as their 32-year-old daughter, Sarah Beth, was the first-ever donor in Canada.  Sarah's father noted that the family was Roman Catholic and needed to be assured that the procedure was not in violation of the faith.  Mr. Therien said that he was assured by hospital staff, "Dr. Kim and his team", that it was not in violation of the Catholic faith.

Those assurances, however, ring hollow.  The Catholic Church has not even finally pronounced itself on organ donations by "brain death" let alone the new DCD procedure.  In 2003, the Archdiocese of St. Louis condemned the NHBD protocol saying it is "cruel and dangerous and does not meet standards of respect for human life." It called for an immediate moratorium on the practice "until such time as clearer, objective moral standards of determination of death are enacted."

LifeSiteNews.com spoke with Dr. Moira McQueen, President of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Centre about the matter. 

Dr. McQueen told LifeSiteNews.com that waiting only five minutes after cessation of cardiovascular circulation was "frankly . . . not nearly enough."  She noted there have been cases of auto-resuscitation after more than five minutes without a heart beat.  Even though organs may be harmed by waiting for a sure determination of death, the principal concern is an accurate determination of death, since otherwise the patient is being killed by organ extraction.  "The important thing for us is that the person donating has to be dead," explained Dr. McQueen.  "The organs are a secondary consideration, that being established first."

Dr. Cameron B. Guest, Chief Medical Officer for Trillium Gift of Life Network, the agency that handles organ donation in conjunction with the hospitals, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about the controversy over timing.  Speaking of auto-resuscitation, he said, "All of the cases that were reported happened in less than a minute." 

Dr. Guest, also the Chair of the Organ and Tissue Donation Committee at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, informed LifeSiteNews.com that Catholic hospitals in Ontario were looking to take on the CDC method.

Dr. Guest conceded however, that "If there were evidence to show that large volumes of patients" were resuscitating after five minutes his team would look into altering their protocols.  That concession is not good enough for Catholic hospitals says Dr. John Shea, the medical advisor to Campaign Life Coalition.  Where there is a doubt about ending life, Dr. Shea told LifeSiteNews.com, we cannot ethically proceed. 

The pro-life movement is opposing CDC for those same reasons. 

"The laudable purpose of saving lives does not justify the donation of an organ whose removal could cause the death of a donor," said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). "Harvesting organs just five minutes after the heart stops is just plain frightening.  There are cases of people whose hearts have re-started after a longer period of time," he said.

"These situations put the physician in the difficult decision-making position between the care of their patient and balancing that care against the possibility of passing on the patient's organs to someone else," said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer CLC. "The code of the physician is to do no harm and a heart-wrenching decision between two patients places the physician in the role of playing God."

See a short paper by Dr. Shea on NHBD
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/she/she_21nonheartbeating....

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[wagglebee]

I must say for an institution responsible for millions of death

What are you talking about?!

the RCC and its minions put their nose were it isn't wanted...

I'm sure the Nazis were saying the same thing back in the 40's.

[hedgetrimmer]

Brain-Death Criteria: An Inexact Art
March 12, 1999

by: Allan Turner

In 1974, Willard Gaylin, M.D., a psychiatrist who at the time was president of the Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences in Hasting-on-Hudson, New York, wrote a chilling article for Harper's Magazine entitled "Harvesting The Dead." In the article, Gaylin coined a new term for a new kind of cadaver that would have the legal status of one who is dead but with none of the qualities one normally associates with death. According to Gaylin, this new kind of cadaver would be called a "neomort," meaning newly dead. The "brain dead" neomort would be a warm, respirating, pulsating, evacuating, and excreting body requiring nursing, dietary, and general grooming attention. These "living" cadavers could then be stored in "neomortoria" (units in hospitals where neomorts on life-support systems could be housed) for organ transplantation, medical and nursing education, and drug research.

In his article, Gaylin challenges us to think about the possibilities. Uneasy medical students could practice routine physical examinations on neomorts and both the student and the "patient" could be spared the pain, fumbling, and embarrassment of the "first time." Interns could practice more difficult diagnostic procedures and surgery without the normal danger associated with such procedures and surgery. After all, these "patients" are already dead. The experimental advantage would be simply phenomenal. Instead of generalizations made from experimentation on animals, medical professionals could use neomorts for first time experiments. Gaylin asks us to think about the fantastic storage and harvesting benefits of neomorts. Major organs have always been difficult to store. But a population of neomorts maintained with their body parts computerized and catalogued for compatibility would be a great improvement over the present system. Furthermore, a sizable population of neomorts could provide a steady supply of blood, since they could be drained periodically.

[wagglebee]

You really ought to take a look at the other articles in the link this feminazi sent.

The Lilith eZine Articles about Art, Feminism, Gothic Culture, Politics & More!

Is There Oil on Mars? G. W. Bush thinks we should explore Mars and take its oil..?

Iconic Images of War Images that made history: From Che Guevara to the Normandy landing

Get Married in Canada! Are you homosexual and want to get married? Move to Canada!

Happy Festivus! Approximately 3% of Americans now celebrate Festivus.

[ctdonath2]

Five-minute turnaround for organ harvesting. Yeah.

And my in-laws have to wait MONTHS for even basic cancer treatments.

Priorities are telling.

Grrrr...

[wagglebee]

You are so deluded it's comical.

Your source is a FAR LEFT, anti-Christian feminazi group.

Pope Pius was NEVER an ally of Hitler, he was a virtual prisoner, yet he still managed to secure the safe transit of millions of Jews out of Europe. Israel acknowledges this.

Sure there were some horrible acts committed during the Spanish Inquisition. However, the cult you are quoting from has it's roots in pagan human sacrifice.

I see that you have been a member here for a little over a month, perhaps its time for you to go back to DU with the other wackos.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Two secular ideologues (Stalin & Mao) in the twentieth century are responsible for more deaths than everyone who has ever killed "in the name of Christ." So shouldn't you be more worried about socialists than Christians?

[Mrs. Don-o]

(Sigh) You're going to be so barraged by volley after volley of historic fact... But in the sanctum of your own time and space, if you want to do a little research, here's some places you can cut-and-paste and study at your leisure:

A Catholic Response: Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust
www.binary.net/polycarp/piusxii.html

THE TRUTH ABOUT POPE PIUS XII
www.catholicleague.org/pius/truth.htm

Pius XII The righteous Pope
www.traces-cl.com/apr2001/pio.htm

The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII
www.curledup.com/piuswar.htm

Ad Defends Pius XII
www.staycatholic.com/ad_defends_pius_xii.htm

In Defence of Pope Pius XII
www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/3543/dalin.htm

Catholic Answers: How Pius XII Protected
www.catholic.com/library/ HOW_Pius_XII_PROTECTED_JEWS.asp

Pius XII and the Jews during World War
www.michaeljournal.org/piusXII.htm

[Petronski]

Actually the pope of this era was a Nazi lover... I guess you really don't know the history of your institution... The reality is that Pius XII was an ally of Hitler!

I can take your word on this, or I can take the word of Albert Einstein and Golda Meir (among many others).

On the day of Pius XII's death in 1958, Golda Meir, Israel's Foreign Minister, cabled the following message of condolence to the Vatican: "We share in the grief of humanity…When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out on the great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace."

You do know Pius XII was declared a Righteous Gentile, don't you? The Vatican saved 860,000 Jews during WWII. Get a clue, you sick lying troll.

[little jeremiah]

Just sent Freepmail your way.

[xsmommy]

oh poor deluded and misinformed Alama, you really should read more...

[Petronski]

And I will gladly put an addendum in my living will to use this procedure if I am on a ventilator to harvest my organs...

Useful only if the donee hospital somehow needs a fresh supply of hell-maggots.

[T'wit]

It happened last year in my in-law family to a person who had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. I had no say in the matter and could only look on in frustration. Not only was the patient still alive, she* wasn't "brain dead" according to the Harvard Conditions. Brain death includes the brain stem, meaning that a genuinely brain-dead patient must be kept alive on a ventilator. (Even Harvard insisted on that.) In this case, she not only could breathe on her own, she was treatable. But they cut her up anyway... ignoring her specific instructions not to allow organ harvest.

* For privacy, I change the sex of the patient and another detail or two each time I tell this story. This time it's a she :-)

[maine-iac7]

So you think that if a child falls into a swimming pool and their heart stops for 5 minutes that the paramedics should start butchering them for organs rather than trying to restart the heart?!

Great point! Countless drowning victims, whose heart had stopped for LONG periods - have been successfully brought back to life and full health...

But then again, there's not near as much money as selling organs

[wagglebee]

Two secular ideologues (Stalin & Mao) in the twentieth century are responsible for more deaths than everyone who has ever killed "in the name of Christ."

Since 1973, the abortionists in the United States alone have committed genocide on a larger scale than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined.

[pinz-n-needlez]

We have become cannibals. :-( We eat our own.

This isn't a pleasant topic to bring up, but the other side are going at it with both barrels.

Thanks for passing along this anecdote, it proves the sad truth that has been seeking expression for a long time.

Pinz

[wagglebee]

Not to mention people who are struck by lightning or are electrocuted, their hearts routinely stop for several minutes before they can be restarted. They generally recover with no long term effects at all.

[thinking]

GROSS!!! doctor #1 to doctor #2, that patient in 456, has a great set of kidneys, and I think he will die tonight....

[T'wit]

Here is a photo of a medical miracle. It's a photo of children on an early form of ventilator called an iron lung. The children were victims of the deadly poliomyelitis epidemics in the 1940s and 1950s, before the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Infantile paralysis left them too paralyzed and weak to breathe without these wondrous machines. In time, however, very nearly all of the children were able to be weaned off their life-saving machines.

Ventilators are used to save lives, not to prolong them unnecessarily.

[longtermmemmory]

Duty to die.

If anything this hurts organ donation in the USA.

Message: "don't sign an organ donor card because doctor's rather harvest organs than save your life."