What Every Organ Donor Ought to Consider

If you have checked the box on your driver's license that declares you to be an "organ donor," or if a member of your family -- spouse, son or daughter -- has done so, you might want to read this article today.

It isn't an easy read, but I think you'll find that it bears the "ring of truth." No doubt some medical professionals will not be happy to have you read it, or me link to it, but even if you wind up disagreeing with it, you owe it to yourself to at least consider that there might be other points of view on the organ donation question.

I am not an organ donor, and never have been. I am not necessarily against the concept. Until the American Red Cross finally told me to quit, I was an active blood donor. (It turns out I have a strange genetic marker that indicates on modern tests that I have liver problems when, in fact, my liver is just fine, thank you very much. But it was enough to disqualify me after 3 or 4 gallons of participation.) I think personal sacrifice for the sake of others is a good thing.

But I've often wondered about the ethical standards of a system in which so many thousands of dollars can ride just on the contributions of one "brain dead" individual. Where there is big money there is big incentive to "nudge" the process along a little bit. And that's what the article discusses.

You may not realize this but unless your body is essentially alive, you cannot donate organs. That is why the "brain death" criteria was developed. It didn't come into play until the development of transplant procedures -- and a market for transplanted organs had developed.

The payoff point in the article is that some hospitals and/or medical professionals may actually induce brain death through a procedure called an "apnea test" that doesn't so much test as it produces the result by shutting off ventilators just long enough, about two minutes, to shut down the brain. Then ventilation is restored to keep the rest of the body alive during the time it takes, often many hours, to harvest the body's organs.

Now I'm not saying every hospital or medical professional would do this. But how would you know? How could you be sure, in an emergency situation, that the people "caring" for your loved ones would be motivated primarily to save their lives or to generate revenues through organ harvesting?

And with the advent of socialized medicine, where triage becomes the day-to-day reality and limited "government" resources are allocated to the young and to the strong, is the problem going to get better or worse?

Food for thought, unless you're brain dead already.