Organ transplantation

Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organs may be transported from a donor site to another location. Organs and/or tissues that are transplanted within the same person's body are called autografts. Transplants that are recently performed between two subjects of the same species are called allografts. Allografts can either be from a living or cadaveric source.

Quotes

• When you transplant a heart from a baboon into a baby as we did, and you say the body of that baby is sacred, does that profane heart from the baboon become sacred when you place it in the body? Or when you take out a gallbladder and throw it in the garbage, is that a sacred gallbladder in the garbage? Or as soon as it's out of the body it loses its sanctity? You see the silliness of our mythology? Children ask the questions I'm just asking now. Trouble is, children get slapped for asking questions like that because they have no defense. But you can't slap me. I can ask the question. It's a logical question.
  • Jack Kevorkian, Interview with Neil Cavuto (2009), Fox News

• Unfortunately, all organs, with the exception of corneas, have this unfortunate characteristic: in order to be transplanted, they must be removed from the “donor's” body while their heart is still beating, their blood is still circulating, their skin is still rosy and warm, their kidneys are still secreting urine, and any pregnancy is still continuing, to the extent that it is necessary to administer curare drugs to prevent unpleasant reactions when the surgeon makes the incision. Do these seem like corpses to you? Yes, transplant surgeons assure us. No, according to a law of the state: in fact, “corpse means: ‘The human body deprived of cardiorespiratory and cerebral functions’” (Ministry of Health circular no. 24 of 24 June 1993).

So how can science declare dead, ceased, finished a world about which, by its own admission, it knows little, if not nothing? Second contradiction. Shall we talk about how brain death is determined? In 1975, the law set a mandatory observation period of 12 hours before the medical board could authorise organ removal. In 1993, President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro halved the time to 6 hours. After that, if the electroencephalogram is “flat”, the organs are removed. A decree from the Ministry of Health even authorises technical staff to perform this decisive examination. Why such a rush, which is at odds with the protection of the individual and their family? Third contradiction. [...] Alessandro Nanni Costa, director of the National Transplant Centre, argues that in 40 years, the criteria for determining brain death “have never been questioned by the scientific community and are applied in all scientifically advanced countries”. But not in Japan. Is Japan to be considered a scientifically backward country?

• • Stefano Lorenzetto, quoted in Quei dubbi sulla morte censurati da 40 anni, ilgiornale.it, 4 September 2008.

• The truth is that the definition of brain death was proposed by Harvard Medical School in the summer of 1968, a few months after the first heart transplant performed by Christian Barnard (December 1967), to ethically justify heart transplants, which required that the heart of the donor still be beating, meaning that, according to traditional medical standards, he was still alive. In this case, the removal of the heart was equivalent to murder, albeit carried out “for a good cause”. Science posed a dramatic moral question: is it permissible to kill a sick person, even if they are terminally ill or irreversibly injured, in order to save another human life of superior “quality”?
  • Sandro Magister, Morte cerebrale. Interviene Roberto Di Mattei, Espresso.it, 8 September 20

• The real problem is that the price to pay for saving these lives is the tragic one of suppressing others. The utilitarian principle that one can do evil to achieve good is being replaced by the Western and Christian maxim that it is not permissible to do evil, even to achieve a greater good. Whereas in the past the traditional “signs” of death were used to ascertain that a living person was not considered dead, today the new Harvard criterion treats the living as corpses in order to be able to transplant them.
  • Sandro Magister, Morte cerebrale. Interviene Roberto Di Mattei, Espresso.it, 8 September 2008

• Specific to spinal cord injured patients, immuno-suppressive drugs are not an option in a stem cell transplant procedure because of the increased risk of side effects. Spinal cord injuries cause many individuals to be more susceptible to respiratory infection due to an inability to clear secretions, limited chest movement, and a need for ventilation assistance. In addition, there is a greater risk of bladder infection and sepsis due to chronic catheterization. Some spinal cord patients who incur an infection are further compromised by the infection seeding around the heart. Urinary tract infections and skin breakdowns due to immobility are common causes of dsyreflexia, an event which often triggers heart attacks and strokes.
  I have been told by Dr. John McDonald of Washington University in St. Louis, that because this immune system of a spinal cord patient is already so compromised, it would be irresponsible to transplant stem cells into an individual that did not match his or her own DNA. Although there is still a risk of rejection, no reputable doctor would prescribe Cyclosporin, the leading immuno-suppressive drug therapy, to a spinal cord injured patient because the risk of death is too great. Somatic cell nuclear transfer could dramatically improve the treatment efficacy of any stem cell transplant because it uses one's own genetic makeup. In addition, there is the potential of eliminating the risks and side effects associated with highly toxic immuno-suppressive agents.
  • Christopher Reeve, Testimony in favor of funding human cloning experiments [S. 1758 Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001] (Senate - March 12, 2002)