Reference no: EM133638855
ASSIGNMENT:
Ethics Issue:
• Should brain-dead donors for heart transplant surgery be declared dead:
- Using the irreversible cardio-circulatory death definition?
- If their hearts can be (and are) successfully restarted in the bodies of other recipients?
In Brief:
• A medical team at Denver Children's Hospital performed three infant heart transplants:
- In a clinical trial using hearts from infant donors who were not brain-dead
- But who had been removed from tube feeding or artificial nutrition and hydration
• This was the first time heart transplants using donors who were not declared brain dead were challenged.
• Donation after cardiac death is controversial because the donors are not legally dead at the time organ procurement begins.
• Colorado's Uniform Determination Act of 1981, adopted by Colorado and most other states, provides a comprehensive basis for defining death.
• Colorado's law states that individuals can be declared biologically dead if:
- They have sustained irreversible cessation of:
• Their circulatory and respiratory functions
• Their entire brain