NEW YORK - A report on three heart transplants involving babies is focusing attention on a touchy issue in the organ donation field: When and how can someone be declared dead?
For decades, organs have typically been removed only after doctors determine that a donor's brain has completely stopped working. In the case of the infants, all three were on life support and showed little brain function, but they didn't meet the criteria for brain death.
With their families' consent, the newborns were taken off ventilators and surgeons in Denver removed their hearts minutes after they stopped beating. The hearts were successfully transplanted, and the babies who got the hearts survived....
Dr. David P Murray | 5/6/2012
