Anencephalic Newborns are kept alive while their Organs are Harvested (pizzagate)

submitted ago by NOMOCHOMO

After being discussed for 30+ years, the international medical community has repeatedly allowed babies to be born and kept alive so their organs can be harvested. Now, parents are even encouraged to carry their children to term so they can be harvested.

(1988) Should Anencephalic Infants Be Used as Organ Donors?

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/82/2/257

"The frontiers of organ transplantation and its scientific and ethical-legal aspects have advanced to the arena of pediatrics. The technical advances bring with them the problem of organ procurement, with estimates that the discrepancy between supply and demand for pediatric organs will be even more pronounced than in adults. In partial response to this anticipated shortage, it has been proposed that newborns with anencephaly be used as organ donors."

Each year, approximately 1,800 babies are born in the United States with anencephaly.4 Available data suggest that 25% to 45% are live born and at least 95% die within the first week.5 Apart from their fatal neurologic malformation, their organs are presumed suitable for transplantation.4 Moreover, prenatal α-fetoprotein and ultrasonographic screening can identify almost all anencephalics with a high level of certainty.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722973/

Anencephaly is a central nervous system abnormality that is characterized by congenital absence of the forebrain, skull and scalp. Some rudimentary forebrain tissue may exist and a functioning brainstem is usually present. Most anencephalic infants die within days or weeks without life-supporting interventions (2,7). One infant, ‘Baby K’, lived for 2.5 years as a result of aggressive life support.

Use of anencephalic infant organs for transplantation gained widespread publicity in the late 1980s after the Loma Linda Medical Centre reported a successful newborn heart transplant using a Canadian anencephalic infant, ‘Baby Gabriel’, as the organ donor.

In 1989, Loma Linda reported a study (6) of 12 anencephalic infants who were supported with intensive care measures for one week to facilitate declaration of brain death. Successful organ donation did not occur from any of the infants. The study authors concluded that anencephalic infants could not be used as organ donors without legal and medical changes to regulate brain death and organ donation.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/24/us/donating-organs-of-anencephalic-babies-is-backed.html

American Medical Association states [in 1995] it should be permissible to take organs from anencephalic babies while they are alive...[because] after death, the organs have deteriorated and cannot be used.

http://everydaybioethics.org/resource/anencephalic-babies-are-now-“wanted”—-their-organs

In early March [2016], at the annual meeting of the British Transplantation Society, some National Health Service (NHS) transplant surgeons suggested a plan to alleviate the shortage: harvest organs from newborns who have no prospect of survival.[3] One group in particular drew their interest: children with anencephaly, a disorder that can be identified at about the twelfth week of pregnancy. Anencephalic children are missing a major part of their brain and skull, and are said to have “no chance of survival,” although such babies have been reported to live as long as one,[4] two, or even three years.[5] The surgeons further reasoned that since these babies could never experience consciousness, they would not suffer.

The proposal draws an ethical line by stating that, at least initially, no woman carrying an anencephalic baby would be approached until she had made a decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. If she continued, she would be “supported” in unspecified ways for the full nine months. At birth, the baby’s body would be supported by a ventilator—contrary to current NHS protocols, which prohibit life-sustaining technology for anencephalic newborns. The baby’s organs would be harvested once he was declared dead, but while his heartbeat and breathing were being maintained artificially, and before he met the legal and medical criteria.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-32425666

A newborn baby, who lived for less than two hours, became Britain's youngest-ever organ donor last year. Doctors at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, carried out the pioneering surgery three minutes after Teddy Houlston died on April 22. His kidneys were then used to save an adult's life in Leeds.

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a41870/annie-ahern-anencephaly-infant-loss/

(2015 the same thing was done in Oklahom)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna51436

(2012 in ohio)

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/mother-uncovers-lasting-impact-of-sons-organ-donation/

(2016 in washington)

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NOMOCHOMO ago

2.5_ AMA Journal of Ethics Brain Death: At Once "Well Settled" and "Persistently Unresolved" Robert Truog, MD

https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/brain-death-once-well-settled-and-persistently-unresolved/2004-08

Bioethicist Alexander Capron began a recent article on the subject of brain death by noting that "If one subject in health law and bioethics can be said to be at once well settled and persistently unresolved, it is how to determine that death has occurred" [1]. The "well settled" aspect is easy to understand—thousands of deaths are diagnosed daily on the basis of cessation of pulse and respiration. A much smaller number are diagnosed on the basis of neurological criteria—so-called brain death. Brain death requires the patient to be comatose, to have no detectable brainstem reflexes, and to have no neurological drive to breathe, even when high levels of carbon dioxide are allowed to accumulate in the blood (as happens during the required "apnea test"). Following the diagnosis of brain death, patients may be taken to the operating room while their body is still being perfused by a beating heart for recovery of organs like the heart, lungs, and kidneys.

The "persistently unresolved" aspect of death is more subtle, and becomes apparent only on closer inspection of the definition of brain death [2,3]. According to laws in the United States, brain death requires the "irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem" [4]. Currently accepted guidelines for diagnosing brain death examine many, but not all, testable brain functions [5]. Not surprisingly, the closer one looks at brain function, the more one is likely to find. One brain function that is often present

The problem, in sum, is that current testing for brain death focuses on tests that have been selected because they are straightforward and easy to perform at the bedside, rather than focusing on functions that are essential to physiological integrity and that would truly answer the question of whether there is "the complete absence of all functions of the entire brain," as required by law.

Given all of these problems with the concept of brain death, what are possible solutions? The current approach is simply to ignore all of these problems and inconsistencies. Surprisingly, perhaps, this approach has much to recommend it. Our primary strategy for organ procurement and transplantation relies heavily upon the diagnosis of death by neurological criteria. Any serious disruption in the transplantation enterprise could jeopardize opportunities to save the lives of those in need of vital organs. As epitomized in the name of the old game show "Truth or Consequences," sometimes it is better to sacrifice devotion to the truth in order to optimize important consequences

[Reform] would require a complete restructuring of our ethical and legal approach to organ donation. This is unlikely to happen, as long as the "persistently unresolved" issues discussed above remain quietly ignored in relation to the "well settled" aspects of the diagnosis of death and the procurement of transplantable organs.