The truth about organ donation

#1

Post by lambtron » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 6:50 PM UTC

The truth about organ donation
trojanbadger.com

Re: The truth about organ donation

#2

Post by samwillis » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

I worry this may be little too politicly provocative for HN, it liable to start an argument between two very passionate sides. (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Does anyone have a link to a none biased look at the science of this? I would like to know a little more.

Re: The truth about organ donation

#3

Post by hapkins » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

This has to be one of the most intellectually backwards arguments I have ever heard. It is almost on par with arguments presented by christian fundamentalists.

Being brain-dead is essentially being dead. Hospitals and surgeons will not operate on you unless you are not expected to recover, or regain consciousness. Being brain-dead, it is also very unlikely that you feel pain. Reflexes can easily still be active even with brain-death, leading to convulsions during surgery. If the author had ever seen a serious car-accident victim in a coma, he wouldn't have second thoughts about organ donation. In his blog post, he is insinuating that you are still a normal, living, conscious human being. You aren't.

Having grown up in a family of medical doctors, I find this blog post appalling.

EDIT: As thebigshane pointed out, my wording is indeed terrible, I wrote my response in a hurry, and I will not edit it to avoid confusion. I do not have any professional medical education, all I know in this field is derived from in-depth conversations and discussions with my parents, whom are both medical doctors. Brain death is indeed classified by the Harvard criteria, but these also include the patient being non-responsive to external stimuli, such as pain (which contradicts the blog post's claim of convulsions during surgery due to the lack of anesthesia).

Re: The truth about organ donation

#4

Post by alimoeeny » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:42 PM UTC

There are quite a lot of misguided statements in this article, like you are "alive" because your heart is beating, or you feel pain if they don't give you pain killers. You should be "brain dead" to be an organ donor. And brain dead means dead, no chance or recovery, I am sure there are cases that mistakes happen but that is a mistake, you need to be confirmed brain dead by quite a lot of doctors to get harvested!

Re: The truth about organ donation

#5

Post by batista » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:43 PM UTC

hapkins wrote: post #3

This has to be one of the most intellectually backwards arguments I have ever heard. It is almost on par with arguments presented by christian fundamentalists. Being brain-dead is essentially being dead. Hospitals and surgeons will not operate on you unless you are not expected to recover, or regain consciousness. Being brain-dead, it is also very unlikely that you feel pain. Reflexes can easily still be active even…

>Hospitals and surgeons will not operate on you unless you are not expected to recover, or regain consciousness.

Except when they can cut corners, because "ok, the guy is badly injured, there's some other patient that needs that organ", etc. It's not like they are gonna be extra thorough each time. Humans are known to do that...

Re: The truth about organ donation

#6

Post by digitalsushi » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:43 PM UTC

What a brave author. I have to commend their duty to publish this, since there is a good chance it will be quite unpopular. There's been such a homogeneity to Internet published articles recently (whichever factor you wish to interpret, if you agree with this claim). It was refreshing to read someone's perspective on this touchy subject from a completely different perspective. Bravo, author.

Re: The truth about organ donation

#7

Post by thebigshane » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:48 PM UTC

hapkins wrote: post #3

This has to be one of the most intellectually backwards arguments I have ever heard. It is almost on par with arguments presented by christian fundamentalists. Being brain-dead is essentially being dead. Hospitals and surgeons will not operate on you unless you are not expected to recover, or regain consciousness. Being brain-dead, it is also very unlikely that you feel pain. Reflexes can easily still be active even…

While I agree with you overall, I have to nitpick your wording...

   Being brain-dead, it is also very unlikely that you feel pain

Very unlikely? This seems like something that should demand complete[0] confidence.

[0]: Ok, ok, maybe not 100% provability, but I want to know more about this surely subjective determination by the doctors. Or is there an automated reading from some machine that can objectively say "Patient is 95% likely to not feel you operating on him alive"?

(Also, this is "deeply interesting" according to HN standards but lots of potential for irrational discourse -- my comment probably included)

Re: The truth about organ donation

#8

Post by cobrausn » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:49 PM UTC

alimoeeny wrote: post #4

There are quite a lot of misguided statements in this article, like you are "alive" because your heart is beating, or you feel pain if they don't give you pain killers. You should be "brain dead" to be an organ donor. And brain dead means dead, no chance or recovery, I am sure there are cases that mistakes happen but that is a mistake, you need to be confirmed brain dead by quite a lot of doctors to get harvested!

Yeah, I would like to see some actual numbers before coming to any conclusion. Something along the lines of the number of people that have recovered from the state wherein they could legally take your organs. Not sure if those numbers would be easy to come by.

Re: The truth about organ donation

#9

Post by Symmetry » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:50 PM UTC

batista wrote: post #5

hapkins wrote: post #3

This has to be one of the most intellectually backwards arguments I have ever heard. It is almost on par with arguments presented by christian fundamentalists. Being brain-dead is essentially being dead. Hospitals and surgeons will not operate on you unless you are not expected to recover, or regain consciousness. Being brain-dead, it is also very unlikely that you feel pain. Reflexes can easily still be active even…

> Hospitals and surgeons will not operate on you unless you are not expected to recover, or regain consciousness. Except when they can cut corners, because "ok, the guy is badly injured, there's some other patient that needs that organ", etc. It's not like they are gonna be extra thorough each time. Humans are known to do that...

The people who would be cutting the corners see the people whose lives they're giving up on, but they never meet the people who would be using their organs. Doctors and nurses still make mistakes and get lazy, but I don't think it has anything to do with organ donation.

Re: The truth about organ donation

#10

Post by hypersoar » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 7:51 PM UTC

This article is terribly manipulative. If there are valid points to be made here, I'm not going to be convinced by an essay that is full of phrases like "an ivory tower decision made by a bunch of men playing God at Harvard". The cited sources are either questionable (as in the website with the statue depicting crucifiction dominating the banner) or do not support the author's conclusions (as in the NEJM article).