Proposed Changes In Organ Donation Stir Debate

NPR | Rob Stein
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The nation's organ transplant network will consider a controversial proposal Monday to overhaul the guidelines for an increasingly common form of organ donation.

The board of directors of the United Network for Organ Sharing will open a two-day meeting at the organization's headquarters in Richmond, Va., to consider new guidelines for donation after cardiac death.

Donation after cardiac death involves removing organs minutes after life-support has been stopped for patients who still have at least some brain activity.

The approach has long been controversial for a variety of reasons, including whether doctors wait long enough after life-support is stopped to know for sure whether all brain activity has ceased. Most organ donors now are brain dead.

The new guidelines would change the official name of donation after cardiac death to "donation after circulatory death."

They're generating debate over when the possibility of organ donation should be raised with patients or their families. The guidelines say local hospitals and organ procurement organizations should decide individually how to handle that question.
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor in California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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