Brain dead is not necessarily… “dead”!
The fact is that the criteria for “death” based on “the death of the brain” were invented by a committee at Harvard (hence the “Harvard Criteria”, based on 0 experiments by the way) the members of which had relations to organ transplantation. And today these criteria are used to support a multi-billion dollar industry on the “pretty dead” donors bodies which can still feel, urinate, have fever, heal wounds, fight infections or to carry (a very complex process which is conducted by living organisms) and deliver babies (1, 2)…
People are characterized as brain dead based on a very specific set of criteria, among which is the activity of the brain stem. But these criteria do not look out for activity in other (higher) brain regions. And these criteria do not take into account the fact that these “pretty dead” (an interesting phrase quoted from a scientist) people have all those abovementioned functions which are closely related to LIVING individuals!
Anesthesiologists (see Gail A. Van Norman and the paper “What Anesthesiologists Should Know About What Neurologists Should Know About Declaring Brain Death” for example) report cases where brain death was declared despite the fact that the patient was responsive. And it is very interesting (and frightening and horrible altogether) that anesthesiologists, based on their findings, have started using anesthesia during organ harvesting from brain dead patients due to strong indications that these people actually FEEL PAIN which the harvest (what a word!) takes place!!! (and actually dies because someone… opens him and takes his organs) (3, 4)
As Van Norman says, no living patients should be sacrificed to benefit others.
Medicine has for a long time now been traveling down the road of Money. And this is one of the worst examples of this practice.
Let us not fall into the trap of Medicine which wants to be a Religion. Everyone must be judged. And doctors are not Gods. They cannot decide who is “dead” and who is not based on their own personal criteria.
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter!
Thank you for getting the word out. I have Google Alerts set up on anytime brain death is written about that is how I came upon this blog.
Thank you for your article too! 🙂