Don’t be mislead about brain death
A story was reported yesterday from Upstate New York, where the family of Lee Corron was told he had died of “brain death.”
On April 4th, 43-year-old Lee Corron suffered an apparent cardiac arrest at his home in Syracuse. For 24 days his family stayed by his side as Corron lay in a coma.
On April 19th, Todd Corron told CNY Central’s Jim Kenyon that doctors informed the family an MRI showed that his brother was brain dead, so they consented to removal of life support. “This was the doctor’s recommendation because there was no brain activity and he was never supposed to wake up.” Todd Corron said. “So by the recommendation of the doctor, we decided to pull his breathing tube, the IV’s and the food.”
The family claims doctors told them Lee would pass away within hours. After four days, they say doctors told them there were signs of brain activity after all. By then they say the damage to Corron’s organs had already been done.
Family members say the hospital staff was not telling them what might have gone wrong. On Friday, April 26th, they filed a formal complaint with Upstate’s Office of Patient Relations.
Kayla Corron told Kenyon, “If we would have known… he had brain activity we would never have taken him off all that stuff. Our dad is 43 years old.”
On April 28th, after 9 days off life support, Corron died surrounded by his family.
Brain Death is not true death
D. Alan Shewmon, a pediatric neurologist at UCLA who was originally pro–brain-death, now dismisses the idea. The most scientific approach one can take to death, he says, is to treat human beings like any other species.
Shewmon compiled 150 documented cases of brain-dead patients whose hearts continued to beat, and whose bodies did not disintegrate, past one week’s time. In one remarkable case, the patient survived 20 years after brain death before succumbing to cardiac arrest.
Organ transplants are not the harvesting of body parts from dead, unfeeling corpses.
- They urinate
- They deliver babies
- They get bed sores
- They run fevers
Anesthesiologists have been at the forefront of questioning the finality of brain death and whether beating-heart cadavers truly are unfeeling, unaware corpses. They have also begun wondering about what a “pretty dead” donor may experience during a three to five-hour harvest sans anesthetic, and they are speaking out on the subject.
Thirteen individuals, all directly involved in organ transplantation, gathered at Harvard University and invented brain death. One of the members of this elite group, known as the Ad Hoc Committee, a religious leader, was also an euthanasia enthusiast. The invention of brain death and the contrived criteria is known as the Harvard Criteria.
The issues surrounding brain death are in truth as simple now as they were upon their invention. The truth is, the
- the donor is breathing
- the donor has a beating heart
- the circulatory system is functioning
The donor is killed during the process of dissection for the sole purpose of organ transplantation. Every donor eventually takes their last breath, when their heart stops beating and circulation ceases.
Don’t be mislead about brain death and permit your loved one to die. Know the true. Unfortunately, the family of Lee Corron found out too late as many other’s have. Let’s hope this case makes it to the Supreme Court and this nightmare ends.
