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01-07-2009 | News

Total brain failure: a new contribution by the President’s Council on Bioethics to the definition of death according to the neurological standard

Authors: Nereo Zamperetti, Rinaldo Bellomo

Published in: Intensive Care Medicine | Issue 7/2009

Excerpt

“Our primary purpose is to define irreversible coma as a new criterion for death.” With these words, in 1967 the Harvard’s Committee started one of the most influential papers ever published in the medical literature [1]. In it, the Committee did not produce any scientific reason to justify why brain-dead patients are dead, but used moral and social justifications to demonstrate why they should be regarded as dead. …

Ad hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death (1968) A definition of irreversible coma: report of the Ad hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death. JAMA 205:85–88CrossRef

Bernat JL, Culver CM, Bernard G (1981) On the definition and criterion of death. Ann Intern Med 94:389–394PubMedCrossRef

President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioural Research (1981) Defining death: a report on the medical, legal, and ethical issues in the determination of death. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (Available online at http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/past_commissions/defining_death.pdf)

The President’s Council on Bioethics (2008) Controversies in the determination of death. A White Paper of the President’s Council on Bioethics. Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/death/index.html

Zamperetti N, Bellomo R, Defanti CA, Latronico N (2004) 1968–2003: Irreversible apnoeic coma 35 years later. Towards a more rigorous definition of “brain death”. Intensive Care Med 30:1715–1722PubMed

Taylor RM (1977) Reexamining the definition and criteria of death. Semin Neurol 17:265–270CrossRef

Title: Total brain failure: a new contribution by the President’s Council on Bioethics to the definition of death according to the neurological standard
Authors: Nereo Zamperetti
Rinaldo Bellomo
Publication date: 01-07-2009
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: Intensive Care Medicine / Issue 7/2009
Print ISSN: 0342-4642
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1238
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-009-1499-z

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Total brain failure: a new contribution by the President’s Council on Bioethics to the definition of death according to the neurological standard

Excerpt

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

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