A call for full public disclosure and moratorium on donation after cardiac death in children.

摘要

At the 2010 Society of Critical Care Medicine's 39th Scientific and Educational Symposium, a well-attended PRO/ CON debate was held on whether "Donation after Cardiac Death (DCD) in children should be abolished." During this debate, both PRO/CON speakers presented arguments, which held that DCD violates the Dead Donor Rule, a longstanding tenet of ethical organ donation that the nonliving donor must be irreversibly dead at the time of donation. The PRO speaker (1) cited the successful cardiac transplantation to infants from DCD donor infants in Denver as evidence that the heart was not dead. Suprisingly, even the CON speaker presented a similar rationale, as previously described (2).