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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2009
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PREMIUM NEWS ARCHIVE

Doctors debate death definition for transplants: success with infant hearts shows that timing matters.(STORY ONE)

Article from: Science News Article date: September 13, 2008 Author: Yeager, Ashley

A heart stops beating in one person. It is transplanted and restarted in another. Was the individual from whom the heart was taken really dead?

That is a question neurologist James Bernat of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., asks whenever he considers the ethics involved in organ donation.

Now, a new heart transplant experiment has resparked debate over declaring the death of an organ donor--and over what ethical and medical transplant procedures are appropriate. Bernat is among the ...

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