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Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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The Ethics of Cardiac Death and Organ Harvesting |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Tuesday, 20 March 2007 |
By Nigel Wright
Donating organs is considered a life-saving practice and many people who may not have been able to survive due to the improper functioning of their own organs, are given a new lease on life thanks to the generosity of others. Now, however, according to the Washington Post, the new trend of harvesting organs from donors, minutes after declaring heart failure, has been raising a few eyebrows.
Critics see it as a rapidly growing move toward removing body organs to save lives of those in need of them but at the risk of surrendering the interests of the donors.
It is found that surgeons are now declaring a patient to be dead and removing organs such as the liver, lungs or heart itself practically as soon as the heart stops beating. So far, it has been the practice to remove organs only after a patient has been declared brain dead.
The new trend gives the impression of transplant surgeons being in an inordinate hurry to convince family members and doctors to discontinue treatment and to hasten the death of the donor to be.
The number of such donations has risen remarkably. In 2003 there were 268 such donations but by 2006 there have been 605. It is expected to go even higher in 2007.
So, for the first time, hospitals are being forced to rethink their strategy as to whether the practice of declaring heart failure and removing the organs should be allowed.
In the practice known as “donation after cardiac death” representatives of organ banks usually approach the relatives of patients who are taken off the life-support systems. If the relatives agree to donate organs the transplant team on hand starts with the procedure of removing them immediately upon the heart stopping. But because a heart may sometimes restart of its own accord doctors usually wait a short time before they allow the surgeons to begin removing the organs. In such a situation, if the heart continues beating and does not stop within about an hour, the patient is returned to his or her room without being operated upon.
Although the practice is sometimes referred to as unethical or ghoulish, it has been pronounced ethical by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine on condition that certain procedures are followed. Two of these conditions are: making sure that the decision to remove the life-support system has not been influenced by the decision to donate organs, and, surgeons should remove the organs a full five minutes or even later after the heart has stopped.
But the procedure still has many experts concerned. They worry that the practice is confusing. Although most doctors wait for five minutes, there have been instances of doctors waiting for as little as two minutes, which makes the procedure appear macabre. Besides, they worry that the practice interferes with the chances of a patient dying peacefully and of the surviving family members being given enough time to mourn.
Transplant surgeon at Harvard Medical School, Francis Delmonico, however, had this to say: "People are dying on the waiting list….. This is vital as an untapped source of organ donors."
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/42253.html
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