Organ Donation: Medical Issues and the Dilemma of Brain Death

[Yamaka]

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Hello ALL:

I favor organ donation. I am thinking of giving my dead body for Medical Students for Learning, after harvesting of usable organs.

This article talks about some practical issues. Read on and give your well considered views.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204603004577269910906351598.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_6

 

[renuka]

What I am writing is not medical related to the post above but somewhat connected.

I used to wonder before if each organ in the body has a cellular memory.
Till what extent is this cellular memory influenced by the human mind and consciousness..I really wonder.

The reason I am writing this is becos there have been rare cases where organ recipients that have portrayed unusual behaviour after the organ transplant.

I once had a patient a chinese old man who never used to like eating any spicy food.
He had a kidney transplant done at Tamil Nadu India and after the transplant he started developing taste for curry and spicy indian food.

He himself told me "why am I becoming like an Indian cos my donor was from TN"

Something cannot really be explained..so I am starting to wonder if the human mind leaves a imprint in all organs like a cellular blue print and when the organ is used by another person these cellular blue print is activated and similar behaviour patterns of the donor is seen.

I feel this might be actually possible becos we do see similar behavioural pattern even in a father and son for example.
Thats genetic we can say, all in the DNA may be.

So I feel may be DNA has actually got much more than what we think it carries.
DNA might be actually having cellular memory blue prints imprinted by the vasanas of the mind and that could explain the change of behaviour sometimes seen in an organ recipient.

These are just my thoughts and they are not medically proven.

 

[C RAVI]

Dear Renuka,

Religiously/spiritually it is believed that if some one donates an organ as intrinsic to the body as Heart, the recipient of the organ will have to return the favor in the donor's next life, as per the principles of Karma. That means, the donor will have to have a next life. This can be a hinderance to both the person (donor & the recipient) to get liberated from the cycle of rebirth.

At the same time, since Hindus believe that the physical body is nothing but a mere machine that is left to be disposed off once the soul is out, there is nothing wrong to let others benefit some way from this body, discarded by the soul. And that, it would be a selfish thought and act to not to donate the organs of the body to the needy so that one need not to have next life, in order to receive something in return of the favor from the recipient, who had committed upon himsel/herself to receive and pay back.

In this context, I would buy the following observations of yours in your post #2 -

"Something cannot really be explained..so I am starting to wonder if the human mind leaves a imprint in all organs like a cellular blue print and when the organ is used by another person these cellular blue print is activated and similar behaviour patterns of the donor is seen."

Adding to the above, I would speculate that, the recipient's mind too would leave an imprint in his/her received organ(s) as well and synchronizes well with sort of indentification tag without any lapse such that, he/she would end up paying the favor in return to the same donor, in his/their next life.



Shri Yamaka,

As far as the issue highlighted in the ariticle is concerned, I am of the opinion that, the legal/medical regulations should be such that, the relative of the donor should have the final consent to proceed with harvesting, if he/she is convienced that the donor is dead or can be given up, considering impossibilities of the donor's natural survival. And to be proved that the donor was administered with fentanyl and sufentanyl anesthetics, before harvesting, considering his/her brain dead, when medical specialists could not substantiate unanimously that the brain dead would not react and feel the pain.

 

[renuka]

Dear Renuka,

Religiously/spiritually it is believed that if some one donates an organ as intrinsic to the body as Heart, the recipient of the organ will have to return the favor in the donor's next life, as per the principles of Karma. That means, the donor will have to have a next life. This can be a hinderance to both the person (donor & the recipient) to get liberated from the cycle of rebirth.

Dear Ravi,

It can only be a hindrance if we think we are doing someone a favor by donating the organ.

I guess any act can be divorced from the Karmic consequences if we follow

Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshu kadacana,
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani


I am a pledged organ donor for almost all organs..I signed up at the age of 26 for it and have a card too.
I have informed my family and spouse of this also..so that they can do the needful in case of my death.

When I signed up I didnt really think in terms of helping anyone or doing anyone a favor.
All I thought is body organs are like spare parts of a car that can be used and transferred to different cars.

 

[prasad1]

Dr. Renuka I am going to differ from your post.

Cellular memory is the speculative notion that human body cells contain clues to our personalities, tastes, and histories, independently of either genetic codes or brain cells. The magical thinking of our ancestors may account for the first beliefs in something like cellular memory. Eating the heart of a courageous enemy killed in battle would give one strength. The practice of eating various animal organs associated with different virtues such as longevity or sexual prowess* is one of the more common forms of magical thinking among our earliest ancestors. Even today, some people think that eating brains will make them smarter.

There are several possible logical explanations for why people might assume characteristics of their donors: Side effects of transplant medications may make people feel weird and different from before the transplant. For example, prednisone makes people hungry.
The recipient of an organ transplant develops a love of pastry and finds out the person that donated their organ loved pastry as well. They think there is a connection, but really it is just the prednisone (anti rejection drug) making their body crave sweets.

A transplant is a profound experience and the human mind is very suggestible. Medically speaking, there is no evidence that these reports are anything more than fantasy.


But to contradict myself, please read the following article:
More On Cellular Memory. New Heart, New Personality, Too? « Bob's NewHeart

Memory transference in organ transplant recipients - Namah Journal

 

[C RAVI]

Dear Ravi,

It can only be a hindrance if we think we are doing someone a favor by donating the organ.

I guess any act can be divorced from the Karmic consequences if we follow

Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshu kadacana,
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani


I am a pledged organ donor for almost all organs..I signed up at the age of 26 for it and have a card too.
I have informed my family and spouse of this also..so that they can do the needful in case of my death.

When I signed up I didnt really think in terms of helping anyone or doing anyone a favor.
All I thought is body organs are like spare parts of a car that can be used and transferred to different cars.

Dear Renuka,

I could accept your points. But let me get clarified/enlightened further by you.

You may have not signed up for organ donation thinking in terms of helping some one or doing anyone a great favor. But don't you believe that the very pupose of your donation is to serve some one? To help some one to live and not to die? Assuming if medical science is not so advanced that transplantaion is not possible and a dying person can not be offered with an alternate, will there be any need on your part to sign up for organ donation? Assuming such medical impossibilies, you may donate your skeleton structure atleast to help medical students learn. Even in this case, isn't that you have a sense of service, though personally you are not yearning to be paid back?



The other quesiton is -

Would not the recipient have the sense of gratitude (I am really grateful / thankful to my donor) strongly engrossed in his/her mind, for the rest of his/her life? If the recipient have such strong sense of gratitude and thankfulness (having been offered a second chance to live) will that make the donor to come back on this Earth and be honored by the recipient?

Kindly enlighted me, if you please..

 

[renuka]

Dear Renuka,

I could accept your points. But let me get clarified/enlightened further by you.

You may have not signed up for organ donation thinking in terms of helping some one or doing anyone a great favor. But don't you believe that the very pupose of your donation is to serve some one? To help some one to live and not to die? Assuming if medical science is not so advanced that transplantaion is not possible and a dying person can not be offered with an alternate, will there be any need on your part to sign up for organ donation? Assuming such medical impossibilies, you may donate your skeleton structure atleast to help medical students learn. Even in this case, isn't that you have a sense of service, though personally you are not yearning to be paid back?



The other quesiton is -

Would not the recipient have the sense of gratitude (I am really grateful / thankful to my donor) strongly engrossed in his/her mind, for the rest of his/her life? If the recipient have such strong sense of gratitude and thankfulness (having been offered a second chance to live) will that make the donor to come back on this Earth and be honored by the recipient?

Kindly enlighted me, if you please..

reply to your 1st query:

1)To be frank I just signed up for it with no specific intention in my mind.
You might not believe me but since young I used to think that if we preform an act to help someone and feel good about it later it sort of makes us feel puffed up that we did a good deed and thats not good in the long run cos that gives us a sense of subtle superiority over the individual we helped.
So I got used to doing things as a reflex without really thinking I helped any one.

2)If the recipient has a sense of gratitude..thats his right to feel so.
It should not affect the donor if the donor was not looking for any Phala in his/her act of donation.
The strong sense of gratitude of the recipient might reshape his karma in someway which is conducive for him to work it out sometime later.

But its only at the beginning the recipient feels a strong sense of gratitude to the donor..after a while he gets on with life as usual just like how someone who has received blood transfusion from the blood bank hardly thinks of the donor.

Time erases all desires and thoughts.

 

[C RAVI]

reply to your 1st query:

1)To be frank I just signed up for it with no specific intention in my mind.
You might not believe me but since young I used to think that if we preform an act to help someone and feel good about it later it sort of makes us feel puffed up that we did a good deed and thats not good in the long run cos that gives us a sense of subtle superiority over the individual we helped.
So I got used to doing things as a reflex without really thinking I helped any one.

2)If the recipient has a sense of gratitude..thats his right to feel so.
It should not affect the donor if the donor was not looking for any Phala in his/her act of donation.
The strong sense of gratitude of the recipient might reshape his karma in someway which is conducive for him to work it out sometime later.

But its only at the beginning the recipient feels a strong sense of gratitude to the donor..after a while he gets on with life as usual just like how someone who has received blood transfusion from the blood bank hardly thinks of the donor.

Time erases all desires and thoughts.

Thank you very much dear Renuka, for your feedback.

Good intentions certainly purify our soul and would give the true sense of our survival, does not matter if we were been offered with rebirth or not. Man proposes, God disposes.

 

[nalanda]

In England I have seen tv interviews of people who after a transplant develop interests in areas they never had any interests in .It turns out the interests were those of the donors; as a example, jogging, playing musical instruments,or being conversant in a foreign language were some of these shown. I think there is a lot more we do not know about transplant.On the other hand nature takes care of the population equilibrium;this all changed with the advent of antibiotics and all cures which followed afterwards have interfered with nature's way of keeping population to a tolerable level.Are we trying to have our cake and eat it.
nalanda

 

[sarang]

This is a very very old joke. One patient had his kidneys replaced with a dog's. When the doctor asked him how he felt, he replied - everything is fine, doc. Only difference is I have to lift a leg while at it.

 

[C RAVI]

This is a very very old joke. One patient had his kidneys replaced with a dog's. When the doctor asked him how he felt, he replied - everything is fine, doc. Only difference is I have to lift a leg while at it.

LOL...Good joke..

Just wondering what would be the actions and reactions if a man has his heart replaced with that of a Monkey?

 

[prasad1]

Heart valve is commonly replaced with animal tissue. If what is suggested in the posts here there will be lot of people going "OINK OINK".
[h=1]What are the future limits of replacement parts for the human body?[/h]
Discovery Health "What are the future limits of replacement parts for the human body?"

Technology has always strived to match the incredible sophistication of the human body. Now electronics and hi-tech materials are replacing whole limbs and organs in a merger of machine and man.
[FONT=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]Later this year a team of researchers will try out the first bionic eye implant in the UK hoping to help a blind patient see for the first time. It is one of the extraordinary medical breakthroughs in the field, which are extending life by years and providing near-natural movement for those who have lost limbs.[/FONT]

BBC News - Can you build a human body?


New organs for humans can be
Grown in vivo using stem cells
Artificially grown in vitro (in a lab)
Grown in a genetically modified animal (xenotransplantation).
[FONT=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]Built as a machine (cyborgisations)[/FONT]

Organs can be grown from a few cells "manually" using artificial scaffolding. Or they can be grown inside cloned organisms. The scaffolding may in time be produced using printing based manufacturing, i.e. built up in layers, as this allows precise and custom control of the shape.
[FONT=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]It will also become possible to make human organism regenerate organs in vivo (like the regeneration-capable mice, 2005), once we understand our genes better.[/FONT]

Replacement organs - Future


[FONT=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]Let us not deprive ourselves of the advances in science, by introducing and believe in [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif]superstitions.[/FONT]

 

[Iyyarooraan]

To Shri Ravi Sir:
Religiously/spiritually it is believed that if some one donates an organ as intrinsic to the body as Heart, the recipient of the organ will have to return the favor in the donor's next life, as per the principles of Karma. That means, the donor will have to have a next life. This can be a hinderance to both the person (donor & the recipient) to get liberated from the cycle of rebirth.
I am afraid this could be wrong. This will discourage the whole thing. Logically speaking, if I give alms to beggars in this birth, should I take it, that in my next birth I will be a beggar. Positive rewards accrue to good acts and intensive negative rewards in the same coin perhaps, will be given to the sinner. Next birth is left to God only as he will decide our birth.

 

[C RAVI]

To Shri Ravi Sir:
Religiously/spiritually it is believed that if some one donates an organ as intrinsic to the body as Heart, the recipient of the organ will have to return the favor in the donor's next life, as per the principles of Karma. That means, the donor will have to have a next life. This can be a hinderance to both the person (donor & the recipient) to get liberated from the cycle of rebirth.
I am afraid this could be wrong. This will discourage the whole thing. Logically speaking, if I give alms to beggars in this birth, should I take it, that in my next birth I will be a beggar. Positive rewards accrue to good acts and intensive negative rewards in the same coin perhaps, will be given to the sinner. Next birth is left to God only as he will decide our birth.

Thank you for your feedback Shri Iyyarooraan. I was really expecting your valuable inputs and that of Shri Saidevo and Shri Sravna.

In my post that you have quoted, I meant to say that, the sense of gratitude of the recipient as his vaasana may make him reciprocate the favor done to him as a good gesture, to his donor, in some or other way as a honor/reward.

This sort of vaasana may make the donor and or the recipient to take rebirth and nullify the concept of mutual give and take, between the two.

This can not be such a way that the donor in his next birth would have his organ failed and get it replaced by the help of a donor who one's was a recipient of his organ. It can be just in a way of some great help in the most needed circumstances, as some one associated or as a stranger, in an unexpected way.

It was not about people who be mercyfull and offer alms to beggers and or do charity for the needy.

 

[renuka]

What did the organ(heart) donor sing to the organ(heart) recipient?

Duniya mein na koi tumse hai pyaara
Dhadkan kya kehti hai, samjho ishaara
Aaj se jaaneman dil hai tumhaara.

 

[Yamaka]

My view is

1. Surgeons before removing the organs MUST ensure that there is no activity or signal in the whole brain and its extension (including cortex, brain stem and even the spinal cord) by doing EEG or similar scanning/imaging. Only this will say that the person is 100% brain-dead for sure.

2. Once the issue of brain-dead is established 100% w/o exception, then if the body is "warm and pink" I don't mind. And, the issue of "muscle twitching" is a non-issue for me.

3. To use anesthetics or not is not a big issue, once the brain is 100% dead and therefore there will not be any feeling of pain.

Cheers.