By Dick Teresi
Vintage Books (paperback), December 2012
What’s not to like about organ transplantation? A heroic technological feat that gives life to the suffering and avoids wasting lives tragically cut short, it’s even good for the economy, reaping $20 billion a year. Veteran science journalist Dick Teresi, too, had checked the box on his driver’s license—until he discovered that some “brain-dead” donors might not be dead.
Historical research revealed that determining death has never been a simple matter; certain medical states can mimic it—hence earlier centuries’ fears of being buried alive. Safest, traditionally, was to wait three days until decomposition began. “Brain death” became the new criterion in 1968, just as transplantation ramped up, but few know that not even an EEG is required, ...
