The Undead

The Undead
افزودن به بوکمارک اشتراک گذاری 0 دیدگاه کاربران 4 (1)

Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers—How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death

مشارکت: عنوان و توضیح کوتاه هر کتاب را ترجمه کنید این ترجمه بعد از تایید با نام شما در سایت نمایش داده خواهد شد.
iran گزارش تخلف

فرمت کتاب

ebook

تاریخ انتشار

2012

نویسنده

Dick Teresi

شابک

9780307907110
  • اطلاعات
  • نقد و بررسی
  • دیدگاه کاربران
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نقد و بررسی

Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from February 6, 2012
Suddenly, death doesn’t seem so certain after all. In this brutally honest look at how doctors determine the moment of death, skeptical science writer and Omni magazine cofounder Teresi (The God Particle) relishes ripping into the 1968 Harvard team that formulated new criteria for determining death: “loss of personhood,” or brain death. Doctors, Teresi says, can now “declare a person dead in less time than it takes to get a decent eye exam” by testing reflexes: “a flashlight in the eyes, ice water in the ears, and then an attempt to gasp for air” when the respirator is disconnected. Teresi interviews scientists who question the finality of brain death when the heart is still beating, and even the concept that personhood is located solely in the brain. More alarming, Teresi charges that the brain-death revolution is driven by the $20 billion-a-year organ transplant business. Teresi will scare readers to death with examples of how undependable brain-death criteria can be—one organ donor began to breathe spontaneously just as the surgeon removed his liver. But the more powerful effect of this scathing report should be the start of an uncomfortable but necessary conversation between doctors and potential organ donors. Agent: Janklow and Nesbit.



Kirkus

January 15, 2012
Science writer Teresi (Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--From the Babylonians to the Maya, 2002, etc.) claims that the rights of organ donors are being violated by the medical profession. "In 2010," writes the author, "there were an estimated 28,144 transplant operations in the United States"--with 111,530 candidates on the waiting lists as of June 2011. His stated purpose is to call attention to what he sees as a subtle shift in medical emphasis from saving lives to declaring patients dead prematurely in order to preserve their organs for the lucrative organ-transplant business. Like a real-life version of Robin Cook's medical thriller Coma, Teresi paints a grisly picture of organ harvesting and raises uncomfortable questions: Is the donor actually dead rather than at the point of death? Might he or she be revived given time and proper medical attention? Might the donor feel pain during the process of organ extraction even though seemingly brain dead? Citing reports of out-of-body experiences, the locked-in syndrome portrayed in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and evidence that comatose patients who are apparently unresponsive are sometimes fully aware of conversations held in their presence, Teresi expresses skepticism about the medical definition of brain death. The author searches out experts, including, among others, "undertakers, cell biologists, coma specialists (and those who have recovered from coma), organ transplant surgeons," in an effort to penetrate the boundaries between life and death. "The unborn, fetuses, have plenty of political clout," he writes. "No one speaks for donors," and the press has abdicated its responsibility for investigative journalism. However, some of Teresi's writing verges on sensationalism--e.g., his lurid account of modern executions. A provocative, if one-sided, examination of important ethical issues and the still-unresolved question of what constitutes death.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



Library Journal

Starred review from April 1, 2012

Few if any of the numerous recent books on end-of-life care combine humor, learning, and insight as Teresi (Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science) does here. By exploring how death has been determined from ancient times through modern Western medicine, he shows that some tests for death are not always foolproof. He argues that the possibility of organ donation has changed how we define death and shows the sometimes forceful recruitment tactics of procurement agencies. While the book discusses how the 1968 Ad Hoc Committee of Harvard Medical School influentially defined brain death, several other works have covered it in more depth. Teresi also includes sometimes moving personal stories of friends who struggled with end-of-life issues, putting a human face on the debates. VERDICT By combining learning and humor in an accessible format, this book is a good introduction to the medical, biological, and social conditions related to end-of-life care. Teresi will make you laugh, groan, and question what you think you know. An accessible but illuminating introduction to current questions in end-of-life care. [See Prepub Alert, 9/11/11.]--A.W. Klink, Duke Univ., Durham, NC

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.



Booklist

Starred review from February 1, 2012
The Undead presents chilling, controversial, and, at times, comical commentary on physical death. The determination of death is fuzzier than you might imagine. There are cardiopulmonary death and brain-stem death, necrosis and apoptosis. There are those who straddle the divide between life and deathbeating-heart cadavers, individuals who've had near-death experiences, and even brain-dead pregnant women who carry fetuses to term. Physical signs of demise and clinical tests (EEG, apnea test, cerebral blood-flow studies) assist in establishing death, but the ultimate authority rests with medical opinion: You're dead when the doctor says you're dead. Teresi frets that physicians may be making moral judgments, not medical verdicts, when it comes to declarations of death. His other gripe involves the organ-transplantation industry (purportedly, a $20-billion-a-year business), which, understandably, revolves around recipients but arguably shortchanges donors and their next of kin. All sorts of expertson coma, animal euthanasia, and executionas well as undertakers, organ-transplant staff, neurologists, ethicists, and lawyers weigh in on the death debate. It is Miracle Max, a character in The Princess Bride, who sums things up best: There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)




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