From: S.J. Van Sickle (sjvan@csd.uwm.edu)
Date: Sun Mar 04 2001 - 09:17:51 MST
On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, Spike Jones wrote:
> So why not do both? Incentivise the medics by offering any and all
> organs below the neck, under the condition that they can be harvested
> only after the head has been suffused and removed by the cryo team,
> who are given first priority. Then the organ people have incentive
> to get you cooled and beheaded quickly. spike
The problem is that the vast majority of organ donations are done with
"brain dead" donors...people with massive head and brain injuries who are
otherwise healthy, with the heart and lungs still functioning. (Think:
motorcycle accident). They are usually kept on respirators for hours or
even *days* while tests are done for brain function, often with zero blood
flow in the brain, at normal temperature.
Now, there has been some talk and experiment in the medical community of
expanding the range of donors by rapidly perfusing the whole body with
cold organ preservation solution to include other cases of rapid death.
This would be *very* convenient for cryonicists, since this is essentially
the transport phase of a suspenion, almost impossible to do on little or
no notice. If hospitals and doctors all over the country had the
medications, equipment, and experience to do these for organ transplants,
they could do them for cryonicists...given enough financial incentive. It
is doubtful that this would lead to many organ donations however.
Cryonicists who are suspended tend to be terminally ill, and few ride
motorcycles without helmets. In fact, I'm not aware of *any* suspendees
who would have been organ donation prospects. Even "normal" folks with a
donor card are extremely unlikely to wind up donating.
Now, *tissue* donations of various sorts *may* be possible...corneas,
skin, that sort of thing. I'll have to look into it.
steve
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