The Ministry of Health is gearing up to introduce a nationwide
definition of brain death to facilitate human organ transplants,
said Vice-Minister Huang Jiefu.
The authorities will start mapping out the criteria needed to
define brain death in October.
Huang made the remarks at the just concluded China Organ
Transplant Forum in Beijing, which was organized to bring together
experts to provide suggestions on how the legislation and standards
governing organ transplants could be improved.
"Determining the criteria is the key to our most important goal
- producing legislation on brain death," Huang said.
It is officially estimated that 2 million Chinese need organ
transplants each year, but only 20,000 operations are conducted
because of a shortage of organs.
Many people die waiting for organs suited to their bodies. The
severe lack of organs, such as kidneys and livers, is mainly to
blame, Huang said.
Most of the organs used for transplants are donated by citizens
who have voluntarily signed donation agreements.
However, 15 minutes after the cessation of the heartbeat and
breathing - the current legal definition of death - organs are
irreparably damaged and can no longer be harvested for transplants,
medical experts said.
It is illegal to take organs from the brain-dead for transplant
purposes.
Huang, a liver transplant specialist, said that to increase the
success rate of organ transplants, the legal definition of death
should be expanded beyond the traditional notion of cessation of
heartbeat and eventually come to include clauses on brain
death.
Most Western countries have adopted a concept of brain death
defined by the absence of brain-stem reflexes, no evidence of
breathing and a total lack of consciousness.
Most Chinese hold to the view that "human life ends with the
last breath and heartbeat," Zhang Lei, a leading organ transplant
surgeon at Beijing Friendship Hospital, told China
Daily.
Such a view has hampered the introduction of legislation on
brain death, even though medical professionals have been calling
for the promulgation of such a law since the 1980s, Zhang said.
China has been carrying out organ transplants for more than 20
years and is the world's second largest performer of transplants
after the United States.
The ministry recently designated 164 hospitals on the mainland
to perform organ transplant surgeries, Huang said. The names of
these hospitals will be released soon.
The regulation on human organ transplants, which prohibits organ
trading in any form and prioritizes Chinese citizens for the
surgery when resources are available, took effect in May.
In the past, many foreigners came to China on so-called medical
tours for transplants, which are far cheaper here than in their
home countries.
(China Daily August 23, 2007)