ORGAN DONATION QUESTION

CONSIDERATIONS

AFTER LIFE
By Anita Bartholomew
Extract from Reader's Digest, March 2004.

Just as there is no consensus about when conscious life begins, there is none about when it ends. Determining
the precise time of death is, in fact, medically and scientifically impossible, says US cardiologist Michael Sabom.
“It used to be thought that the point of death was a single moment in time,” he says. “But it is now thought that
death is a process, not a single moment.” We need something to go by, though. So our society has come up with
various legal and social definitions to give us a sense of finality. Here are the terms we’re most familiar with:

Clinical death Breathing and heartbeat have stopped. A person might still be able to be resuscitated with
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or other means, depending on why the vital signs ceased and under what
conditions.

Brain death The lower brain, or brainstem, which controls automatic body functions, stops working. A person can
be kept alive only with the help of life-support machines. The length of the period that the brainstem must be
inactive before a person is declared legally dead varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Complicating the issue,
the same person can be considered legally dead if about to become an organ donor, but legally alive if not.

Persistent vegetative state/Death of the higher brain The brainstem still functions, keeping the heart, lungs and
digestive system working, but the sensing, thinking part of the brain has shut down. It may be possible to keep
the body functioning for long periods with life-support systems.

Whole brain death Both lower and higher brain functions have ceased.

Emphasis added:

Ioannes Paulus PP. II

Evangelium vitae
...on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life 1995.03.25
"there is an everyday heroism, made up of gestures of sharing, big or small, which build up an authentic culture of life. A
particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable
manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope."
para 86

We see a tragic expression of all this in the spread of euthanasia-disguised and surreptitious, or practised openly and
even legally. As well as for reasons of a misguided pity at the sight of the patient's suffering, euthanasia is sometimes
justified by the utilitarian motive of avoiding costs which bring no return and which weigh heavily on society. Thus it is
1
proposed to eliminate malformed babies, the severely handicapped, the disabled, the elderly, especially when they are not
self-sufficient, and the terminally ill. Nor can we remain silent in the face of other more furtive, but no less serious and real,
forms of euthanasia. These could occur for example when, in order to increase the availability of organs for
transplants, organs are removed without respecting objective and adequate criteria which verify the death of the
donor. para 15

Furthermore, when he denies or neglects his fundamental relationship to God, man thinks he is his own rule and
measure, with the right to demand that society should guarantee him the ways and means of deciding what to do with his
life in full and complete autonomy. It is especially people in the developed countries who act in this way: they feel
encouraged to do so also by the constant progress of medicine and its ever more advanced techniques. By using highly
sophisticated systems and equipment, science and medical practice today are able not only to attend to cases formerly
considered untreatable and to reduce or eliminate pain, but also to sustain and prolong life even in situations of extreme
frailty, to resuscitate artifi- cially patients whose basic biological functions have undergone sudden collapse, and to use
special procedures to make organs available for transplanting.
para 64

ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II 
TO THE 18th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS 
OF THE TRANSPLANTATION SOCIETY   
 Tuesday 29 August 2000
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. I am happy to greet all of you at this International Congress, which has brought you together for a reflection on the complex and
delicate theme of transplants. I thank Professor Raffaello Cortesini and Professor Oscar Salvatierra for their kind words, and I extend
a special greeting to the Italian Authorities present.

To all of you I express my gratitude for your kind invitation to take part in this meeting and I very much appreciate the serious
consideration you are giving to the moral teaching of the Church. With respect for science and being attentive above all to the law of
God, the Church has no other aim but the integral good of the human person.

Transplants are a great step forward in science's service of man, and not a few people today owe their lives to an organ transplant.
Increasingly, the technique of transplants has proven to be a valid means of attaining the primary goal of all medicine - the service of
human life. That is why in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae I suggested that one way of nurturing a genuine culture of life "is
the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself
to the sick who sometimes have no other hope" (No. 86).

2.As with all human advancement, this particular field of medical science, for all the hope of health and life it offers to many, also
presents certain critical issues that need to be examined in the light of a discerning anthropological and ethical reflection.

In this area of medical science too the fundamental criterion must be the defence and promotion of the integral good of the human
person, in keeping with that unique dignity which is ours by virtue of our humanity. Consequently, it is evident that every medical
procedure performed on the human person is subject to limits: not just the limits of what it is technically possible, but also limits
determined by respect for human nature itself, understood in its fullness: "what is technically possible is not for that reason alone
morally admissible" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, 4).

3. It must first be emphasized, as I observed on another occasion, that every organ transplant has its source in a decision of great
ethical value: "the decision to offer without reward a part of one's own body for the health and well-being of another person" (Address
to the Participants in a Congress on Organ Transplants, 20 June 1991, No. 3). Here precisely lies the nobility of the gesture, a gesture
which is a genuine act of love. It is not just a matter of giving away something that belongs to us but of giving something of ourselves,
for "by virtue of its substantial union with a spiritual soul, the human body cannot be considered as a mere complex of tissues, organs
and functions . . . rather it is a constitutive part of the person who manifests and expresses himself through it" (Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, 3).

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Accordingly, any procedure which tends to commercialize human organs or to consider them as items of exchange or trade must be
considered morally unacceptable, because to use the body as an "object" is to violate the dignity of the human person.

This first point has an immediate consequence of great ethical import: the need for informed consent. The human "authenticity" of
such a decisive gesture requires that individuals be properly informed about the processes involved, in order to be in a position to
consent or decline in a free and conscientious manner. The consent of relatives has its own ethical validity in the absence of a decision
on the part of the donor. Naturally, an analogous consent should be given by the recipients of donated organs.

4. Acknowledgement of the unique dignity of the human person has a further underlying consequence: vital organs which occur
singly in the body can be removed only after death, that is from the body of someone who is certainly dead. This requirement is
self-evident, since to act otherwise would mean intentionally to cause the death of the donor in disposing of his organs. This gives rise
to one of the most debated issues in contemporary bioethics, as well as to serious concerns in the minds of ordinary people. I
refer to the problem of ascertaining the fact of death. When can a person be considered dead with complete certainty?

In this regard, it is helpful to recall that the death of the person is a single event, consisting in the total disintegration of that unitary
and integrated whole that is the personal self. It results from the separation of the life-principle (or soul) from the corporal
reality of the person. The death of the person, understood in this primary sense, is an event which no scientific technique or
empirical method can identify directly.

Yet human experience shows that once death occurs certain biological signs inevitably follow, which medicine has learnt to recognize
with increasing precision. In this sense, the "criteria" for ascertaining death used by medicine today should not be understood as the
technical-scientific determination of the exact moment of a person's death, but as a scientifically secure means of identifying the
biological signs that a person has indeed died.

5. It is a well-known fact that for some time certain scientific approaches to ascertaining death have shifted the emphasis from the
traditional cardio-respiratory signs to the so-called "neurological" criterion. Specifically, this consists in establishing, according to
clearly determined parameters commonly held by the international scientific community, the complete and irreversible cessation of
all brain activity (in the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem). This is then considered the sign that the individual organism has lost
its integrative capacity.

With regard to the parameters used today for ascertaining death - whether the "encephalic" signs or the more traditional cardio-
respiratory signs - the Church does not make technical decisions. She limits herself to the Gospel duty of comparing the data offered
by medical science with the Christian understanding of the unity of the person, bringing out the similarities and the possible conflicts
capable of endangering respect for human dignity.

Here it can be said that the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and
irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound
anthropology. Therefore a health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case
as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgement which moral teaching describes as "moral certainty". This
moral certainty is considered the necessary and sufficient basis for an ethically correct course of action. Only where such
certainty exists, and where informed consent has already been given by the donor or the donor's
legitimate representatives, is it morally right to initiate the technical procedures required for the removal
of organs for transplant. "

New Catechism:
"2296 Organ transplants are in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks incurred by the
donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Donation of organs after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to
be encouraged as a manifestation of generous solidarity. It is not morally acceptable if the donor or those who legitimately speak
for him have not given their explicit consent.
It is furthermore morally inadmissible directly to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in
order to delay the death of other persons."

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Organ Transplants and the definition of death
Pocket-size paperback 76 pages Author: Fr David Albert Jones OP
Order Ref. Ex 04 ISBN 1860821138 £1.95

Transplant medicine transfers living tissue from one part of a body to another to restore or assist its healthy functioning. It is
not easily assessed morally: it involves receiving an organ, taking organs from dead bodies or from donors, finding new organs,
and sharing out organs and costs. This booklet outlines the main questions and concerns, explains Catholic teaching and
systematically grapples with particularly difficult questions. It is written in clear, accessible language, with directions for
further reading, and a full glossary. CTS Explanations is a series explaining in everyday language Catholic teaching on a range
of current pressing moral and ethical issues. This booklet has been produced with the Linacre Centre, the leading Catholic
centre for healthcare ethics in Great Britain and Ireland.

Vaccination Question
I would never again get a vaccine, not even if bitten by a rabid dog, nor if cut by a rusty nail. The
following info/websites will give you plenty of reasons why.
Parents must make their own choice based on their own research. If they trust their local doctor, ask
him for the mandatory fact sheet on each and any vaccine he wants to give them. Do you really
want all that poison and heavy metal (dead animal and HUMAN baby tissue) jabbed into you or
your child.
Forget it! If there is a court order, you can challenge them with a good lawyer.
This scholarly doctor had a giant battle with the law over the issue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2gteHfCa_k
http://www.lightstreamers.com/Horowitz/articles__news.htm

Our Sisters in Sydney give this book by Dr. Vera Scheiber to parents to read when they want their
children to enter school.
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccination-100-Years-Orthodox-Research/dp/064615124X
Most will refuse to accept ANY vaccinations thanks to their own research. Here is a review of the
book from a research scientist:
An excellent summary of research on vaccination., September 26, 1999
By A Customer
As a research scientist with 30 years of medical research behind me, including 10 years in
biotechnology and vaccine development, I had never questioned the basic assumptions regarding
4
vaccination. Scheiber's book on vaccine research has completely changed my views on the safety
and efficacy of vaccination. She cites study after study, such as the 1950's studies with polio
vaccine which involved nearly 2 million children, which conclusively showed at the time that the
utility of polio vaccination is zero. Well, I thought as I read on, at least the smallpox vaccine wiped
out smallpox. Wrong! It was also exhaustively compared with non-vaccination and found to have
no benefit. In fact, the vaccine has no effect on smallpox infection except to predispose the
vaccinee to infection. I had no idea. I am still in a state of shock. Hasn't anyone at the Centers for
Disease Control looked at the data? Why such a practice is still continued in the face of all this
evidence is beyond my comprehension. Needless to say, my research interests are no longer
directed toward vaccination but rather toward something more useful and productive. This book is
an excellent summary of the history of vaccination with numerous references at the end of each
chapter. It has some typos which confuse the reader on occasion but the content is well worth the
time it takes to read this excellent book. This book is an eye opener!

The pros and cons of multiple jabs

These days many vaccines are administered in one injection. If you follow the government guidelines, your child will have
three triple jabs, and three quadruple jabs by the time he is five years old. These polyvalent vaccines, as scientists call
them, are a huge benefit to the vaccination programme. A child will gain protection against three or four illnesses from just
one visit to his GP. This means that many more children are likely to be immunised, and so herd protection can be
attained. It also reduces the huge cost of the vaccination programme.

Many people argue that it is ill-advised to give a child a triple or quadruple jab. We don’t know how the individual
components of the polyvalent vaccines work together. Their effectiveness could be reduced. And then there is the
question of side effects. We are giving our children three or four viruses that they would be very unlikely to catch at the
same time naturally. Some scientists ask whether children’s immune system can cope with a triple hit at once.

http://www.vaccination.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=65

http://www.mercola.com/article/vaccines/references.htm

Vaccines Have Been Linked to Leukemias and Lymphomas:

NEW STRONG EVIDENCE LINKS AUTISM TO VACCINE

Scientists have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the three-in-one Measels-Mumps-Rubella(MMR)
vaccine plays a clear role in the development of autism.

Earlier this year British expert Dr Andrew Wakefield and molecular pathologist Professor John O'Leary
established a possible link between the measles virus, autism and a related bowel disorder. They found
fragments of the measles virus from the MMR jab in the guts of autistic children who also suffer a rare form of
bowel disease.

Now scientists at Utah State University, have reported finding a strong association between the MMR vaccine
and an autoimmune reaction which is thought to play a role in autism.

5
The team led by Dr Vijendra Singh analysed blood samples from 125 autistic children and 92 children who did
not have autism. Dr Singh, is an acknowledged expert with more than 20 years experience of immunology
research.

In 75 of the 92 autistic children they found antibodies showing there had been an abnormal reaction to the
measles component of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Nine out of ten of those children were also
positive for antibodies thought to be involved in autism.

These are incredible statistics. The antibodies attack the brain by targeting the basic building blocks of myelin,
the insulating sheath that covers nerve fibres. This stops the nerves developing properly and may affect brain
functions. Dr Singh has suggested that an abnormal immune response may be the root cause of many cases of
autism.

None of the non-autistic children showed the unusual anti-measles response.

Not one. Not any. Zero. Nil. What a damming statistic. Read that sentence again and consider it well.

But incredibly, the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer and the British Medical Association, both still
insist there is a wealth of scientific evidence that the triple jab is the safest way to protect children.

And Peter Lachmann, Emeritus Professor of Immunology at Cambridge, said that the conclusions drawn by
Vijendra Singh and his team did not make for a direct link between MMR and autism.

“In my view the associations that Dr Singh makes do not follow. His hypothesis does not show causality; he is
drawing unjustifiable conclusions from the antibody data he has collected. I do not think such conclusions can
be drawn.”

As these comments reveal, the new evidence has the Government and the BMJ fighting a rearguard action to
keep the lid on the vaccine/autism disaster.

Dr Singh's team report their findings in the latest issue of the Journal of Biomedical Science. The news of their
findings is unreported as of this date in the US media.

They sensibly conclude: 'Stemming from this evidence, we suggest that an inappropriate antibody response to
MMR, specifically the measles component thereof, might be related to pathogenesis of autism.'

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/731827/posts

DPT and DTaP Vaccines: Adverse Reactions. Thinktwice!

Although the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and "acellular" pertussis) vaccine ..... This has been proven by Dr. Vera
Scheibner through the use of Cotwatch ...

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 Vaccine Ingredients -
Formaldehyde, Aspartame,
Mercury, Etc
11-11-4

This following list of common vaccines and their ingredients should shock
anyone.

The numbers of microbes, antibiotics, chemicals, heavy metals and animal

byproducts is staggering. Would you knowingly inject these materials into
your children?
http://newworldordernews.com/page2.html

http://www.befreetech.com/vaccine_poisons.htm

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/vaccine.htm

http://www.909shot.com/

http://www.zbirdbrain.com/Vaccinate.htm
Dr Vera Scheibner has reported a 399% increase in the incidence of disease caused by infection of the Hib bacteria
since the 1940s. She asks “Why have developed countries experienced such an increase in invasive infections in the last
40 years? The best demonstrable common factor in this period is a documented push for mass vaccination.”

http://www.whale.to/v/ruesch.html

Rabies vaccination
Hans Ruesch (Slaughter of the Innocent)

Robert Koch was the first to obtain a pure culture of anthrax germs, responsible for the cattle and sheep disease,
and Pasteur made a vaccine from it by reducing the power of germs. Many historians call that the first vaccine
in history, as if Jenner and the Orientals had never existed. At any rate, an immediate controversy between
Pasteur and Koch ensued, each one accusing the other of plagiarism.

Pasteur then proceeded to develop a vaccine against rabies, or hydrophobia, which may represent the most
disconcerting case in the entire disconcerting field of vaccines.

Only an infinitesimal percentage of people bitten by a rabid animal catch the infection. But if it develops, it is
supposed to be always mortal. So to be safe, everybody who has been bitten by an animal suspected to be rabid
gets the special treatment developed originally by Pasteur. But sometimes the vaccinated person dies anyway. In
that case the death is attributed to a defective vaccine. But often it has been demonstrated that the vaccine and
7
not the bite caused the infection—for instance when the animal later on turned out to be healthy. Even if the
animal is rabid, the bite very seldom causes the infection—and never causes it if the normal hygienic rules are
followed, like the immediate washing out of the wound with water.

In his best-selling Microbe Hunters,, (Harcourt, Brace, 1926/1953) Paul de Kruif gave a highly fanciful account
of 19 Russian peasants who, bitten by an allegedly rabid wolf, traveled to Paris in order to receive the newly
announced Pasteur treatment from the old master himself. According to de Kruif, 16 of these Russian patients
were "saved" by Pasteur’s shots and "only three" died. Pasteur became an international hero after that exploit
and contributed substantially to the glamorization of "modern" laboratory Science. Three deaths out of 19
makes over 15 percent casualties. But knowing, as we know today, that not one in a hundred people bitten by a
rabid dog is likely to catch the infection, we must infer that at least some and probably all three of those Russian
peasants died because of Pasteur’s vaccine, as did uncounted people later on. Besides, at the time there were no
facilities in Russia to find out whether a wolf had rabies. Hungry wolves attacking villagers in winter were a
common occurrence; and even today many people, in Italy for instance, believe that any dog that bites them
must be affected with rabies, otherwise it wouldn’t have bitten them.

Some informed doctors believe that rabies, as a separate and distinguishable disease, exists only in animals and
not in man, and that what is diagnosed as rabies is often tetanus (lockjaw), which has similar symptoms.
Contamination of any kind of wound can cause tetanus, and it is interesting to note that today in Germany those
who get bitten by a dog are regularly given just an anti-tetanus shot. According to Germany’s most authoritative
weekly, exactly 5 Germans are supposed to have died of rabies in 20 years (Der Spiegel, 18/1972, p. 175). But
how can anyone be sure that they died of rabies? Hundreds die of tetanus.

Among the many doctors I have questioned in the U.S. and Europe, I have not yet found one who can guarantee
that he has seen a case of rabies in man. The number of cases reported by the U.S. Public Health Service in its
Morbidity and Mortality Annual Supplement for all of 1970 was exactly two—among 205,000,000 people.
Provided the diagnosis was correct. This compares with 148 cases of tetanus reported, 22,096 of salmonellosis,
56,797 of infectious hepatitis, 433,405 of streptococcal infections and scarlet fever.

Doctors who are faced for the first time with a case of suspected rabies complain that they have no precedents to
go by. The main difficulty Pasteur met with in perfecting his alleged vaccine, which often caused paralysis,
consisted in finding rabid dogs; finally he had to get healthy dogs, open their cranium and infect them with the
brain substance of the only rabid dog he had been able to get hold of.

Pasteur never identified the rabies virus. Today, everything concerning this malady is still more insecure than at
Pasteur’s time.

Only one thing is sure: ever since Pasteur developed his "vaccine," the cases of death from rabies have in-
creased, not diminished.

Currently, rabies is presumed to be established in autopsies by the presence of "Negri corpuscles," so named
after an Italian physician who in 1903 announced to have discovered them in the plasma of the nerve cells and
the spinal nerves of rabid dogs. However, Dr. John A. McLaughlin, a prominent American veterinarian who in
the sixties was called to investigate a widespread outbreak of alleged rabies in the State of Rhode Island and
performed numerous autopsies on dogs during the height of the scare, found animals with "rabies" symptoms
that had no Negri corpuscles whatever, whereas dogs that died of unrelated diseases had them in abundance. A
veterinarian from Naples, where there is a fixation of fear of rabies, showed me in a textbook the image of a
Negri corpuscle—the only one he had ever seen—that looked undistinguishable from the Lentz-Sinigallia
corpuscles that occur in dogs who have distemper. Nobody knows how many dogs affected by mere distemper
have been killed by order of sanitary authorities whose zeal overshadowed their knowledge.

8
A few years ago, Dr. Charles W. Dulles, widely-known Philadelphia physician and surgeon and lecturer at the
University of Pennsylvania on the History of Medicine, had this to say: "I might cite my own experience in the
treatment of persons bitten by dogs supposed to be rabid, which has furnished not a single case of the developed
disease in 30 years, and I probably have seen more cases of so-called hydrophobia than any other medical man.

Every real expert is aware that nothing is known for sure except what Hippocrates already knew: that the best
protection also against this infection is cleanliness. The No. 523 of the World Health Organization Technical
Report Series, entitled WHO Expert Committee on Rabies, Sixth Report, 1973 (meaning that there have been no
less than five previous WHO reports on the same subject) announces that evidence is accumulating that
parenteral injection of antirabies vaccine causes human deaths "under certain conditions" (p. 20), and states (p.
17): "The Committee recommends that production of Fermi-type vaccines, since they contain residual living
virus, should be discontinued."

"Residual living virus" is a pretty serious charge to bring from high quarters against a vaccine, but nobody
seems to pay much attention to all this, or to understand what it means. It simply means that probably the very
rare cases of humans who died of what has been diagnosed as rabies, have not died from something received
from a dog but from a doctor.

But the climax of that WHO report is on page 27: "The Committee emphasized that the most valuable procedure
in post-exposure treatment is the local treatment of wounds. This should be done by thorough washing with
soap and water. . ." And on the next page the point is repeated: "Immediate first-aid procedures recommended
are the flushing and washing of the wound with soap and water." So it took no less than 6 reports by WHO
"experts" to reach the conclusion that Hippocrates had been advocating.

In fact whoever reads carefully this and other WHO reports, notices that serious students of medicine can rely
on very little except Hippocratic hygiene and common sense. But WHO can’t admit it, otherwise the public
might ask: "What is the use of WHO?" Who is housed in one of the biggest, costliest buildings of modern times,
with large, empty halls, libraries lined with every medical publication issued throughout the world, with
numerous executives who draw fat salaries to do nothing, and a regiment of smart secretaries to help them. This
huge real-estate complex, surrounded by the silence of well-groomed lawns and flower gardens in one of the
most beautiful Alpine settings outside Geneva, represents the counterpart of the millions of laboratory animals
wasting away under scientific torture the world over.

Lately, still a new vaccine against rabies has been developed, which has been described as a "fantastic
breakthrough" by WHO officials. The report in Time (Dec. 27, 1976) reads in part: "Writing in the Journal of
the American Medical Association, a team of US and Iranian doctors last week reported that they recently
administered the vaccine in a series of only six shots to 45 Iranians who had been bitten by rabid animals. Not a
single victim developed rabies or showed a severe allergic reaction. Reason: the new vaccine, unlike the old, is
cultured in human rather than animal cells. Thus, while the patients develop antibodies against rabies, they do
not suffer painful reactions to the foreign animal protein."

For the past hundred years antivivisectionists and other sensible people have been saying that there must be
better ways for medical science than the ones recommended by Claude Bernard, and that Pasteur’s alleged
antirabies vaccination was humbug. Now official science is at last catching up to this obvious truth, and all the
big men want to get into the act.

A headline in Germany’s medical news weekly Sdecta (May 16, 1977), which read "Problem of Rabies Vaccine
Solved?" must have surprised many readers who had until then been brainwashed into believing that Pasteur
had solved that problem long ago, since it has always been presented as his main claim to fame. The article
reported a round-table of German virologists, who gave hell to Pasteur’s alleged vaccine, and cited one Prof.
Richard Haas who had defined it ‘an archaic monster."
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