Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

288 NICANOR AUSTRIACOAnne Quinlan that brought extensive media attention to thequestion of end-of-life care. 33 Though most news accounts carefullyexplained that Quinlan did not meet the criteria for BD, thereports also argued that the use of the BD criteria for death wasone way to stop physicians from using futile machinery that prolongedand intruded upon a good death. 34 According to one commentator,this shift in the media’s explanation of why BD wasnecessary – from a way to protect the public from organ thievesto a way to protect the public against futile and medical interventions– probably played a central role in the speed with whichthe model brain-death legislation proposed by the President’sCommission was enacted. 35 Since the publication of the 1981report of the President’s Commission, the TBD criteria has beenendorsed by all the states in the United States and by many otherwestern nations. In a recent survey of brain death criteriathroughout the world, 70 of the 80 countries (88%) that hadlegal standards for death have accepted some definition of BD astheir standard. 36 In addition, detailed clinical tests to diagnoseTBD have now been published to try to standardize the medicaldiagnostic criteria for the TBD condition. 37 These usually consistof a battery of tests and procedures, including establishment ofan etiology sufficient to account for the loss of all brain functions,diagnosing the presence of coma, documenting apnea andthe absence of brainstem reflexes, excluding reversible conditions,and showing persistence of these findings over a sufficientperiod of time. 38 Today, the TBD criteria for death have replacedthe cardio-pulmonary criteria as the medical and legal standardfor death.33For extensive discussion on the Karen Quinlan case, see PENCE, Classiccases, pp. 3-17.34PERNICK, “Brain Death,” p. 18.35Ibid., p. 17.36Eelco F.M. WIJDICKS, “Brain death worldwide: Accepted fact but noglobal consensus in diagnostic criteria,” Neurology 58 (2002): 20-25.37Most recently, see Eelco F. M. WIJDICKS, “The Diagnosis of BrainDeath,” N Engl J Med 344 (2001): 1215-1221.38Report of the Medical Consultants on the Diagnosis of Death,“Guidelines for the Determination of Death,” JAMA 246 (1981): 2184-2186.