TJ Hoover and his sister on her wedding day

From LifeSiteNews

By Heidi Klessig, M.D.

Since brain dead people are not dead, it is not surprising that the only multicenter, prospective study of brain death found that the majority of brains from ‘brain dead’ people were not severely damaged at autopsy.

In 2021, a supposedly brain dead man, Anthony Thomas “TJ” Hoover II, opened his eyes and looked around while being wheeled to the operating room to donate his organs. Hospital staff at Baptist Health hospital in Richmond, Kentucky assured his family that these were just “reflexes.”

But organ preservationist Natasha Miller also thought Hoover looked alive. “He was moving around – kind of thrashing. Like, moving, thrashing around on the bed,” said Miller in an NPR interview. “And then when we went over there, you could see he had tears coming down. He was visibly crying.” Thankfully, the procedure was called off, and Hoover was able to recover and even dance at his sister’s wedding this past summer.

Last month, this case was brought before a U.S. House subcommittee investigating organ procurement organizations. Whistleblowers claimed that even after two doctors refused to remove Hoover’s organs, Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates ordered their staff to find another doctor to perform the surgery.

Because brain death is a social construct and not death itself, I can tell you exactly how many “brain dead” patients are still alive: all of them. When brain death was first proposed by an ad hoc committee at Harvard Medical School in 1968, the committee admitted that these people are not dead, but rather “desperately injured.” They thought that these neurologically injured people were a burden to themselves and others, and that society would be better served if we redefined them as being “dead.” They described their reasoning this way:

Our primary purpose is to define irreversible coma as a new criterion for death. There are two reasons why there is need for a definition: (1) Improvements in resuscitative and supportive measures have led to increased efforts to save those who are desperately injured. Sometimes these efforts have only partial success so that the result is an individual whose heart continues to beat but whose brain is irreversibly damaged. The burden is great on patients who suffer permanent loss of intellect, on their families, on the hospitals, and on those in need of hospital beds already occupied by these comatose patients. (2) Obsolete criteria for the definition of death can lead to controversy in obtaining organs for transplantation.

Since brain dead people are not dead, it is not surprising that the only multicenter, prospective study of brain death found that the majority of brains from “brain dead” people were not severely damaged at autopsy – and 10 actually looked normal. Dr. Gaetano Molinari, one of the study’s principal investigators, wrote:

[D]oes a fatal prognosis permit the physician to pronounce death? It is highly doubtful whether such glib euphemisms as “he’s practically dead,” … “he can’t survive,” … “he has no chance of recovery anyway,” will ever be acceptable legally or morally as a pronouncement that death has occurred.

But history shows that despite Dr. Molinari’s doubts, “brain death,” a prognosis of possible death, went on to be widely accepted as death per se. Brain death was enshrined into US law in 1981 under the Uniform Determination of Death Act. Acceptance of this law has allowed neurologically disabled people to be redefined as “dead” and used as organ donors. Unfortunately, most of these people do not, like TJ Hoover, wake up in time. They suffer death through the harvesting of their organs, a procedure often performed without the benefit of anesthesia.

Happily, some do manage to avoid becoming organ donors and go on to receive proper medical treatment. In 1985, Jennifer Hamann was thrown into a coma after being given a prescription that was incompatible with her epilepsy medication. She could not move or sign that she was awake and aware when she overheard doctors saying that her husband was being “completely unreasonable” because he would not donate her organs. She went on to made a complete recovery and became a registered nurse.

Zack Dunlap was declared brain dead in 2007 following an ATV accident. Even though his cousin demonstrated that Zack reacted to pain, hospital staff told his family that it was just “reflexes.” But as Zack’s reactions became more vigorous, the staff took more notice and called off the organ harvesting team that was just landing via helicopter to take Zack’s organs. Today, Zack leads a fully recovered life.

Colleen Burns was diagnosed “brain dead” after a drug overdose in 2009, but wasn’t given adequate testing and awoke on the operating table just minutes before her organ harvesting surgery. Because the Burns family declined to sue, the hospital only received a slap on the wrist: the State Health Department fined St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, New York, just $6,000.

In 2015, George Pickering III was declared brain dead, but his father thought doctors were moving too fast. Armed and dangerous, he held off a SWAT team for three hours, during which time his son began to squeeze his hand on command. “There was a law broken, but it was broken for all the right reasons. I’m here now because of it,” said George III.

Trenton McKinley, a 13-year-old boy, suffered a head injury in 2018 but regained consciousness after his parents signed paperwork to donate his organs. His mother told CBS News that signing the consent to donate allowed doctors to continue Trenton’s intensive care treatment, ultimately giving him time to wake up.

Doctors often say that cases like these prove nothing, and that they are obviously the result of misdiagnosis and medical mistakes. But since all these people were about to become organ donors regardless of whether their diagnoses were correct, I doubt they find the “mistake” excuse comforting.

However, Jahi McMath was indisputably diagnosed as being “brain dead” correctly. She was declared brain dead by three different doctors, she failed three apnea tests, and she had four flat-line EEGs, as well as a cerebral perfusion scan showing “no flow.” But because her parents refused to make her an organ donor and insisted on continuing her medical care, McMath recovered to the point of being able to follow commands. Two neurologists later testified that she was no longer brain dead, but a in minimally conscious state. Her case shows that people correctly declared “brain dead” can still recover.

READ: Woman with no brainwave activity wakes up after hearing her daughter’s voice

Brain death is not death because the brain death concept does not reflect the reality of the phenomenon of death. Therefore, any guideline for its diagnosis will have no basis in scientific facts. People declared brain dead are neurologically disabled, but they are still alive. “Brain dead” organ donation is a concealed form of euthanasia.

Heidi Klessig MD is a retired anesthesiologist and pain management specialist who writes and speaks on the ethics of organ harvesting and transplantation. She is the author of “The Brain Death Fallacy” and her work may be found at respectforhumanlife.com.