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Pipedot has picked up on this remarkable New Scientist article: "Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death."
From the article:
Doctors will try to save the lives of 10 patients with knife or gunshot wounds by placing them in suspended animation, buying time to fix their injuries. ... The technique involves replacing all of a patient's blood with a cold saline solution, which rapidly cools the body and stops almost all cellular activity. ... At lower temperatures, cells need less oxygen because all chemical reactions slow down. This explains why people who fall into icy lakes can sometimes be revived more than half an hour after they have stopped breathing. ... The technique was first demonstrated in pigs in 2002.
The surgeon leading the trial (who apparently prefers to avoid the term "suspended animation") says he "eventually hopes to extend the technique to other conditions." I'm not surprised. Isn't the potential here enormous?
And the ethical issues are interesting in their own right. These are discussed towards the end of the article, and in this separate (self-contradictory) opinion piece (which appeared in print under the headline "Opt out is a cop-out").
(Score: 2, Interesting) by rts008 on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:04PM
Unlikely to be a joke, as this has been covered by most(if not all) news outlets for about the past week.
I don't see that it implies anything like you suggest though. If they are 'pronounced dead' before they are 'put on ice for organ harvest', I don't see the connection you made.
This is more about those that can be 'put on ice' before they are pronounced dead, so they can hopefully survive the more involved procedures that would otherwise take too long for survival.
I will admit that it could be gamed/manipulated to cause what you fear, but that behavior is not unique to this idea(TFA) and not an issue here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01 2014, @10:31PM
You say "I don't see that it implies anything like you suggest though. If they are 'pronounced dead' before they are 'put on ice for organ harvest', I don't see the connection you made."
With the risk of just repeating myself, the article says:
"After we did those experiments, the definition of 'dead' changed," says Rhee. "Every day at work I declare people dead. They have no signs of life, no heartbeat, no brain activity. I sign a piece of paper knowing in my heart that they are not actually dead. I could, right then and there, suspend them. But I have to put them in a body bag. It's frustrating to know there's a solution."
I dunno, but to me that's pretty much the same as saying that the current definition of "dead" isn't quite dead. This to me seems to open up a can of worms.
(Score: 2, Funny) by aXis on Wednesday April 02 2014, @12:05AM
Inigo Montoya: He's dead. He can't talk.
Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.