Dead-Donor Rule
Definition
The ethical and legal principle that vital organs may only be retrieved from individuals who have already been declared legally dead. It ensures that organ procurement does not itself cause or constitute death.
Related terms
- Harvard Criteria (1968)
- The four-point diagnostic criteria for a permanently non-functioning brain published by the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee in JAMA: unreceptivity and unresponsivity, no...
- Molecular Death
- The progressive, tissue-by-tissue irreversible failure of cellular metabolism that follows somatic death. Different tissues undergo molecular death at different rates, ranging from...
- Somatic Death
- The irreversible cessation of vital functions of the organism as a whole: cardiac activity, respiratory activity, and integrated neurological function. The threshold...
- TOHTA 1994
- The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act 1994 (India), amended in 2011. Section 2(d) defines brain-stem death as the permanent and...
- Uniform Determination of Death Act 1981 (UDDA)
- US model legislation, drafted by the President's Commission, that provides two legally equivalent definitions of death: irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory...
Explained in
- Death: Brain, Cardiopulmonary and Molecular DefinitionsThe ethical and legal principle that vital organs may only be retrieved from individuals who have already been declared legally dead. It ensures that organ pro...