The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha may be skirting laws governing the procurement of human organs for transplant by harvesting organs from individuals who may not yet be dead.
UNMC surgeons have developed a protocol for “normothermic regional perfusion with controlled donation after circulatory death,” a practice fraught with ethical concerns.
Under UNMC’s protocol, published at clinicaltrials.gov, the donor is removed from life support, and once the heart has stopped (circulatory death) the surgeons wait five minutes – as required by Nebraska law – to see if the heart restarts on its own.
If it does not,
