ID :
66522
Fri, 06/19/2009 - 08:48
Auther :

Approval of organ transplant amendment bill met with mixed reaction+



TOKYO, June 18 Kyodo -
Thursday's lower house approval of a bill to recognize brain death as legal
death to allow for more organ transplants in Japan brought a ray of hope to
patients on waiting lists for transplants but raised questions about whether a
person's death can be determined by law.

In a plenary session, the House of Representatives approved a bill to generally
recognize people who are brain dead as legally dead and to scrap the age limit
for organ transplants, which is currently set at 15 years or older, to clear
the way for more transplants within the country.
Namie Nakazawa from the city of Yokohama, whose 1-year-old son Sotaro died in
the United States, where he had gone to receive a heart transplant, welcomed
the approval.
''Although I cannot take back the past, I believe it (the lower house approval)
could be a step forward toward preventing children and their parents from going
through the same experience as ours,'' she said at a news conference.
The bill aims to revise the current Organ Transplant Law, which recognizes
brain death only in cases involving people who have already declared their
intention to donate organs while they are alive and if their family members
agree to it. The law only allows people aged 15 or older to donate organs.
Because of the requirements under the current law, organs for transplants have
been scarce and there have been only 81 transplant cases in Japan since its
enactment in 1997, resulting in a trend in which people travel abroad for
transplants.
Norihide Fukushima, associate professor at Osaka University who has dealt with
overseas transplants for infants with heart disease, said, ''The families of
brain-dead donors tend to agonize about having stopped the hearts (of their
loved ones). It is important that we legally define brain death as death.''
On the other hand, Akemi Nakamura in Tokyo, whose daughter had been in a
brain-dead state for 21 months, cannot accept such a perception. ''The body of
my daughter was warm and her hair kept growing,'' Nakamura said at a separate
press conference. ''I never thought that she was dead.''
''I wonder how much those who cast votes on Plan A know about brain-dead
children,'' she said.
The bill that cleared the lower house was one of four proposed amendments for
the existing law and is called Plan A.
Kimiko Kawami, a civic group opposing the amendment, said, ''We are talking
about a legal amendment concerning life and death, but sufficient deliberations
were not conducted. I doubt that each lawmaker fully understood (the issue)
before voting.''
The lower chamber conducted nine hours of deliberations on the four proposals.
==Kyodo
2009-06-18 22:32:18

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