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Straight Talk on Life Issues
The Shocking Dangers of Organ Donation
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Recently many Americans have been shocked to learn more about organ donation. The Department of Health and Human Services released a report detailing examples of systematic disregard for human life in organ donation. This week Brad and Victor are joined by Dr. Heidi Klessig a leading expert on the dangers of organ donation for part one of exposing the shocking dangers of organ donation.
The public goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles and they're asked, Do you want to be an organ donor? And they look at the brightly colored posters that say, you know, give the gift of life, be a good citizen. And they're being asked to make probably one of the biggest medical decisions of their life by someone at the DMV without any type of information.
Speaker 00:Welcome back to Straight Talk on Life Issues. I'm Victor Nievis. As always, joined by Brad Mattis, president of Life Issues Institute. It's great to have you with us for a very important conversation on organ donation.
Speaker 02:Yeah, Victor, imagine you're lying in a hospital bed, unable to communicate in any way. You can hear everything going on around you, but you can't move or talk. And then you hear the doctor say your brain dead.
Speaker 00:Unfortunately, one that we know people have experienced. And you know, while most people assume that organs can only be removed or transplanted after all efforts to save the donor's life have been exhausted, we know that's not the case. Organ donation has changed.
Speaker 02:It absolutely has. And now a person whose brain injured and considered close to death that doesn't necessarily meet the criteria for brain death may still qualify as an organ donor.
Speaker 00:And you know, for organs to be considered viable, the patient must be breathing, the heart must be pumping, and the harvest cannot wait for death in the way that the public perceives death. Let's jump into it today with our guest, Dr. Heidi Klesig. She attended medical school at UW Madison, where she completed a residency program in anesthesiology. She was a founding partner of the Pain Clinic of Northwestern Wisconsin and an instructor for the International Spinal Injection Society. She now writes and speaks on the ethics or lack thereof of organ donation and transplantation. Dr. Klesig, welcome to the show.
Speaker 01:Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 02:This is a very interesting topic that I'm sure many of our listeners have probably never thought of. So, first of all, I'd like to ask is organ donation today ethical or are lines being crossed in zeal to harvest those organs and short supply?
Speaker 01:You know, organ donation is a big subject, and there are ways to do it ethically, but by and large, what's going on is the public is being not informed about what actually is happening behind the operating room doors. People who have been given diagnoses like brain death are being removed from ventilators and used as organ donors while they are still alive. Brain death has never had any scientific basis. It's a ethical choice masquerading as a medical fact.
Speaker 02:Well, before we leave that topic, let's get into the diagnosis of brain death. Why is it that you are not fond of that?
Speaker 01:Well, I'll tell you, it sort of blindsided me. I'll tell you how I learned about this myself. When I was an anesthesiology resident studying to become an anesthesiologist, I came in for night call one night and reported for duty. And they said, Klesig, glad you're here. We have a brain dead man up in ICU, and we want you to come and take him down for an organ harvesting. And I was a little stunned. I sort of remembered that I had heard a lecture about brain death somewhere along the line, but I didn't have all the facts right at my fingertips. So I said to the doctor, Oh, brain death, huh? Well, is there anything different about this I need to know? And he kind of laughed and he rolled his eyes and said, Just be sure someone has declared him brain dead. You know how eager the transplant team can be. Well, that wasn't very reassuring. So I went up to see my patient. And you know, when I saw him in the ICU, he looked like every other ICU patient I had taken care of, and in fact, better than most. He was a young man about my own age. He had a motorcycle accident, he had a severe brain injury, and yes, the neurologist had declared him to be brain dead. But when I went to look at him, he was warm, he was breathing with the help of a ventilator. He had an excellent heart rate and blood pressure. He had almost 100% oxygen saturation in his blood. His skin was warm and supple. He was making urine. I mean, he he did not look dead. So I went back down to the operating room and I found the anesthesiologist who was going to be supervising me for the case. And I presented it to him. And he said, All right, what's your anesthetic plan of care? Well, you know, I was so brainwashed at the time. I mean, they told me the man was dead. And so, despite the evidence of my eyes, I believed my authority. So I said, Well, I think I'll use a paralyzing agent so he doesn't move during the surgery, right? Now, think about that. Why should we have to worry about a dead person moving? But I like, you know, I was in a state of cognitive dissonance, I guess, at the time. So I said, I'm going to use a paralyzing agent because, you know, surgeons get kind of crabby when people are moving and they're trying to operate. And then I think I'll give him um some fentanyl as a powerful painkiller to blunt any heart rate or blood pressure responses that might damage his organs. So my attendant looked at me and he said, Well, are you going to give a drug to block consciousness? I was a little stunned by that. I said, Why would I do that? Isn't he dead? And he just gave me a long, slow look over his surgical mask and he said, Why don't you give one just in case? And he walked away. Well, I'll tell you, you know, to my shame and regret, I did what I was told. I mean, I knew something was wrong about this, but all my authorities were telling me this is the way we do it, this is how it's done. The operating room team was scrubbed and ready to go, and I just should have put up more of a fuss, but I did what I was told. I took him to the operating room. I gave him the anesthetic we had discussed. He reacted just like any other patient to the incisions and the bone saws and the organ removal. He required the same types and amounts of anesthesia as anyone else. And honestly, it's my regret over this incident that motivates me now to be speaking to you today and to have a website and to write a book and to try to inform the public. I see my role as giving the public a seat at the table. Because when I came to research this for myself, I was stunned to find that for 50, 60 years, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, PhDs have been hotly debating whether brain death is death, whether donation after circulatory death donors are actually dead at the time their organs are procured. The ethics of this new form of transplant called normothermic regional perfusion or NRP. But the public is never told. I mean, the public goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles and they're asked, do you want to be an organ donor? And they look at the brightly colored posters that say, you know, give the gift of life, be a good citizen, be altruistic. And they're never given any informed consent. They're not told any of the details or the facts. And they're being asked to make probably one of the biggest medical decisions of their life by someone at the DMV without any type of information. And I think that's wrong. So that's what I'm trying to do is raise awareness for people so they can make an informed decision.
Speaker 02:Well, isn't the definition or diagnosis of brain death a solid medical factual diagnosis?
Speaker 01:Well, funny you should say that. You know, the the most recent American Academy of Neurology brain death guideline that just came out in 2023, in their methods section, they come right out and say, because of the lack of high quality evidence on the subject, this is a consensus guideline determined by essentially three rounds of anonymous voting by panelists who are screened to screen out anybody who might disagree. So absolutely not. I mean, the brain death was started back in 1968. I mean, honestly, all through history, you really didn't need a doctor to tell you when someone was dead. I mean, people determine death at home, on the battlefield, at the farm. You could tell when someone is dead, right? Most people understand death to be the separation of the spirit or the soul or the life principle from the material body. But because we don't have any instruments for detecting immaterial changes, we go with the loss of heartbeat, the loss of breathing, and the passage of time. And that's how people have determined death for millennia. But in 1968, 13 men at Harvard Medical School put out a landmark article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it's titled A Definition of Irreversible Coma. So these men thought we could change the definition and call people who have previously always been believed to be alive, people who are in a coma that doctors think are probably irreversible, as now being somehow dead already. Now, this paper, it has no scientific references. There were no tests, there were no studies, there is no evidence that these people in a coma are dead. The only reason they said that maybe we should give them this new diagnosis was utility. They said if we could call these people on a ventilator dead already, it will serve to free up ICU bets and it will remove the controversy of procuring these people's organs to put into somebody else. And so for all of its history, there really has not been any scientific evidence for it. But what is really useful about redefining people morally, ethically, and legally as being dead, even though they have beating hearts, they're metabolizing, they're making urine, they can even deliver healthy babies. If you define someone as being dead, then you, by sleight of hand, you meet the requirements of what's called the dead donor rule. Now, the dead donor rule is not a law, but it's a worldwide ethical maxim. It says people must neither be alive when organs are removed, nor may they be killed by the process of organ removal. But if you redefine people as being dead already, this allows organ procurement to skirt the dead donor rule just by fiat, by sleight of hand.
Speaker 00:So, Dr. Klesig, it's fair to say from what you've said today that what we as lay people think of when we hear the phrase dead is not what the medical establishment is using when they procure people's organs.
Speaker 01:That's correct. You know, when most people hear the word dead, they think dead in the sense of, you know, my dead pet cat or dog, right? That dead in the in the way that, you know, a squirrel on the highway is dead. But when doctors are talking about this brain death thing, the legal standard that has been set up for that is called the Uniform Determination of Death Act. And that is in force in almost all 50 states. It says that you to have a diagnosis of brain death, there must be the irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. But honestly, no American Academy of Neurology brain death guideline has ever followed the law on that. They don't test, in fact, all functions of the entire brain. They test that you're in a coma, they test a handful of brainstem reflexes, and they test whether you breathe when disconnected from your ventilator. So, in fact, the way doctors diagnose, according to the protocol, does not follow the legal standard.
Speaker 02:Can you explain the process that surgeons use to harvest organs?
Speaker 01:First, they need to get someone to make this diagnosis. And so they follow a specific protocol that you have to be unresponsive, right? When they call your name or shake you, you don't respond. But now remember, unresponsiveness is not the same as unawareness. There are people who are inwardly aware, sort of locked in within themselves, but unable to respond. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found 25% of people who doctors thought were unconscious actually were inwardly aware. So doctors are not tremendously good at discovering whether you're inwardly aware or not. We can only test whether you're able and willing to respond. Then they give a painful stimulus to see if you move. And if you move to the painful stimulus, they say, well, then you're not brain dead. But the guidelines says that it can sometimes be challenging to determine whether a patient's movement is just a reflex or if it's intentional. And they they actually go on to tell doctors using this protocol, if you're not sure if your moving patient is still alive, you should ask a friend. They say, ask a colleague, and then and then kind of put your heads together and decide. I mean, how scientific is that? Then the only neurologic exam that is done, they check uh if your pupils respond to light, they shoot uh water in your ears to see if it makes your eyes dizzy, they check if you cough or gag. These are not all the functions of the entire brain. Okay. I mean, honestly, our brains do a lot more than that, but that's all they test. And then the apnea test is where they take you off your ventilator for 10 to 15 minutes to see if you breathe. And they give parameters, you know, for your blood gas, what it should be with that. But the guideline actually goes on to say that selection of targets for the apnea test is arbitrary because there is no scientific data demonstrating at what point you would breathe if your brain was working when you have a brain injury. So the whole diagnosis is incorrect. But then, you know, when someone like me takes that person to the operating room, um, we give them anesthesia just like anyone else. We give them a paralyzing agent so they won't move. We use narcotic drugs to blunt the responses to pain that they will have. I can tell you from personal experience, when there's an incision, the heart rate and the blood pressure go up just like anybody else. The surgeons then go ahead and cool off and chill down a lot of the organs that are going to be taken out for preservation, and then they they go for the organs that they're having targeted depending on the technique that's being used.
Speaker 02:Well, now the average person, I think, who signs those donor cards believes that the person dies, the heart stops beating, the family takes a few moments to say their goodbyes, the dead body is wheeled in a nearby room, and then they harvest the organs. Is that what happens?
Speaker 01:So there's a type of organ donation called donation after circulatory death. And these people are not brain dead, but they're not expected to survive, or they have decided that their quality of life is unacceptable and they want to have their care withdrawn in a way that will allow their organs to be procured. So their death is essentially planned to happen in a specific time and place. This is really a thinly veiled form of physician-assisted death. So these people often have uh large catheters put in their groin and they're given drugs like blood thinners, uh, heparin to preserve the organs, things that actually aren't very good for the patient. They have to make these people do not resuscitate or DNR. So again, this is a choice. All of these people could be resuscitated, but a decision has been made not to resuscitate them. So then they are taken to the operating room nearby, their ventilator is disconnected and their medical support is withdrawn, and then doctors wait for them to die, wait for that heart to stop. I mean, it's really fairly ghoulish. And in instead of dying in the arms of your family with love surrounding you, you're taken down to the operating room with gloved gown and masked strangers who are sitting there waiting for you to pass away so they can begin removing parts of you. After your heart stops, doctors give a two to five minute no-touch or wait period to be sure your heart doesn't restart. I mean, it depends on where you live. In my state of Wisconsin, it's two minutes. In other states, it's five minutes. Whether you're dead or alive is based kind of on your geography more than anything else. And then if your heart doesn't spontaneously restart, they declare you dead and they begin the organ procurement. But the problem with this is that it's well documented. I mean, in fact, everybody knows that people are routinely resuscitated after two to five minutes of cardiac arrest. And if you could still be resuscitated, you were never dead. And other countries, you know, understand this. This donation after circulatory death is banned in Finland, Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Lithuania, and Turkey. So again, depending on where you live, you might be dead or alive on geography, not based on medicine. And there's a case report from my neighboring state of Illinois that bears this out. A young woman with Down syndrome in Illinois suffered a brain bleed, and she wasn't brain dead, but her family was told she wasn't expected to survive, and they were told they could make something good come out of their tragedy and consented to have her organs procured at using this donation after circulatory death protocol. So this unfortunate young woman was taken to the operating room and her care was withdrawn. Once her heart stopped, the physician reached up under the sterile drapes and listened to her heart for an additional two minutes and didn't hear any heartbeat. So then they began to operate to get her kidneys. But as doctors got into her abdomen and were cutting down to her kidneys, they noticed suddenly that there were pulses in the aorta and the renal arteries, and the young woman began to gasp for breath. Well, I mean, now what do you do, right? Here we are. So out of pure compassion, they gave her a massive overdose of fentanyl and lorazepam, and the pulses stopped and she stopped breathing, and she was subsequently pronounced dead a second time. But you know, when the medical examiner looked at this case, I mean, he had to say this was a homicide, is what was his declaration. She had been killed by organ procurement. She was not dead after two minute wait time. And that's the thing. Dr. Ari Jaffe, who's a doctor in Canada, has done a literature review and found people who spontaneously resuscitated themselves after up to 10 minutes of cardiac arrest. So we know scientifically from the medical literature, at 10 minutes you might still be able to be resuscitated. And some of the patients that he studied had made a complete recovery. So again, two to five minutes is a travesty. And that's in the recent New York Times article, they had multiple cases of this type of problem. You know, Misty Hawkins was one, you know, and they had that in the New York Times recent domination of donation after circulatory death. Misty was a similar case to what I just described, a young woman who choked while eating a sandwich and had a low oxygen brain injury, taken to the hospital, not brain dead, but her parents were told that she wasn't going to survive. And they didn't want their daughter to suffer. And they thought they could help somebody else out. So they consented to this DCD protocol. Misty was taken to the operating room, disconnected from her care. It took her 103 minutes to become pulseless. It's just like a death watch. It's horrible to think about. Once her heart stopped, I think for her they waited the whole five minutes, which again is not long enough, because when doctors then took the bone saw and saw it open her breastbone, they found her heart was beating and Misty was breathing at that time too. Now, the really terrible thing, you know, the doctors walked out, left someone else to stitch her up. It's not clear if she was ever given any anesthesia. And her family was never told. The organ procurement coordinator called her mother on the phone and said, gee, we're we're sorry. It just didn't work out for Misty to become an organ donor. The family, the Hawkins family, only found out what happened to their daughter when the New York Times contacted them a year later for comment. What a horrible way to find out what had been done to your child. I mean, this has to stop. This is wrong.
Speaker 02:They're putting people down like dogs.
Speaker 01:Well, dogs get it better. I mean, dogs for sure get an anesthetic. I have anesthesia journal articles I can show you that talk about the anesthetic care of organ donors. I can show you an article that mentions how to manage their heart rate, their blood pressure, how to blunt, you know, any responses that might hurt the organs. It does not mention one word about actual anesthesia. And that's the problem. You know, many of these people may just get paralyzing drugs and drugs to manage the blood pressure and maybe awake and aware at some level as they're being dismembered to death. This could have happened to uh Zach Dunlap. I don't know if you remember him. He was a famous case. In 2007, Zach Dunlap was a young man who had a four-wheel ATV rollover injury. Uh, he had a severe injury. I mean, he had brain tissue coming out of his ear canal, taken to the hospital, uh, declared to be brain dead. The helicopter was landing with the team to procure his organs. But his cousin, it wasn't his healthcare team, his cousin, who was also a nurse, didn't believe Zach was dead and ran his closed plastic knife along Zach's foot, and Zach withdrew. And so his cousin called the nurse over. Come, come, look, my cousin's moving. But the nurse said, Well, you know, they teach us in brain death school that the patient can be moving, but they're still dead. So then the cousin gave a second stimulus, and this time, you know, Zach pretty much took a swing at him. And the nurse said, Oh, wait, that movement crossed the midline. That might mean he actually isn't dead. So the procedure was called off, and Zach made a full recovery. I mean, he got married, he has a little girl, he works a job. But he told people while he was lying there, he could hear every word. He said, I could hear the doctors telling my parents that I was brain dead, that I was not going to survive. And I just got mad. But there was nothing I could do. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't sign, all I could do was get extremely angry. And this shows the gravity of these correctly made brain death diagnoses. I put correctly in scare quotes because, of course, none of these people are dead. But if you follow the protocol, supposedly it's correctly done. Zach Dunlap's case followed the protocol, but he could hear every word. Now, if an anesthesiologist had taken him to the OR and just used paralyzing agents, can you imagine the horror? We have no idea how many people are going through this. So again, this needs to stop.
Speaker 02:I'm outraged. I just don't know what to say after you've shared this information. Dr. Klesig, what is NRP?
Speaker 01:There's a variation of the donation after circulatory death protocol called normal thermic regional perfusion or NRP. And this is very controversial even among doctors and hospitals, though it is going on currently as we speak in the United States. So in this case, their the goal is to preserve a functional heart for donation. So what they do is they declare you dead according to the circulatory standard first. They do the two to five minute wait, but they want that heart to be in good shape. So they want to sort of resuscitate it. But if they resuscitate all of your organs, including your brain, you might wake up. So what they start surgery with is by clamping off the circulation to the brain to make you brain dead on purpose. And then they hook you up to ECMO or to a bypass machine and they do a full resuscitation on the organs such that your heart starts beating again in your own chest. Now, how dead are you if your heart is beating again in your own chest? The legal standard, of course, is that you are supposed to be declared dead because you had the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions. The fact that now your heart is beating again shows that it really wasn't that irreversible, was it? But now the doctors are legally covered because now you're brain dead. They've now declared you dead according to the neurologic standard because they've done that on purpose. Now, even the American College of Physicians, the world's largest specialty medical organization, called for a pause in NRP in 2021. They said that the burden of proof regarding the ethical and legal propriety of this practice has not been met. But I'm here to tell you it continues. It's been since 2021, and no pause has been initiated. I mean, this is going on all around the United States and around the world, though, of course, it is banned in those countries that don't allow DCD. Additionally, Australia has disallowed NRP because it again, ethically and legal improprieties are going on here.
Speaker 02:Is there any way for family members or the patient to be assured that this isn't happening?
Speaker 01:Don't be a registered organ donor, is my recommendation. I think it's unsafe and unwise to be a registered organ donor right now. Now, again, I would wholeheartedly recommend if you have a family member that needs a kidney and it's something you feel led to do and you're a suitable match. Living donation in which both donor and recipient remain alive after the procedure is completely moral and ethical. I mean, it's it's an extraordinary vocation. Nobody is called upon to risk their life for another. But if if you feel led to do that, I think that's a wonderful thing. You know, I think that we would by now have much more ethical solutions if the public had been informed about all the problems going on with brain death, circulatory death, NRP. Also, we would have much better care for people with neurological injuries. We have been writing off all the hard cases and using them as organ donors rather than finding innovative ways of helping people. You know, the other thing I always want to say toward you know the end of my discussion is I want to offer a message of mercy to people who have been involved in this practice. You know, doctors, nurses. There's no way doctors and nurses can personally investigate everything they are taught. The knowledge they're responsible for is just too vast. So again, most doctors and nurses simply like I did, we accept it on authority. Our authorities tell us it's true and we believe it. And, you know, of course, you know, arguments based on authority or the majority are logical fallacies, but we have so much information that we we are sort of forced to accept a lot sort of on the basis of our authorities. People who have given a family member to become an organ donor, it's not your fault that you were deceived. I mean, you made the best decision you could with the information you had available at the time and the goodness of your heart. It is not your fault that you weren't told these things. And people, you know, who have received an organ too. I mean, you were not told the origin of that organ. You were you were given not all the facts that you might have wanted to have to make the decision that you did. But we're glad you're here. I'm not at all saying that people who have received an organ did something wrong, but I do think it's wrong that people are not being given fully informed consent about these things when they enter the process. And I think that needs to change.
Speaker 00:That leads to my next question, which is can this process be done in an ethical way for organs beyond a kidney, for a heart or things like that? Can it be done ethically?
Speaker 01:You know, you can actually living donate any organ, almost every organ except the heart, right? You can't give your heart to someone else. But the the good news is a totally implantable artificial heart is now in clinical trials. And I think that would be a wonderful way to go. I mean, you wouldn't have to be in all the anti-rejection drugs and have risks of infection. And I think it would ultimately give people greater success over time. I was fascinated to learn recently you can do living lung transplants. What they do is they take a lobe of the lung from each of two donors and put those two lobes from two donors into the recipient. You can give lengths of intestine from multiple donors. You I mean, you can give a lobe of a liver, you can give a lobe of a pancreas. I mean, there are things that can be done and to do this ethically. And I and I think those things should be pushed and highlighted and that kind of research furthered.
Speaker 02:What is your take on efforts to use peg hearts recently? Think that actually happened.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I just wrote an op-ed about that for Life Site News. You know, I think what's going on the way they're doing it right now is it's a horrible impingement of human rights. So what they did in China recently is they took a brain-dead man, right? And they found that he was so stable. He was a great host to try to see how an animal organ would work. Now, they took pig lung and they had genetically modified it by inserting certain human genes and removing certain pig genes. I think that's a bit problematic. Making sort of human pig chimeras or hybrids is ethically questionable practice. But this So-called brain-dead man. He was hemodynamically stable for the nine days that the lung from the pig was put in him. He started making antibodies and started rejecting the pig organ. Now, the Orwellian doublespeak here is simply stunning. How can a dead person be kept alive? How can a dead person be hemodynamically stable to support an animal organ? How can a dead person reject that organ and start making antibodies? Well, you know, in point of fact, the man was not dead, right? This is this is an egregious breach of human rights. And it's not just happening in China. A few years ago, doctors in America also implanted genetically modified pig kidneys into two American men who were declared brain dead. And these men were given top flight ICU care. They were so stable, these so-called dead men, that these organs went, one went over a month before they this, you know, they decided to terminate the experiment, sacrifice the patient and take him to the lab for pathological study. So this is this is very ethically questionable. And again, you have to have a lot of cognitive dissonance to go with the idea that these people are actually dead. There's a lot of ethical questions. The other things, just as far as the animal organs that you asked about, I have I have problems with making human pig hybrids. I think that's ethically questionable. The first American patient to receive a genetically modified pig heart actually died of a pig virus that hitched a ride on that heart. So it is a concern that we could be introducing animal diseases into, you know, at least into the immunosuppressed recipient of the organ, possibly into the general population. Is this a way, you know, that we're going to introduce more animal diseases into the human population? There's a lot of questions that really have to be answered and aren't being answered. I mean, scientists are just continuing merely along trying these things.
Speaker 00:Dr. Klesig, is there's individuals out there who, out of pure intentions, they want to be an organ donor. They want to help other people. And with what we've heard today, obviously they're going to be reevaluating maybe the way that they go about doing that. What advice do you have for those individuals who want to give the gift of life, as we've all seen at the DMV, but are really concerned about what we've just heard?
Speaker 01:You know, the good thing is living donation, as I've mentioned, is a wonderful thing to do. And then we have not yet talked about tissue donation. Now, organs, things like heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys, are very dependent on a continuous supply of oxygen through the circulation. And as soon as that stops, the organs very quickly begin to decompose and become unsuitable for transplants. So, in point of fact, for organs, you cannot take an organ from a dead person. Tissues, however, now when a doctor says tissues, we're not meaning puffs and Kleenex, right? We're talking about things like skin, bone, uh, corneas, heart valves, this sort of thing. Tissues are much more resilient to an absence of circulation and can be removed from a person whose spirit has departed, who is biologically all dead. So you can be a tissue donor once you are biologically gone. There are some caveats with that. I would not recommend that you be a registered donor even for tissue. And here's why. A reporter in California recently wrote an article in the LA Times showing that some people's death investigations had been up-ended because organ procurement teams were able to have access to the body before a coroner's autopsy. So there were people like the family of John Flath. He was a young man in Army ROTC who just collapsed during a workout. He was a registered organ and tissue donor because he died outside of the hospital. He was not able to do organ donation, but organ procurement took his body and they took skin bone heart valves before the coroner could see why John had died, leaving his family without closure or answers because his heart was basically so destroyed from that tissue removal that the coroner could no longer tell his family why John had passed away. The other one that the reporter in California came up with was um Christy Rettinman, the daughter of former Major League Baseball player and coach Merv Rettenman. She was in sort of an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, and there had been multiple police calls between the two of them. She came into the hospital and had obviously had some type of head injury. She had bruises on her body. But again, Christy was a registered donor, and so the organ procurement took her body before the coroner's autopsy, leaving the coroner with such a scanty corpse, I guess, the skin, the bones, things had been removed, that he could no longer say with certainty whether her death was a homicide. And so justice was never served for the retinmans. I mean, the man got away scot-free. So again, whereas it's all right to take tissues after biological death, I would never do this as a registered donor. Simply tell your family, your healthcare surrogate, put it in your end-of-life documents that once all their questions are answered, they know that your death was not a result of a crime. Your family can release your corpse to become a tissue donor if you would like to do this. That is just fine.
Speaker 00:Where else can we find more information about organ donation?
Speaker 01:You know, what I always urge people to do, you know, none of us like to think about death. We'd rather put it off. You know, how many of us have made out a will? We don't want to think about these things. But the problem with that is then you get blindsided, right? And if you're sitting in a hospital, you know, at the bedside of a loved one, on a ventilator, you haven't slept, you haven't eaten, you're you're not in a position to make you know really great choices at that point. Your emotions are going to be raw. So even if it's uncomfortable, I do recommend people look at this information now. I've written a couple of books. Uh, the first I wrote with my co-author Christopher Bagash, R N, and that's called Harvesting Organs and Cherishing Life. That's written for lay people. It's very easy to understand. I've given we give some of these examples I talked about today. My second book is semi-technical. It's very good if you want, you know, chapter and verse, it's fully referenced. If you're a doctor or a nurse or want to give it to your doctor or nurse, it's called the brain death fallacy. Take a look at some of the information and share it and talk about it and think about it and be ready. You know, when the worst day of your life happens, you don't want to be unprepared.
Speaker 02:Well, Dr. Klesig, for those listeners who are registered organ donors and want to reverse that decision after hearing everything you have to say, how do they do that?
Speaker 01:On our website, if you scroll down the homepage, you know, there is a button that says, How do I get off the donor list? And we go through how that process can happen. The other thing on that that is sort of important for people to know is that the Uniform Anatomical Gict was revised in 2006, such that now you really need to have a specific refusal to donate. Because if you come into the hospital and you're incapacitated and your family can't be found, the hospital administrator is given the power to donate your body on your behalf, unless there's a specific refusal to donate. And this becomes important. There's a case being sued right now in New York of grandmother Miriam Poyas de Baldrick, had a, I think she had a bit of dementia. She wandered away from her home and was struck by a subway. She was taken to the hospital. And even though her family said she had some information in her pocket to tell people who she was, and they had filed a, you know, missing vulnerable adult report, the hospital couldn't find anybody. And because Miriam didn't have a specific refusal to donate, they took her organs. And now the family is suing about this. So the other thing that we have is we have links to our sister organization, the Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization or Halo Group. And they have an excellent end-of-life document. Plus, they have this handy uh I refuse to donate wallet card that you can keep with you in your wallet, and on the back you can sign and have it witnessed to show people that I am a refusing to be an organ donor in case what happened to Grandma Miriam would happen to you. That way you are protected that way as well.
Speaker 02:But it's not good enough just to take that designation off your driver's license, is it?
Speaker 01:Not if you're unable to have your wishes explained and they can't find your next of kin. No, it's not. You need, according to the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, you now need a specific refusal. And I would even put that in your electronic medical record when you see your clinician next time. Just ask that they add that you refuse to be an organ donor. It would be good to have it there as well.
Speaker 02:Thank you so much, Dr. Klestig, for joining us and sharing this wealth of information.
Speaker 01:Thank you so much.
Speaker 00:Well, Brad, today's conversation has been many things. It's been very informative. It's also been a little bit mortifying to hear these stories and to think about how many people have unfortunately had decisions made on their behalf by a medical staff that was interested in taking their organs rather than saving their life.
Speaker 02:Yeah, and you use the word mortifying. There must be a word in the English language to really underscore that because mortifying seems to be an understatement regarding what they're doing there. And I just find it hard to believe after all these years, many physicians think that MD stands for medical deity, and they're making life and death decisions, not in what's best for the patient, but what's best for the person, the patient, to receive those organs.
Speaker 00:And in doing so, it sounds like to me they're taking advantage of people who do not have informed consent. But these are people who signed up to be an organ donor out of the pureness of their heart. They wanted to save a life, they wanted to give that gift of life. And rather than their selfless willingness to do that, rather than that being honored, it's being taken advantage of.
Speaker 02:And I think it's important to you know, reiterate what Dr. Klesig said. She's she's not blaming recipients of organs. She says they're not doing anything wrong, they are being victimized as well as others, just in a different way. They're not being told the details of the reality of what's behind those donors. Considering the information that we've shared these past two weeks, many of you may be having second thoughts, and I hope you do, whether or not you want to be a donor. Now, it's not good enough to simply take that insignia off your driver's license. What you need to do is go into your individual state to a specific website and fill out the proper form to be taken off. Otherwise, they will be harvesting your organs perhaps without your permission. And to help you with that, we have links to every state website where you can remove your name from being an organ donor. But Victor, it's been an absolute honor and privilege to share crucial developing stories with our listeners every week and in-depth ways in which we can get that information across. So, you, the listener, I hope and pray that you will take what we have given you over the last couple of years and share that with other individuals, because then you can magnify our voice in ways that will make a difference and save lives. I'm pleased that we're ending this my uh role in this program every week with such a compelling program. This is an issue I've been concerned about for a long time. Since we did our initial research on this 10 years ago through a TV production.
Speaker 00:Brad, the pro life movement has really been a tremendous journey for you. And this is a bit of a sentimental episode since this will be the last time that you'll be hosting Straight Talk on life issues. I know I will certainly miss you. Our listeners will certainly miss you as you move on to retirement. 50 years is an inspiration to myself and so many others, the dedicated service to the babies. And it's one of those things, Brad, I just have to imagine when you walk through those pearly gates, that is a well done, my good and faithful servant that's coming.
Speaker 02:Well, I'm looking forward to being surrounded by the babies that we uh uh work to save, that's for sure.
Speaker 00:So share with us just one story that's impacted you maybe the most throughout your time in the pro-life movement.
Speaker 02:Well, the one that I would say most impactful was when I received a handwritten letter from a man whose younger brother had died by suicide after his girlfriend had two abortions. And his mom found him hanging from the rafter in her garage. A suicide note said he couldn't live with the anguish and pain of losing his children to abortion. Now, God used this letter to place a burden and passion on my heart for grieving fathers everywhere. And I became a founding member of the Men in Abortion Network and have lectured on this throughout the United States and around the world, actually. And the symptoms are always the same no matter what the country is. We just can't let men, we can't let fathers be forgotten victims of abortion. They're not alone, and there's hope and there's healing.
Speaker 00:Absolutely. And with that passion that you have, I mean, you're retiring as president of Life Issues Institute, but you're not going to be able to step away from the pro-life movement. Share with us some of your future plans for pro-life advocacy.
Speaker 02:Well, one thing I'm working on is to be a volunteer snuggler. And this is somebody who holds babies in the NICU of hospitals. So for me, getting lap time with a baby always makes it a good day. And of course, I'll have the honorary title of President Emeritus of Life Issues Institute, and I'll continue my volunteer capacity as president of the International Rights to Life Federation. That'll probably mean international trips of one or two a year. And I will speak on men in abortion when asked, and probably do writing.
Speaker 00:What would be some advice that you have for the next generation of pro-life advocates?
Speaker 02:Well, first of all, I'd encourage you kids to know the history of the movement so you can better build on its future. And bring your enthusiasm, your knowledge, your technology, your boldness to the table, and don't let anyone tell you you don't have a voice. But you know, with a voice comes great responsibility. So make sure that what you do, because the stakes are so high that you help to protect the babies and not hinder the collective efforts of everyone. You know, you don't have the luxury of being sloppy or lazy because lives are at stake.
Speaker 00:Absolutely. And what would be one last piece of information that you would like to share with our listener?
Speaker 02:Well, over the last 50 years, I probably served in every capacity in the pro-life movement that's out there. But I have to say it's been a complete honor and privilege to serve to protect babies from abortion and to protect the mothers and fathers from the anguish that often follows it. And I think when I look back on my life, I'll rest secure in the knowledge that I used my gifts to the best of my ability to honor God, not myself, and to defend the babies.
Speaker 00:Well, like I said, Brad has been an inspiration for me and so many other people. 50 years of dedicated service to the babies is just an incredible accomplishment. I want to encourage you, the listener, to visit our website, lifeissues.org, and there you'll be able to send a message of appreciation to Brad. Celebrate his 50 years of doing this and encourage him as he moves on to a new chapter in his life that's available again at lifeissues.org to send him a message of appreciation. While you're at our website, lifeissues.org, I also want to encourage you to make use of the free resources and information we have there regarding organ donations, specifically what you need to know and do to take your name off the organ donor registry. Again, that's available at lifeissues.org. Be sure to tune in next week for another straight talk on life issues.