Last Things

William Saletan takes on the boundaries of organ harvesting:

There's no "moment" of death. Some transplant surgeons wait five minutes after the last heartbeat. Others wait two. The Denver team waited 75 seconds, reasoning that no heart is known to have self-restarted after 60 seconds. That's pretty dicey. Why push the envelope? Because every second counts. Mark Boucek, the doctor who led the Denver team, says waiting even 75 seconds makes organs less useful.