Report Roman correspondence

Of Alfredo De Matteo
Historically, the doctor was called upon to certify the patient's death with an official document, that is, to officially testify to an event that has already occurred. In recent decades, however, he has changed his role: from a simple ascertainer of an objective and easily verifiable event to a true arbiter of people's lives and deaths.
Indeed, with the introduction of the criterion of brain death, the aim was not only to fix the exact moment of death but also to establish it through the use of sophisticated diagnostic tools. In other words, nowadays they are the only professionals who can evaluate when a patient is dead or not. Mass media communication has the task of incorporating the new criterion of death and presenting it uncritically to the general public as an established fact.
In this sense, a recent news story in which a 47-year-old from Larino is exemplary, in the province of Campobasso, he was declared brain dead, following an illness, from the San Giovanni Rotondo hospital in the province of Foggia, after the unfortunate person was transferred from one facility to another initially due to the absence of an emergency unit, then due to the impossibility of being able to subject him to a CT scan.
In short, a classic case of medical malpractice which the health minister Grillo promised to investigate to ascertain any responsibilities: «We want to quickly get to the bottom of this matter. It is not possible to die due to poor organization and substantial lack of assistance» (The Century of Italy, 18 July 2018).
So, the unfortunate gentleman certainly appears to be deceased, or at least this is the unquestionable sentence pronounced by the experts. Already, because no one is in possession of other elements proving the death, given the total absence, in case of brain death, of all those objective signs that distinguish death itself; On the contrary, if anything, signs to the contrary abound: heart and circulation functioning perfectly, efficient respiratory function (albeit supported), normal renal functions, hepatic and digestive.
But on what basis does the criterion of brain death rest??
Actually, it is based on the assumption that the irreversible loss of all brain functions represents in itself the end of the individual's life, as the brain is considered the organ that has the role of central integrator of the human being. Or, without brain functions, man would be nothing more than an agglomeration of cells and organs dissociated from each other. But from this point of view there are many critical issues.
First of all, as Professor Seifert underlined in an interview published by New Daily Compass il 3 last July, «as can be attributed to the brain, an organ that forms relatively late, preceded for many weeks by the living organism whose brain it will be, the role of central integrator of the only part of the body that brings life? A high level of integrated living clearly precedes brain formation».
Furthermore, it is not possible to believe that the mere prolonged suspension of a function is the expression of the irreversible destruction of an organ. For example, as far as the heart is concerned, there is a syndrome called "Tako Tsubo”, in which the patient presents a clinical picture of necrosis of an extensive part of the heart muscle.
Nevertheless, completely inexplicably, even several weeks after the acute event, cardiac contractility and the shape of the heart return perfectly to normal. Similar functional alterations exist in the brain, such as the so-called “cerebral ischemic penumbra”, which can be reversible, if properly treated.
But perhaps the most decisive argument against the claimed scientific nature of brain death is the relativity of the criteria for diagnosing it: first of all, because they vary from country to country (the most striking case is that of the English, who deny any value to the EEG because they favor a conception of brain death that excludes examination of the brain), then due to the extreme randomness of the limits set: Italian law, for example, fixed above 2 microvolts the limit of brain electrical activity beyond which there is life; while for a lower threshold, detected by the equipment for a certain period of time, there is death.
You don't need to be a scientist to understand that what gods 2 microvolts represents a completely arbitrary limit which, among other things, does not correspond to instrumental absolute zero. A bit like what happens with the law 194 therefore abortion is free within the first three months of gestation while it is limited to the verification of any anomalies in the unborn child in the remaining months of pregnancy; as if suddenly, and only at the stroke of the 91st day, if we were faced with a human being...
In reality, it is clear that the introduction of the criterion of brain death was necessary to resolve the ethical problems linked to the nascent practice of removing vital organs., so much so that the same members of the Harvard commission admitted it candidly 1968 they launched the new concept of death based no longer on the cessation of all vital functions but only those of an organ, precisely the brain: «Outdated criteria for defining death can lead to controversies in obtaining organs for transplantation».
However, the fact remains that this new criterion for defining death has come to an end, of course, to involve everyone, therefore not only potential organ donors. The matter is currently regulated in Italy by law 29 December 1993 n. 578 e dal D.M. 582 of the 22 August 1994. On the basis of these legal provisions, there is an obligation on the part of the healthcare facility to ascertain brain death, regardless of whether the patient is a potential donor or not.
Therefore, once brain death has been ascertained he is treated like a corpse and therefore deprived of any medical support. It's this one, probably, the end that befell the lord of Larino, who fell victim not only to medical malpractice but above all to the new and unscientific definition of death