The New Daily Compass

Report Roman correspondence

(Benedetta Frigerio, The New Daily Compass – 3 June 2018) Where did the medical approach clearly revealed to the world by little Alfie Evans come from?? The answer for Dr. Paul Byrne, internationally renowned neonatologist, that in December of 2017 called by the child's family he flew to Liverpool to visit him, has been clear for years: «Everything starts from the definition of death, no longer clinical but cerebral, sanctioned in 1968 by a Harvard medical commission".
Doctor Byrne, explain to us why you differentiate real death from brain death and what implications this distinction has?
I started an intensive care unit for sick children in 1963 at the Cardinal Glendon Hospital for Childrend in St. Louis, I was deeply motivated by the intention to sustain life in every way possible. During this period, New therapies have been discovered. But a few years later a new definition of death began to spread: the patient was no longer considered dead until the cessation of cardiac and circulatory functions, therefore also respiratory and nervous system, but it was enough to detect the absence of activity of the brain to declare him dead. In the 1975 A premature baby was admitted to my ward, Joseph. He was ventilated and then declared brain dead because his electroencephalogram showed no signs of activity. But Joseph was alive, so I continued to treat him: today he is the father of three children. From that moment I began to question the definition of brain death, finding out it was a lie. Read More