Donation After Circulatory Death (DCD)
What is Donation after Circulatory Death?
Even if you are not brain dead, organ procurement teams will still approach your family about making you a “circulatory death” (DCD) organ donor.
Sociologist Renee C. Fox sharply criticized the DCD protocol, calling it, “an ignoble form of medically rationalized cannibalism” that “borders on ghoulishness.” She deplored dying a death away from family in an operating room, a “desolate, profanely ‘high tech’ death that the patient dies, beneath operating room lights, amid masked, gowned, and gloved strangers.”
Use of the DCD protocol in the US is rising rapidly, increasing from 2% of donations in 2000 to 49% in 2025. Many European countries have banned DCD due to ethical concerns, however.
Resuscitation is still possible
​
​Here’s how controlled donation after circulatory death (DCD) works:
1. The patient is given a “do not resuscitate” status, because while these people could be resuscitated, a decision has been made not to do so.
2. They are taken to the OR and their life support is withdrawn. They must become pulseless as soon as possible, otherwise the long process of gasping for breath will damage the organs via hypoxia. Sedation is given to assist this process.
3. After the patient’s pulse stops, a 2-5 minute stand off period is observed to see if the heart will spontaneously resume beating.
4. Organ procurement surgery begins thereafter as quickly as possible, because organs very quickly become unsuitable for donation in the absence of circulation.
The PROBLEM is that all around the world, patients are ROUTINELY resuscitated after just 2-5 minutes of pulselessness...and if you could still be resuscitated, you were never dead.​
Gruesomely, some centers actually clamp off the arteries to the brain and then perform resuscitation of the rest of the body to keep the organs in good shape. This is called NRP - cDCD, and is also banned in many countries due to the ethical controversy surrounding it.
​
​Many medical professionals are troubled by the DCD method because they know patients are ROUTINELY resuscitated after 5 minutes of heart stoppage, and many make a full recovery thereafter. If you could still be resuscitated, you are not dead. Dr. Ari Joffe, a pediatrician and intensive care specialist has published data showing that patients may spontaneously recover a heartbeat and recover even after ten minutes of heart stoppage. We maintain that since these patients are still well within the timeframe in which resuscitation is possible, the criterion of “irreversible cessation of circulatory function” mandated by the Universal Determination of Death Act has not been fulfilled, and they are not dead. A recent case report of a DCD patient who began to breathe and struggle during the harvesting of her kidneys bears this out. In this case, the coroner called the "second" death a homicide.
In 2019, a British woman, Audrey Schoeman, developed severe hypothermia while hiking in the Pyrenees. Her heart stopped beating for six hours before she was able to be resuscitated, and she made a near-full recovery. Doctors say it is the longest cardiac arrest ever recorded in Spain. Thus, declaring people "dead enough" to begin organ harvesting after just 5 minutes of heart stoppage is obviously wrong.
