Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 31, 1992 TAG: 9203310181
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Medium
She was anencephalic, born with nothing but the nub of a brain stem - enough to provide her only with breath and a heartbeat. She had no top to her skull, no feeling or cognition and no hope, said one of her doctors, Brian Udell.
Attorneys for her parents, Laura Campo and Justin Pearson of Coral Springs, Fla., said they would continue a legal struggle they began last week to let infants like their daughter be declared brain dead and make it easier for their organs to be donated.
While medical experts and national organ-donor organizations commended the family Monday, they said they were unlikely to join the effort because the number of potential organs that could be donated would be too low to justify undertaking the enormous legal and moral issues involved.
"We have had no interest in it from the organ procurement side because of all the problems associated with it," said Wanda Bond, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, a private, non-profit group in Richmond, Va.
"It's such a small number of individuals that could be helped that the question is: `Does it make sense to go through all this?' Clearly, in the medical community the answer is it doesn't."
Critics also have raised the specter of having babies, or keeping them alive, for the purpose of using their organs for transplant.
The 4-pound baby died about 19 hours after she was removed from a ventilator that briefly had sustained her when her vital organs began to fail. Her parents were at her side.
Since her birth by Caesarean section March 21, her parents had been battling for legal permission to have her heart, lungs, kidneys and liver removed so they could be transplanted to children who might need them. But two state courts ruled that state law prevented taking vital organs from anyone who was not brain-dead.
Late Monday, the Florida Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal. But by then it was too late.
By the time of her death, her organs had deteriorated and were no longer viable for transplants, said Les Olson, director of organ procurement for the University of Miami. The corneas of her eyes were saved, and would be given "to another tiny baby," Olson said.
Most anencephalics are stillborn. Of those born alive, most live only minutes. Theresa Ann lived unaided by any mechanical life support for eight days.
"Theresa's legacy is that now, hopefully, people in this country will understand what brain death is," Olson said. "Organ donation is the only loving thing to come out of the death. But the only candidates for organ donation are those cases where the patients are kept alive artificially. She was not a suitable donor."
by CNB