ABSTRACT
The medical community established and acknowledged brain death to be an irreversible, unrecoverable state, equivalent to cardiopulmonary death. Acceptance in the legislative community followed. In 1980, the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) was accepted by the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, the American Academy of Neurology and the American Electroencephalographic Society. It defines death as the following:
The UDDA declares brain death equivalent to cardiopulmonary death. The Act does not comment on the specific clinical criteria because they may change with medical advances (President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1981; Wijdicks, 2001b; Report of Special Task Force Guidelines for the Determination of Brain Death in Children, 1987).
