Briefing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit began yesterday in the Israel Stinson brain death case.Israel's mother challenges the constitutional validity of the statutory scheme that she alleges led to his death. She contends that the California Uniform Determination of Death Act (CUDDA) offered woefully inadequate safeguards that facilitated the forcible termination of his organ support.
Last year, the District Court held that while the injury in fact prong of Article III was satisfied by the death of the child, Sinson's mother could not demonstrate causation or redressability since the State did not require medical providers to end Israel’s life support.
On appeal, Stinson's mother argues the causal relationship between the CUDDA and the private hospital's termination of organ support.
An article http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000005033
ReplyDeletepublished (Neurology® 2018;90:1-4.) by the authors of the American Academy of Neurology brain death standard :
"When defining “accepted medical standards,” the authors of the UDDA chose not to
specify clinical criteria and instead declared that brain death must be determined based upon standards “accepted by
a substantial and reputable body of medical men and women as safe and efficacious for the purpose for which [they are] being employed.” The UDDA, or a close approximation of it, has since been accepted as judicial or statutory law in every state"
The authors of the UDDA have also assumed that those "reputable body of medical men and women" should have no conflicting interests in increasing the organ donor pool for transplant.
The AAN standard appears has it own novel interpretation of the UDDA and how it was intended to determine death.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit can now re-examine this interpretation by the AAN of the CUUDA and if it it is still constitutional.