
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 24, 1995                   TAG: 9505240097
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Short

GROUP: USE ORGANS OF DOOMED INFANTS

Babies born with most of their brains missing should be allowed to be used as organ donors before they're dead, a policy-setting committee of the American Medical Association says.

The proposal to change state laws to allow such transplants has created dissent within the AMA and renewed a debate among ethicists. Critics charge it's killing one patient to save another.

``It is,'' acknowledged Dr. John Glasson, chairman of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, a nine-member committee whose opinions are considered AMA policy.

But anencephalic newborns, as they are known, are doomed and ``don't have any consciousness,'' said Glasson, a retired North Carolina orthopedic surgeon.

Donating their organs would help ease a serious shortage for children needing transplants and help the parents of the anencephalic newborns deal with their grief, Glasson said.

But George Annas, a Boston University professor of health law, said, ``You can't kill babies to take their organs no matter how many lives could be saved.''

The committee proposal appears in today's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

About 1,000 to 2,000 U.S. infants are born each year with anencephaly, in which most of the brain, skull and scalp are missing.

by CNB