Analysis 
A newly published research article by the Cambridge University Press highlights cases of transplant abuse in China, where transplant organs were allegedly procured from living human beings who had been falsely declared to be brain dead.
The report, titled “Cases Abusing Brain Death Definition in Organ Procurement in China” (the CABDD article), examined Chinese medical journal publications in which the organ extraction method was described. The authors found blatant violations of China’s criteria for determining brain death, and thus concluded that some organ donors were not brain dead or cardiac dead at the time of organ extraction.
Brain Death and Organ Transplant
Brain death is the irreversible cessation of all functions of the brain. A brain-dead person is in a deep coma and can’t breathe on his own; with the heart getting no oxygen it will stop beating. Once the heart stops beating, that is, cardiac death, all organs will stop functioning because blood circulation has stopped. If an organ remains without blood for a certain mount of time, the organ is no longer suitable for transplant….