To Treat the Dead

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Becker also endorses hypothermia—lowering body temperature from 37 to 33 degrees Celsius—which appears to slow the chemical reactions touched off by reperfusion. He has developed an injectable slurry of salt and ice to cool the blood quickly that he hopes to make part of the standard emergency-response kit. "In an emergency department, you work like mad for half an hour on someone whose heart stopped, and finally someone says, 'I don't think we're going to get this guy back,' and then you just stop," Becker says. The body on the cart is dead, but its trillions of cells are all still alive. Becker wants to resolve that paradox in favor of life.

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Posted By: j-la0808 @ 02/21/2009 11:33:27 AM

The age-old debate: should we use the technology just because we can. Quality of life issues are seldom addressed adequately. "Let's save everybody all the time" has led us to an ethical, moral and (dare I say it) financial crisis in medicine. Primum non nocere....first do no harm.
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Posted By: cris_icu_rn @ 11/29/2008 2:42:17 AM

This article only addresses reperfusion of the heart, but what about the brain? Brain cells do die quickly and the brain is the organ which makes the heart function, independent of life support.
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Posted By: Oneeye @ 11/28/2008 10:08:39 AM

Comment: What bothers me is how slow the medical field is in implementing new ideas such as this. Not only could it save people who have had heart attacks, but it could save thousands of children who drown every year in backyard pools. What parent would refuse to implement this life saving method of restoring life even after as long as an hour. If they can use a heart for a transplant hours later then the heart is not dead in five minutes