"Brainstem death," "brain death" and death: a critical re-evaluation of the purported equivalence.

The author challenges brain-based diagnoses of death by re-examining the concept of death, its definition, the anatomical criterion, and the clinical signs or tests and concludes that the notion of "brain death" as bodily death is logically and physiologically incoherent and that its replacement by something scientifically more credible would promote not only the sanctity of life, but ironically even transplantation as well.