Although the history of organ transplant has its roots in ancient Christian mythology, it is only in the past fifty years that body parts from a dead person have successfully been procured and transplanted into a living person. After fourteen years, the three main issues that Robert Veatch first outlined in his seminal study Transplantation Ethics still remain: deciding when human beings are dead; deciding when it is ethical to procure organs; and deciding how to allocate organs, once procured. However, much has changed. Enormous strides have been made in immunosuppression. Alternatives to the donation model are debated much more openly - living donors are used more widely and hand and face transplants have become more common, raising issues of personal identity. In this second edition of Transplantation Ethics, coauthored by Lainie F Ross, transplant professionals and advocates will find a comprehensive update of this critical work on transplantation policies.
