Japan legalizes organ transplants

But controversy lingers

October 16, 1997
Web posted at: 4:25 p.m. EDT (2025 GMT)

From Tokyo Bureau Chief John Lewis

TOKYO (CNN) -- After years of religious and cultural roadblocks, Japan legalized organ transplants Thursday and joined the rest of the industrialized world in recognizing brain death.

But cultural attitudes, a lack of donors and a scarcity of medical experience almost ensures that major organ transplants will remain off limits throughout much of the predominately Shinto and Buddhist nation.

"Buddha told us that nobody should be allowed to take out any parts of a human body, even if the person has given permission," said Hidetomo Kanaoka, a Buddhist monk at Myoyaku Temple near Tokyo.

Under the old law, doctors could not transplant organs from patients as long as their hearts and lungs were still functioning. Death came at the moment when the heart stopped beating -- at which point it is too late to use major organs for transplants.

Japan's first organ transplant was 29 years ago, when surgeon Juro Wada conducted a heart transplant using the heart of a brain-dead donor. The doctor was investigated on suspicion of murder, because the patient died less than three months after the operation. Prosecutors declined to indict him.

Proponents of the new law say it does not go far enough. Written into the legislation are measures they had fought against:

• Transplants can only be performed with the donor's written permission, and the family must concur;
• Families can veto the doctor's diagnosis of a brain-dead patient;
• Children under age 6 are excluded from receiving donor organs;

"I will still have to send some patients abroad for transplants as I have been doing up to now," said Hidetoshi Matsunami, Japan's leading transplant surgeon. "I do not feel assured at all with this new legislation."

Related stories:

• Discovery could lower heart transplant failures - October 7, 1997
• Man competes in Transplant Games with teammate's heart - October 4, 1997
• Drug therapy may reduce liver transplants - September 19, 1997
• Debate opens on how to allocate scarce livers - December 10, 1996

Related sites:

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• What you don't know but should about Organ Donation
• Myths and Factts about Organ and Tissue Donation

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