Proposals to compensate families for transplantable organs are gathering momentum. These proposals assume that the body is not integral to the self—that it can be treated like property. Most people believe otherwise.

There was a remarkable outpouring of publications related to the concept of medical futility between 1988 and 1995, and there has been a substantial drop-off since then. A wide variety of definitions of the concept were offered from many corners of the medical profession, from medical social sciences, as well as from judges in several state and federal courts. Attention was drawn to the conflicts over when it is appropriate to declare further treatment futile, who has the authority to make (...) such determinations, and what evidence is required. (shrink)

Schneiderman, Teetzel, and Gilmer offer an amusing but misleading response to my article on medical futility. Although I did make note of the falloff in citations to medical futility in Medline and Bioethicsline after 1995, my analysis focused on the precipitous rise in professional publications on the concept in the period from 1988 to 1995—a trend confirmed by the authors' own search results. I certainly did not argue, either explicitly or implicitly, that the discussion of medical futility was over. I (...) made limited use of this citation survey—to raise a question about what sparked so much professional debate after 1988. This seems to me an entirely appropriate methodology. (shrink)