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Program of the 2nd INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON BRAIN DEATH
(Havana, Cuba)
February 27-March 1, 1996

Abstracts of the Meeting

Dear colleagues:

Since ancient times, man has pondered the mystery of his own death. It seemed that by knowing meaning of the his death, he would be prepared to understand the reason of his life.

Over the centuries people were deemed dead when they stopped breathing and when their hearts stopped beating. But the technological advances provided by civilization enabled artificial substitution of those functions that were considered responsible of setting the limit between life and death. This was documented by French neurologists and neurophysiologists at the end of the 1950's.

The end of the 1960's was also prominent for further advances in this area. The Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School proposed, for first time, a new definition of death on neurological grounds. The Harvard's report appeared some months after Christian Barnard's first transplantation of a human heart, in December 1967. The year of 1981 was highlighted by the report of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Behavioral Research to define death. The 1980's and the early 1990's were characterized by multi-disciplinary debates. There were still worldwide controversies about a concept of human death on neurological grounds (whole brain, brainstem death and higher brain formulations of death). There was also disagreement on the diagnostic criteria of brain death, whether clinical alone, or clinical and ancillary tests.

This was the scene we faced in 1992, when we convoked colleagues to attend The First International Symposium on Brain Death, held at the International Conference Center, Havana (September 22-25, 1992). Delegates from twenty-one countries attended this sunny city to discuss many controversial issues concerning brain death and related issues.

It was a remarkable Conference. It was seemingly impossible to gather such an impressive number of the most outstanding personalities in the field. Some had previously offered important contributions for the development of the human death concept. Still others, were contributors on philosophical, theological, bioethical, historical and sociological issues regarding brain death. Further, others were skillful specialists trained in the diagnosis of brain death, who were leaders in the establishment of brain death criteria in their respective countries. Scientific discussions in the Havana Conference were enriched by multi- disciplinary approaches where most brain death-related issues were included. Definitely, contradictions were evident in the debates during the Symposium, therefore, the final consensus among delegates was that the subject of brain death was clearly not closed.

One of the most important achievements of the Symposium was the proposal to organize an international group, commission, or network within this field. This proposal was consummated in Buenos Aires, during the last Congress of the International Association of Bioethics (IAB). Under the sponsoring of the IAB, an International Network on the Definition of Death was organized. The tremendous actuality and the inherent transcendence of this problem is beyond any doubt.

We are pleased to announce the holding of the "II INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON BRAIN DEATH, at the Havana International Conference Center, from February 27 to March 1, 1996. Along with the Symposium will be held the "First Meeting of the Network on the Definition of Death" of the International Association of Bioethics, and the "V International Meeting of the Quantified Neurophysiology Belgian Group".

The Proceedings of the Symposium will be published by Elsevier Science, B. V. in a 300-page book that is already in press. It will available at the Symposium with key note lectures on these issues.

Our main goal is to provide a suitable scientific platform to discuss all topics related to human death. Cubans, as hosts, will sincerely offer, a warm hospitality. This small Caribbean Island, with the greenness of its country and surrounded by an incredible blue sea, will be a suitable scenario to remind that any discussion about death is a reason for a better life.

We feel that any reason behind the efforts to enlarge our knowledge about human death (and life), is then.. just a matter of human dignity.

Prof. CALIXTO MACHADO, M.D., Ph.D.

President of the Organizing Committee

Tel.: (537) 327501 or 322233
Fax: (537) 22-8382 / 219496 / 218270
E.Mail: braind@infomed.sld.cu
Telex: 511609 palco cu
Stuart J. Youngner, M.D.
University Hospitals
Department of Medicine
11100 Euclid Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio 44106-6033
Telephone: 216-8443429
Fax 216-8443313
E.mail: sxy2@po.cwru.edu

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