Philosophical considerations on brain death and the concept of the organism as a whole.

Since intensive care medicine enables us to maintain blood circulation and respiration artificially for some time, the usual criteria for death, such as cardiac arrest and cessation of respiration, are not applicable in all cases. Thus, the irreversible breakdown of the brain functions have come to be accepted as the most prominent factor for the occurrence of death. This criterion is linked primarily to the disintegration of the organism as a whole. Yet the controversy surrounding the moment when a man can be declared dead has not yet been resolved. The decisive weak point in this controversial discussion seems to be that the notion of the "organism as a whole" is inadequately defined. The aim of this work is to fill this void. We developed four general criteria of life: integration, coordination, dynamics, and immanency. Moreover, four additional characteristics are necessary for a living being (organism as a whole): completion, indivisibility, autofinality, and identity. If one of these four characteristics is missing we can only speak of derivative life but not of a living being. In a brain dead body one finds a number of signs of life. These signs of life, however, are not signs of an organism as a whole but signs of a physiological combination of organs whose parts - directed from the outside - are dependent on each other. The brain dead body lacks the four criteria of a living being. Thus it is no longer a living person but purely derivated biological life.

[Is the pharmaceutical industry really as bad as its reputation?]. / Ist die Pharmaindustrie wirklich so schlecht wie ihr Ruf?

The pharmaceutical industry has a bad image. Recently it has often also been criticised in internationally well-known medical journals. An exact examination in the context of the peculiarities of the pharmaceutical products' market has shown that there are at present five areas where ethical problems in the pharmaceutical industry exist: poor information flow, the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and public health authorities, security standards and the scientific quality of research, provisioning, and priorities in research. It is difficult for the pharmaceutical industry to cope with conflicts of interest and their implications in these areas. There are surely individual ethical deficiencies and shortcomings but this is no reason for the whole branch to be castigated. In comparison to other branches, the pharmaceutical industry is much better than its image. People have to consume pharmaceutical products even though they do not like doing so, and therefore cannot be expected to champion the cause of the branch. It needs to adopt another strategy in order to improve its image.