Editorials

Changing the culture? The report into the removal of organs from children at Alder Heymakes harrowing reading, and doctors should not be sur-prised to find themselves once more under the public spotlight.1 It states that removal of organs was taking place on ‘a large scale’, effectively without the knowledge — and therefore of necessity without the consent — of the bereaved parents. Through all the public debate that has followed publication of the report the lack of proper consent procedures emerges as a scandal, even while some members of the public have wondered how difficult it would be to engage in the appropriate discussion at the time of bereave-ment. What is equally scandalous, but has attracted less public attention, is that organs were retained in the name of research, but that no research was being done even as more organs were being stored. The affair has brought other questions into the public domain