MOST organ donors in Australia are not truly dead when their organs are taken and often transplant procedures do not conform with the law, a leading Melbourne doctor has argued.

However, some experts have labelled the claims misguided and irresponsible and fear the debate will alarm organ donors and the wider community.

Associate Professor James Tibballs, a pediatric intensive care specialist at the Royal Children's Hospital, has called for a review of organ donation guidelines to ensure donors know that their organs can be taken when they are dying and not yet dead.

In a controversial article, published in the Journal of Law and Medicine this month, Dr Tibballs said clinical practice clashed with the law, which says organs can be taken from a donor when they have either irreversible cessation of all functions of their brain or irreversible cessation of blood circulation.

Dr Tibballs said clinical guidelines commonly used to diagnose brain death could not prove irreversible cessation of all brain function, and that the concept of brain death introduced into Australian law in 1977 was a "convenient fiction" that had allowed the development of organ transplantation.