April 26, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. Paul Byrne has been on a personal mission for many years to warn the public about the alarming facts and dangers of the $20 billion dollar-a-year organ transplant industry. At the International Conference for Life in Vatican City February 25, Byrne and other distinguished speakers, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, addressed serious concerns regarding so-called “brain death”, the apnea test and organ transplantation. Dr. Bryne also introduced a new 29-page booklet produced by his Life Guardian Foundation containing crucial information to assist the public in making informed decisions about organ donation.

The new Life Guardian booklet which Dr. Byrne briefly describes in a LifeSiteNews video interview recorded in Rome, is divided into six main sections:

Facts About Being an Organ Donor - What you don’t know can kill you

Do Your Organs Belong to the Government?

Are You Thinking About Organ Transplantation? Making an Informed Decision

Manipulation of Beginning and End of Human Life

Catholic Teaching on Death and Organ Transplantation

The last part of the booklet contains tear-out forms, with instructions, intended to protect its readers from premature declarations of death that can result in imposed death, followed by subsequent unethical removal of their organs.

Dr. Byrne believes such forms are necessary due to increasingly hurried and flawed death declarations and the very aggressive tactics of the organ transplant industry.

The first form, a basic, Power of Attorney for Health Care, is followed by three complimentary, additional forms:

Directions to Protect and Preserve Life for Power of Attorney for Health Care Directions to Protect and Protect and Preserve Life and Health Care Representative Serving as an Agent for Dependent Person who is a Minor or Mentally incapacitated person Directions to Protect and Preserve Life to be carried at all times in case of sudden accident or serious illness

Each of he last three forms includes the strict, bolded direction, “Do not hasten death. Do not shorten death. Do not do an apnea test. Do not take any organ for transplantation or any other purpose.”

The reference to the apnea test reflects grave concerns by Dr. Bryne and other medical professionals that this deadly procedure frequently hastens the death of those being “tested,” some of whom might yet recover, since they are deprived of ventilation for the dangerously long period of time set to determine if they can breathe on their own.

Byrne writes, “Knowing full well how critical the ventilator is, to withdraw it when it is needed most is absurd! Yet, it is planned for the patient to be taken off for up to 10 minutes - the patient can only get worse! This test is sometimes lethal. Make sure to instruct all medical staff: “Do not do an Apnea test!”

Dr. Byrne contacted LifeSiteNews to add, “carbon dioxide normally remains below 45 in us and when a patient is on a ventilator, the goal is to keep the carbon dioxide below 45. When doing an apnea test (the test for sleep apnea is not an apnea test), the respiration supporting ventilator is taken from the patient causing the carbon dioxide to increase to at least 60, and sometimes higher. When the carbon dioxide goes to these levels, swelling in the brain occurs or gets worse if it is already present. This is tantamount to suffocation.”

“The ventilator can be effective only in someone living” emphasizes Byrne. “The ventilator pushes air into the lungs; the air goes out (exhaled) only when and because the living body pushes it out. This does not occur in a cadaver/corpse/dead body.”

Although parts of the Life Guardian Pamphlet are directed to Catholics who are considering becoming organ donors, there is also much medical/ethical information applicable to a more general audience.

The medical credentials of Dr. Byrne have given considerable weight to the credibility of his presentations on the controversial topics which he has traveled to numerous countries to speak about. The new booklet describes Byrnes credentials as follows:

Dr. Paul Byrne, a Neonatologist is Director of Neonatology and Director of Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio; Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, University of Toledo College of Medicine; Board Certified in Pediatrics and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine: Member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars; past-President of the Catholic Medical Association (USA); and author of numerous articles on “brain death” and organ transplantation in medical and law journals and lay press. He is the producer of the film Continuum of Life and the author of Life, Life Support and Death, Beyond Brain Death, and Brain Death is Not Death. Dr. Byrne has presented testimony on life-death issues to nine state legislatures beginning in 1967, He opposed Dr. Jack Kevorkian on Cross-Fire, and has appeared on Good Morning America, the BBC documentary, “Are the donors really dead?” and public television in Japan.

See yesterday’s related LifeSiteNews report with many other related links, Dad rescues ‘brain dead’ son from doctors wishing to harvest his organs - boy recovers completely