Guidelines for the determination of death. Report of the medical consultants on the diagnosis of death to the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research

This report represents a consensus of the individual physicians who served as consultants to the President's Commission; it has not been passed on by the Commission. It provides a statement of currently accepted medical criteria that could be used in implementing the proposed Uniform Determination of Death Act. The criteria are designed to help a physician determine if death has occurred, with no error in classifying a living individual as dead and with as few errors as possible in classifying a dead body as alive.