Stefano Lorenzetto

"(About w:fr:Adrien Candiard) He could have followed in his father's footsteps, this young man who will turn 40 on 31 October. When he decided to embrace the novitiate, he was one of the most highly regarded ghostwriters for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was running in the French presidential primaries. He left DSK halfway through the race, almost as if he had foreseen the sex scandal that would force the socialist economist, who had since become managing director of the International Monetary Fund, to resign in New York in 2011."

"Is it right to declare a person dead based on a legal convention whose sole purpose is to facilitate organ transplants?"

"Unfortunately, all organs, with the exception of corneas, have this unfortunate characteristic: in order to be transplanted, they must be removed from the “donor's” body while their heart is still beating, their blood is still circulating, their skin is still rosy and warm, their kidneys are still secreting urine, and any pregnancy is still continuing, to the extent that it is necessary to administer curare drugs to prevent unpleasant reactions when the surgeon makes the incision. Do these seem like corpses to you? Yes, transplant surgeons assure us. No, according to a law of the state: in fact, “corpse means: ‘The human body deprived of cardiorespiratory and cerebral functions’” (Ministry of Health circular no. 24 of 24 June 1993)."

"Alessandro Nanni Costa, director of the National Transplant Centre, argues that in 40 years, the criteria for determining brain death “have never been questioned by the scientific community and are applied in all scientifically advanced countries”. But not in Japan. Is Japan to be considered a scientifically backward country?"