Abstract
The broad consensus on the definition of death which the Uniform Determination of Death Act of 1981 had created in the US seems to have weakened in recent years. To obtain an overview of the issue, a literature review was conducted using the Georgetown University's ETHX database. The relevant issues collected from the reviewed articles were sorted and explained under the three headings: 'issues arising from the accumulated experience of diagnosis of brain death', 'issues triggered by the tendency over the years to expand the donor pool', and 'unresolved conceptual problems'. The following discussion focused on the question: why is it that the definition of death controversies remain so hard to settle? Suggested answers were: the nature of the question "what is death?" has not received the proper examination it deserves; and the multifaceted nature of the question has made it difficult to discuss among experts from various backgrounds. With the consensus in Japan on brain-death criteria far more fragile than that in the US, and with the upcoming revision of the Organ Transplantation Act in sight, questions concerning the definition of death should be carefully examined. To do so, the controversies in the US should be closely studied.
