Mount Sinai Hospital in New York suspended live donor transplants yesterday when a healthy man died three days after donating part of his liver to his ailing brother. Mike Hurewitz, 57, died from complications related to the transplant. Over 100 live donor operations have taken place at Mount Sinai since 1998. It is estimated that the hospital uses living donors for liver surgeries more than any other facility in the country.

The ethical implications of living donor transplant procedures have been debated since their initiation in the early 1990s. Critics of the practice say healthy patients put themselves at risk by undergoing such elective surgery.