N MY COMMENTS PUBLISHED IN THE JUNE ISSUE OF the journal, 1 I promised to bring you news of the handover of editorial responsibility in the August issue. As it happened, instead of bringing you this information, which at that stage was still maturing, I chose instead to delegate my responsibilities to Christo Tchervenkov, Jeff Jacobs, and Richard Jonas, who gave you a detailed account of the initial historic meeting of the new World Society for Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. 2 I write these comments as I return from the 43rd meeting of the Japanese Society for Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, and I am now in the position to provide the news I promised for the August issue. I start my comments, however, with a sad heart, since whilst in Tokyo I was informed by Ed Bove of the recent tragedy that befell the transplant team at Ann Arbor, who lost an entire harvest crew, along with the pilots, when a plane bringing a donor organ back to Ann Arbor crashed on takeoff in Lake Michigan, having procured the organ. Elsewhere in this issue, Ed has provided a touching obituary for David Ashburn, a remarkably talented young cardiac surgeon within his group who was just commencing his career. 3 I knew of David through his writings on behalf of the Congenital Heart Surgeon's Society, in which organisation he was the initial John Kirklin fellow. Sadly, we will no longer be able to benefit from his huge potential. In discussions in Tokyo, Ed also informed me that, from 2000 until the present, in the United States of America, there have been 85 crashes with 70 deaths involving rotor wing transports, and 15 crashes with 34 deaths on fixed wing aircraft, albeit that, apart from the crash in Lake Michigan, none of these fatalities were directly related to procurement of organs. As Ed commented to me, nonetheless, these statistics are ''pretty staggering'', the more so since he is aware of other fatalities occurring in direct relation to procurement of organs elsewhere in the World, even though precise statistics are unavailable. The price we pay to take advantage of the huge advances in medical treatment can, indeed, be considerable.