Under kidney transplant proposal, younger patients would get the best organs

The Washington Post ^ | February 24, 2011 | Rob Stein

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The nation's organ-transplant network is considering giving younger, healthier people preference over older, sicker patients for the best kidneys.

Instead of giving priority primarily to patients who have been on the waiting list longest, the new rules would match recipients and organs to a greater extent based on factors such as age and health to try to maximize the number of years provided by each kidney - the most sought-after organ for transplants.

"We're trying to best utilize the gift of the donated organ," said Kenneth Andreoni, an associate professor of surgery at Ohio State University who chairs the committee that is reviewing the system for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)....private nonprofit group contracted by the federal government to coordinate organ allocation. "It's an effort to get the most out of a scarce resource."

The ethically fraught potential changes, which would be part of the most comprehensive overhaul of the system in 25 years, are being welcomed by some bioethicists, transplant surgeons and patient representatives as a step toward improving kidney distribution. ...some worry that the changes could inadvertently skew the pool of available organs by altering the pattern of people making living donations. Some also complain that the new system would unfairly penalize middle-aged and elderly patients at a time when the overall population is getting older.

"The best kidneys are from young adults under age 35 years. Nobody over the age of 50 will ever see one of those," said Lainie Friedman Ross, a University of Chicago bioethicist and physician....It's age discrimination.".....

[rawhide]

obammacare

[stuartcr]

How would you determine who gets a kidney?

[BruceS]

The only real solution to the kidney shortage is to allow people to sell one of theirs for transplant.

[Yet_Again]

Public unions are a way of promoting leftist politics. Obamacare is a way of supressing conservative politics. Just kill off the older folks.

[rawhide]

Well, I do not have to decide. But this smacks of what we will see under obamacare. Palin was right, death panels are coming. Also organ panels. A panel will decide who gets what and when. It is already happening in England.

[stuartcr]

If you have one kidney and two people that need it, how is a death panel avoided by anyone?

[derllak]

I can understand giving an organ to one who would benefit the most, but this has to apply to rich and poor alike.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

"It's an effort to get the most out of a scarce resource."

If you REALLY want to do that -- put them up for the highest bidder.

[Clink]

Young before old. Young Democrat before young Republican.

[stuartcr]

Of course it does, but doesn’t it ultimately come dow to a death panel decision?

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

based on factors such as age and health to try to maximize the number of years provided by each kidney

Or race, since Whites live almost 10 years longer?

[Gene Eric]

>> are being welcomed by some bioethicists

Screw those bastards. They think they’re gods.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

The nation's organ-transplant network...

needs a heart-brain transplant to fix a terminal God complex syndrome. Fire or run them all out on a rail.

[n230099]

“Value to society’ care is coming. The young will be paying taxes for a much longer than someone simply consuming society’s resources.

[sten]

Death panels

[Cincinatus' Wife]

....God complex syndrome......

[Cincinatus' Wife]

bioethicists

Peter Singer [Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness" —and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

Outside academic circles, Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement. Not all members of the animal liberation movement share this view, and Singer himself has said the media overstates his status. His views on that and other issues in bioethics have attracted attention and a degree of controversy.]

Peter Singer Princeton Edu

Singer: "THREE EASY WAYS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE"

Want to do something to make the world a better place? Here are three easy ways to do it:

1. DO SOMETHING FOR THE WORLD'S POOREST PEOPLE Donate some of your spare income to help those in great need. I support Oxfam, an organization that works directly with local grass roots organizations in developing countries, and supervises the way its money is used to prevent corruption and waste. Here are links to the Oxfam organization in your country: Australia, Belgium, Canada (Québec), France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, USA and for unlisted: http://www.oxfam.org.

2. DO SOMETHING FOR ANIMALS No single human practice causes as much suffering to nonhuman animals as factory farming. Right now, billions of animals are locked in small cages so that they can't even stretch their limbs, or turn around, or are crowded into large sheds, tens of thousands of them in each shed, unable ever to go outside or enjoy fresh air and sunshine. Boycott this inhumane system of production. Don't buy factory farmed meat, eggs or dairy products. Better still, go vegetarian or vegan. Here’s a great website for the information you need.

3. DO SOMETHING FOR OUR PLANET'S ENVIRONMENT Reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. Use public transport, walk or ride a bike whenever you can. If you must drive, get a fuel-efficient one, perhaps a hybrid. And remember, factory farming is a wasteful form of production that requires a lot of fossil fuel, so eating fewer - or no - animal products will cut the amount of emissions for which you are responsible.

These three points are all about living in a way that is ethically responsible. Try it - you'll find it gives more meaning to your life and it's a great antidote to boredom. There is always so much to be done. And talk to others about what you are doing. Don't preach or be self-righteous, or fanatical about it, that just puts people off, but at the same time, don't be shy about setting an example, and use opportunities that arise to let others know what you are doing. [end]

[FarmerW]

I think you all are being a little naive. How would you decide who gets the limited organs available? You would give an organ to a 79 year old drinker and cocaine abuser before a 15 year old with no other medical problems?

I am as conservative as they come, but I spend my days reading medical records at one of the largest organ transplant hospitals in the world.

Some people are medically more deserving then others. Someone has to make that call.

[spetznaz]

If one truly thinks of it from a non-emotional perspective, death panels have been around for a long time. When an insurance company's committee decides that person X should not get medication Y because it is 'experimental' (even though there are very strong signs of its efficacy), that is essentially a death panel. They have existed for centuries (whether it is something as linear as battle-field triage, or more modern variants like the initial Tamiflu medications when there was not enough to go around, or the aforementioned Insurance co. committee deciding to not pay for treatment because it is too expensive ...I mean ....it is experimental). Now, people who have funds set aside can easily by-pass such issues (such as Steve Jobs, who had to go to Europe some time back to get some medical procedures/medication that he could not have acquired in the US, and when he came back he managed to get to the head of a waiting list in a different State ....by the way, I am not knocking him for that. If I was gravely ill, and all I needed was money to give me a fighting chance, you can be darn sure I would spend like it was water spilling forth from Niagara). What I am saying, and something I totally agree with you on, is as long as their is scarcity of a resource (any situation where there is an overhang of demand to supply, be it in the share market, in the housing market, alcohol during prohibition, drugs, organs, etc), tough choices have to be made (be it purchasing a block of shares at a valuation that you suspect may be too high, or people buying homes that would be easily underwater if fair valuation was calculated, or people deciding to open a Speakeasy and sell alcohol and hiring some 'tough chaps' with Tommies to protect the establishment, or drug mules deciding to risk it taking drugs to Saudi Arabia even when the punishment is beheading, or, finally, doctors/insurance companies/hospital boards deciding who gets the organ, and by that person getting it deciding who will die).

As you said, ultimately it comes down to a death panel decision, whether the panel is an insurance company committee, a hospital board, or a gaggle of nurses who think Joe Blow over there has a better chance than you and thus dedicating just that little extra of their time to him.