And to add injury to insult...they denied him medical benefits as they told him that as his occupation was plumber....he could still use his twisted arm to unblock toilets.
Posted on 12/19/2012 9:23:13 AM PST by Baynative
Jennifer Wederell, a 27-year-old British woman with cystic fibrosis, died of lung cancer after she received the lungs of a heavy smoker in an organ transplant.
(Excerpt) Read more at gma.yahoo.com ...
Second hand smoke kills...
And that doesn't take into account the high probability that the woman was on immune suppressing drugs to minimize the likelihood of organ rejection.
Read the article, it says it is believed that most people dying of a lung disease would be satisfied to take their chances with the lungs of a smoker. So screening is performed but apparently the screen is not very selective.
If one is on a waiting list, for 18months, I don't think you get to be too picky.....
she might have died from her CF complications alone within a few months....
so taking some lungs, even though from a smoker, is a no brainer...no one could predict that the lungs would be cancerous....
not everything works out, but the intentions and reasoning probably were correct...
“most people dying of a lung disease would be satisfied to take their chances with the lungs of a smoker”
Reminds me of the days when ardent anti-smokers would accept tables in the smoking area of a busy restaurant instead of waiting for one in the non-smoking area.
If you were genuinely trying to cheer her up, I don't think you had anything to feel bad about. Getting cancer now IS different than getting it 20 years ago in terms of treatment options. That's no BS.
Unfortunately with lung cancer, it is often diagnosed too late to do much with it. By the time it's detected, it's often Stage 3 or 4, and has metastasized in other places throughout the body.
I’m not impressed with the dog whistle. She may have died anyway.
It wasn't BS because it's very true but it's also true some are diagnosed too late or still beyond the reach even modern treatment. Too often there are terminal cases can only be delayed.
I'd take the chance.
And to add injury to insult...they denied him medical benefits as they told him that as his occupation was plumber....he could still use his twisted arm to unblock toilets.
Amazing bad luck.
and this: Two patients died after being left waiting in ambulances outside an over-stretched hospital.
The patients, believed to have been in their 80s, couldn’t get into the Royal Oldham Hospital for seven and 20 minutes respectively.
here: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/health/s/1421402_two-patients-died-after-waiting-in-ambulance-outside-full-oldham-hospital-unit
also:....UK Doctors are starting to prescribe WATER to prevent patients from dying from forced dehydration.
Its the patients not selective, not the screen. They pass up and then have further wait which could be fatal as well.
Chris Watson, vice president of the British Transplantation Society, told CNN that 49 percent of last year's lung donors in the UK were smokers.
True. My sister stopped smoking back in 2005 when she had to undergo surgery for brain aneurisms. In February of 2010, she was diagnosed with lung cancer, underwent chemo and radiation treatments, and died in September 2011. Both my parents died of lung cancer, and my brother died of a massive heart attack at age 51. I have one sister left, age 72, who lives in an adult-assisted living home. She still smokes. I'm 65, have never smoked, but know that I am still in jeopardy of contracting lung cancer.
But it was more than that. For her to die from cancer that quickly, it had to already be active in the donor’s lungs. Taking your chances with a smoker’s lungs is one thing; bringing in an active tumor is quite another.
So you have a risk / reward choice here. Do you take the lungs now, knwing they come from a smoker and could possibly lead to cancer down the road, or do you pass and possibly die waiting for a better set later? The problem here is that the medical team took it on themselves to make the choice, they never informed the patient of the history of those lungs. I guess they figured these are clinically healthy lungs, the risk of cancer is there but small and most likely years away and this was her best chance to survive in the near term so no need to even discuss it. Probably they also know that organs don't last long outside the body and if you tell patients "look, this guy smoked" many will say no thanks, and the organs might be lost. So they kept that info to themselves.
Sadly, the cancer did come and it came right away. Really bad luck, statistically speaking but if the patient had been informed and decided to risk it, she took her best chance knowing the risks. But in this case she didn't know the risks, she was denied the ability to make an informed decision and that is wrong.
That’s correct. Plus, the immunosuppressive therapy that all transplant patients receives enhances the likelihood that any cancer cells already present can grow unimpeded.
That’s what I was thinking. OTOH, if it was a choice between no lungs and death OR this, then I suppose that taking a chance was worth it.
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