[LarkNeelie]

I think most people don't understand that dialysis is not some easy maintenance program for people waiting for a kidney transplant. Dialysis often takes a terrible toll on the patient's health, not to mention their quality of life, though it is miraculous in that it can extend someone's life.

While organ selling and the like is certainly concerning and an ethical non-starter in my opinion, you'd think that that organ donor/transplantation process would have progressed further than it has. Fraught with ethical, legal and medical questions, sufferers have turned to the internet to try and force progress upon the issue.

[rellimpank]

--what's wrong with a free market in donor organs? I suspect it would end the shortage, especially in kidneys since virtually all healthy people can get along with one---

[Egon]

I think most people don't understand that dialysis is not some easy maintenance program for people waiting for a kidney transplant. Dialysis often takes a terrible toll on the patient's health, not to mention their quality of life, though it is miraculous in that it can extend someone's life.

An alternative to hemodialysis is peritoneal dialysis which, although it's lesser known and not as widespread (yet), avoids some of the negative side-effects of hemodialysis.

[From many - one.]

Here's the solution (long term)

"in order to get, you have to be willing to give"

Everyone is given an opportunity to sign up as potential organ donors (upon death). People who are signed up get first crack at available organs based on the same medical criteria as now.

Same folks as currently administer the program continue.

It won't take long for people to figure out that signing up is cheap life insurance and the supply of organs increases exponentially.

[KarlInOhio]

How much of the shortage of donor organs would be fixed if we would consider paying the families of people who died for the organs? Even if the it is only a relatively small amount, let's say $1000 / organ, that would get a lot more people to check off "donate" on their driver's licenses and organ donor cards. The only thing I would worry about is it would encourage family members to pull the plug on seriously ill or injured people before everything had been tried to save them.

Don't try to tell me that organ donation should be a "gift of love" or something like that. Everyone from the hospital and doctors removing the organs through the transportation services to the hospital and doctors transplanting the organs is well paid for the procedure. The only one told that it is wrong to profit from organ donation is the original owner of the organ.

I am a little queasy about applying the same logic to voluntary living donors, but I don't have a solid reason to argue against it.

[MineralMan]

Very interesting dilemma. If the surgeons won't do the transplants, then this sort of advertising is unlikely to work out very well.

Kidneys for the highest bidders? Well, that's capitalism, but you do have to have someone to do the surgery, and that's capitalism, too.

I'm sure there are surgeons who will go ahead and do this, but they're likely to be censured by this organization, and might have trouble finding hospitals in which to operate.

Interesting dilemma, indeed.

[Panzerfaust]

IIRC, the companies than run the registries are for-profit. If you have individuals making direct appeals to the general public, you bypass the registries and you also bypass the triage-based waiting list, i.e. you might get a kidney (through a web-based appeal) quicker than a sicker person waiting on the registry's list.

Personally, I removed my "organ donor" designation from my driver's license after discovering the system was for-profit for everybody but the donor and the recipient. I also object to my family's inability under the current system to direct my donation to a person they deem a worthy recipient. For example:

Let's consider two patients needing a liver, Patients A and B. Patient A is really sick and needs my liver, because he was a chronic alcoholic and destroyed his own liver. Patient B is lower on the recipient priority list, but his liver was damaged by hepatitis, which he accidentally contracted while working as an EMT. Now, guess who I think should get my liver?

So, I can't participate in a system that does not take into account the cause of someone's organ failure. If I'm wrong about the current registry system not considering cause of organ failure, please let me know and I'll reconsider my decision. I think the current system needs an overhaul and maybe the onging shortage of organs will prompt just such review/revision.

[bd476]

When drug abusing alcoholics like David Crosby and that actor from "Dallas" can get liver transplants just because they have household names, then the doors should have swung wide for others as well.

It would be very difficult to believe that David Crosby and that actor weren't ushered to the front of the line.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

I've refused to sign an organ donors card in protest of it being against the law to sell organs.

However, were it legal to sell, I would be willing to have my organs donated (as in given away for free) my organs, on my death.

I don't give blood (except once in the wake of 9/11) for the same reason.

[Born Conservative]

[RhoTheta]

Bump for later read.