Posted on 02/19/2012 12:27:32 PM PST by wagglebee
Some of the most controversial methods of obtaining organs have been endorsed by the British Medical Association in a report released this week. Building on Progress: what next for organ donation policy in the UK? laments the fact that people are still dying unnecessarily because of a lack of organs.
Among the measures it proposes are:
All of these measures have been debated extensively over the past few years.
The procedure which the media focused on in its coverage was elective ventilation. Brain dead patients who have suffered a massive stroke would be kept alive purely to enable organ retrieval. This led to a 50% increase in organ retrieval in 1988 at a British hospital, but it was declared unlawful in 1994.
Transplant units in Spain and the US already use the technique, said Nigel Heaton, professor of transplant surgery at King's College hospital, London. "People have qualms about it. The concern is that you are prolonging or introducing futile treatment that has no benefit for the patient. But I expect that views will gradually change.
Elective ventilation was criticised by Professor Nadey Hakim, of Hammersmith Hospital, as "bizarre and unethical". "It's not ethical keeping someone alive," he said. "They're brain dead and you have to remember there's a family next door in tears. I find it bizarre that the BMA wants to push for something so unpopular. This is how we kill any desire for people to become donors."
Retrieving hearts from newborn babies is still an experimental procedure. Life support would be withdrawn from disabled children and their heart would be removed about 75 seconds after it stopped beating. Although the BMA report does not mention it, this clearly violates the "dead donor" rule that donors have to be dead before vital organs can be removed.
The report acknowledges that donation after cardiac death is a hard sell to the public, especially if a heart which stops beating in one body begins to beat again in another. However, the BMA believes that it is ethically acceptable, even though:
A careful explanation of the way in which death is diagnosed will be needed and an explanation that a heart that has stopped beating can be restarted after the person has died and used for transplantation. It might also be helpful to refer to fact that the first heart transplant, under Christian Barnard, was from a DCD donor.
The pilot for the “Max Headroom” show had a similar theme in it. You could go buy body parts or whole bodies, no questions asked.
Dr. Walter E. Williams said it best while subbing for El Rushbo one day. The organ shortage will be solved when a person or their designated executors are allowed to SELL THEIR OWN organs.
The idea that people are supposed to DONATE organs for free, while the surgeon makes $50K a pop and more, never made sense to me.
The donor, Mr William Lucas, had been conveniently bludgeoned to death around the same time they discovered Casey needed a transplant.
The point is, I really don't want to be in critical condition in some hospital at the same time that some VIP, who I'm a tissue match for, needs an organ.
The best response to “forced” organ donation is that there is a long list of diseases and conditions that make organs unacceptable for donation. And if someone is suspected of having such a disease or condition, there are tests to determine if they have it.
If the test is positive, no “what passes for ethical these days” surgeon will touch it.
But in many, if not all such tests, harmless “simulants” also exist that can give them a false positive.
So if someone carries a card indicating that they have one of the proscribed diseases or conditions, and they consume the proper simulant, this would give them an extra measure of protection against organ snatching.
It's all horrific, but I was especially drawn to the high-risk sexual behavior classification. Prostitutes and gays. But what about the HIV status? What good does it do you to get a new liver from a whore just to find out she/he's got HIV??
I suppose they say they'd test for that first.
I’m with you 100%. I have it stated in my will that if I’m on life support, it is to be disconnected after 2 years and not a minute before. Don’t trust anyone in the harvest field. “Bio” and “Ethic” in a sentence makes me run the other way.
I have questioned the numbers of comatose patients who revived after being declared brain dead, but were not. The doctors needed the organ and f*** the patient with an injury. One guy was to have eyes harvested within several minutes. He revived. What would the doctors have done had he revived after they took his eyes? Yeah, you know, they would have killed him and went for daquiris after work.
I have met those who used to work on the “retrieval” side of organ donation. Things like this go on now. I will not sign an organ donor card for that reason.
Your reply was more Swift than mine.
Live organ donation. Worse than a møøse bite.
Live organ donation. Worse than a møøse bite.
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