Transplant surgeon says kidneys should be for sale.

[LiberalHeart]

He has a point. The need for kidneys far out-paces the supply, and life can be lousy for those undergoing dialysis:

http://newsgrinder.blogspot.com/2007/03/transplant-surgeon-says-kidneys-should.html

[pitohui]

1. jeebus cripe

he's making 6 figures for performing the surgery and the person providing the kidney should be happy to get $60 or $70K, i'm sorry, but it's pretty exploitive if the person having their body cut open to remove a crucial back-up system (which is what their second kidney is) is getting less than anybody else in the room

the hospital is making six figures, the surgeon is too, i think the damn donator of the kidney should get at least $100K

i probably wouldn't let my kidney go for less than a million, personally

[LiberalHeart]

2. And I offered mine for free to Bombeck when she needed one.

Selling kidneys would help some who'd never get a kidney otherwise, so I don't think I can be against this -- even though I see the built-in problems and ethical challenges.

[HereSince1628]

4. Choosing to donate an organ is MUCH different than creating a market

for human organs. MUCH MUCH different.

[LiberalHeart]

5. I don't see how. It's not like they'd be taken by force.

[HereSince1628]

10. No not by force but by contractual coercion.

I can see the number of kidneys you have becoming a question on a mortgage application.

After all, it would be a saleable asset, something that the mortgage company could seize as collateral on behalf of their loss.

Having missed a couple of months on the mortgage selling your kidney could become a pre-condition to allowing you to file a bankruptcy.

[LiberalHeart]

18. I'd sell mine just for the promised follow up medical care.

I could dump the insurance I have that's driving me to the poor house.

[HereSince1628]

27. Which advances my point. You'd choose a known life-shortening donation

in order to secure benefits you may never recieve. A BAD deal.

And worse, in order to allow you to make that bad deal, you'd create a market that will exploit tens if not hundreds of millions of your fellow citizens.

[pitohui]

11. yeah i'm not invested in being a good person

i'm never going to give a kidney away for free, never, not even to my own mother, however if a reasonable price were offered ($60K is an insult and not a reasonable price for a body part off a living human being's body) i might consider it

if selling a kidney makes more kidneys available then i don't necessarily see the harm

what i see now is people getting a lot of pressure put on them to donate (esp. blood marrow) and going thru a lot of stress and in return getting nothing, they are supposed to be happy to get the ego boost of being thought a nice person

well i'd rather be thought an evil selfish person and keep my body off the surgical table -- and i doubt i'm the only evil selfish person out there

[LiberalHeart]

21. I registered with the Red Cross as bone marrow donor...then there was a match and --

I got a letter from them telling me to contact them ASAP (my phone number had changed and they couldn't reach me by phone). But in the time since I registered, I'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. I had the surgery, no spread, and was clear of cancer for several years. But I was no longer a viable donor for the bone marrow. I tried to persuade them to make the patient aware of me and give that person the choice rather than decide to just toss out someone who matched. They wouldn't budge. So that person never knew I existed. I've often wondered if the patient lived or died.

In that position, I would have wanted to be the one making the decision, rather than having the Red Cross decide if it was worth the risk. For someone to need bone marrow, they're already in a dire condition.

[gravity]

42. I've had a bone marrow transplant

and received my marrow from the national registry. I don't know all the details in this case, but usually they call lots of people who are potential matches. They more than likely found someone else who was healthier and less riskier. For me they found at least 3 matches, and selected one which seemed the most reliable, which I disagreed with since they were the oldest. I can't complain now though.

Bone marrow transplants are really risky procedures, much more than a kidney transplant. They won't even give you a transplant if you aren't deemed healthy enough to survive, even though it is the last option to treat many of the diseases.

If you were their only option, then maybe they should use you as a donor, but otherwise not, because it is a risky procedure to begin with, and they don't want to add any further complications.

[pitohui]

52. they were trying to protect you

even tho you were clear for many years, reality is, we don't know what stresses might be the stress for the relapse

i'm not saying they made the ideal decision but they were trying to be fair to you

again, you are obviously an exceptionally good and generous person but the idea of allowing people to sell the organs is that people who are not exceptionally good and generous will also stop and consider this option of putting an organ or bone marrow out there -- many of us are just not going to go as far as you did without an incentive

[HereSince1628]

24. Bone marrow, rbc's, plasma, etc, aren't the same as a vital organ

They turnover naturally and are replaced at very regular intervals.

Giving up a vital organ is something many many magnitudes more significant.

I'm both malaria and TB positive so I'm not a good candidate for donating, but I'd donate replaceable fluids and cells in a flash if I knew they were needed by someone.

Giving up a kidney for 60K is a BAD deal. And it creates a horrible circumstance.

60K isn't enough for more than a couple years of treatment if your remaining kidney fails.

Considering the way in which the US courts have allowed corporations to default on retirement benefits should cause everyone to doubt that any promise about future benefits can be fulfilled.

Creating a circumstance in which your body parts are assets whose ownership and control might be required to be surrendered to lenders is UNACCEPTABLE.

Imagine a person in a financial crisis faced with giving up a kidney in leiu of paying 33% interest on their consumer debt. Does this sound remotely fair?

If a market in saleable human parts is created you can bet that down the road the mortgage industry will base your credit worthiness on the number or paired organs you have.

At that point buried within the fine print poor people will be signing over their long term interest in their body parts for short-term credit worthiness.

I am opposed. VERY opposed to where this can take us.

[Skidmore]

16. I agree with you.

I'll gladly be a DONOR, but I won't sell organs. This should be done based on altruism, not profit. Perhaps we should suggest that the surgeon DONATE some of his time for surgeries too.

[gravity]

19. It should be done on altruism but

that is obviously not working since many people are still on the wait list. Not too many people are willing to give up a kindney to a stranger without anything in return.

[greenbriar]

41. I will sell my kidney for 100,000.00

It woudl pay off my house and studnet loans!!!

[gravity]

44. And if your only one fails

You can use the money to buy another

[Jonathan50]

64. Nobody seemed to want to reply to my point when it was down at the botttom of the thread.

So I'm going to post it up here..

Whenever a market in a particular good is made illegal, if the demand is there a black market will arise to fill the demand.

The question is: Do we wish the market in organs to be a regulated, legal one, or do we wish for it to be an unregulated, illegal one?

What are the characteristics of black markets?

[HereSince1628]

3. Nope. There should NOT be a free market in human organs.

This is wrong. To let the rich buy organs, or to let insurance companies set the price on organs, below the cost of trying to live to an average life expectancy without a vital organ, so that the rich enough to not be one of the 45K of Americans without insurance can harvest organs from the poor is wrong.

Slavery is wrong. And using money to coerce people in financial need to sell their vital organs is wrong. Creating an economic system in which the Kulaks can harvest for fun and profit the vital organs of the Serfs because the Serfs can't protect themselves and aren't as important or have as much to offer is just as wrong.

[Karenina]

6. Ah, capitalism!

Let's write a business plan to market AIR! We'll retire in the lap of luxury!!!

[spoony]

54. Hear hear

My sentiments exactly. Exploiting fellow people for labour or organs or anything else is wrong, full stop.

[BattyDem]

7. We all know what would happen ...

Poor people would become organ banks for the rich people who could afford to buy them. Organs would go to the highest bidder; no one but millionaires would EVER have a chance at getting a transplant.



edited: typo :blush:

[LiberalHeart]

9. He's not talking about that kind of sale; he's talking about regulated sales.

[BattyDem]

26. Everything starts out regulated ... but how long before someone suggests deregulation?

How long before the regulations are relaxed or altered to allow private sales? How long before a loophole is found?

Do you honestly believe that rich people will be selling their organs? Those organs will come from the poor and struggling middle class. "Junior needs to go to college, so I better sell my kidney."

Will parents be allowed to sell their child's kidney? How long before abusive, manipulative husbands start pressuring their wives to sell an organ? If you're caring for a mentally disabled sibling, can you decide to sell one of their organs? The argument could certainly be made that you need the money for their care. Once the line is crossed, under what circumstances will selling an organ be unacceptable?

Where the hell did people get the idea that we have "extra" organs? :shrug: Yes, we can live with one kidney if we have to, but nature or God or whatever created us gave us a specific number of organs for a reason.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. A human is capable of producing enough adult stem cells

in the bone marrow to regenerate many internal organs. Kidneys are included in that group. Google for stem cells, glyconutrients. The amount given to the woman in the last chapters of "The Healing Power of 8 Sugars" was approximately 3 Tbls per day for a few months. The increase in the production of adult stem cells was unheard of. Her transplant surgery was cancelled. This is not voodoo medicine. This is what the human body is capable of when fueled up with enough of what it runs on.

[pitohui]

12. i never heard of any kidney being regenerated

i'd like a better cite than a nutrition book? (admitting frankly i am no medical expert by any means and could be completely out of date)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. This "Nutrition Book" was penned by twenty (20) full fledged

M.D.'s who have seen the stuff do it's thing.

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Power-Sugars-Breakthrough-Nutrition/dp/0973731702/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9875696-4061546?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175385573&sr=8-1

[HereSince1628]

You haven't heard because it isn't currently possible

if it was we wouldn't be arguing about creating a market for vital organs.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. He does have a point, but I'd rather see...

mandatory organ harvesting from the dead. Perhaps terminal medical and hospice care for free as "payment" for said organs. Admittedly, there are still avenues for corruption and crime, just not quite as many as there are in an open market for organs.

That, of course, goes contrary to almost all of human history where we have mandated some sort of "respect" for our dead, useless, rotting corpses, as if there was something special about them. Find a couple of hundred year-old bones and everything stops, not always for archaeological research or crime investigation, but to examine the sight and rebury them "with dignity." That this doesn't seem to be important for thousand year-old bones seems a bit strange-- just where is the cutoff point between reburying and sticking them in a museum?

Anyway, the real answer is that equally "horrific" stem cell research when we'll all eventually be able to have a supply of spare parts in storage for when we need them.

[NashVegas]

35. Mandatory? Sorry, I Can't Grok That

There is no inherent human right for replacement body parts.

[kiahzero]

46. Is there a human right in possession of one's body after one is dead? (n/t)

[NashVegas]

57. One Certainly Has a Right to Determine Its Disposal

..

[TreasonousBastard]

61. Why not? If one can argue the inherent human right to..

dispose of remains in any particular way, why not to the benefit of others?

Disposal methods are almost all based on religion to a great degree. Whether it's ancestor worship, the body being the temple of God, or the soul finding rest, it's all religious. Other than that, it's the emotions of grief and a selfish attitude of it's MY body and you can't do that.

Well, it's nobody's body when you're dead. It's not yours and it's not your friends' or relatives'. But, there's this attitude of posession that pervades everything we do. Somebody has to own the land, the food, the corpses, the very air we breathe... The common good always takes second place.

Respect for the dead? I have nothing against that, but why can't the ultimate respect be seen as the dead contributing to the living? (OK, OK, I can see drawing the line at Soylent Green and cannibalism.)

Anyway, that is admittedly an extreme view, and the real answer is those spare body parts. Unless that's seen as more obscene than avoidable death and disabilty, too.

[NashVegas]

62. I'm Not the Extremist Here

Respect for the wishes of the deceased has several millenniums of history backing it.

The idea that a person has a right to receive new body parts is the newer, more radical idea.
The idea that a natural death should be prevented is the newer, more radical idea.

In China, human rights groups say, citizens have been executed for nonviolent offenses like taking bribes, credit card theft, small-scale tax evasion, and stealing truckloads of vegetables. Political dissidents have also been sentenced to death. Chinese embassy officials did not respond to requests for comment, but in the past the government has denied promoting the for-profit organ trade.


Perhaps you should move to China if you feel so strongly that organ donation should be mandatory. They seem to agree with you.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0118,baard,24344,1.html

[gravity]

15. I don't see much of a problem with it

If people are willing to sell a Kidney for $70k, and someone is willing to pay for it, I don't think there is anything wrong. Both parties benefit, so what's the harm?

Kidneys from deceased donors should be the same and should be on the waitlist, or whatever system had before though. Those shouldn't be sold, because I believe that would be unethical and can lead to abuses.

[HereSince1628]

17. You don't? Say I want to sell 100% of someone's body parts.

Do you have a problem with that? That'd be slavery.

So where does slavery end and marketable free choice begin?

I don't think there is a point.

If a free market in organs is created organs will become saleable assets much like a second home, or a boat, or the family home. Your organs will become something that mortgage companies will want to have control over in the event you skip payments.

I am NOT ready to turn over the ownership of brown peoples' vital organs to Citibank or Visa.

[gravity]

22. The choice should be on the person donating

If he or she wants to sell their kidney, than they should. The person's medical and psychological health should be evaluated before donating though, to help prevent abuse.

I don't think their should be a market for all kidneys, just for people who are alive that are willing to donate their kidneys for profit.

The issue is about kidneys, not other body parts. People can give up a kidney and still be healthy. The doctor was comparing it donating eggs or sperm, not donating a heart or liver.

[HereSince1628]

25. No. If you legalize the market, you create demand and you create a saleable asset

whose ownership corporations will want to control

It WILL NOT stop with an individual's choice. It will become a component of a person's assets used to give them a credit rating and used to establish their net assets on death.

This has terrible, terrible consequences that are not the original intent but which spread out in a an awful tsunami of horror.

[BattyDem]

28. "This has terrible consequences that are not the original intent but which spread out"

Exactly. What sounds like a win/win situation for both parties involved will inevitably be corrupted into a nightmare! Corporations and/or insurance companies will find a way to exploit it for greater profit.

[HereSince1628]

30. Thanks. At least I'm not alone.

[NashVegas]

33. Oh No! That's a STRAWMAN Argument!

I just felt like being a wise-ass and saying that before a proponent steps in.


"First they came for the communists ..."

[gravity]

38. Not really

It is completely different from treating an organ as an asset, and allowing someone to pay another for their owner to donate. The medical community has ethical standards that it must follow, and this is not going to pass it. It's not going to let corporations own other people's organs, since that is unethical on so many levels.

If they can well regulate it, like the rest of our health industry, it shouldn't be a problem.

[HereSince1628]

40. Like the medical community has protected patients from high drug costs

I suppose. Physicians do what they can do. They don't really have enough control over what they do to be sure that it is something they should be doing.

The problem is that once a market is created it will quickly move far far beyond the control of physicians. Already we have physicians using inappropriately acquired tissues with no earthy idea that they have done so. Somewhere in North America the connective tissue of Alistar Cooke is attached to some rebuilt joint. Neither the Surgeon nor the patient have a clue that Mr. Cooke didn't agree to his donation.

[gravity]

43. You're assumptions are baseless

This plan has the opportunity to save the lives of thousands of people, and also allow many people to receive financial gain.

The current medical industry is well regulated, and I don't see these things changing anytime soon. There are some potentials for abuse, but if we have proper oversight, it shouldn't be a problem.

The case involving Alistar Cooke happened after he perished, which even though I find unethical, it isn't the same as harvesting the body parts from a living person. The system the doctor proposes does not have anything to do with the kidneys of deceased donors, so this scenario doesn't apply.

[HereSince1628]

48. Well, we basically disagree

The plan has the opportunity to save thousands of rich and insured people at the cost of years of life of poor donors. Just who do you think will be motivating donors by providing $$? Surely not the poor. Just who do you think will be placed at risk by monied interests? Surely not the wealthy.

The medical industry isn't as well regulated as its surgeons are hungry for replacement parts to be used in surgeries. The potential within the forseeable free-market dominated future is scary as hell.

The case about Alistar Cooke is simply an example of how "The Medical Industry" hasn't the ability to prevent abuse in the current system requiring donation. I did not mention it because it had anything to do with kidneys.

How can we assume that it would be better if organs had a market price placed on them? I think the market pressure would be greater. And players far beyond physicians and surgeons would be involved.

I would suggest that the narrow view you argue for is much like blinders once used on horses-- it forces the public view into a prescribed tunnel of vision and facilitates unawareness of the approach of danger from beyond a prescribed view.

[spoony]

55. The concept is far too ripe for that abuse though.

Consent documents and health forms can be forged as easily as anything else, and eventually instead of a pet food recall we'd be on DU reading about an imported kidney recall.

[karlrschneider]

34. The ironic point in all this silliness is that at some point everyone's a whore.

It all boils down to the price.

"principle" is one of the most affordable commodities on the planet.

[HereSince1628]

39. I'd not call turning poor people into saleable pounds of flesh silly

but I certainly understand how it could be that individuals would choose to do something for their personal interest that would create a wretchedly horrible momentum toward a monsterous future for society.

[Swamp Rat]

20. Owe the bank for a mortgage? Back taxes? ... "We've come for your liver."

[HereSince1628]

29. Unfortunately, that's exactly one aspect of the problem this would create.

Oh my oh my oh my oh my....

[juno jones]

31. Thank you, Swamp Rat

I was thinking of that myself, but of course you have all the good pictures! :)

on edit I add: No-one is geting one of my organs unless they are family to me or I am dead, and I really doubt people are going to want my organs when I am done with them, just sayin'.

[BattyDem]

36. The debt collectors will come ...

and they will demand payment. How can you declare bankruptcy if both you and your spouse have two kidneys each? :eyes:

[CrazyOrangeCat]

50. Somehow, I knew . . .

. . . that if you had seen this thread, we'd have "Live Organ Donor" pix from SR.

And I scrolled down . . . .

And . . .

:rofl:

[rasputin1952]

23. I signed on as an organ donor many years ago...

Things happen, and since I have had a few med problems, my organs cannot be transplanted, but they can still be used for research.

If I could donate a kidney, and one of mine was compatible, a life saved, I would give one up. I would find it kind of revolting that money was being made off of my donation, but if I can extend a person's life, and add quality to that life...with out thinking too long, the kidney would be theirs...:)

Perhaps, as stated above, if stem cell research were allowed to continue, there might be little need for donors, and those going throug dyalisis, and numerous other procedures to keep them alive could finally have some hope.

[karlrschneider]

32. Maybe I can sell my left nut...I don't use it much any more.

Come (eww) to think of it, did I ever?
:eyes:

[BattyDem]

37. ROFL!

:rofl:

[spoony]

56. Then you'll walk off balance ;-)

:P

[jmowreader]

63. Very bad war story follows

I saw this in Soldier of Fortune, back when it didn't have Bill Clinton to hate and I used it as a professional journal...

The author worked in the medical holding company at Fort Benning in the 1960s. One of his jobs was to interview each new patient. Well...the patient in question had this big lump in his crotch. It seems that on his first equipment jump (in Airborne School they make five jumps, one with just a parachute--this is your Hollywood Jump--three during the daytime with all the equipment you'd jump into combat with rigged to your harness, and one combat jump at night) his left legstrap wasn't tight enough. The strap slid up until his left testicle was under it. When the parachute opened, the opening shock irrepably damaged the organ. And all this patient could do was express remorse for failing in his mission.

The hospital removed the testicle, he went back to jump school, and he finally graduated.

Never again, in the history of the Army Parachute Corps, has anyone literally given their left nut to be Airborne.

[jody]

45. Organs are for sale overseas particularly kidneys. Saddam had a thriving kidney transplant

operation in Baghdad complete with world class surgeons from Israel flown in especially for the procedure.

I know because my late wife needed a kidney and I had investigated overseas transplant options.

I have a friend who had a kidney transplant via purchase in a Far East country. He's doing fine so far.

[gollygee]

47. The world we are creating

1. We take away people's jobs
2. People's everyday costs (food, heating, etc.) all increase significantly
3. No jobs = no healthcare, and people get sick whether they have insurance or not
4. We make it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy

5. We give signing bonuses for joining the military

6. We "give people the opportunity" to sell their organs for money

This is quite a racket.

[HereSince1628]

49. Yes. Quite a racket. The income gap is about to become an organ gap

Those that can pay get replacement parts. Those that can't get to sacrifice their body parts and years of life in order to try to keep their dependents from living in a van down by the river.

[Strelnikov_]

51. Right out of a Phillip K Dick novel

Is this really what Progressives and Liberals are now about. Selling ones parts for money?

Good fucking god.

[NashVegas]

60. Not Just Selling, But Mandating

Look up thread.

[NashVegas]

59. Absolutely Horrific

With some of the we-can-rationalize-anything-we-want ideas I see floating around, it actually makes me welcome the notion of religion with all of its irrationality.

[Jonathan50]

53. There already exists a black market for organs..

Whenever a market in a particular good is made illegal, if the demand is there a black market will arise to fill the demand.

The question is: Do we wish the market in organs to be a regulated, legal one, or do we wish for it to be an unregulated, illegal one?

[knitter4democracy]

58. Hell no.

I just lost one of mine last fall due to a big, scary tumor. It hurts. It takes a long time to recover. It puts you at risk for kidney failure in the other kidney, not to mention all the changes in medical care if you only have one (I have to wear a medical alert bracelet now). I have a huge scar, and I'm still recovering. There's even a decent risk of death.

No. If someone chooses to give, then fine. To put someone at that kind of risk for money is not okay. There isn't enough money in the world to pay me for what I went through and how I'm still recovering.

The main reason need far outstrips supply is that so many kidneys aren't transplantable. If someone doesn't die in the hospital, they can't take any organs. If someone is on certain drugs or has certain diseases, they can't take their organs. There are more of us who are sick than there are people who are well.