In the meantime, I still think that organs can be sold on the open market in a transparent and safe system.

Oh yeah the preview…
We are having some problems with plugins on the site so Brad has been removing some to see if it fixes the problem (you might have noticed that our quotes on the top are gone too for the moment).

Since I have “O” blood type, it would depend who was taken off that list for it to have moved me up.

Age doesn’t reduce your chances of getting a donor organ. My donor was older than I and had died from some other cause. I was 58 years old. The biggest problem is finding a donor that has the right blood type. That and the order in which you apply, pass the requisite test, sets your place, not necessarily lifestyle. I also smoked at the time and there were several other recipients there; we were again tested to see if we were healthy enough to have the surgery and if our antigens had remained the same. They now match two instead of six. I was the more healthy, enough to get the transplant, even though I was listed last from the ones that were called. I am going into details because transplantation criteria has changed in the last thirty years and the donors don’t have to be perfect; such as a young accident victim. I believe with a little more information that there would be more organs available. I think that many people feel that their life would end too soon in order to harvest their organs.

Selling organs would put a lot of pressure on the poor and lead to more theft of organs. I think with money as a motive, that many a life would end too soon. There was a news item today, where a doctor in India was stealing poor people’s kidneys and transplanting them into the rich and foreigners. What is ironic, most people can survive, function and live a long time on kidney dialysis. I worked and went to school while I was on dialysis. One person I knew had been on dialysis for 12 years, had rejected two transplants and was still working. There is more technology and advances in medicine that make waiting not as urgent as it use to be.

I think we should push more for research on cloning organs, prevent our DNA from becoming some persons or corporation intellectual property. Cloning organs and being able to fix whatever problem would be with the organ; would be the desirable way to proceed. My kidney disease is genetic and it doesn’t always lead to kidney failure. As some of you on this blog believe that government should not solve all problems, I believe that the free market cannot or should solve this problem. In saying this I am not saying this is a government problem, either. This has been the way the medical community had decided the process of determining who gets a transplant, that stays within their ethical code. Because of this I think the solution should lie within the bounds of medicine. If that is not acceptable, as you said, “life isn’t fair.”

What happened to the preview.

Part of your objection seems to be (correct me if I’m wrong) that because not everyone would have the ability to buy organs that no one should. At some point we have to recognize that life isn’t fair and that there will always be people who can afford things (yes, even critical things such as organs) that others cannot.

You say you don’t have any leverage but I doubt that. There is always charity and hopefully family that would help you out. I know that if we were living under a free market organ regime and my wife needed a kidney, I would not hesitate to go to the local hospital, have one of mine removed, and sell it for the amount required to buy her a kidney (all of this assuming that my kidney is not a match).

In the current system, the system chooses who receives priority and who doesn’t. If you over a certain age, your chances for receiving an organ is nil. Those who make these decisions also have to consider lifestyle factors such as obesity, smoking, and drinking. Certainly it’s only fair in the current system to take these factors into account; a smoker should not be ahead of a non-smoker for a heart transplant. On the other hand, if a smoker has the means to pay for a heart, then s/he should be able to without worrying about breaking the law.

Fortunately, there is an already-legal way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — allocate donated organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die. The United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the national organ allocation system, has the power to make this simple policy change. No legislative approval is required.

Americans who want to donate their organs to other registered organ donors don’t have to wait for UNOS to act. They can join LifeSharers, a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at http://www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.

Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren’t willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.