Crap.
I need a new ticker.
And I don't give a fuck who I get it from...

Wouldn't flooding the body with pain meds make the organ no good?

Granted, transplant surgeons aren't the same doctors as abortionists, usually, but it still tarnishes the entire profession, just like trial lawyers.

Trial lawyers tarnish the medical profession, too?

Would Dick Cheney be more likely to kill someone for their heart, _or_, to eat their brains because he's actually a zombie?

This is actually a serious problem. There are a significant number of people who will not sign organ donor cards because they are convinced that doctors may not treat them in favor of harvesting their organs. It is especially true in the African American community, where distrust of doctors runs deep.

If I could legally do it, I'd sell a kidney for whatever the market will bear. I'm not joking.

As a card carrying member of the organ donation set please allow to recommend that as a first step they consider a new name.

Organ Sharing just sounds plain icky. To say nothing of impracticable.

"I like to think that a culture which distrusts doctors and/or doesn't believe in modern medicine is doing Darwin's work"

Um . . they're studying domestic pigeons, Galapagos finches, orchids, earthworms and barnacles while developing the theory of descent with modification?

Hmm. I don't quite see it, but maybe, I guess . . .

e. moose - yes, but would it be your kidney?

"Organ Sharing just sounds plain icky. To say nothing of impracticable."
Liver-pooling?

Perhaps they should try to convince the public that they will "go out and kill people to get their organs" - except for people who sign the little cards, which will protect them as long as they're alive?

I am not an organ donor because I do not trust doctors. Doctors, like everyone else, are motivated by economics, and if they have an opportunity to satisfy a billionaire by ending my life so they can harvest my organs, they will do it. I have no doubts about that.

The treatment of the dying man by the transplant surgeons was despicable. Nothing was done to either help him survive or make him more comfortable. Transplantation has turned human beings into commodities used to enrich the lifestyles of willful egomaniacs, whose celebrated intellects have been elevated to a status above the layman. This celebration of ability combined with high economic status, creates a hubris, imperilling healthcare for all.

The medical profession should discourage transplant as a solution and advocate for artificial organs. The problem is their economic reward is greater for transplantation, so that they cannot advocate for the best healthcare policy. The economics of healthcare needs to be divorced from the market and treated as a public good.

But what if you suspect the organs may be developing WMDs?

Perhaps they should try to convince the public that they will "go out and kill people to get their organs" - except for people who sign the little cards, which will protect them as long as they're alive?

that's hilarious.

Wouldn't flooding the body with pain meds make the organ no good?

No.

Doctors, like everyone else, are motivated by economics, and if they have an opportunity to satisfy a billionaire by ending my life so they can harvest my organs, they will do it. I have no doubts about that.

This is simply absurd. Organ procurement and allotment is controlled by a national organization. The doctor making the decision as to whether or not a patient is brain dead and a candidate for organ donation has no idea who the donated organs are going to go to.

I see a lot of patients who have been organ transplant recipients, very few, if any, of them are rich. I am all for artificial organs, but the notion that these options are not being pursued due to economics is silly. If someone could invent an artifical liver, or lung, they would be a billionare. The problem is this is very difficult. When you have a patient who is dying from liver failure or pulmonary fibrosis, you do what you can for that patient and, right now, transplant is what we have.

"I like to think that a culture which distrusts doctors and/or doesn't believe in modern medicine is doing Darwin's work"

So American Chickenhawk believes in evolution??

If I could legally do it, I'd sell a kidney for whatever the market will bear. I'm not joking.

Me too. Not my kidney, though, but still...

"They could start by condemning the practice of killing babies that happen to be in the womb."

Unless, of course, they are Iraqi babies, and their mother acts suspicious at a roadblock . . .

I am not an organ donor because I do not trust doctors. Doctors, like everyone else, are motivated by economics, and if they have an opportunity to satisfy a billionaire by ending my life so they can harvest my organs, they will do it. I have no doubts about that.

Develop some doubts. Seriously.

Mickey Mantle should become the poster boy for potential liver donors.

DJ MOONBAT: Trial lawyers tarnish the medical profession, too?

CMDICELY: Me too. Not my kidney, though, but still...

"We have to guarantee to the public that we're not going to go out and kill people to get their organs."

Is it just me, or does the "...to get their organs" part of that sentence seem superfluous? Maybe even troubling.

Organ procurement and allotment is controlled by a national organization.

Only about 75% of organ donations are handled by UNOS. The rest are done privately. Brojos concerns are not tin foil. If you want to see how rich people can get a leg up on the donation process, see MatchingDonors.com. If you want to see how bad it can get without artificial organs, read some Larry Niven.

Disputo,

That website deals soley with living donors, so I am not sure it is relevant to the current discussion of deceased organ donors.

Is it just me, or does the "...to get their organs" part of that sentence seem superfluous?

No, it addresses what the perception problem is that needs to be addressed.

I think Dr. Roozrokh's behavior was unethical and do not think it uncharacteristic of many Dr.'s.

Good point Disputo. Do poor people ever receive transplants? The ones without health insurance? Probably not. I would like to see data on the economic status of donors.

I love Larry Niven's stories. I often think of the jay walker attempting to escape his punishment of death by organ donation. Unfortunately, the Chinese have been reported to use this method of captial punishment, hopefully for more serious crimes. Still, it seems unethical for medical professionals to use condemned persons' organs to keep others alive longer, who I suspect are in higher income brackets than the median wage earners.

Do poor people ever receive transplants?

Yes they do. Obviously they have to have insurance, just like to get any other medical care in this country (other than emergency care), but I can tell you that most of the transplant patients I see are not at the top of the socioeconomic ladder.

Keyboardists nationwide breathed a giant sigh of relief.

American Hawk your the absolute best example of why abortion should be legal.

That AH rails against abortion, why happily accepting blacks dying due to lack of available organ transplants as "Darwinian" culling says all that needs to be known about him.

I know that DP is passionate in his belief that people have no basis for thinking a doctor might occasionally (or maybe more than occasionally) murder a patient to obtain an organ for another, more worthy, patient, but that is exactly what people think.

As part of my law practice I routinely prepare health care directives for my clients. In my state 2 physicians must concur that a patient is terminal and incapable of expressing their end of life treatment wishes before relying on a health care directive to end life prolonging procedures. State law provides an exception allowing the patient to indicated in the medical directive that the conclusion of only one physican is necessary. When asked about that option most of my clients jokingly say they want more than two. Nobody ever elects one. They often tell me stories about organ harvesting doctors lurking around their loved ones like vultures waiting to an animal to die. They worry that sometimes those doctors seem a little too impatient.

The truth is there is a genuine fear among the public that doctors murder people to obtain organs for rich people. There is a similar fear that rich and powerful people are given organ transplant priority.

I am not sure DP isn't right, but sometimes being right is not as important as being believed to be right.

Why not just say that you're not eligible to receive an organ unless you've signed a card pledging to donate your own? Assuming this would persuade some more people (but not everyone) to sign their donor card, this would increase the number of donors and decrease the demand for organs.

Re. the fear of predatory doctors: this is a case where people use their beliefs as weapons. The attitude seems to be, "We hate the well-off so much that we choose to believe they're capable of such horrible conduct (regardless of whether there's any evidence for these suspicions)."

There is plenty of evidence that doctors are criminally greedy. Many have been prosecuted for insurance and Medicare fraud.

I was thinking about the doctor in Huxley's After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, who was very greedy and unethical. This novel was published quite some time ago, 1939, so the idea of corrupted doctors is not new.

Another unethical occurrence comes to mind. A patient had some special or extraordinary cells and a doctor kept having him come to the office under the pretext of treatment so he could extract more cells for his research. I think the doctor patented his research and when the patient found out he was the source of the biology, he sued. I think that is why patients have to sign away their rights to tissues taken during surgeries or procedures now. I wonder if a doctor would refuse to perform surgery if a patient refused to sign that waiver.

I am not skeptical of doctors because they are so much better off than me, but because they can, and some do, abuse their authority for their personal gain. I think that is a result of our market based system for providing a good that would be more equitably served as a public good.

I have told this story at PA before. I went to an orthopedist, who ordered a MRI. I had to sign a waiver because the doctor owned the MRI he sent me to. I would prefer my doctors concentrate on medicine, not entrpreneurship.

Re. the fear of predatory doctors: this is a case where people use their beliefs as weapons. The attitude seems to be, "We hate the well-off so much that we choose to believe they're capable of such horrible conduct (regardless of whether there's any evidence for these suspicions)."

I can't imagine why particularly African-Americans might distrust doctors; it must be just class envy.

Guess what? That card means nothing if your relatives don't sign off on it, so stop freaking out about being harvested.

If I am ever in bad enough shape that a doctor would consider speeding me along before my organs degraded and weren't usable, I sure as fuck don't want to wake up. I've had a good run, and I am DNR, Baby, with a pretty little frilly tattoo around my belly-button that says "No Pegs."

I know what we do in that room. I never want to see it from the other side.

Many have been prosecuted for insurance and Medicare fraud.

Transplant Surgeon Bill Frist is the son and brother of the founders of HCA, and that company paid the largest fine in history for Medicare fraud. I onkly have an hour before I have to go study for an exam, but I could grind that axe all night.

Transplant Surgeon Bill Frist

That scary phrase may cause some to rethink their donor status.

For what it's worth, organ procurement and reimbursement varies from country to country. If you are rich, you can fly to another country and pay cash for a new kidney. An indigent person might sell one of their kidneys for a few thousand dollars. In China, a condemned person might be taken to an OR and every transplantable organ removed.
In the US, however, it used to be that potential organ donors had to be declared brain dead (the usual donor being a gunshot victim or motor vehicle accident victim), using universally accepted criteria. I guess now, kidneys are usable and harvestable a short time after cardiovascular arrest. No monetary reimbursement is allowed, even if the victim is leaving behind a family.
As far as paying for transplants, all eligible patients on dialysis can have their transplant paid for by Medicare- that was included in the original bill for dialysis.
As for other organ transplants, for many states, that state's Medicaid program will allow a patient to go to any transplant program in the state, while a patient with crappy insurance has to go to the cheapest program.

Brojo and cmdicely,

I didn't say it's wrong to resent those who are relatively well-off, inc. many doctors. In fact, to the extent that the more well-off in North American society have voted for tax cuts and cutting social programs, they should be resented ('hate' in my above comment was too strong a word). And to the extent that many doctors have opposed a strong public healthcare system, they should be resented.

I'm not surprised that members of the medical profession have exhibited the vices prevalent in their culture, inc. the racism that led to the Tuskegee program.

But I can't believe that there's a widely shared willingness in our culture to kill someone else for financial gain (at least on the level of individual action -- when it comes to collective action we seem all too willing to start wars for profit).

Only a relatively small number of exceptionally depraved people in our culture are prepared to commit murder in order to make some money, and I don't believe there's any good evidence for thinking that doctors in our culture would behave that way (which isn't to deny that many doctors would commit lesser wrongs like recommending unnecessary tests or even surgeries for profit).

Given that lots of people express the opposite and bizarre view, regarding doctors generally as depraved would-be killers just waiting for the right chance to profit from murder for organ harvesting, I offered the opinion that since there's no good evidence to explain this widespread suspicion it must arise as an expression of anger (perhaps warranted in some cases), or a sort of 'weapon', aimed at doctors.

"Is it just me, or does the "...to get their organs" part of that sentence seem superfluous? Maybe even troubling.

Shit, JFF, you made me spit half-chewed tofu all over the computer screen, and that's just gross . . .

'We're not going to go out and kill people to get their organs, silly - we're going to kill them for fun . . .'

"but I could grind that axe all night.
Oh man, now I just have to wake up my wife and say - waggling my eyebrows - 'hey, baby, we could grind that axe all night.' Although since she has to get up in a few hours and go teach little kids, I'm not sure she'll appreciate my delightful wit quite as much as it deserves . . . .

Me too. Not my kidney, though, but still...
Hey, supermarkets do it all the time . . .

"Posted by: Mcaristotle"
Good lord - McAristotle's still around?

Anyway, re: the idea of doctors prematurely harvesting organs for billionaires - one could analyze it as a transformation of ideas about class and exploitation that they can't really articulate otherwise. Whether one should, I dunno . . .

Transplant Surgeon Bill Frist

That scary phrase may cause some to rethink their donor status.
Posted by: Brojo on February 28, 2007 at 6:28 PM

Who was it that came up with the phrase: "Iraq is the new Teri Schiavo"? Brilliant.
If a Senator who is a surgeon can create that sort of public spectacle, I wouldn't be too dismissive of the idea of a handful of GRIM HARVESTERS out there... The "anything for a buck" mentality of the last several years going on and on without opposition will lead us to that-you betcha.

I had never thought of that. How can I get off the donor list?

otherpaul, I would say that opening up people's tissues and organs to market forces creates opportunities for doctors to become greedy murderers. Market forces combined with simple human greed, which doctors, despite their intellect, are just as susceptible to as any other member of the human community, imperils the tenuous trust medical professionals require to perform their jobs. People in the medical profession probably commit murder and other crimes at the same rate as any other population sample. It is their ability to do so under the protection of their medical ability and authority that creates, what you consider unwarranted, suspicion. Removing the market incentive to enrich themselves with unquestioned, by the layperson, professional authority, will help to disspell these suspicions.

Transplantation makes markets out of human organs. Markets can be and are manipulated by individuals for their personal gain. Doctors are not immune to the human emotion of greed and have the authority of their profession and knowledge to exploit others with impunity. That being said, most doctors are like most other people: good, decent hard working, and dedicated professionals who do the best they can.

Brojo, I agree. Markets in human organs are wrong for many reasons, inc. the one you identify.