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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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 OPINION 
1

Live Kidney Donors Should Be Encouraged, Not Doubted

Activist seeking organ gets help from friends

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(Newser) – When Frances Kissling learned she needed a kidney transplant, she took a step most people in her situation never do: She asked dozens of friends and colleagues if they would be willing to donate. "I was bowled over by how people responded," the Catholic feminist activist writes for Salon—she reached out to 150 people and within a month had two dozen offers. So why is the list of people waiting for transplants so long?

The list of volunteers, all female, sounds like a joke about walking into a bar: "I had offers from an Episcopal woman priest, Roman Catholic nun, ACLU lawyer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author (OK, it is Anna Quindlen, who said she thought if we ever had to share an organ, it would be our spleens)." With kidney donations falling dramatically short of the need, Kissling says it's time to start encouraging live donors, who are now treated with so much suspicion that "even a free glass of orange juice ... given to a donor is interpreted by some leaders in the field as a 'bribe' or a crime."

Surgeons at Georgetown University Hospital perform a kidney transplant on Cynthia Preloh on Oct. 2, 2008. Technology has made the process less dangerous, but it's still a serious surgery.
Surgeons at Georgetown University Hospital perform a kidney transplant on Cynthia Preloh on Oct. 2, 2008. Technology has made the process less dangerous, but it's still a serious surgery.   (AP Photo/Georgetown University Hospital, Rick Reinhard)
The three options for those with end-stage renal disease are dialysis, transplant, and death. Still, 54% of those who need a kidney do not ask friends and family to donate.
The three options for those with end-stage renal disease are dialysis, transplant, and death. Still, 54% of those who need a kidney do not ask friends and family to donate.   (Shutterstock (Sebastian Kaulitzki))
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The kidney establishment has been moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than face the core ethical questions: Do potential donors own their bodies and have a right to decide? - Frances Kessling

The best way to stop first-world people with money from exploiting poor people by bargain basement organ trafficking is to procure more organs from well-informed, healthy and autonomous people in the first world. - Frances Kissling

Some leaders in the field have suggested that it's time to provide donors with incentives, from health insurance to tax credits and pension contributions, to promote donations. - Frances Kissling

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow
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riffran
Mar 28, 09 12:36 AM CDT
as long as nobody is waking up in a tub of ice..lol..(proven to be an urban myth though but still funny to joke about).... Reply
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health care • organ donor • kidney transplant • donor • organ donation • transplant list • dialysis • Frances Kissling • Anna Quindlen

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