If you had to sign your organ donor card to be eligible to receive an organ transplant the shortage of human organs for transplant would disappear. I am on the board of advisors of LifeSharers an organ donation club which has begun to implement such a system. LifeSharers and its tireless president, Dave Undis, were featured recently on ABC News Tonight. Here’s the video.
Wouldn’t there be a tendency for people who would expect to need organ transplants to overwhelmingly become members while the most desirable organ donor population segments (healthy young people who ride motorcycles without adequate protective gear) would have no incentive to join?
Well, I joined LifeSharers three years ago when I had no expectation of having anything at all wrong with me. But a month ago, I had my left kidney removed because of damage that kind of went downhill from a stone I had several years ago. I might have died in those three years and donated my organs, and been happy (in advance) to do so; I think I have a right to expect now that there might be a bit of a place for me on the list. I could still die and donate a fine heart or eye or what have you. Most people with organ failure don’t have all their organs crash at once, right?
From Mr Undis: “As it happens, only about 1/2 of 1 percent of current LifeSharers members need transplants.”
While this statistic may be true, I am willing to bet that the elderly and ill are sgreatly overpresented in membership vis a vis the general population. They may not need a transplant now, but the likelihood of needing one in the near future is much higher than the rest of the population.
Ms. Postrel:
Cadaver donors CAN significantly decrease the organ shortage. About 10,000 to 15,000 transplantable kidneys are buried or cremated every year. The transplant waiting list is growing by about 4,000 people every year. So a significant increase in cadaveric donors would save lots of lives, reduce the size of the waiting list, and shorten waiting times for people still on the list.
Alex did not say that cadaver organs, or the LifeSharer approach, “can signficantly reduce” the organ shortage. He said, as I quoted, “If you had to sign your organ donor card to be eligible to receive an organ transplant the shortage of human organs for transplant would disappear.” That is the misleading impression that LifeSharers gives the public, no matter how much you want to split hairs. I am all for encouraging cadaver donors, but let’s be clear about the numbers.
What fraction of organ recipients who are not already registered donors register? What fraction of people on the waiting list for organs register as donors? Just curious because if the people most acutely aware of the problem of organ shortages don’t register (or even a sizable fraction, maybe 20%?), what hope is there for people who never think about organ shortages/donation?
Distinguishing between stocks and flows is fine, but the flow is not at a constant rate. The list is growing faster every year, as kidney disease becomes more and more common (in large measure because of the increase in diabetes). Some projections put it at more than 100,000 by the end of the decade. The number of potential cadaver organs is not growing.
The doctors and other medical professionals along with their various hospitals and institutions are to be applauded for their pro bono participation in the trafficing of human organs. It is illegal to profit from this practice right? You don’t mean… They get paid to traffic in human organs!?!
What does Dave Undis do for a living when not vollunteering his time as President of the pro bono LifeSavers?
There is a nice book review by Ian Hacking of a recent book about organ donation on the London Review of Books homepage – it’ll probably be accessible for at least a couple more weeks.
Virginia – excuse the previous spelling error.
echo–
Assuming LifeSharer or a similar program can eliminate organ shortages, is there any longer even a point in campaigning for an organ market? Especially considering an organ market is a much harder political sell.
echo asks: “What do you think a program like LifeSharers does to the probability of adopting pro-market policy in organs? In other words, suppose LifeSharers is relatively successful – does this diminish the argument for permitting the sale of organs?”
If LifeSharers is “relatively successful” it will save lives. That’s the whole point of LifeSharers. LifeSharers is an attempt to save lives, not an attempt to impact the argument for permitting the sale of organs. But the success of LifeSharers will also enhance, not diminish, that argument — it will prove that incentives can increase the supply of transplantable organs. If the small incentive that LifeSharers offers works, then just imagine how effective a monetary incentive would be.
I believe that a free market in human organs is the best solution to the organ shortage. I also believe that a free market in human organs is a pipe dream — no one reading this will live to see the day that Congress legalizes buying and selling human organs for transplants. That’s one of the reasons I started LifeSharers.
LifeSharers doesn’t take “precious attention away from a better solution”. It focuses attention on the organ shortage — and on a practical and legal way to save thousands of lives every year.
By joining LifeSharers, you’ll increae your chances of getting a transplant if you ever need one. It’s a pretty good trade. Membership is free and open to all at http://www.lifesharers.org.
I should note that there’s actually two reasons to join LifeSharers. If you weren’t otherwise going to donate (for whatever reason), the prospect of getting preferential treatment if you ever need it might be incentive enough to join. But if you were going to donate anyway out of altruism, then joining LifeSharers is a way to make your donation have the best possible results – not only saving someone’s life, but acting as an incentive to get others to do the same thing.
LifeSharers: it’s for saints and greedy bastard capitalist pigs!
Most telling comment from the video: “I don’t think this is going to help us force people to sign donor cards.” – Dr. Michael Porayko, Medical Director, Vanderbilt Univeristy. The alternative to people voluntarily providing organs in exchange for voluntarily offered incentives is to force people to provide organs, for free, against their will. And doctors are okay with this. In fact, they think it’s the right thing to do.
Maybe Dr. Porayko didn’t really mean to say “force”. Maybe he was thinking “persuade” or “convince”, and it just came out wrong during his interview. But even so, the fact that he inadvertantly said “force” reveals a lot about his mindset. People like Dr. Porayko don’t really see a distinction between persuasion and force as long as the ends are good; if you can’t persuade someone to do the right thing, then you can just force them to do the right thing.
I wonder if Dr. Porayko has ever tried to persuade his colleagues into doing the right thing, namely performing transplant operations for free when they’d rather be golfing, or sleeping, or spending time with their families, or serving as university medical directors.
Hello
My daughter is 22 y/o, she has been sick for the last two years. no one knows how that happened but she needs kidney. My question is can I and her be on the donor list and she will have the chace of getting a kidney. Is her age difference be a problem? I whould like to hear from you.
Thank you and have good day.
Hiwet Berhe
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