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Transplant Surgeon Called Dibs On Steve Jobs' Home
theodp writes "The Commercial Appeal reports that Dr. James Eason, the surgeon who performed Steve Jobs' liver transplant, found himself grilled at length Monday by Shelby County Commission members. The Univ. of Tennessee-Methodist Transplant Institute, which Eason heads, is in a bitter dispute over the distribution of human organs. Pressed for details by Commissioners West Bunker and Terry Roland about the 2009 liver transplant that Eason performed on the late Steve Jobs, Eason acknowledged that he's now living in the Memphis home that Jobs used during his convalescence. Bunker asked, "Was that a deal cut to get him a transplant here locally?" Eason: "I understand. It's a fair question. Absolutely not." Eason said a company lined up the housing for Jobs. "I took care of him and visited him in that home. And when I learned that it was going to be going on the market, I asked him, I asked the administrator of the LLC, if I could purchase it." So, is it time for Apple to shed some light on The Mystery of Steve Jobs' Memphis Mansion? It was reported that Apple lawyer George Riley, reportedly a friend of Eason's, helped Jobs with the arrangements for the Memphis mansion, which was acquired at a bargain price of $850,000 from the State of Tennessee by the mysterious LCHG, LLC on 3/26/2009. LCHG was formed on 3/17/2009, apparently just days before Jobs received his liver (on 3/21/2010, Jobs noted he was coming up on the 1-year anniversary of his transplant). Records show that title to the mansion was transferred to Eason in May, 2011, about three months after the National Enquirer painted a grim picture of Jobs' health. LCHG, LLC was dissolved in February 2012."
Badly written article. I have no idea what it means.
work in progress
Let's just say Dr. James Eason was moved by Steve Jobs.... TO A BIGGER HOUSE!
Clearly LCHG means "Livers Can't Hinder Greatness" - he wanted limited liability for his failing organ.
...so naturally we have to assume there was a conspiracy to kill him.
Conversely, for people who believe Steve was a really nice guy... we can also discuss the conspiracy to save him from the conspiracy to kill him.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Why didn't they just so so?
work in progress
Dibs, called it again.
So what are you saying, it should have been turned into a "Steve Jobs Lived Here" museum with nobody living there forever after? People live in houses that other people used to live in all the time.
Don't blame me, I hit -1 slownewsday in the firehose. Now that I'm awake, maybe I should've hit -1 stupid.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Ok, so. It's a gossip piece, but it belongs on Slashdot's homepage because it involves Steve Jobs in a semi-tangential sort of way? Right, OK.
It is extremely common for people who happen to know another person to be cut a nice deal when selling property. In fact, I might even say that is normal. Jobs knew a guy, guy wanted to buy his house, Jobs sold it to him, end of story NO ONE GIVES A SHIT.
I'm not even sure what the summary is implying, and I really don't feel it is worth taking the time to find out. This isn't even "news", it's just sensationalistic crap (I'm assuming, I only skimmed the summary).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
First they kill Michael Jackson, then they kill Steve Jobs. And they charge a month's salary to see them for 10 minutes.
We have to get rid of these doctors from society, what good do they do?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They're not implying that he was killed for the mansion. They're implying that Easton benefited financially from an organ transplant. Perhaps, for example, he looked the other way at whether Jobs was qualified medically to receive the organ. Or received the house so he wouldn't bring it to anyone's attention that Jobs was doing the organ-transplant version of carpetbagging.
Jobs wasn't just "sort of" a jerk - he used his wealth to exploit the organ transplant system by having "residence" in the state with the lowest waiting list.
The doctor never should have accepted the house. The doubt cast on the impartiality of the organ transplant system and medical profession, even if there was nothing actually improper in the doctor's behavior, is trouble enough.
Please help metamoderate.
Let the litany of Jobs worshippers now feast upon all my +1 funnies with -1 overrateds. I suppose had I made a joke about how Apple's iDied product isn't selling so well, or another iSomething joke, it'd be -1000 flamebait and they'd have to call Malda out of retirement to help rewrite the code so it'd be more resistant to having everyone on the internet simultaniously facepalm, lol, and then -1 a single comment. *maniacal laugh* Soon my pretties...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
A large underground storage facility was located beneath a Memphis home today and it contains the largest stockpile of black turtlenecks known to man.
It sure starts to look like Jobs bought his way to the front of the transplant line, his life being "worth more" than the less rich people in front of him.
That's why people hate the 1%ers - they think they are worth more than the rest of us.
Seriously who DOES care? Odds are whatever happened wasn't illegal as it would have came out.
Gorkman
Unfortunatelly /. is missing a moderation option for the articles themselves.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Exactly. This isn't even tabloid level news.
Here's a clue for those who don't understand how LLCs work or why people use them: This kind of thing is done every. single. day. Rich people form LLCs and trusts to move and shelter assets and to avoid taxes. Not-so-rich people do it, too, because it's a good vehicle for keeping business costs outside personal finances. Something almost exactly like this happens all the time with everyone from the small profitable restaurant owner up through corporate middle managers and CEOs.
I know contractors who get paid through their personal corporation. They do contract work, and the payment goes from one company to another for the work. The company pays the contractor(s). There is nothing all that uncommon, and just because it involves the house of a famous dead person does not make it news.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
This is the type of stuff that always happens when there is a prohibition on something. It makes the gatekeepers so powerful that people will use whatever means necessary to influence them.
Acknowledging that people own their bodies would allow them to sell parts of their bodies. Those that can be harvested while they are alive like bone marrow, kidneys, parts of the liver, would be pretty straight forward. Those that are harvested after death might involve getting a deal on life insurance if you transfer ownership of your organs to the insurance company after death, or you could will them to a family member.
This would make organs so readily available that no black market would exist.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
All the summary is missing is a dramatic sound effect at the end.
LCHG, LLC was dissolved in February 2012.
DUN DUN DUNNNN
Someone should call you a wambulance.
Yep... for someone like Steve Jobs, a 1 million dollar 6000 square feet home is basically a tiny shack - like his own private hospital room. It's quite obvious they got it purely to cheat the transplant system. The doctor needs to be held accountable, his actions were negligent at best and quite possibly criminal. Giving a liver to someone who has almost no chance of surviving while other younger healthier people are dying because they didn't get the liver they need. This is not good. There needs to be an investigation.
Steve Jobs:
Dude, if you have the money, want to live, and have been working the system your whole life( The Game of Life) then whatever happened was unfortunately acceptable.
The laws were clear, it just means he moved at a pace greased by money(means).....
Surgeon:
He did not benefit directly, but indirectly from the coincidence of circumstance and jumping on an opportunity that presented itself. The only thing in contention is: did he really accept a bribe, or can we make you think he accepted a bribe, or how to fuck the Surgeon over because we are envious of his luck.
If there is proof that he sped SJ through the list or something, then it is the only basis for exploitation of the system put in place to benefit all human beings regardless of social status, even the rich. I believe these systems also take into account how critical a patients situation is, not to mention if large donations are on the table which could be used to keep others alive on life support or fund artificial organ growth projects which in turn would be owned by the state as a result and thus abolish such debacles for future peoples.
Parent has the best explanation of the problem I've seen so far.
This certainly LOOKS corrupt, and it casts doubt on the entire system. If being rich enough means you can buy your way to the head of the line before people who could medically benefit more, than something is pretty broken.
There are a lot of questions here that need answering.
With fava beans and a nice Chianti?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Forgot to mention, there will always be doubt in every situation as most human beings in general still follow the animal and thus can never truly be unbiased and level handed which is the only way to maintain integrity. Not to mention we can be an envious lot when biased.
It's amazing. Just when I think Slashdot can't possibly find a subject I'm less interested in than Orbitz's decisions about what to promote to Mac users ... it does.
fat lot of good it did him.
Wouldn't calling dibs (right of first refusal?, DRTFTUA) on Steve's house be another conflict of interest for the doctor? He'd then have reason to get rid of the current owner.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's pretty much how the world works.
And that is the way the world should work. People should be able to use money to buy things they want, encouraging more people to supply them. The problem here is that we have decided this shouldn't apply to organs, so the supply is severely restricted. If organs were treated like a normal commodity they would be far more plentiful because way more people would be donors. I have the donor dot on my drivers license, and was paid exactly $0 to volunteer.
Another problem is motorcycle helmet laws. By preventing lethal head injuries on otherwise young healthy individuals, we are removing a great source of organs. Maybe anyone who has volunteered to be a donor should be allowed to ride without a helmet.
Isn't it interesting that Jobs, a California resident, was able to get a transplant in Tennessee? Bypassing all those sick little children and other in that state who were on the list before him, btw.
The whole thing disgusted me almost as much as the fact that David Crosby was bumped up the list for his liver transplant to just go back to his ways again.
And in the meantime, there these poor kids who just got dealt a bad deal going without because they're not rich and shameless.
Corrections in italics.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
slashdot is passe. The new slashdot is the dailymail.. look what is on their front page:
'UFO' at the bottom of the Baltic Sea 'cuts off electrical equipment when divers get within 200m'
Aliens & electrical equipment... Now that is "news for nerds"
You think this is a joke.. but just recently I saw rumor about Jobs and his surgeon on slashdot. What is this, the national enquirer?
I wondered why Tennessee. Is Tennessee the first place you would go to get extremely high-risk major surgery?
This article explains the process a bit better and how it helps to have money. That is, he did beat the system by shopping around, but he did not have to bribe anyone to get to the top of the list.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-steve-jobs-got-sick-2010-04
It is of course fairly obvious the home was only purchased to game the transplant waiting list system in place in the U.S. That he was placed ahead on the list in that state by the doctor in question is pure conjecture, though.
Not everyone can receive every organ that comes up for being transplanted. AFAIK, you need a fairly complex match of genetic compatibility for an organ to be actually useable for a given patient - and even in case of a "match", you need to keep taking fairly heavy immunosupressants during the rest of your life to keep your body from rejecting it. And since I would assume that there is a separate list for each (for lack of a better word - IANAMD) genetic category that donor organs come in: maybe SJ was indeed the front of the waiting list for the liver he ended up with? Without access to the relevant medical records that question is absolutely impossible to answer.
What does surprise me is that he got a transplant at all in the first place. In Europe, advanced stage cancer patients usually are not eligible to receive any transplants whatsoever, due to the general scarcity of donor organs, and the low expected benefits of transplantation in such a patient. This seems to be different in the U.S., though, otherwise someone else would already have commented on that?
That he was placed ahead on the list in that state by the doctor in question is pure conjecture, though.
Yes, but you have to admit the use of a shell company looks mighty suspicious.
I've sold houses before, and I've just sold them. No "shell companies" involved. Now, let's think... why might Jobs have wanted to use a shell company? Hmm... I can think of one big reason, can you?
While on the outside the situation has the appearance that there could have been impropriety, the appropriate thing of course is to look at the hard evidence.
Giving a sweet deal on real estate to a friend and doctor for excellent medical care is not illegal. (While I haven't received a house, I get homemade baked goods all the time.) Giving a sweet deal on real estate to a friend as a kickback for being pushed up the transplant list is highly unethical. But there's an easy way to find out: have the state medical review board take a peek at the transplant waiting list records over the time period. If Steve Jobs mysteriously moves up the list for no good medical reason, or is listed in front of other patients with more pressing need or waiting time, then you have your smoking gun. Otherwise, if everything is appropriate with the transplant waiting list, then it sounds like the system worked as designed.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
He was a guy who hated uncontrolled publicity - consequentially; he didn't want his name on the papers. Therefore - he used a corporation to buy the house. Also, I think he was kinda' embarrassed about the whole thing... and then there is the matter of a sudden revelation's effect on stock prices... so, yeah, there's many reasons to keep things hush-hush that don't involve foul play.
As to his medical eligibility for that liver, without seeing all the private records of the donors and all potential candidates for receiving the livers; I wouldn't be able to say if he should have gotten it or not... perhaps there was nobody else who could have used that particular one? We just don't know - and probably can't ever know, due to medical privacy laws.
Here's the house in question: http://binged.it/OqU6VF
It sold in 2005 for $1.325M
And then in 2009 for $850K to LCHG
And then for $850K in 2011 to James Eason.
It's last appraisal was $1.28M
$500K off the original price seems a little steep. The housing market didn't crash nearly that bad around here. Maybe a 20% drop but that'd be about it.
It's WYATT Bunker, not WEST. As a Shelby County Resident, I can safely say that it is best to ignore anything he has to say. He is a complete moron. This is just the latest in a long line of foolish things he has done since he has gotten on the government payroll.
IWhat does surprise me is that he got a transplant at all in the first place. In Europe, advanced stage cancer patients usually are not eligible to receive any transplants whatsoever, due to the general scarcity of donor organs, and the low expected benefits of transplantation in such a patient. This seems to be different in the U.S., though, otherwise someone else would already have commented on that?
This is 100% speculation by me, but as an American I think this is what happened.
Most Americans have health insurance of some kind. Now you don't have to have it, Without digressing the upcoming Supreme Court decision on "Obamacare" is based on this very issue - that the US government cannot make you buy health insurance. Although somehow states are allowed to make you buy car insurance if you want to drive but anyway.... Rich people like Jobs probably don't have insurance. They can just pay with cash for whatever they need. So whereas Joe Blow with Acme Health Insurance might be told that since he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had almost already lived longer than 99% of people with such diagnosis and that the odds were huge that it was going to come back soon and kill him when it did, he might not be a great candidate. However, liver transplants can now be done with partial livers and since the insurance company (non-existent) did not object and he could pay for 100% of it, there was no reason not to do it. US law probably prevents him from being discriminated against on the basis of his prior pancreatic cancer. There's no discrimination if the insurance company decides not to pay for it.
OK.
girlintraining (1395911), you're a wambulance!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why would you conclude that? He doesn't have to own a residence in the area to be on their list. He could have just as easily stayed at a rental property, or anywhere else that would allow him to reside there temporarily - heck, if he had a friend in Memphis, he could have easily just stayed at their place if they were willing to put him up.
To get on the list, he would have had to pay listing fees, and go through a battery of tests and interviews in each region he wanted to be on the list for - this is *certainly* where his money helped him ("average" people's insurance only pays for a single listing in their home region, and tests + travel + interviews + time off work is out of the reach of many regular folks), but there is no requirement that he have a residence in the region to get listed - just that he be able to travel to the transplant location within a certain time frame (this is where that private jet comes in handy, too).
Not particularly, given his finances and the fact that he had a team of lawyers advising him about every deal he made. This could easily have been purchased this way for tax and liability reasons, with the expectation that it was a short-term purchase - buy the house, recover there, then sell it again as soon as you're done with it. When you have billions, sometimes it's worth a couple tens of thousands in lawyer's fees to set up a holding corporation to save some money and protect your assets.
While I usually see the worst in people, Steve Jobs was extremely secretive about his health. Perhaps he got this shell company so that people wouldn't start to investigate why he was buying a house in Tennessee?
Forget the $100, offer them a candy bar. They will sign up for organ donation, a 30% interest rate credit card with a big yearly fee, and give you their company username and password.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I see a lot of comments here "Oh jobs is a bad man he used his money to buy his way to the front of the line blah blah blah". But lets face it, all of you are hypocrites and nothing else. Youre lying because you want to sound like you would take the high road and that youre a good person when you arent. If you were facing sure death and had the money to buy yourself some more time you would do it in a heartbeat. Its easy to make yourself sound like you wouldnt when youre not in that posistion, but if you were youd do anything you could when faced with death. Especially if you had the funds that jobs had youd pay off anyone you could.
Is it right he did that and get special treatment over others purely based on his name and finances? Hell no. But guess what, he did it anyway because he could and youd do the same.
I read another possible answer to the "Why Tennessee?" question.
That article back then said, that, unlike most states in the U.S., Tennessee doesn't require a patient to be a resident of the state in order to be entered to the recipients' list.
It was required that when a trasplant organ was available and person X was on top of the list, this person should be at the TN transplant centre in 24 24 hours or even much less (don't remember the exact period of time that was stated). Otherwise (when nor showing up in time) the patient would be re-scheduled back to the bottom of the list.
In Jobs' case, this latter requirement was easily met by means of a nice private Gulfstream business jet, of course.
Also referring to Jobs, a transplant surgeon said in an interview that in his area all patients with a medical history of cancer would be generally excluded from getting a donor liver at all, due to the fact that there weren't enough livers available for all the patients without any cancer history.
So Steve Jobs had a home in Memphis, Tennessee and a large fanbase who might be interested in visiting it and turning it into a shrine now that he's dead?
Opening to the public soon, it's... Insanely Graceland.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Liver Change House Gift, LLC
You get on a plane and fly to the US and have the procedure done there for a huge expense.
People in Canada do it all the time. If they don't want to wait, and have the money, many just go south of the border and pay for privileges.
He wasted a liver that would have tasted great with some fava beans and a nice Chianti....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Or better yet yell "Hey, Dibs, get down off that roof! Stupid surgeon."
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
It's not a cost issue. Many European countries won't give you a transplant because there is a shortage of organs. They will pay for whatever treatment you need, and they will (at least mine will) even fly you to Johns Hopkins if said treatments aren't available locally... They just won't waste a precious organ on someone who'll die anyway when it could be assigned to someone who will live to enjoy it.
From watching House (I know, very reliable information), it seems a similar system is in place in the US: the nature of the condition leading to the transplant, and any related conditions (e.g. being an alcoholic, in case of a liver transplant) do influence your place on the waiting list. That makes sense, regardless of how much money you have.
I suppose it would depend on the organ etc.
Sam needs a kidney transplant. Bob has two healthy kidneys. Can Sam - who is of sound mind - agree to sell one of his kidneys for $x (I'm not sure if he can or not).
Obviously, Bob can't sell his heart or non-redundant organs. Somebody shouldn't be able to sell anothers' organs due to the possibility of black-market harvesting etc.
I hear of people who volunteer [redundant organ x] to others. How about if a pricetag is involved for living transplants?
The US and Europe use similar selection criteria. But it's minutely easier to get an organ in the US due to the higher donation rate. Higher than most opt-out EU countries. Higher than all EU countries if you include living donors. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/daily-chart-11
Sometimes a donated organ doesn't match anyone high on the list and they aren't just going to toss it. So every once in a while a lucky cancer victim is going to catch a break.
That says it. Mod parent up.
some more words for the filter.
What use is money if you can't spend it to survive a few months longer than some other poor sucker?
Would you rather have communist rationed care and fascist death panels?
Who says money can't buy you a first place in line for transplants.
Perhaps Dr. James Eason wanted Steves house so he put a tiny bit of cancer in Steve during the transplant...
My house is three blocks away and I never knew until recently that he lived in this neighborhood. This is arguably the best neighborhood in Memphis (walkability, diversity, mix of biz/res is awesome), but in the 2007-2008 time period, prices dropped pretty hard, and continued downward a bit. 1.3 million to 850k is quite reasonable for what was happening then. The fact that he got back his purchase price, given what was going on, is the impressive bit. No one was getting a price increase during this timeframe. A lot of losses were happening instead.
Thankfully, the area is having a nice resurgence, with previously closed/shaby businesses re-opening as really nice things, and our prices are going back up finally.