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Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Legalize Sale of Human Organs
retroworks writes "Dr. Gary Becker (University of Chicago) and Julio Elias (Universidad CEMA, Argentina) wrote a thought-provoking editorial in last week's WSJ, arguing that the prohibition on voluntary sale and trade of human organs is probably killing people. In 2012, 95,000 American men, women and children were on the waiting list for new kidneys. Yet only about 16,500 kidney transplant operations were performed that year. 'The altruistic giving of organs might decline with an open market, since the incentive to give organs to a relative, friend or anyone else would be weaker when organs are readily available to buy. On the other hand, the altruistic giving of money to those in need of organs could increase to help them pay for the cost of organ transplants.' Paying for organs would lead to more transplants, the article maintains. 'Initially, a market in the purchase and sale of organs would seem strange, and many might continue to consider that market "repugnant." Over time, however, the sale of organs would grow to be accepted, just as the voluntary military now has widespread support.'"
Over time, however, the sale of organs would grow to be accepted, just as the voluntary military now has widespread support.
Over time, however, the sale of bananas would grow to be accepted, just as the Lil' Orphan Annie Fan Club now has widespread support. Wait, what? Oh, they're trying to draw a parallel based on efficacy, as opposed to such piffling concerns as morality. TFA goes on to say "Whether paying donors is immoral because it involves the sale of organs is a much more subjective matter, but we question this assertion, given the very serious problems with the present system." but problems with the current system don't excuse problems with the proposed system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
NO! But I would sell my left nut!
I have been saying this for years. If it's so repugnant to attach a cost to an organ, why isn't it disgusting for the surgeon, anaesthetist, and hospital to charge? The organ itself is the least supply and most demand of those things. Allowing a person (or their estate) to be paid for it will only make more available.
How much longer until we can grow kidneys? Sure, they'll be expensive, but they'll be grown from your own cells so no rejection problems. A two-tier market would likely exist, new kidneys for the rich, and used kidneys for the non-rich. Eventually the cost will reduce enough to outweigh the cost of anti-rejection medicines, though, and then the human kidney market will disappear.
The buying and selling of human organs is a very, very bad idea. May as well grow humans for the body bank if we are going to go down this route. And just like you have theft of other sold goods how long would it take before organ theft became the new wave of crime?
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Before you go too far down this road, you might want to read some sci-fi Larry Niven wrote back in 70's (I believe). It was set in a future where the market for organs was booming and sale of organs was legal. And as a result, the death penalty had a good revival. After all, that convicted axe murderer could end up saving more lives than he took, if you disassembled him for spare parts. Given that we all want to live longer, who would oppose extending the death penalty?
People die all of the time. Why should someone who can afford to buy an organ be more entitled to live that some poor schmuck who can't?
Once you start allowing the trade, there will undoubtedly be instances of being being killed for their organs (or them being sold on the black market).
A Nobel prize winner in economics has nothing to add to a discussion of medical ethics -- because as far as I can tell, economists have no care or understanding of ethics.
In fact, based on what we've seen over the last several decades, economists have no real care or understand about how the economy works.
Economy is an ideology, and not facts. How you interpret how an economy is working is determined by how you believe it should be working.
And, just because someone believes in things like trickle-down economics or that tax cuts for the wealthy stimulates the economy, there's zero proof or evidence it does -- only your belief that it's supposed to.
Economists are idiots, and should STFU on the topic of medical matters.
The biggest reason why there is an organ supply problem is that there is no incentive for people to give up their own organs. The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one; if you are not on the list then that is your right, but its unethical to expect to receive an organ when you yourself are unwilling to donate. This respects freedom to choose, but it also respects that organs are not completely free; if everyone was willing to give their organs, there wouldn't be a supply issue.
I think allowing the sale of cadaveric organs is reasonable; right now, hospitals and doctors effectively enrich themselves and frequently engage in fraud and nepotism. Getting that money to the family of the deceased is a good thing.
I draw the line at for-pay live organ donations. Taken on their own, they are likely to be beneficial to both recipients and donors. However, once there is a large market and medical facilities for for-profit live donations, the risk of criminal activity in this area becomes much larger, including blackmail and other forms of coercion, and that worries me.
1. Can you use money to manage use of organs? I think no. Due to their scarcity only qualified medical personell can decide where to allocate them, not market forces that would happily let 90 year old rich men to get organ transplant at expense of everyone else.
2. Can we allow people to sell their own organs? No, because they'll sell them to get an iPad or something.
What is it with these Nobel laureates that they are all a bunch of naive idiots?
Here is what is really going to happen. First, government will insist on controlling everything, by establishing regulations and then abdicating their enforcement responsibility to private corporations. Then those private corporations will be the state-mandated middlemen between donors and recipients, and organs will be sold to the highest bidder and harvested from the lowest.
Wealthy, white, and politically-connected patients will get organs, and poor and minority patients will die at higher rates.
Making a market for it, something for rich people could pay (even for cosmetic or fashion reasons, you can drink a lot, because anyway you can replace your liver with a new one) a lot, and poor people on economical troubles, extortion, threats, or media manipulation (to name a few) would sell, is something that will become corrupted very fast. What some countries are doing is opt-out organ donation on death, while that have no market around it should be free of abuses.
Organlegging: Technology needed to deal in illicitly obtained body parts.
Bill Christensen wrote: As far as I know, Niven was the first writer to really work with a topic that is just starting to become a problem, thanks to drugs that make transplantation viable.
davecb@spamcop.net
That strikes me as a MUCH better solution. Well, not quite solution, but it would help a great deal.
Part of the problem with trying to use market ideas to improve the situation is that available organs will always be in VERY short supply. The number of bodies that are actually in a condition to have organs harvested per day is pretty small (except for organs that can non-fatally be removed like kidneys), while demand is pretty high. No matter how good the incentive is, the supply will simply never be there, which means the market would shift to only the very wealthy being able to afford them while today the availably across the economic range is pretty good.
No thanks.
People who have donated organs while living are ineligible to receive organ transplants.
Everyone should have total control over his/her body. If you are not at liberty to sell your organs that means you do not have total control.
If you do not have total control that means you are a slave. You are a property of the state.
In short, I totally agree with the article since I am against slavery.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
china may take them from people on death row but they cover up the real numbers on that.
Really, give me a working definition of the word voluntary, that will be universally accepted, that can be used in this context.
This idea is great! Rich people can help poor nations people by bying their hearts and livers and boost their economy. This is the true way of getting rid of this pesky exploitation on third world countries because they will be stinking rich when the organ doning industry starts to boom.
Oh yes and this would give rise to a new species of business plan: Groom the favelas and ghettos of this planet for the illiterate and hopeless, get them to sign a binding agreement, harvest the organs and then export them to the U.S.. If not legal in the country of origin, just fly them to whatever clinics they may have a contract with, harvest there and dump the human trash back where it belongs. This would solve the organ donor problem for just a nominal fee - and give all those valuable business students a great way to earn money... On the other hand those entities could promote organ donor-ship and try not to mess it up like in Germany (where hospitals manipulated the lists to get their patients/the highest bidder to the top of waiting lists and where organ donations have now dropped to an all-time low as a consequence of the scandal).
We have more people than jobs i.e. unemployment. We have a budget deficit.
We also have a shortage of organs for transplant.
I therefore suggest we butcher the unemployed in order to provide organs. Excess viscera will be sold on the open market in order to drive down prices.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I met a man in South Carolina who claimed to have sold a kidney for crack. He displayed the most horrible scar, which I could very well have believed to be from the most amateur of surgeons. I remember that he said, "You know those stories that you hear about people waking up in a bathtub full of ice? Yeah, that happened to me."
But he said he'd kicked the habit.
Now, I make no claims as to this man's honesty, only to my own recollection, but surely while the implantation of an organ requires all that you mention, the removal of such is far simpler?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
The solution is to create a donor list
Actually, this solves nothing. The vast majority of people will never need an organ replaced, and it is something they just don't think about. Most people are non-donors because it is an opt-in system, and they haven't made the effort to check the box. A far better solution is to make donating the default, and require people to check the box to opt-out.
Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws. Most motorcyclists are young and healthy, and death by a good clean head injury often leaves plenty of other organs intact and available for donation.
Our corporate masters will tell the poor "Hey! You can always sell your organs for cash!" and then use that as a basis for eliminating unemployment insurance, food assistance, or minimum wage. Remember the poor ain't poor truly poor if they have a refrigerator, cell phone, color TV, transportation, a full set of kidneys, lungs, corneas, their entire liver and GI tract. The poor will have to literally be living outdoors in a cardboard box with half their body parts harvested before the elite will consider them "poor enough" to need help, but by as soon as they are seen on the streets they will be called "homeless by choice" and are ineligible for any form of assistance. Thus they are damned if they do, damned if they don't.
change driver license opt-in for organ donation to opt-out (supply will go up as people tend to go with the default)
those who opt-out are not eligible to receive transplants (demand will go down)
simples.
IIRC, economists from Chicago are generally considered evil... additional sample supporting conjecture aquired!
It's not a very practical or useful solution for solid organs. Let's say you're signed up for the list - you have agreed that if somebody needs your kidney you will drop what you are doing (for renal failure which is typically slow and progressive, you would have a fair warning), have a giant slice taken out of your side (along with a kidney), spend a couple weeks in recovery and then spend the rest of your life as a person with a solitary functioning kidney.
Such folks can and often do lead normal healthy lives but they are at significant risk since they have half the kidney reserve that they used to have. So now, 20 years later, your solitary kidney starts to go (too many Doritos raising your blood pressure) - back to the transplant hospital, this time to get a kidney. Oops. No match, wait a bit. Ooops, no match. Wait a bit. Rinse, lather, repeat.
The number of people that would voluntarily sign up for this would be an interesting moral and social study. Off the top of my head (or more accurately, out the back end), I don't think it would fly. Now, for blood cell issues, volunteer tissue banks work great since grabbing another liter of blood doesn't carry much of a downside. For kidneys, no.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
At least in the US, this is 100% wrong. If you donate a kidney and later need one, you are automatically at the top of the list to receive one.
The proponents argue that such a policy would save lives and 'on the face' they are most certainly correct. However the economic disparity between buyers (rich) and sellers (poor) would only mean that different segments within the population would be dying, and those people fatally impacted would be much more difficult to document, e.g. a man dying earlier then he might have otherwise because he donated in his youth. Right now death is rather egalitarian, coming equally to all. Were this policy adopted it would be much less so..
Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws. Most motorcyclists are young and healthy, and death by a good clean head injury often leaves plenty of other organs intact and available for donation.
And many times when folks get into accidents with helmets on and subsequently saving their life, they wake up with severe mental impairments such as: anger issues, sexual issues - like finding children sexually attractive and even molesting them, and some minor issues like speech problems, motor coordination problems, the list goes on and on and on. And the survivors have very tough lives and their families go through hell - sometimes forcing the survivor into an institution - if they're not jailed first.
There are times when dying is best for all concerned.
Due to the severe wealth inequality (which is largely the result of ill gotten gains by way of crony capitalism, taxpayer funded initiatives, and flagrant abuse of the system), such a program would be biased in favor of poor people harvesting their own organs. Therefore I am not a fan. However if there was a reset of wealth distribution (which would leave nobody unscathed) then I would be in agreement.
Everyone knows money motivates people. There are other considerations in the prohibition against the sale of organs.
This is why we don't let economists run the world.
I think the idea is for freshly dead people to do the donating.
There are a lot of financial levers that might make it seem like people had no choice but to sell their organs. And those levers would quickly be used by death-by-spreadsheet monsters. The only thing that I think might mitigate this horrible idea is if the organ sale was for some other life-saving service. IE no money is involved, but a trade in organs or services. You give up this kidney which will save someones life, and in return you get medical care which will save your own life. Or your childs life. You give up your organ (that doesn't match) for someone elses that does.
But it should never be money. Money allows too much distance from the act. It provides blinders to the horror of it all.
And the military gets its support through state-sponsored propaganda at the public's expense. Do you want to be bombarded with ads about how you should "give up your kidney today" sponsored by your government?
It should be based on supply and demand!
What is evil? I like the AD&D definition - a scale of more and more willing to allow harm to others for your own benefit. Of course, what is seen as harm that matters is the rub.
Would an open organ market save lives - oh, yes, and prohibiting it does cost lives - so one could certainly argue like here that the prohibition is evil.
But allowing such a market will create a society that allows much more willful harm for profit. Right now, organ illegal organ harvesting exists, but is somewhat rare and difficult to make a safe profit from. The legal 'market' is based on donations - so there is no prohibition on the act of getting organs, there's just more people with failing organs than people dying with healthy organs.
The results of allowing an organ market would be an opening bubble resulting in increased harvesting amongst the ethically 'invisible' (poor/isolated), and a greatly increased demand for 'donors' either desperate or false (in order to launder organs). Some of this will be caught, but much of it would become institutionalized.
The endpoint would be a lot of poor people across the world dead and permanently disabled, a lot of wealthy and older people living a few months longer, a relatively few children of the wealthy saved, and a HUGE number of people financially invested in the organ market through their banks and mutual funds.
This last part is the big evil thing - markets always, ALWAYS demand more - more organs, more secrecy, more profitability. They thrive on multiplying evil in terms of harm ('externalities') in order to create better profit ratios.
The whole pattern is just far to evil for me.
I'd suggest putting more money into single-organ cloning (there's been some amazing developments lately), but if there's one thing the market process is HORRIBLE at, it's doing scientific research - it always seems to abandon anything long term, treats it only as marketing, and destroys far too much (to prevent helping 'competitors'.) Taxes, though a limited kind of evil, tend to be much more productive over time for the same result.
Ryan Fenton
"Can you spare some change?"
If you can spare a kidney. (Rimshot!)
The real solution is already known: organ donation should be opt-out by default. Studies have already been conducted that organ donation is above 80% or so in countries that adopt an opt-out default, and only 20% or so in an opt-in system. Most people simply don't take the time to opt-in, but they similarly wouldn't take the time to opt-out.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Hell of a ballplayer, but it's evident he was not a decent candidate for transplant.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If they legalized the sale of body parts, only the poor would be selling and only the rich would be buying. Exploiting poverty and addiction for the rich, nice.
ya, he's a millionaire.. what does he have to worry about. even now, the rich already have easier and faster access (despite what the list keepers and/or law might say) to transplants.. lets just make it so donor organs can go to the highest bidder... what a stupid fucking idea.
Legalise it so that poor people will be incentivized to sell their under-appreciated organs and restore the balance.
Requiem for the American Dream
The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one/
Not everyone who would benefit from a donation can be a donor. Those most in need of a donor are unlikely to find a place on your donor list.
if everyone was willing to give their organs, there wouldn't be a supply issue.
This isn't simply a problem of supply and demand but of time and place. Doubling the pool of potential - not actual - donor organs doesn't mean you have doubled the number of successful organ transplants.
An opt-out system has been considered here. The problem is that the relatives of the deceased often make trouble, for whatever reasons (religion, emotional issues etc). If the system is opt-out, those relatives can make a much stronger case that donations isn't really what the deceased wanted. If the system is opt-in and one has to make a conscious effort to sign up, the family is far likelier to respect the dead person's wishes.
The problem with the proposed system of giving priority to organ donors is that doctors hate to make decisions on non-medical grounds. If two donors are waiting for an organ and one comes up, it's easy to give the organ to the guy on the donor list, all other things being equal. But things rarely are equal. Might be a young vs. old guy, one might have a better chance to come out of the procedure ok, one might need it more urgently than the other guy, etc. These are facts that a doctor can weigh. But what if he also has to take the donor list into account? My guess is that he won't, and that the donor list status will always play second fiddle to medical considerations. Still, such a system might prompt more people to sign up.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The solution is to create a donor list
Actually, this solves nothing. The vast majority of people will never need an organ replaced, and it is something they just don't think about. Most people are non-donors because it is an opt-in system, and they haven't made the effort to check the box. A far better solution is to make donating the default, and require people to check the box to opt-out.
My state gives you a discount on the cost of a driver's license if you check "yes" to be an organ donor. $15 for checking a box is motivation for a lot of people.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
My DMV automatically made me a donor without my consent. I had to ask them to remake my license without the donor symbol on it, they are opt-out.
The problem with that approach is that people who need an organ will immediately signup on your list AFTER discovering they need an organ. So you need somekind of minimal waiting period, let's say 10 years during which your priority gradually increases. At that point, it's less of an incentive to signup on the list because most people do not act on a hunch they will need an organ 10 years from now.
I think the post-mortem financial incentive is an interesting way to solve the problem, it will make much more organs available. It's either that or presumed consent, like in Austria, where you need to opt-out of the list of organ donors, at the same time opting out of ever receiving a transplant. This makes allot of organs available without resorting to what many believe to be a repulsive trade.
Given away a kidney for a relative is free. Given a relative enough money to buy a kidney on the free market is going to be too expensive for most. I might give a kidney to a relative or a dear friend for free. However, when I sell it to a stranger, I want at least a million dollars...
=snip=
The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one
=snip=
And how do you enforce this "pledge"? I think the percentage of welchers might be a bit higher than the local PBS station gets.
I think it would be good to increase the amount of organs but there need to be stipulations
1) only certified places can buy organs (avoid a black market from forming), basically make it illegal to get organs from outside these places
2) specify the price to be paid and ensure the place doing the harvesting only makes enough money to cover cost and hassle and no more (remove pressure trying to get people to do it)
2b) also ensure payout is made over a long period of time in short amounts to prevent people from selling organs as a last second i gotta pay this thing.
People are already bought and sold for sexual and other forms of slavery. Now you're going to start a new underground business in which people are bought and sold for harvesting organs. Or maybe when they no longer provide satisfaction in the sexual realm because they've become too old, too scarred up, or just complain too much, they can still provide a return on the investment in them by harvesting their organs and selling them to the highest bidder. Hell, why stop at internal organs? You can probably make some nice leather goods from the skin, soap from the fat, and glue from the bones. Oh wait, didn't someone already do that?
Because it's exploitative, the way the act of performing surgery is not.
It is exploitative if someone is selling an organ to survive--I think nobody wants to see that. A better policy might be that you can donate an organ and be paid for it (or maybe have a donation made to a charity) if you go through a quick credit check to basically make sure you're probably not being exploited. (The downside is the people who couldn't get the money are the ones who most need it, but there's much less risk of exploitation.)
Well developed civilized lands have people who can afford to buy organs and pay doctors to install them. Israelis are supposedly civilized, but they will go to the 3rd world to buy organs from live donors.
Organ donation is legal in Israel as a free option. There is even a Jewish bomb victim's organs went to to an Arab recipient: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Arab_organ_donations
I personally support opt-out donation laws.
So now when you wake up in a tub of ice water, with a dollar in your hand, you will have no recourse for organ theft - they will claim you sold it.
Given that most of today's economists are more priests of Capitalism than scientists, I'm not surprised. No, they don't want insurance to pay for the transplants. Poor people would have to wait for "the altruistic giving of money to those in need of organs". And how desperate do you have to be to sell a part of your body for just $15,000?
If you want to increase the supply of donor organs, forget what some idiot economist (oops, redundant) says. Do a sensible thing like start a public service campaign. In NYS you can volunteer to donate your organs after death when you get a driver's license. I've volunteered, and so have many people I know. I suspect a lot of other people just need a nudge. Don't forget lots of poor desperate people for the commercials. Involve clergy too. I'm not aware of any major religion that objects to this practice, and it would be helpful to let people to know that. I've even got a great slogan: Remember folks, your soul can get to heaven faster if you leave your organs behind! Catchy, huh?
> And how do you enforce this "pledge"?
By law ?
You have a good point there! In time, the concept of selling organs becomes even more insidious.
Allowing a person to sell his organs makes his organs just another asset. When that person then declares bankruptcy, the creditors are entitled to his assets. Could that person then be forced to sell off his assets (body organs) to settle the debt? Probably not in the near future, but with the way things are going, a law would be written to mandate just this.
Great plan.
My son was born with only one kidney. According to your logic, it's unethical for him to expect to receive a kidney transplant because he's "unwilling" to donate one.
Many people who need transplants are victims of congenital disease.
The other states should implement this with a $15 increase in fee. :)
Wow, it looks like the mere idea has generated a visceral reaction. Generating awareness of the kidney shortage is perhaps what bothers people most. But I think they make a legitimate case, as follows.
1) It is a mathematical certainty that the current system will not produce the number of kidney donations needed. So as yucky as liberalizing the trade may sound, people on the front lines need people like these economists to be discussing the matter.
2) The authors bring up a very good point that the current restriction creates a bottleneck. One can only donate a kidney once. Most people therefore hold off, not knowing the "future value" of the kidney (e.g., if a closer friend or family member may need the donation). However, many of us who may be unwilling to contribute 100% to someone would possibly consider donating $500 or $1000 to someone. The current system makes a "kickstarter" donation system impossible. And if I'm paid for a kidney, and can put the money in the bank to draw interest, knowing I can buy another kidney back if necessary, it might make me more likely to give one up.
3) For all the hand-wringing about the poor people who will feel the pressure to sell a kidney, there is a very legitimate argument that those poor people should decide on their own if they want $50,000 for a kidney. What merits the state's law against them selling something they own? And what about poor people who need a kidney? Do they stand a better chance if there are fewer incentives, and fewer kidneys?
Stand down, /. mob. At worst, this discussion brings up the inconvenient subject of donation.
Gently reply
They're not taking care of their organs. We should lock them up so the organs are in good shape when someone important needs them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Well, don't allow relatives to decide, duh. Problem solved. Next!
Rich people don't donate organs in exchange for money. EVER. Poor people do. So yeah, let's help those economically poor people become even poorer in body and hasten their exit by letting them sell off pieces of themselves, and good riddance.
end all that endless surgery/infection/rejection cycle makes us lab rats
Just as the investment disclaimer goes: Past performance does not necessarily predict future performance.
By law ?
So when someone has "changed their mind", strap people down on an operating table by force and anesthetize them? I guess we have precedent with the existing death penalty here.
"Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws."
Also ban seat belts in cars and make texting while driving compulsory.
The biggest reason why there is an organ supply problem is that there is no incentive for people to give up their own organs. The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one
Or they could allow each actual donor to provide a short list of people that will be prioritized, in the event, that the donor's organs are harvested. First priority to actual surviving donors, Second priority to 1 extra person listed by the donor for every organ successfully transplanted (In the event any of those people are ever in the future requiring a transplant), Third priority to those who volunteering to donate their organs and their body to science upon their death and also have made a substantial financial contribution to medical research made on their behalf (Substantial = 2% of the person's annual income), and do these things at least 2 years before they are placed on any organ waiting list; Fourth priority to those who who just volunteer to donate their organs after their death.
The problem is the non-donor's condition could be more imminent; the donor might not be so sick. I believe the donor priority is decided mostly by compatibility, distance (geographical closeness), and immediacy of the need.
All my organs. Now. Would surely make many lives much happier and end the chronic lack thereof in mine.
Solve the suicide problem in one fell swoop: Give people who want that a decent way out (yeah, yeah, after counseling and sufficient time (e.g. a year) to reconsider). Counseling could be funded with the money from organs (some will renege, others will not).
but its unethical to expect to receive an organ when you yourself are unwilling to donate
Why?
We could just sell organs and get past bullshit "ethical" notions like this. Personally, I hope we soon get to the point where most organs can be grown artificially in part to loosen the hold of such primitive notions of morality on our lives.
if everyone was willing to give their organs, there wouldn't be a supply issue.
The number one reason people aren't willing to give their organs is because they're still using them.
First, create a system where the cost of malpractice is covered by the patients. Second, allow corporations to have more rights than people. Third, increase the disparity between the rich and the poor. Fourth, make euthanasia legal. Fifth, make it legal to buy and sell organs. Nothing will ever go wrong.
Now they presented us with a spirited defense of high-tech cannibalism. That is no surprise to anyone at the least familiar with those people. The whole profession of economics is morally and intellectually suspect, and the Chicago school - particularly so.
Listen to me, I have already tackled this issue in my NationStates account. Economically its not the worst decision but other countries will view you poorly. Other issues I faced was compulsory voting and whether or not we could eat the national animal. We could and it was delicious.
You pledge that when you die (of natural/accidental causes), your organs will be made available to the first person on the list that makes a similar pledge and needs a donor. The law ensures that's the case. There's no "repo-man" type of organ retrieval. If someone changes their mind, they are removed from the list thus lose any transplant priority and have a chance to rot intact in their grave.
My state gives you a discount on the cost of a driver's license if you check "yes" to be an organ donor. $15 for checking a box is motivation for a lot of people.
Which state is this? Is there any data published about how much this increases donation rates?
Where do you live? I'll be right there! :P
Requiem for the American Dream
Maybe trolls would be another good source. And that would give NSA something to do that most people could probably agree was useful.
And what do you do about the people who can't donate their organs for medical reasons? I've had a number of heart surgeries and can't donate donate my organs because of the medications that I take now or have taken in the past. Does that mean if I need a kidney some day, I should be put on the back of the list because I was "unwilling" to donate?
FTFY.
If there's an express train to human dystopia, it's a booster-spice rat race, with the fittest undead gaining semi-permanent tenure in every elite economic and political station.
That isn't how donor lists work. Donor lists are 'After I have DIED you can take my organs and use them in transplants for other people". That's what being an organ donor is. It isn't giving an organ while you are alive, that is a separate thing.
In the case of kidney donation, it does not result in a negative quality of life afterward...
Well, don't allow relatives to decide, duh. Problem solved. Next!
Whoa, let's not be hasty. Let the relatives trade organs on a 1-for-1 basis. We're not monsters!
So when someone has "changed their mind", strap people down on an operating table by force and anesthetize them?
Uhh ... the DMV donor list is for people that are DEAD. So if you die in an accident, the hospital staff can check the ID in your wallet, or do a quick lookup in a database, and see that you are a donor. Then they can quickly harvest the organs before they go bad (which can start to happen in minutes after blood circulation stops).
Dead people rarely change their minds.
I remember the choir of economists praising the virtues of "carbon credits" until everybody noticed that it was all about creating the opportunity for some "investment banking" firms to act as clearinghouses for such "credits" and make a hefty profit out of nothing. I'm wondering if this isn't something similar. Complete with some "high frequency trading" schemes. Remember, this is not some surgeons publishing in a medical journal. It's "economists" airing in WSJ.
Oh, that's funny. I was thinking about live donors of kidneys. Nevermind. I agree.
If that were unabashedly true then the second kidney would never have evolved - and remained - in the first place. Your argument doesn't hold blood.
That is true for everything in life. Rich countries don't sell their natural resources or cut down their trees or pollute their rivers. Will you stop buying anything made in China or a third world country?
If the poor are the only ones who will sell for money, do you think they will remain poor after the sale? If they get $50,000 and gamble it away or just spend it on useless crap, should we be their overlords? The poor then have a window which they otherwise did not to use that capital to move up and their kids and family might be better off after that. Don't you think that is a good thing?
If this doen't happen they won't get the $50,000 and a shot at a better life. Maybe we need to make the sum larger by having the insurance companies pay $100,000 spread out over a decade of the life of the donor. It is not always the rich who are in trouble. There are enough countries around the world where you can get donor if you are rich enough to "fly" there and get treated. It is the average american who will die if we don't have a legal alternative.
"Just let the market decide".
The market will decide that all organs go to the highest bidder, and in addition to the wealth gap, you'll see the life gap, with the very few dynastic inheritors ruling for 150 years each.
A stagnant, exploitative society dedicated to preventing all change not directly valuable to the few (net neutrality was a good idea. now it's dead. Who thinks this was not a profit motivated move?).
And now the Koch's will live longer than 4 generations of citizens. Who thinks this is a good idea, raise your scepter.
Give a higher prize on economics and he will argue in favor of cannibalism.
Strange he is not talking regarding economics of artificial or genetically cultured organs .
Written by a Univ of Chicago "economist" and some guy from Argentina. And uses the word "altruism" like it comes from Unicorns. Wait for it...
Right now there are gangs in China and North Korea that would love to sell human organs. Its a great thing. We can get rid of people we don't want, and get rich doing it. Here's a story: A rich man lives next to a poor man. The rich man has a son who is very sick. The poor man and his wife have a new baby. The rich man comes to the poor man, and tells him "you will live much better if you just allow my doctor to give your son the chop". And that's where it starts. And where does it end? Someone comes along in the middle of the night, and puts a black bag over someone's head. A few hours later, their relatives get a few coins in the mail box "thanks for your service". You will note that in the latter example, permission was neither requested nor granted. Actually its a bit fanciful: the part about putting money in the mail slot was me just being silly. I'm so glad I don't live in the US.
I don't have any problem with defaulting to automatic donation of my organs upon death. However anything short of this seems f'd up. Why are we putting peoples lives in danger when there are many vehicular deaths every year and similar types of deaths which don't ruin perfectly good organs and could be harvested without harm to anyone. Other countries are doing it? Why not the USA (and other countries for that matter)?
Seriously, there is no Nobel prize in economics. There is however a prize setup by the Swedish bank hijacking the prestige of real Nobel laureates. Further members of the Nobel family have spoken out against it.
That's an outright lie. In perfect conditions you might be right. But a single mild poisoning that robs someone of 20% kidney function is completely recoverable with 2 kidneys and a death sentence with 1. There are many many ways to damage kidneys, from something as simple as taking one too many over the counter pills to a flu that results in some kidney damage from not drinking enough fluid. IIRC the average person has suffered almost 20% kidney damage by the time they die.
There is a reason why we have two kidneys. Donation of one is a big deal and an amazing act of generosity.
This is a nice, feel-good sentiment, but such a system would completely break down when you realize that many recipients of organ donation are unable to donate organs themselves because their organs are affected by illness -- that's why they need a transplant.
So, in your proposal, the people who need organs the most should be the people least entitled to them? Yeah, that would be a great system.
Incorrect in my case. I specifically make a point to NOT be an organ donor on my motorcycle license or drivers license because I don't want a Dr. with a god complex to be thinking about anything other than saving my life if I get wheeled in to the ER. The minute you are an organ donor, there becomes a point of diminishing returns where attempts to save the patient will end and attempts to salvage the organs in the best condition begin.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/18/health/fish-oil-recovery/
I have to wonder if the fish oil brain damage kid would be alive today if he was an organ donor? The present system is barbaric, and allowing the sale of human organs will just cheapen human life to nothing more than a fungible commodity. One that can be snatched away from the impoverished and defenseless in order to further prop up the wealthy & morally-bankrupt, hedonistic lifestyles of plutocrats.
It is a very compelling question in my mind what happened to the eyes of the child in china who was butchered by his own aunt.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/04/police-in-china-suspect-woman-who-gouged-out-boy-eyes-was-aunt-who-later-killed/
Creating an open market for human organs would further divide the human experience between economic castes. It is not a long terms solution in any way that is desirable. Market based solutions to this temporary problem are palliative, but infinitely harmful because they would lay the foundation for entrenching financial interests in the status quo rather than investment in what could be.
We are at a state of technology where we can easily transplant organs, but we are also at the precipice of being able to farm them using techniques such as 3d printing & animal surrogates. It would be outrageously short-sighted for us as a society to turn our back on the future and instead decide to set camp in dystopia. Especially when we are literally a fortnight away from reaching our destination at a medical Utopia.
The only reason to advocate such an obviously bad position would be that Dr. Gary Becker and Julio Elias expect to need organs before we get to Utopia, and believe they'll be able to afford the price to keep their hands clean from dealing with the devil directly or butchering children themselves.
If their survival instinct is so strong that they would throw all of civilization to the wolves in order to protect their own hides, then they are two free market zealots who are welcome by me to sack up and get their organs on the black market like everyone else.
Why not just give people a small financial incentive to tick the "yes, I donate all my organs if I die in an accident" box when renewing their driver's license? Offer $50 of public money for ticking that box, and the number of organ donors would probably rise dramatically without putting anyone at risk of exploitation.
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That's right, we should encourage poor people to sell their organs because there are no jobs and the 1% need those organs, dammit.
I'd bet anything that this economist is a "free market" Austrian School type. More evidence that John Galt is a sociopath.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And if you simply allowed compensation for donors there wouldnt be a supply issue either.
I know a lot of people think it's a problem that these organs would be mostly coming from poor people, but think about it. You wouldnt get very far even with a donation system if you only allowed wealthy donors. And naturally offering money for something isnt as tempting to those that have plenty of money already as it is to those that are scraping by.
The whole point to a market is to enable trades that leave both sides better off. A has lots of money, needs a kidney. B has plenty of kidney, needs money badly. They get together and both walk away happy.
Sure, it doesnt work for the guy that has neither money nor kidneys, but then again no system would. That guy is just as screwed today as he would be if sale was allowed.
But a lot of other people, both rich and poor, would benefit. You'd rather have the rich ones die from organ failure, and the poor ones die from the diseases of poverty, rather than let them make a trade that would let both of them live longer? Why?
Does the thought of death disturb you deeply?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Legalize Sale of Human Organs
Right! So the wealthy and powerful can farm the poor and weak. Grand idea.
Am I the only one that EXPECTED to see a Chicago Economist involved?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
That's fucked up. What that means is that if I don't want my organs donated, that I'd better be damned sure that I'm taken to a hospital where I have a living will on file and or that my family arrives in time to make sure my wishes are respected.
My living will states that they can take anything and everything they want. However, I have a few restrictions in place like the team treating me can't be representing the organ recipient and I specified when I consider myself to be dead.
Under your suggestion, there's a good chance that my wishes wouldn't be respected.
... But these guys are Nobel prize winning economists, just like Paul Krugman! Oh.. wait...
The banksters and wall street hedge fund managers have taken all the money from the poor, and corrupted the government and have taken all the powers. They have devalued labor to nearly zero compared to the value of the capital, rent and carting. The only thing poor still have left in them to sell to the rich are their organs. They are going to go after that too. They have created enough shills for themselves by giving them Nobel prizes and installing them in Booth School of Economics in the University of Chicago.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's not that it could be abused, it's that it would be abused.
Why do we want to open the door to exploitive behavior that would most likely cost the lives of thousands.
Do we want the urban myth of kidney theft to become a reality?
Are you an Ancient Egyptian who feels he needs his organs nearby to get into the afterlife.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
At least in America you donate blood. You can get compensated for plasma due to the fact it is an uncomfortable procedure. And that is very different as your body quickly replaces the plasma it lost. ( you can sell your plasma twice a week )
and you'll find plenty of ex-patriot doctors from China talking about prisoners killed for their organs...
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when my mother passed I was pretty broke. The mortuary offered to buy her remains from me (I said no).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
On the other hand, giving (resp. selling) an organ while you're alive is exactly what the article is about.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You mean, by not wearing a helmet, they opt-in to organ donor? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Well, why not take a lesson from the Islamic terrorists and tell people that they'll get dozens of virgins in heaven if they donate organs? Heck, there's evidence they'll even agree to life-ending donations that way! ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Because I actually don't believe you. In the US all states are opt-in as no donation can be made without the donor or families permission.
Again no state in the US is opt-out.
Oh, that's funny. I was thinking about live donors of kidneys.
How dare you think a Slashdot discussion is about the topic of the article! ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Unless you're very, very wealthy. Our last president (Bush jr) signed a law into effect that makes it impossible to discharge debt under $100,000. If you stop paying you're credit cards they just sell all the debt to one company and sue you. When the banks got all that bail out money and no regulation they took that chance to buy up hundreds of smaller cards and debt. Used to be you'd have $10k in debt with 5 companies, and the $2k wasn't enough to sue over. Now there's only a few big players in the industry and they swap debt until they have enough to sue over.
In the South they've got debter's prisons back. The way it works is they company sues, the judge orders $X amount of money to be paid per month, and if you don't pay... well you just violated a judges order. He holds you in contempt of court until you pay, and you stay in jail until your family comes up with the money. Good times...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
if a country is nuts enough to consent to organ sales for cash then I don't think it'll be hard to make the regulations as loose as they need to be....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What is needed is to expand the search for self donation. The part that they put in you, is you.
http://nvonews.com/2013/04/16/artificial-kidney-transplants-in-5-years-as-rat-kidneys-made-in-lab/ It's most likely a matter of time before improvements are made to allow people to donate to themselves.
Then we will eventually do away with the barbaric practice of removing parts from one person to another, and the idea of selling parts of yourself to support that barbarism unnecessary.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The corpratists have made sure the laws were changed so they could slap Made in America on it regardless of what is in it.
We manufacture stuff that is wholly done in China. Not all of the parts were made in China but none of them were made in the US.
All that is needed is some 'expert handwavium' such as a precision finishing touch or calibration, etc.
And as added bonus they can also slap "Union Made" on it.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
only a price with an unwieldy name that tries to profit from the official price.
Trust these worthless Chicago School shitstains to think of it.
Not content to rape Third World countries to death (General Pinochet and Chile, Operation Condor, death squads, etc etc), they foist this terrible, ill-conceived idea upon the world. Replacing a strong incentive with a weak one, and introducing many incentives for very bad, immoral behaviour.
Still, to these fucking autistics, the only incentive that matters is the profit motive -- probably because their joke "science" economics knows only how to model financial incentives.
Seriously, fuck the Chicago School, fuck Milton and fuck the Austrians.
It's painfully obvious that those with money can already buy what they want. The rest of us line up, and wait our turn.
It appears that Doc Becker is self medicating; again.
I have no problem with the harvesting of Gary Becker(head)'s organs, nor Thomas "three chins" Friedman's organs, nor anyone else's organs at the Hoover Institution, which Becker(head) is a paid member of, but once allowed, forced organ harvesting in a predatory monopolistic capitalistic society will be the order of the day, far worse than it now is!
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579322560004817176?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China
http://www.dafoh.org/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hospital-errors-lead-to-dead-patient-opening-eyes-during-organ-harvesting/
...of the rich addicted types who receive said organs before anyone else, and continue with their self-destructive addictions, when another more disciplined individual could have received it and lived far longer . . .
Extremely well articulated, good citizen!
Exactly, pmontra, exactly! As a previous president (unfortunately, it was Jimmy Carter, on whose first presidential campaign I worked as a volunteer) overturned federal anti-usury regulations and laws, with the predicatable outcomes, so this too has an obvious and predictable outcome, where the same type of judge (and there exists plenty of corrupt bastards and bitchez out there of this stripe) who ruled the hedge fundster who illegally ran over a bicyclist didn't have to bother to show up for the court trial (although the bicyclist did) because the hedge fundster was such a busy fellow so also will such swine judge scum rule that in order to pay off "debts" a person must sell their organs, now recognized by law as an asset (similar pattern was legally done with pension funds of bankrupt corporations, etc.)!
You said it all, dude! You said it all......
Are you actually positing a scenario where hospitals and surgeons will be performing transplants with organs they received from some guy in an alley who swears they fell off a fucking truck?
Why in the blue hell would that be even remotely legal?
The more crazy-ass emotionally charged nonsense I see on this issue, here on slashdot of all places, the more I think maybe the economists are right.
They only recently stopped harvesting the organs of executed political prisoners.
One thing missed in all of this is that we are close (relatively speaking)[1][2][3] to being able to grow a number of organs. It's entirely likely that this entire debate will a be a footnote in a future wikipedia article.
By the time infrastructure to support organ sales, the associated legislation, and oversight could be put in place, we would probably be well on the way to therapeutic use of many these advances. In the meantime, it could detract from funding and research efforts if there were an inexpensive (in a strictly financial sense) alternative to synthetic organs, which will likely be expensive initially.
1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/07/04/198110553/scientists-grow-simple-human-liver-in-a-petri-dish
2. http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060403/full/news060403-3.html
3. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/scientists-engineer-lab-grown-heart-tissue-beats-its-own
This is why we don't let CHICAGO economists run the world.
There are economists out there who don't believe that the market always knows The Answer.
There are good econometrists in Chicago, but when it comes to the broader economy, or even policy recommendations, they seem to fail as much as Minnesota economists. Or, as Larry Summers put it:
"There'd be a set of economists who would sit around explaining that electricity was only 4% of the economy, and so if you lost 80% of electricity you couldn't possibly have lost more than 3% of the economy, and there'd be people at Minnesota and Chicago who would be writing that paper, but it would be stupid!"
Why do rich people never donate organs. It is the humanitarian thing to do. Are you saying all rich people are evil? I believe we are living in another guilded age, but don't think all rich people are evil just because they are rich. There are good rich people too.
Stupid: rich people don't donate organs FOR MONEY. I said nothing about emotional or philanthropic motivations.
Sort of a GPL for organs? =ducks=
yup, they're economists basing everything around economics.
True, but the proposal is not just economics but economics with a political bias thrown in. For example you could allow selling of human organs to encourage supply while requiring that they are sold to a central agency that then distributes them to hospitals based on where they will be most effective. This would be using economics to encourage supply while still maximizing the life saving potential of those organs by directing them based on medical need and prognosis rather than bank balance. It would probably also work well in the majority of countries which have a national health care system.
While I'm still not sure I really agree with even this it would be one way to use economics to address the stated problem of a lack of supply. Of course it would not let rich people use their money to get preferential access to organs but surely this was an unimportant, unintended side-effect of the original proposal, right?
Why would anyone believe the above statement. I do not trust anything the medical est says. These are the same guys who are unable to made Propofol and have to import it from Germany. Theses are the same guys who charge 30 USD for an aspririn. These are the same guys who say there is an organ shortage and have never asked me once to donate my kidney even though I have gone out of my way to be on the donor registry. The medical est is a big blind lumbaring beast. They do not know what the fuck they are doing. I believe that if your were one of the lucky few who did manage to donate an extraneous kidney, there would be no way you would 'end up on the top of the list' in the future. The medical est imho isn't smart enough to 'keep a list' More likely your name would be lost, or the list would be lost, or perhaps your medical electronic record would be lost, and the medical est would say categorically that you never donated a kidney, and that you were born with only one.
We need to put Dr House (md) in charge of the U.S. medical system. Let's make him surgeon General (which is the 6th uniformed service). He can fix anything in 30 minutes. In our current system it take 4 hours before they even take your blood pressure. Dr House doesn't mess with bullshit like blood pressure. He sends your straight to the MRI, or O.R. to have that brain operation (which he would perform himself) Specialization is for insects, not Dr. House. If Dr House was the S.G. I would believe your claim that you would be put on the top of the registry if you ever needed to. As it is I don't even believe there is a registry, or that doctors are looking at all of it.
The "Hello, can we have your liver?" sketch should be changed into something more along the lines of "Give us your liver! This is a robbery!".
Economists are the witch doctors of our times, they have already had too much influence - and I don't mean the Nobel prize banker award winners; which only reflect the banker's agenda at the time they get it-- and it should mean something when they pick the kind of guys they have been in recent times - it has to be getting extremely bad when they pick more reasonable ones.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Some of the posts make me think the website should be renamed zerodot.org
Zero knowledge of logic
Zero knowledge of economics
Zero knowledge of praxeology
Zero knowledge of forecasting principles
By law ?
So when someone has "changed their mind", strap people down on an operating table by force and anesthetize them? I guess we have precedent with the existing death penalty here.
In 99-100% of all cases the organ donor is already dead... bloody hard for them to "welch on the deal" by that point.
True, they could remove themselves from the list after receiving the organ they needed - but that would be a large risk for them in hoping they never need another one. Also, since they would be probably be dead or dying when the time came for them to donate, they just wouldn't get asked.
Well I suppose harvesting spare kidneys from Economics majors might be one way - Shall i shall my nephrologist from the royal free to set up a screening program at the LSE :-)
:-(
I am on the UK Transplant list
adding everybody that to the "at death" organ donor list and giving them an option to opt-out? Of course it would have to be ruled out that the person was killed for the sake of the organ donation. Other safe guards would have to be put in place too, but you get the point.
What kind of asshole would opt-out of donating their usable organs after death to those in need? The dead person wouldn't be needing the organs anyway...
Imagine this:
Barack Obama or Dick Cheney or Larry Ellison (or any local wealthy person) is in a hospital in dire need of an organ, to which there is no ready match available.
You get in a car accident and are in bad shape, but have a realistic but low chance of pulling through. You're in the same hospital as the person above and are a perfect match. What are the chances that someone in the hospital will weigh the value of the two lives and let the wealthy person die so that you may roll the dice on living? Will you genuinely get the best care available if your death would not be suspect and a wealthy person would get to live? Why volunteer for that situation?
You could even add realistic compounding factors to the scenario, like you have no (or poor) insurance or the wealthy person's family offers to pay for a new hospital wing if an organ is "found" in time.
If you have next of kin that you trust, why not just direct them to donate your organs when you are clearly no longer going to make it? Take the decision out of the hospital's hands, since they stand to profit from your death.
People who most need organs (sick people) cannot be donors. People better suited to donate (healthy people) do not need organs.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Meanwhile, you could study the Spanish National Transplant Organization that achieves the highest rate of transplants/inhabitants in the world. Its model requires:
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Not exactly, the article is proposing a solution to a shortage of transplant donors. The solution it proposes is a market in organs, which is clearly insane to anyone with a functioning brain.
jythie's proposal is a much saner solution to the same problem, in which (and here I'm putting words into the poster's mouth, but I feel I'm pretty safe) the decision to be on a donor list would be binding, and only those on a donor list or below the age of consent would be eligible for transplants.
That sounds pretty sensible to me.
Dr House (md)
Dr House is fictional character who, if ever made real, would kill probably 90% of the cases he managed.
Ooops. Fed the troll.
What harm to people? Well: generally ensuring someone with a useful organ dies far before their time (gives best quality organs) and have that organ harvested. If there's money in it someone will do it.
How will people abuse organ trade?
First off, you can go and kill people who aren't in a good position to defend themselves and who won't be missed and harvest their organs. Who? Take e.g. runaway children or orphans, illegal immigrants, homeless people, generally anyone without a social network, and (as previous posts mentioned) people in Mexico, Latin America, and certain countries in South America who antagonise someone who can arrange a murder.
Secondly, offer poor but otherwise healthy people who desperately need money for their children or spouse the following deal: we'll buy your organ (for a reasonable amount), we'll give your family the money, but you agree to be put to sleep so that we can harvest your organ. Illegal in the US, but who cares? You can always take a (voluntary) trip to Mexico or to Columbia to fulfill your end of the bargain.
And how would you like for e.g. the FARC (Google Columbia) to collect its "revolutionary taxes" by kidnapping "enemies of the people" and cutting out their organs? The market doesn't care where the product came from, right?
Besides which the whole idea is totally redundant.
Simply make organ donorship the legal default and you'll have lots of donor organs. And legislate that only people who themselves have signed a legally binding agreement to be a donor after they die (regardless of their families' wishes) qualify for donor organs.
This whole idea is "free market" taken outside the area where it's beneficial.
I'm not so sure that you're right about that. If, say, at eighteen one chose whether or not to be a donor, and that the consequences of that choice were as described above, then many people would choose the donor option. In the UK at least, one makes that choice when applies for a driver's licence (AFAICR). The problem is that the choice isn't binding, as already mentioned by several posters in this thread and others. If that particular ethical dilemma could be navigated and the donorship became a choice of and only of each individual donor, then I think the parent's solution would work.
Currently, I can declare myself a donor - as I and many others already have done - and have that extremely personal decision reversed by traumatised family members. This should not be possible.
Let's start with his organs.
Well, since this suggestion is about the current organ donor scheme, which only kicks in when you're dead, I'm not sure that there would be a big problem.
If your medications mean that your organs are no longer in a fit state to be useful to another, then I guess they don't get donated.
The extremely simple suggestion proposed by the GP seems to have generated a great deal of very silly discussion, chiefly from ACs - is there a clever troll around somewhere having a bit of fun?
How? That does't make any sense.
If you are willing to donate organs after your death, you sign up to the list. The list is binding. This means that if you're on the list and you die, your organs are harvested and then the hollow corpse is handed over to the family for an undertaker to stuff with sawdust. Your family is not consulted, the process is automatic and driven solely by a) Your death, and b) Your prior decision.
Once you're on the list, you are eligible for transplants, should they ever become necessary. If you're not on the list, then you're not eligible - unless you're under some age of consent limit. Maybe there's a grace period of a year say, during which you need to make the choice but are still eligible for transplant.
Where's the problem? Or is your comment written under the misapprehension that the GP's proposal applies to live donors, whereas it in fact applies only to dead ones?
Johnathan Swift himself once proposed something similar to this plan in his work, "A Modest Proposal."
And how do you enforce this "pledge"? I think the percentage of welchers might be a bit higher than the local PBS station gets.
Cue, Monty Python's Meaning of Life....
We need to put Dr House (md) in charge of the U.S. medical system. Let's make him surgeon General (which is the 6th uniformed service). He can fix anything in 30 minutes. In our current system it take 4 hours before they even take your blood pressure. Dr House doesn't mess with bullshit like blood pressure. He sends your straight to the MRI, or O.R. to have that brain operation (which he would perform himself) Specialization is for insects, not Dr. House. If Dr House was the S.G. I would believe your claim that you would be put on the top of the registry if you ever needed to. As it is I don't even believe there is a registry, or that doctors are looking at all of it.
You do realize that Dr House, M.D. is fictional, right?
Actually, this solves nothing. The vast majority of people will never need an organ replaced, and it is something they just don't think about.
Well, I think "If you're in a terrible accident and needed a organ transplant, would you like to be at the top or bottom of the recipient list?" will get more attention than "If you die in a terrible accident, woul you like your organs to help save other people?" Of course a lot could probably be achieved by simply making it required to say yes or no when signing up for a health insurance, which seems a rather natural time for it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You'd think an economist would be familiar with the term "moral hazard."
There is no ethical dilemma. The ban is on organ sales is killing people. The example from Iran clearly shows that selling organs will increase the supply and may also reduce net cost since the long term costs of dialysis exceed the transplant cost (not to mention the lost productivity of someone on dialysis or dead.)
Of course, it must be remembered that:
there's no such thing as a Nobel prize in economics!
See Fake Nobel
there would be some problems if you allowed living people to sell their organs but what if opting into 'organ-donation' lowered your health, life, or death insurance premiums?
cheaper premiums either because of government regulation requiring such or because the insurance company gains ownership of your organs upon death and can therefore sell them.
Legalzing the sale of human organs will only stop rich people from dying, poor people will die in their place and have their organs sold.
Ah yes, we can't eliminate murder, so let's make it legal.
Slippery slope much?
Logical endpoint of libertarian philosophy, but don't let that stop you.
ironic captcha: roasted
Se what would happen worldwide if it sever SAS legalized even in oné country https://vimeo.com/67236883
And then you don't have feel awkward for not giving your dying friend one of your kidneys.
We are 3D printing organs now. You just need to eat a Makerbot and you'll be immortal.
There is currently no option to tick 'Ask my priest'. There needs to be - urgently. Fresh dead organs are wasted, because they cannot tell the family if is a donor. If they were able to say so, there would be a hellav lot more donations.
One Pope told followers donating to a fellow Catholic is good. So why hold back on the strongest #1 argument?
The reality is, most families dither about tough decisions - then say no. Adding this option would go a long way to fixing things. Let there be a religious organ donor register. Its a very strong win-win for the church too. Better something than nothing. Great to know my organ came from a churchgoer rather than street/trailer trash with questionable/tarnished bloodwork.
Which also leads to the issue why no 'old tee totler' transplants, even then the transplantee is is dire straights.
Yes, please do let the rich factory farm the poor for offal.
"Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws."
No need. Motorcyclists have absolutely appalling mortality and spinal injury statistics even with helmets. Go to the spinal ward of any major hospital and check out the motorcycle injury veggies. In places with poor enforcement of road rules and where 12yo boys scream around on scooters, such as the Greek islands or SE Asia, it's much worse again. A helmet won't do much if you're a pancake on the bitumen or smeared around a tree. I know at least two motorcycle "cool" guys from my youth who totally ruined their backs and legs in crashes. They can both walk (just) but are in severe pain for the rest of their lives. These were handsome, charismatic, talented guys. It f*ck*d them up and ruined their lives. So much for leaders of the pack. This is why I won't ride one.
I would consider selling my kidney or liver-lobe or bone marrow for a price. There are things I would like to buy/do that I will never likely be able to afford. If a wealthy person wants a chance at another semi-healthy 15 years with a donated kidney and meets my price ...
I'm risking a 1:4000 chance of death during donation, and shorter life depending on the remaining kidney does.
Speaking as a selfish misanthropic single person, I would like that option.
I'm currently not an organ donor, I might consider being one if my organs could be sold for my families financial gain.
If people are dying waiting for kidney transplants, that's as much because there aren't enough dialysis machines as it is because there aren't enough kidneys. With regular dialysis, not having any kidneys is not a life-threatening condition.
Or you could find a way to make barter more efficient perhaps? It wouldn't really be that hard to set up a "kidney exchange" where a family or relative who is willing to donate but incompatible could put their kidney on the exchange and in return get one that is compatible. It's not exactly rocket-science. It never ceases to amaze me just how far behind the times economists and other so-called experts really are.
There are plenty of rich people that donate organs for free.
I find it sad to see one person dying because of a lack of donor, and another one because of a lack of money.
What is the solution for someone with an extra kidney but no money?
(Captcha: removing.)
"Another solution would be to repeal motorcycle helmet laws."
Also ban seat belts in cars and make texting while driving compulsory.
Organs can be damaged that way, silly! You gotta promote head shots. Clean and efficient.
But there'd be a massive decline in Lupus cases, because IT'S NEVER LUPUS (except that one time).
Set-up a morality credit system...where a transplant recipient assumed/presumed/deemed immoral could earn/buy/receive morality credits for sanctioned acts committed/perpetrated/consecrated in their name.
It's more along the line that people really can't give up their organs while they're alive and often enough, their death is ultimately due to the failure of one or more of those organs.
Thanks for this, but I hope you don't mind:
Rich people don't donate organs in exchange for money. EVER. Poor people do. So yeah, let's help those economically poor people become even poorer in body and hasten their exit by letting them sell off pieces of themselves, and decrease the surplus population.
FTFY ;-)
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Organleggers are criminals who kidnap you and you wake up, maybe, with a few less organs. It's already a thriving business in Southeast Asia. There are clinics in the jungle where a wealthy person can get a nice, fresh kidney, or a good liver.
Don't be de-livered. Avoid organleggers.
No, I don't mind at all. We're all just surplus if we're not on the top of a heap.
Science Fiction authors commented about this a half a century ago and they have been repeated many times until now. They mostly predicted that there would become a black market in organs to the point where organs would be removed by criminals without the permission of the donors. Take a look at Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" to see how this could be done. With all of these questionable science provided opportunities, we need to have a well entrenched ethics model added to out political and legal infrastructure.
unfettered
Patchwork Girl, by L Niven.
Eventually, the advantages of allowing payment for organs would become obvious. At that point, people will wonder why it took so long to adopt such an obvious and sensible solution to the shortage of organs for transplant.
If it's such an "obvious and sensible solution" why did the author require 27 paragraphs to sell it?
Why would he be unwilling? If he's unable, then he'd not get asked to donate, even if willing.
Learn to love Alaska
So since you are so dumb to not understand the difference between unwilling and unable, then this scheme is unworkable?
Learn to love Alaska
When all you have is a hammer (economics) everything looks like a nail (price based allocation).
Everyone should really watch this by Michael Sandel. He specifically covers this topic of human organs for sale: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/michael-sandel-moral-limits-markets.html
Also, just for fun, this one seems apt too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aclS1pGHp8o
Sigh... not getting it. Many people who suffer from chronic illness cannot donate organs because they are not healthy organs, so they cannot be put on the list. Yet, these are the very people most likely to require an organ. Yet, legally (in this "list" scenario), they cannot receive an organ because they are not on the list. How is that not obvious?
I doubt there is a single person alive who cannot donate anything. And even if there are, they can still be on the list, and they probably would have been since before they got sick too.
You made an assumption, which was that you can only be on the list if you can donate an organ upon your death (which like I say, is probably everyone. You'd have to be pretty damn sick to not even be able to donate a cornea). No-one, apart from you, has suggested that you can only be on the list if you are likely to be healthy enough upon your death to donate an organ. If that were the rule, I agree, it would make no sense. But I don't think it's what's being suggested here.