Tag: organ donation
Blog Posts (32)
April 18, 2013
The Ethics of Asking in Organ Donation
Original Commentary by BEI Young Professionals member Olivette Burton, MBe, MSW. Last Sunday my friend collapsed on a soccer field and was rushed to the hospital. In an instant, a lifelong athlete with a fantastic physique and a beautiful spirit was go...April 18, 2013
The Ethics of Asking in Organ Donation
Original Commentary by BEI Young Professionals member Olivette Burton, MBe, MSW. Last Sunday my friend collapsed on a soccer field and was rushed to the hospital. In an instant, a lifelong athlete with a fantastic physique and a beautiful spirit was go...May 1, 2012
A Dark Side to Facebook's Organ Donation Status?
I agree, mostly, with Art Caplan’s analysis of Facebook’s decision to add “Organ Donor” as a Life Event on their website.…
April 26, 2012
Reduce, Reuse...Re-transplant?
It is now possible to re-transplant kidneys from a first recipient to a second according to the results of a rare surgical procedure performed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.…
January 24, 2012
Canadians have Bieber Fever...For Organ Donation
Yes, it’s true. Bieber Fever has spread far and wide. But it isn’t just tweens who are following the pop star, Justin Bieber’s, every move.…
January 9, 2012
Get Fit, For Your Corpse's Sake
Art Caplan reminds us in his column on MSNBC.com that its good to be skinny, whether dead or alive. The negative health consequences of obesity experienced during life linger on well into death, especially for those who want to donate their bodies to science.…
October 19, 2011
Arthur Caplan Says "No" To Prisoner Organs
In the October 2011 issue of AJOB, Arthur Caplan argues in his Target Article “The Use of Prisoners as Sources of Organs-An Ethically Dubious Practice” that the great demand for cadaveric organs for donation around the world does not justify harvesting them from prisoners.…
April 12, 2011
"Just Say No!" To Organs from Suicide Victims?
According to Wesley Smith on his SHS blog, “Suicidal people need help in living, not reasons to die.” Profound statement indeed.…
August 3, 2010
A Monty Python Approach to Organ Procurement Butts Heads with CSI.
Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead! We’d like to harvest their organs now!
Most Monty Python fans associate organ harvesting with The Meaning of Life’s Live Organ Transplantation, but New York City’s “rapid organ recovery plan” has much more in common with this other famous Holy Grail skit than it does with anything else.…
July 29, 2010
Need An Organ? Find Your Donor Via Facebook!
Apparently Facebook isn’t just for playing MafiaWars anymore. It’s also for finding living unrelated donors to give you their organs. Seriously.…
Published Articles (2)
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 11 Issue 10 - Oct 2011
The Use of Prisoners as Sources of Organs? An Ethically Dubious Practice Arthur L. Caplan
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 4 Issue 4 - Dec 2004
Bonus Allocation Points for Those Willing to Donate Organs Robert M. Veatch
News (51)
January 10, 2013 1:33 pm
Mass donor organ fraud shakes Germany (The Guardian)
German authorities are calling for an overhaul of the country’s organ transplant programme after transplant centres were placed under investigation for systematically manipulating donor waiting lists.
December 12, 2012 2:49 pm
Ohio Hospital to Resume Transplants After Accidentally Trashing Kidney (ABC News)
An Ohio hospital is set to resume live kidney transplants four months after an organ landed in the trash instead of its intended recipient. The University of Toledo Medical Center halted live transplants after a man’s kidney – intended for his sick sister – was accidentally thrown out as medical waste.
November 13, 2012 5:59 pm
Hospitals Ordered to Do More to Protect Kidney Donors (NY Times)
Addressing long-held concerns about whether organ donors have adequate protections, transplant regulators acted to require that hospitals thoroughly inform living kidney donors of risks , fully evaluate their medical and psychological suitability, and then track their health for two years after donation.
November 2, 2012 3:55 pm
China's Reliance On Executed Prisoners' Organs Will Wind Down Next Year (Huffington Post)
China will start phasing out its reliance on organs from executed prisoners for transplants early next year as a new national donation system is implemented, a government-appointed expert has said.
October 22, 2012 4:49 pm
New NTD Video Reveals the Shocking Reality of Forced Organ Harvesting in China (The Sacramento Bee)
A new video has revealed a shocking story, still unfolding in China and currently unknown to most people: the alleged harvesting of human organs from live prisoners of conscience in China.
October 19, 2012 6:56 pm
New Kidney Donation System Could Change Who Gets Best Organs (Fox News)
The way that donated kidneys are allocated to patients needing transplants might be changed next year so that the fittest organs would be given to those likely to live the longest with the donated organ, announced today from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
September 25, 2012 8:38 pm
Report: Ohio nurse didn't realize she took kidney (NBC News)
A nurse who accidentally disposed of a living donor’s kidney during a transplant said she didn’t realize it was in chilled, protective slush that she removed from an operating room, took down a hall to a dirty utility room and “flushed down a hopper,” according to a report released by health officials on Monday. The nurse said she had been on a break when a surgeon told everyone the kidney had been put in the sterile, semi-frozen solution. That detail was in a review by the state for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and obtained by The Associated Press through a records request. The transplant was Aug. 10 at the University of Toledo Medical Center.
September 21, 2012 8:12 pm
After Death, Helping to Prolong Life (The New Tork Times)
EDINA, Minn. — Just down the hallway, in Room 356, Curtis Kelly’s body lay covered to the chest by a white blanket, his torso rising and falling with the help of a ventilator. A neurologist at Fairview Southdale Hospital had declared him brain-dead nearly six hours earlier. Mr. Kelly’s far-flung family — a son, three siblings, a sister-in-law, his girlfriend and the daughter of a former girlfriend — had gathered in a narrow conference room in the intensive care unit so that John P. LeMay could ask permission to recover his tissue and organs.
September 13, 2012 1:34 pm
Campaign urges older people to become organ donors (USA Today)
The demand for organs is great. As of Wednesday morning, 115,337 people were waiting to become organ recipients, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the private, nonprofit organization that manages the nation’s organ transplant system. “If anybody wants to help save a life, they should go ahead and join the registry,” Jones said. “It takes about five minutes” online or you can do it when you renew or update your driver’s license.
September 5, 2012 7:57 pm
Do Current Organ Transplant Policies Restrict Potential Donors? (Huffington Post)
A friend of mine, a transplant surgeon, was emotionally recounting a recent experience. A young woman with organ failure desperately needed a transplant, but none was available, and she was sinking rapidly. She, her family, and the medical team expected that she would be dead before the morning, and she had already said her goodbyes. The team was in despair, knowing that they could have saved her if only the means had been available. Then, suddenly, news came that a donor had been found. Everyone rushed into action, and by the next day joy was unconfined. That story had a happy ending, but its purpose was to emphasize the thousands of similar stories that end in tragedy. Innumerable people experience firsthand the misery of failing organs, and their doctors suffer the intense distress of knowing they have the skills to save them but not the organs themselves.