Hot Topics: Organ Transplant & Donation

Blog Posts (16)

March 17, 2014

Death Panels: Can We Handle the Truth?

by Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD

In December, I defended the term “death panel” on this blog.  Specifically, I demonstrated that we already have, and for over 50 years have had, quite a number of tribunals that act as death panels. …

November 21, 2013

Potential Organ Donation + HIV Infection = HOPE

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the HOPE Act (HR 698), a companion bill to one passed by the U.S.…

June 6, 2013

Lung Transplants and the Bandwagon Bioethics

by Craig Klugman, Ph.D.

In case you have not heard, the big bioethics story this week comes out of Philadelphia where a 10-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis is in need of a lung transplant to survive.…

May 31, 2013

Defending Disability Discrimination

by Thaddeus Mason Pope J.D., Ph.D.

In May 2013, Oklahoma enacted the Nondiscrimination in Treatment Act (NITA).  This law provides: “A health care provider shall not deny to a patient a life-preserving health care service the provider provides to other patients, and the provision of which is directed by the patient or [surrogate] .…

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 17, 2012

Rallying Around Amelia: A Debate on Disability

The blogosphere and the airwaves are filled with indignation regarding what has happened to Amelia Rivera, a three year old who has a rare genetic disorder called Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome.…

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.…

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Published Articles (3)

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 13 Issue 6 - Jun 2013

Toward a More Stable Blood Supply: Charitable Incentives, Donation Rates, and the Experience of September 11 Reuben G. Sass

American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 12 Issue 6 - Jun 2012

The Case for Kidney Donation Before End-of-Life Care Paul E. Morrisey

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

News (396)

February 25, 2014 3:15 pm

Centralizing organ removal shows promise for transplants

For decades, surgeons have traveled to far-off hospitals to remove organs from brain-dead donors and then rushed back to transplant them. Now an experiment in the Midwest suggests there may be a better way: Bring the donors to the doctors instead.

October 25, 2013 2:49 pm

Paying Kidney Donors Can Save $$, Help Patients

Paying living donors for their kidneys would reduce the number of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on dialysis and transplant wait lists, and save the healthcare system money, researchers in Canada concluded.

August 13, 2013 5:08 pm

Anthony Stokes, Dying Georgia Teen, Denied Heart Transplant Due To Low Grades, Legal Troubles, Family Says

15-year-old Anthony Stokes has less than 6 months to live according to doctors. But despite the severity of this enlarged heart, which doctors say can only be treated by way of a transplant, he’s been denied the chance to get one.

July 19, 2013 4:31 pm

U.S. Congress Moves Closer to Lifting Ban on Transplanting Organs From HIV-Positive Donors

A U.S. House of Representatives committee this week unanimously approved a bill approving transplants using organs taken from people infected with HIV.

July 11, 2013 5:26 pm

NY hospital nearly took organs from living woman

Doctors at a central New York hospital nearly harvested organs from a woman in 2009 despite warning signs she wasn’t dead, and the hospital has been fined, according to state records.

July 9, 2013 2:34 pm

10-year-old lung transplant recipient contracts pneumonia in right lung

Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl who received a new pair of lungs last month after challenging organ donation guidelines, has contracted pneumonia in her right lung.

July 3, 2013 2:52 pm

Would A Human Head Transplant Be Ethical?

A couple professors sound off about the ethics of transplanting one human’s head onto another human’s body.

July 2, 2013 3:35 pm

Lungs for Sarah Murnaghan Raise Ethical Questions

Sarah’s Murnaghan’s sad predicament. has been much in the news the last several weeks. Sarah is a 10-year-old girl with advanced cystic fibrosis (CF) who was critically ill in an intensive care unit in Philadelphia.

June 18, 2013 3:00 pm

Organ Donors Will Sign Up on Facebook

Despite years of media and public service campaigns appealing for organ donations, donor rates remained static while demand increased — until Facebook, researchers reported.

June 17, 2013 2:29 pm

Boston Children’s Hospital starts world’s first pediatric hand transplant program

Boston Children’s Hospital is announcing Monday that it has started the world’s first hand transplant program for youngsters, with the goal of restoring limbs to victims of devastating infections, fires, or accidents.

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