Hot Topics: Organ Transplant & Donation

Blog Posts (13)

January 31, 2013

Kidney Donation Over Age 70? Desperate Patients Saying, ‘Yes, Please’

[Kaiser Health News] Robert Brown was healthy, willing and a good match: So why not give a kidney to his wife, who otherwise would need dialysis? There was just one potential obstacle: Brown was 74, an age once unthinkable for a kidney donor. For this ...
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.…

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.…

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Published Articles (2)

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 (379)

May 7, 2013 2:09 pm

Rabbi okays HIV-positive organ donation

In halachic precedent, Israel’s former Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron rules life-saving organ donation can be received from HIV-positive patient, even if recipient may be infected with disease.

April 22, 2013 2:43 pm

Parents needn’t tell donor children their origins’ says leading British think-tank

Should parents be required to tell donor children of their origins? An influential British think-tank says No.

March 14, 2013 1:07 pm

Medical first? Woman who had five-organ transplant gives birth

A woman who was given a new liver, pancreas, stomach and small and large intestine at a Miami hospital in 2007 has delivered a healthy baby girl, believed to be the first known case of a five-organ transplant patient giving birth.

February 25, 2013 4:39 pm

Heart transplant patients are living longer, better, thanks to advancements (The Miami Herald)

Advancements in anti-rejection drugs that have fewer severe side effects, longer survival rates for pediatric and adult heart transplant patients, and new devices are a few of the steps forward in treating patients with coronary heart disease and other defects.

February 19, 2013 12:48 pm

Charity worker survives six-organ transplant ordeal (The Northern Echo)

A charity worker who had six of her organs transplanted after being given six months to live has returned to work.  She has become one of three patients in Britain to survive a single six-organ transplant operation, in which she was given a new stomach, liver, kidney, colon, pancreas and small intestine.

February 13, 2013 12:37 pm

Bill Would Ensure Medical Marijuana Users Can Receive Organ Transplants (The Patch)

Should users of medical marijuana be prevented from getting needed organ transplants?  Not according to a bill being considered by state legislators, which treats medical marijuana as no different from any other prescription drug.

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 18, 2012 5:02 pm

Cystic fibrosis sufferer given smoker's lungs in transplant died of cancer (Daily Mail)

Jennifer Wederell was given the lungs of a 20-a-day smoker.  A year after the operation she died of cancer.  Husband says she would never have agreed to transplant had she known.

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.

December 10, 2012 7:16 pm

Undocumented immigrant gets kidney (Chicago Tribune)

As an illegal immigrant, Jorge Mariscal waited eight years for a kidney transplant he feared would never come.  After years of uncertainties, Mariscal said he’s excited about his future but remains frustrated with a health care system that he worries might leave out an untold number of illegal immigrants in need of lifesaving treatments.

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