Organ donors

[Macstar]

I chose to be an organ doner, but I've since heard that your family has the final say - and in many cases grieving families don't allow organs removed. It was pretty morbid but I expressed my wishes to my Mum and Dad one night and told them to let my organs go if the time ever came.

[James Deuce]

I have a niece who would otherwise have been dead 20 years ago who would disagree with you.
I believe that it is the treatment of last resort and in most cases the recipients have little time left if untreated. Consequently, I think your comment about the treatment killing half would be better read as the treatment saving half who would otherwise be goners.

The ethics deserve discussion, and shouldn't be buried under the old "some people were saved" argument.

It's good that it worked for your niece but it isn't that successful for the majority of organ recipients. The statistics and evidence of out and out cruelty that transplant subjects and families are subjected to is kept very quiet.

You can't call it successful if the majority of recipients end up facing the same death sentence they postponed with a "new" organ. When you see the success stories in the paper, there is a dead person on the flip side of that success and and a string of other people with the same condition who weren't so lucky.

It is over-rated as a treatment and thanks to the Christian Idealogues in Government in the US the biggest pools of money for organ cloning technology research have dried up.

[Mikkel]

I once saw a discussion on the subject where the opponent of organ transplantation likened the procedure to canabalism. I found that debate rather interesting...

[Macstar]

The ethics deserve discussion, and shouldn't be buried under the old "some people were saved" argument.

It's good that it worked for your niece but it isn't that successful for the majority of organ recipients. The statistics and evidence of out and out cruelty that transplant subjects and families are subjected to is kept very quiet.

You can't call it successful if the majority of recipients end up facing the same death sentence they postponed with a "new" organ. When you see the success stories in the paper, there is a dead person on the flip side of that success and and a string of other people with the same condition who weren't so lucky.

It is over-rated as a treatment and thanks to the Christian Idealogues in Government in the US the biggest pools of money for organ cloning technology research have dried up.

How's Jonu lomu coming along then?

[MarkyMark]

Actually, I heard that every single organ recipient ends up dieing within a century or less of the transplant. Clearly it doesn't work and we shouldn't bother. After all, It'll make a huge difference to me what happens with a pile of meat after I'm dead, and why the fuck should I care if some burns victim gets a new lease on life with my skin? Probably some punkass kid playing with fire anyway, they deserve it. Most people that are sick deserve to suffer, why else would god give them organ failure, or blind them? Liver failure is the lord's punishment for drinking, we should let them die, not try and improve people's lives.


Go the hospital and look at a kid with Cystic Fibrosis getting phlegm pounded out of her lungs several times a day to keep her from drowning in her own fluid, with her condition falling to the point where her lungs are about to give out. Tell me any fucking selfish reason you have is good enough to deny her a chance at a normal life.

[007XX]

Go the hospital and look at a kid with Cystic Fibrosis getting phlegm pounded out of her lungs several times a day to keep her from drowning in her own fluid, with her condition falling to the point where her lungs are about to give out. Tell me any fucking selfish reason you have is good enough to deny her a chance at a normal life.

Although if a little more strongly than I would have voiced it, this pretty much sums up what i think on the matter...

Jim2, because the numbers don't always add up to what might be considered a Positive ratio of success, I reckon that one life out of a hundred saved is better than none at all.

Now, in the event where people are maltreated in the process of harvest of the donor, then the ethics of the doctors and hospitals taking part in this priocedure should be suffering the finger pointing, not the actual concept of Organ donation...

[Bass]

The ethics deserve discussion, and shouldn't be buried under the old "some people were saved" argument.

I agree - anything controvertial should be discussed

It's good that it worked for your niece but it isn't that successful for the majority of organ recipients. The statistics and evidence of out and out cruelty that transplant subjects and families are subjected to is kept very quiet.

I have no knowledge of this and so can't reasonably comment

You can't call it successful if the majority of recipients end up facing the same death sentence they postponed with a "new" organ. When you see the success stories in the paper, there is a dead person on the flip side of that success and and a string of other people with the same condition who weren't so lucky.

It is over-rated as a treatment and thanks to the Christian Idealogues in Government in the US the biggest pools of money for organ cloning technology research have dried up.

But we all face a death sentence. In its broadest sense, ALL medical treatment is about postponing the inevitable. Also, in every case, the dead person you mention would still be dead. I do agree to some extent about organ cloning and stem cell research, but there was a recent announcement that a way has been found to "make" stem cells and so bypass all the ethical objections.

[Bass]

Go the hospital and look at a kid with Cystic Fibrosis getting phlegm pounded out of her lungs several times a day to keep her from drowning in her own fluid, with her condition falling to the point where her lungs are about to give out. Tell me any fucking selfish reason you have is good enough to deny her a chance at a normal life.

Whoa there dobbin.
At the moment, I disagree with Jim2 as well, but even I can see his point is that "it causes more misery than it cures".
I think he's right that discussing it can do no harm. We might even learn something

[007XX]

Whoa there dobbin.
At the moment, I disagree with Jim2 as well, but even I can see his point is that "it causes more misery than it cures".
I think he's right that discussing it can do no harm. We might even learn something

+1....Love that thinking!!!!

[Ocean1]

Surprisingly, the health profession has an opinion on this also. And while not qualified to quote chapter and verse I am aware that there'a huge difference in the likely outcomes of different organ transplants.

Generally, the more sophistocated the organ the less worthwhile is the procedure to transplant it. Left to their own devices the health system would spend what resources are available based purely on a bang-for-buck basis. Given any likely budget that means there are classes of transplants worth doing and those that aren't.

Some provide a good chance for an extended life of reasonable quality, like kidneys. Some are extremely expensive, require huge on-going resources and statistically provide little in terms of life expectancy and quality, like heart transplants.

Keep the politicians out of the equation and you'll get a bit more sense in the policies which make such decisions work to best advantage.

[Bass]

Generally, the more sophistocated the organ the less worthwhile is the procedure to transplant it. Left to their own devices the health system would spend what resources are available based purely on a bang-for-buck basis. Given any likely budget that means there are classes of transplants worth doing and those that aren't.

Some provide a good chance for an extended life of reasonable quality, like kidneys. Some are extremely expensive, require huge on-going resources and statistically provide little in terms of life expectancy and quality, like heart transplants.
.

Paradoxically, my niece is a heart transplant recipient and is going strong some 20 years down the track.

Ain't stats great!

[Finn]

I'm donating my willy when I die. It will put and end to whale hunting.

[Ocean1]

Paradoxically, my niece is a heart transplant recipient and is going strong some 20 years down the track.

Ain't stats great!

Not as satisfying as the simple fact that she's alive.

I take it she was young at the time? Not that that's a nesessary factor in such decisions, but it is a factor.

[Bass]

Not as satisfying as the simple fact that she's alive.

I take it she was young at the time? Not that that's a nesessary factor in such decisions, but it is a factor.

Yep
Late 20s

[Hitcher]

In less than 20 years time the world will look back and recoil in horror at the concept of organ and tissue transplanting. Genetic and nano technology is moving on rapidly and should remove the inevitability of tissue rejection by the host, without them having to take a veritable cocktail of powerful drugs for the rest of their existence.