Waste of a perfectly good heart

[Axulus]

What should really put someone at the front of the list is if they declared themselves an organ donor before their need for a transplant arose.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

What should really put someone at the front of the list is if they declared themselves an organ donor before their need for a transplant arose.

A moral purity test that allows nothing for a change a heart, so to speak?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

What should really put someone at the front of the list is if they declared themselves an organ donor before their need for a transplant arose.

[YOUTUBE]P0LkMrPMMhw[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Axulus]

What should really put someone at the front of the list is if they declared themselves an organ donor before their need for a transplant arose.

A moral purity test that allows nothing for a change a heart, so to speak?

It has nothing to do with morality but rather giving those who declare themselves organ donors a fair benefit for their contribution.

You don't want to contribute? Fine, just don't expect to receive the benefits from something which you yourself refuse to do. Of course, there will be many more donors as a result of such a policy, so even the ruthlessly selfish my still be able to get theirs.

Maybe even a policy where everyone is automatically opted in as an organ donor, and one has to take action to opt out and sign a waiver that indicates their understanding that they will be moved to the back of the line on a waiting list. Do that, and there will be almost no line anymore.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

A moral purity test that allows nothing for a change a heart, so to speak?

It has nothing to do with morality but rather giving those who declare themselves organ donors a fair benefit for their contribution.

And those who don't an unfair detriment for their not contributing? Sounds a little like extortion. Just around the edges.

 

[Axulus]

It has nothing to do with morality but rather giving those who declare themselves organ donors a fair benefit for their contribution.

And those who don't an unfair detriment for their not contributing? Sounds a little like extortion. Just around the edges.

No one is entitled to receive an organ.

Just like you not giving someone $100 who wants it is not an unfair detriment to them. Nor is your refusal unless they provide you something in return extortion, even around the edges.

Now, if you want to designate that your heart, kidneys, lungs or liver go to someone who is not an organ donor, you'd be free to do so, if that is what you prefer.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

bad taste deleted

 

[Mindlab Expositor]

Does this put us in a slippery slope? It doesn't have to no more than the prison system put us on a slippery slope.

That's bullshit and you know it! Of course it would put us in a slippery slope if we start questioning someone's right to life.

 

[Mindlab Expositor]

No one is entitled to receive an organ.

I agree.

 

[bilby]

Does this put us in a slippery slope? It doesn't have to no more than the prison system put us on a slippery slope.

That's bullshit and you know it! Of course it would put us in a slippery slope if we start questioning someone's right to life.

The slope tilts the other way. The idea of a 'right to life' is recent and localised. But once we started talking about it as though it was real, it got a life of its own, and started spreading all over the place.

It's now so pervasive that we can, if we are not careful, forget that no such 'right' existed for the vast majority of human history. People could (and in many places, still can) be denied life on a whim, for any reason or none.

 

[Mindlab Expositor]

That's bullshit and you know it! Of course it would put us in a slippery slope if we start questioning someone's right to life.

The slope tilts the other way. The idea of a 'right to life' is recent and localised. But once we started talking about it as though it was real, it got a life of its own, and started spreading all over the place.

It's now so pervasive that we can, if we are not careful, forget that no such 'right' existed for the vast majority of human history. People could (and in many places, still can) be denied life on a whim, for any reason or none.

I'm thankful for the Hippocratic oath, but I don't believe in the right to life.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since people die on the waiting lists this means someone died because of this.

No it doesn't. You are asserting facts not in evidence (that "someone died because of this").

It most certainly is in evidence.

Useable organs are always transplanted.

People die on the waiting lists due to a lack of organs.

Therefore a wasted organ means someone died.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One less heart was available for someone else who also needed one. By what mechanism would that not lead to a shorter life for someone else who needed a heart? An average of 21 people die daily while on organ transplant waiting lists in the US.

I was thinking not just a heart, but a compatible one.

Anyway this is interesting: http://www.pennmedicine.org/transpl...ansplant/transplant-process/waiting-list.html

They don't waste them, they transplant them into the best match that is available. A less good match means more issues with the transplant but even a less than perfect match (and the only perfect match will be from one's identical twin) is an awful lot better than no organ.

- - - Updated - - -

One less heart was available for someone else who also needed one. By what mechanism would that not lead to a shorter life for someone else who needed a heart? An average of 21 people die daily while on organ transplant waiting lists in the US.

Loren's statement, and your assessment, assume a perfect system. If this particular heart had not been transplanted to this particular person, that does not necessarily mean that the heart would have been given to another person on the list, or if it had that the person would have lived/survived the transplant. Transplants, and the transplant system, are simply not that perfect.

True, they could have died on the table. That's not common, though.

- - - Updated - - -

If people are dying before they receive a transplant then giving an available organ to one person means that you are leaving another person to die because they didn't receive that transplant.

This is simply not supported by the facts or the math. By your logic, if 200,000 people receive transplants in a year, then 200,000 other people on the list die for lack of a transplant. This supposed 1:1 ratio of life and death is simply not the case for the transplant lists/system. According to the American Transplant Foundation (which you quoted), about 7% of the people die while waiting for organs. This is tragic, but clearly does not support the assertion that this particular transplant resulted in someone else's death, or that "giving an available organ to one person means that you are leaving another person to die because they didn't receive that transplant".

If any die waiting for that particular organ then it's a 1:1 ratio (other than deaths during the operation.) Your problem here is that you are looking at the total effect, not the marginal one.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

At the same time, out of every fifteen people who come in every day looking for cars, each day on average, one of them gets knifed by a street gang while they're walking to work and they die. This means that when you sell the car to one person, you are leaving the entire rest of the list in the group which has about a 7% chance of dying because they didn't get a car. A number of people in that group are going to die and they would not have died if they had been the one who got the car as opposed to having the other guy get the car.

Similarly, each time you give a transplant to one person, it leaves a group of people who could have received that transplant instead but did not. Some of that group are going to die who would not have died if they had been the one who received the transplant.

Your process is totally random. The real scenario is even nastier--not only do they risk getting knifed on the way to work but anyone who walks to work for a year drops dead of a heart attack.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Does that make the person receiving the transplant responsible for those deaths? Is the transplant system responsible for those deaths? Has the recipient or the system committed manslaughter?

No. Unlike liberal fantasyland there sometimes is no good outcome. Transplants are such a case--the demand exceeds the supply, some people will die because of this.

The system does commit manslaughter, though--we allocate organs to the sickest rather than those who will get maximum benefit from them. This means more recipients die after getting their transplant than would happen in a system that allocated based on benefit--and those deaths are attributable to the system.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If the boy's name came up on the list, then the heart should have gone to him. Whether or not the suthorities believed he would take care of the heart is not a question. Whether or not AFTER THE FACT the boy makes bad decisions and dies anyway is not the question. Whether or not he was on the list and whether or not his name got to the top is the only question.

They base the taking-care-of decision based on the observed compliance while on the waiting list. I don't know compliance with what, though.

The list is the fairest way we have to allocate a scarce resource. We have to stick to the list. Future events not in our control must not sway us from that.

That's what the doctors did. A PR campaign changed this, killing someone. Your position comes close to advocating manslaughter in my book.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are assuming that there was at least one recipient on the heart transplant list who would have been an acceptable match and could have undergone the surgery within the very limited time frame the heart was viable and that person did not get any heart.

That is not a safe assumption. Not only do organs need to be a good match histologicaly but also in terms of size. And also that any known risks in the donated organ are acceptable to the recipient and medical team. Add in a narrow time frame largely dictated by geography and it is not possible for us to know with any confidence that a better recipient missed a chance at a heart.

Yes, we are making such an assumption--because it's reality. They can fly them to other cities, the pool of recipients is large. It might not be someone at the top of the list but there will be someone.

 

[laughing dog]

That's what the doctors did. A PR campaign changed this, killing someone.

The only person we know who ended up dead from this transplant is Stokes. Mageth provided the statistic that 7% of the people on the list die before they receive a heart. Once again, you are literally making stuff up to support your position.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What should really put someone at the front of the list is if they declared themselves an organ donor before their need for a transplant arose.

Yup, I've suggested this before although I would refine it a bit:

You list your organ donor status on your driver's license/ID card. It's yes/no/unsuitable. (And the "unsuitable" must be backed up by a doctor, not merely a declaration.) Someone marked "unsuitable" may still have their organs harvested for research purposes, though.

A score is derived from the ratio of yes years to (yes + no) years from age 18 on and is used to sort the waiting lists--you are automatically ahead of anyone with a lower ratio. A ratio of 0:0 (someone who becomes ineligible before age 18) is treated as 100%. Those under 18 get the average of their parent's ratios.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's what the doctors did. A PR campaign changed this, killing someone.

The only person we know who ended up dead from this transplant is Stokes. Mageth provided the statistic that 7% of the people on the list die before they receive a heart. Once again, you are literally making stuff up to support your position.

Just because you can't identify the dead person doesn't mean nobody died.


Lets try a simple thought experiment: I go to Grand Central Station in New York and set up a machine in the floor. It's got a big cobalt-60 source in it, when someone walks past it the shutters snap aside for a moment timed to administer a dose of 10 rem to the person passing over. I leave this machine there until it's flashed 100,000 people.

Did I commit murder?

Nobody was even aware of my device unless they heard the mechanism (those shutters are heavy) or happened to be carrying a turned-on geiger counter. (Note that radiation workers will not be wearing their badges in the train station, they only put them on at work.) You can't point to anyone injured by the device.


Yet the expected death toll here is 100 people.