In sports and in business, when the chosen strategy isn't working, you make a change.
The current system for supplying kidneys to those in need was developed in 1983. It is not keeping up with the demand. You'd think we would change the system, especially when there is another option that has proved to be successful.
As strange as this may seem, we need to look to Iran who has overcome the kidney shortage with a fair solution. Iran has completely eliminated its kidney transplant waiting list, we should consider adopting the model they've developed.
In “Organ Sales and Moral Travails,” Benjamin E. Hippen, MD, transplant nephrologist, shows that Iran’s system of compensated donation has effectively provided the organs needed for transplant. “Iran is the only country that legally permits kidney vending,” he writes. “The waiting list for kidneys was eliminated in 1999, 11 years after the legalization of organ vending, and for the past 8 years, Iran has had no waiting list for kidneys.”
Concerns about the negative impacts of offering financial incentives for kidney donation naturally arise. Hippen reports that Iran has addressed this problem by putting a non-profit intermediary between potential kidney vendors and patients in need. “Separating the role of identifying vendors from the role of evaluating their medical, surgical, and psychological suitability permits transplant professionals to avoid confusing judgment on a vendor’s candidacy with various financial and professional incentives to perform more transplants,” Hippen writes.
Though the Iranian system is not perfect, it offers lessons that would be of value to American policy makers seeking to reduce the United States’ tragic organ shortage by setting up markets. “A review of 20 years of experience with a living organ vendor system in Iran reveals successes, deficiencies, and ambiguities,” Hippen concludes. “If the discussion of kidney markets in this country can progress beyond preconceptions as to what can and cannot work, in Iran or elsewhere, to an examination of the example of the Iran based on the evidence, that will be a significant step in the right direction.”
The above was taken from the blog, System Models.
http://blogs2u.org/systemmodels/2010/01/04/organ-sales-and-moral-travails-irans-system-of-compensated-organ-donation/
For a full copy of the report by Dr. Hippen:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9273
Harvey Mysel is a kidney transplant recipient and Founder of the Living Kidney Donors Network, a nonprofit organization that offers Workshops and Get-Togethers to educate people in need of a kidney transplant about living kidney donation and helps prepare them to effectively communicate their need to family members and friends. The Living Kidney Donors Network website is: www.lkdn.org and Harvey could be reached at: harvey@lkdn.org or follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/harveymysel
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As the death toll from the organ shortage in the United States mounts, public opinion will eventually support an organ market. Changes in public policy will then follow.
ReplyDeleteIn the mean time, there is an already-legal way to put a big dent in the organ shortage -- allocate donated organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die. UNOS, which manages the national organ allocation system, has the power to make this simple policy change. No legislative action is required.
Americans who want to donate their organs to other registered organ donors don't have to wait for UNOS to act. They can join LifeSharers, a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. Non-donors should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.