I’m Not The Only One

I know, pretty startling statement coming from an American, right?

I recently made a new friend, Aaron Lazansky-Oliva a.k.a. Spaze Crafte One.  This dude wears more hats than I do, which is pretty impressive.  He is a DJ, all-around entrepreneur, music producer, graffiti artist, graphic designer/visual artist, webmaster, blogger, advocate for organ donation, photographer, weekend fourth grade teacher, and retailer (not to mention his colorful background as a Mexican Jew).  He is both locally, nationally and internationally known, depending on each proverbial hat.

Aaron and I are currently working on a web design project together (I handle the editorial, he handles everything else) for a major real estate firm in Manhattan.  As I spent more time talking to him, I was amazed by his many talents and his entrepreneurial passion.  But I was also intrigued by his role as an advocate for organ donation, supporting nonprofits like Donate Life..  His passion for this issue comes from a most personal source:

Aaron’s fiancee Marly suffered from a condition which deteriorated her kidney function to 15 percent and declining.  Facing certain death if she did not have a new kidney, Aaron underwent certain diagnostic tests to see if one of his own kidneys would make for a compatible match.  Miraculously Aaron and Marly had the same blood type, their DNA matched closely enough, and after several tests Aaron gave his beloved the gift of life. Today, Marley is not in perfect health (who among us are?), but she is far closer to it because of her new kidney.

I checked out Donate Life America and was surprised to learn the following:

• More than 100,000 men, women and children currently need life-saving organ transplants.
• Every 11 minutes another name is added to the national organ transplant waiting list.
• An average of 18 people die each day from the lack of available organs for transplant.
• In 2008, there were 7,984 deceased organ donors and 6,218 living organ donors resulting in 27,961 organ transplants.

Now Marly was blessed to be in a relationship with someone who was genetically compatible enough and was willing to give her a kidney, but what about the thousands of people waiting for vital organs, and worse, the ones who literally die waiting?  So I did the math: roughly 100,000 people needing organ donation met by 7,984 deceased organ donors + 6,218 living organ donors (14,202 organ donations total) leaves a deficit of -85798 people needing organ donation.  What could be done to fix this huge deficit?  The first source of organ donation, the deceased, are naturally limited because you have to wait for the donors to die, and if their organs are healthy enough to be eligible for donation, it means they’ll be alive for many years.  What’s more, not everyone gives permission for their organs to be donated upon death, and even if they do, most people die because of organ failure or severe organ injury, so I assume death usually leaves few salvageable organs at all.

I came up with a few creative yet slightly unethical methods of increasing deceased organ donation.  Consent to organ donation upon death could be like telemarketing, where you’re automatically assumed to agree to upon turning 18 unless you deliberately fill out a form specifically declaring your refusal.  Then the government has to keep this opt-out rule as much a secret as possible by calling it something vague and boring like the “postmortem resource non-allocation option”  Given how few of us remember to fill out product warranty cards, rebate forms or voter registration forms, tens of millions of Americans will unknowingly triple the number of deceased organ donations.  The government could try something really socialist and make deceased organ donation a federal law (maybe the next phase of ObamaCare?  Just kidding!).  Maybe we could encourage suicidal people to blow their brains out with a gun instead of jumping out of tall buildings or poisoning themselves, thus leaving their vital organs intact.

The only source that could be expanded is living donors.  Organizations like Donate Life could expand their current marketing campaign and urge people even more intensely to donate organs.  But then I thought about all the reasons that I might not want to donate any of my organs before I die:

1. I don’t know what the future may bring for me, so I might want to hold on to my organs in case my health deteriorates later in life.  How much would it suck for me to donate a kidney only to need it 20 years later, end up on the organ donation list and die waiting?
2. Again, I cannot see into the future, and donating an organ to anyone on the donation waiting list may mean I may not be able to help a family member (with whom I’d be more likely to be a genetic match) should they need an organ later in life.
3. I would have no idea if the recipient of my organ would treat it better than I would; they be restored to full health and end up drinking heavily or doing drugs.  My sister used to work as an ambulette driver transporting dialysis patients, all of whom had no functioning livers and had to be hooked up to machines for eight hours a day.  One of her patients was a former alcoholic who received a liver and then proceeded to drink until she ruined her new liver.  As my sister told me, a year later, she saw her former passenger at the dialysis center, hooked up to a machine and most likely placed dead last on the organ donation list.  While this is most certainly an extreme and isolated case, it is also a true one.

Given how bad the situation looks for organ donation in the U.S., I decided to see how other countries dealt with this problem.  China addresses their organ shortages by seizing them from executed prisoners.  But I imagine China must execute many its prisoners for a lot of questionable reasons, perhaps even for the purpose of harvesting organs.   Then I found out about Iran, that’s right, the Axis of Evil (cue scary music).  Iran has no waiting list.  The U.S. has 100,000 people waiting organ donation; Iran has 0.  What’s their secret?  The buying and selling of organs is legal in Iran.  I stumbled upon a video from Reason which offered a bit more insight on the concept of organ trade.

Organ trade is illegal in the U.S., as is the case with every other country in the world where tens of thousands of people are on organ donation waiting lists.  Besides the fact that it allows an organ for everyone who wants it, legal organ trade makes sense in America for a variety of reasons:

1. With so many Americans pinned under crushing mortgage and credit card debt, they might actually be willing to part with a vital organ or two.
2. Shouldn’t the donor be able to do whatever they want with their own organs, even if that means selling them?  Funny how the liberal pro-choice crowd champions abortion, the killing of an innocent, defenseless would-be child in the name of convenience yet fail to get behind organ trade.
3. Even if you think the buying and selling of human body parts is disgusting, the fact that so many people die waiting for an organ transplant is even more gruesome.
4. The surgeons and nurses performing an organ transplant don’t work for free.  Everyone gets paid or benefits as a result of an organ donation.  Everyone except the donor, who potentially shortens their own lives by a few years.

 If people wish to donate their organs, fine; I’m certainly not going to tell someone else what they can do with their own body.  But if something could be done to even up the ratio between those who need an organ transplant to stay alive and the number of readily available organs, shouldn’t we try it?  Organs, whether sold or donated, save lives all the same.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 at 8:43 am and is filed under Government Incompetence, Healthcare, Economics, Government Interference. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.