and this brings up a topic me and a buddy of mine were discussing the other day...'Organ Donations'

So the dearly departed *DONATES* organs to be transplanted..I assume the recipent has to pay for their generosity...so what happens when one of the deceists close family members who were generous enough to allow this to transpire requires a transplant..wouldnt it be only proper for the medical community  to give them a harvested one back ?

I mean it would only seem fair..Or am I missing something here???

  Maybe an exchange for something equal or of lessor value can be negotiated - a spleen, perhaps ?

--virgil

There was a story on 60 Minutes of a Chinese gangster jumping in front of the line and got a liver transplant in the US.  Did anyoen else watch this?  He was not supposed to even be admitted to the US much less jump to the front of teh waiting list.

Sounds like a shady deal with FBI/CIA types...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stor...

yup i saw that JF..he was a samurai..they called it organized crime but stated that its not illegal in their country..i always thought the samurai were honoarble warriors..what the hell happened??

There was a story on 60 Minutes of a Chinese gangster jumping in front of the line and got a liver transplant in the US.

There was a Saudi several years ago who jumped the line in a Los Angeles liver transplant program.  The doctor running it and the doctor who performed the operation both lost their jobs, and the entire program was shut down.

It is, by the way, illegal to sell human organs in this country--even on Craigslist.

 yup i saw that JF..he was a samurai..they called it organized crime but stated that its not illegal in their country..

He was persona non grata in the US.  His name was on one of those post 9/11 "do not admit" list they have at customs.  The US embassy in Tokyo had been tracking this guy as an undesirable person for entry.

The moral reason it's illegal now doesn't hold water with me.

Is giving someone in India $5000 for a kidney when he made $500 last year "taking advantage" of him, because I don't think he would agree. The reality is that people die because their are not enough organs to go around so this law kills people.

Everyone makes money on organ transplants, Hospitals, Doctors, The Currier. The only person who by law can not make money off an organ transplant is the donor and they have the most to lose, a part of their body!

if it were legal to sell organs there would be more organs on the market the next day and lives would be saved. Also many more people would give up their organs when they die if by selling them their family could get some extra money to help out.

Why is it illegal for 2 consenting adults to sell a body part? does the seller not OWN his own organs? I would like to think that I own my own body but the government must be SO much smarter than we are that they need to make our decisions for us.

It's too bad little Jimmy will have to die because there was no kidney for him when just across town someone who doesn't know him would be more than willing to sell him one for the right price.....But that would be WRONG

Oh I agree JF there was something shady there..kind of wondering why his failed in the first place..did he have a disease that will eventually destroy the new one?? I read where some myths about transplanets were being talked about and one that stood out was the fact the rich and famous seem to move to the front of the line..naturally the experst response was 'NO' they dont ..the only reason it seems like they do is because they are famous and its being televised..YA RIGHT...

This is a subject close to our family right now because our niece who is 23 was just told one of her kidneys are gone and the other is running at around 30%...they are considering dyalisis but want to see if they can bring it back by medication first..she has a 2 year old and just seperated from her husband who occasionally liked to get drunk and shove her round..hes a prison guard so being overly aggressive kinda comes natural..they said they needed to operate and remove the dead kidney..in my thinking they should have one waiting in the wings so she can get the transplant over with and maybe help prolong the other one..but im not incharge and all this is pretty new to us..

if it were legal to sell organs their would be much more organs on the market the next day

If there were nationalized health care fewer organs would be needed. 

The current system isn't perfect, but at least it has the advantage of not letting the rich get transplants at the expense of the poor. 

I do have some experience with kidney transplant issues.

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the only reason it seems like they do is because they are famous and its being televised..YA RIGHT...

The rich and famous *DO* have the ability to "game" the system but can't buy their way to the head of the line.   Jobs is a good example.  It might be good to look at the national system to close some loopholes.

And in the case of the Yakuza members who got transplants it was "professional courtesy" from one crime syndicate to another.  Ashcroft and/or Gonzales had to sign off on the deal, after all.

Selling a transplant organ is not a simple matter for "two consenting adults." The decision also involves doctors, hospital resources, staff, an ethics panel, people on a waiting list, and so on. Otherwise, look at all the homeless and panhandlers who could be driving cadillacs if they just sold a couple of their body parts.

The immorality of the controversy is the hindrance of breakthroughs with animal research (immoral), cloning (immoral) and stem cell research (immoral). Bad enough religions would have people live according to someone else's beliefs, but dying for them is also the moral thing to do.

Eventually embryonic stem-cell research will make organ shortages a thing of the past.

In the shorter run, thousands of transplantable organs are going to waste not because we don't buy and sell them, but because of massive ignorance discouraging after-death donations.

I've got the pink dot on *MY* CDL...

I thought it was amusing that the Yakuza conned the FBI by promising to rat out the international syndicate if he got permission to come here for transplant. The Feebs didn't get the info up front and he gave them crap after getting the kidney. 

Is this a great country or what?

They got played like a game of chess...

...actually more like an unsophisticated game of checkers with your 3 year old.

Is this a great country or what?

Well, it *WAS* Shrub's Justice Department.  They couldn't even get a solid conviction on Ted Froz'n *STEVENS* for crying out loud.

Let us not give a free pass to the good folk at UCLA who let the scum jump the line in exchange for money, there were also other Japanese crime figures who donated to get operations. I guess the anti-health care reformers are right - we do "have the best health care system in the world". Too bad it doesn't work for all of our citizens.

If there were nationalized health care fewer organs would be needed.

fewer organs would be needed because the government would deny a majority of the organ transplants, or the needing recipient would die before all the red tape was untangled