from Amazon
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Donor chains
Non-sports post. I am shocked at the number of altruistic donors.
Donor chains are more promising. A donor chain starts with one of those rare (but increasingly common nondirected donors, who gives to someone who has a willing but incompatible donor. That donor then gives to someone else with an incompatible donor, who gives to a third person with an incompatible donor, and so on. In theory, a chain can go on indefinitely. The surgeries don’t have to be simultaneous, or even in the same place. In the March 12 New England Journal of Medicine, a group led by Michael A. Rees of the University of Toledo Medical Center and including Dorry Segev and Alvin Roth, reported on a chain of 10 kidney transplants involving six transplant centers in five states. If a donor drops out, whether for personal or medical reasons, the chain simply ends. The waiting recipient is disappointed, but still has an incompatible donor. They can join a new chain.
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The obvious solution to the problem of barter is, of course, money. Altruistic blood donors often receive freebies like movie tickets or paid vacation hours that would be illegal for kidney donors. Plasma and sperm donors routinely receive cash, as do egg donors and surrogate mothers, who get tens of thousands of dollars.. If transplant centers could pay $25,000 or $50,000 to each living kidney donor, many more people would line up to contribute
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Living donation is a low-risk procedure for the donor that offers life-changing rewards for the recipient. Yet the donor is the only person involved in the process who receives no compensation. “There’s no reason that someone who does this should not get something substantial that will make a difference in their lives,” says David. To people who like to celebrate living donors as heroes, payment seems terribly crass. But the vicarious thrill of someone else’s altruism comes at a terrible cost.
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