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nan_adams t1_j686hxu wrote

I’ve had multiple organ transplants and think this is a terrible idea. It’s unethical, it’s coercive, it’s a slippery slope to some Repo: the Genetic Opera shit.

We are so fortunate to live in a state with some of the best doctors, nurses, hospitals. I can’t imagine they would find this ethical. Organ donation is a huge process. You need to be medically evaluated as a match to the recipient but you also undergo testing to make sure you are physically and mentally capable of transplant. Part of that evaluation is a meeting with a mental health professional to glean of course if you’re capable of handling the post-transplant regimen but also to determine if there are strings attached to donation. They will not push forward with a match where there is ethical ambiguity. I don’t see how this program would proceed past that stage because it is very much a transaction with strings attached.

If we want to increase the pool of available organs there are steps we can take like educating the general public about live donation, encouraging people to register as a donor, dispelling myths about transplant etc. But probably the biggest thing we can do is challenge dialysis companies like DaVita and Fresenius - who lobby against bills that expand access to prescription drug coverage for transplant recipients. These are for profit companies that make money by keeping people on dialysis, even when transplant is often the better path. They’ve lobbied against bills that would expand Medicare coverage of immunosuppressive drugs, which are required for the life of the transplant. The number one cause of transplant rejection and return to dialysis is non-compliance - but this is usually due to patients not being able to afford medication. You want the list to be shorter, the cost to tax payers to be less (Medicare funds dialysis) - you don’t grow the pool of available kidneys, you shrink the pool of who needs them by providing better support to transplant patients and stopping for profit dialysis companies from predatory practices (including advising dialysis as a long term solution to organ failure).

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GreatAndPowerfulNixy t1_j68jqbe wrote

I work in oncology and I whole-heartedly second the notion of "fuck DaVita"

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foolproofphilosophy t1_j69d9v5 wrote

Feel free to add the makers of Neulasta to your list. If I did my math right it costs about 235x more than gold by weight. 0.6ml costs over $8k. And in my son’s case about 3/4 of each dose ended up in the trash.

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Laurenann7094 t1_j6985xb wrote

But what does this have to do with allowing prisoners to join the transplant list?

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LumberJack732 t1_j68od1s wrote

This sounds like it would make a great topic for John Oliver to cover. This should be more well known cuz it’s fucked up. Lobbying of this nature really needs to be payed attention to more.

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meltyourtv t1_j690en7 wrote

Word thanks for adding yet another 2 pharma companies to my infinitely long list of shitty companies I hate

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Laurenann7094 t1_j697uxl wrote

Your arguments are all about issues with people receiving transplants. But I don't see what that has to do with allowing prisoners to join the list of possible matches. Issues are addressed on a case by case basis once a match is made.

As you are someone who has received multiple organ transplants, it is strange to want to gatekeep transplants for other people.

>Organ donation is a huge process.

Bone marrow donation is not a huge process. There are kids dying while waiting for rare matches.

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nan_adams t1_j6a9bj1 wrote

As I explained in my post, offering reduced sentencing for joining the transplant list is ethically ambiguous and undermines the altruistic nature of donation. If a prisoner wanted to donate without the reduced sentencing that would be altruistic.

I am someone who received multiple transplants from living donors. I care about the people who donated to me. I am not “gatekeeping” transplants - I am advocating for the rights of the donor.

Our justice system is often inequitable; this plan would put incarcerated persons in a compromising position and could influence them to make a major life decision that they would not ordinarily make if they weren’t incarcerated. On top of that you have the fact that the population of incarcerated persons is majorly skewed racially and socioeconomically you’re creating a system that robs minorities and lower income people of true autonomy and essentially using them as spare parts. If you can’t see how that’s ethically reprehensible I don’t know what to tell you.

I’m very aware people die on transplant lists - not sure why you’re telling me, a person who has been on the list twice, how it works. This is not a solution to the waiting list.

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Polynya t1_j6asng1 wrote

So long as it’s not coercive (they aren’t getting punished or having their sentences elongated for not donations) there is nothing ethically dubious about it. Who cares they are getting something in return? Do we expect the farmer to grow food simply because it’s morally good to feed people or the doctor to forgo payment for services because it’s the right thing to do?

The world would be better if we dropped the insane prudishness and high minded moralizing around organ and marrow donation. The USA is the source of 70% of the world’s blood plasma, because we allow people to be paid for it. Allowing people to get paid for doing something good, whether in money or reduce prison sentences, is morally fine. It generates new organs and marrow that will save peoples lives, lives which otherwise probably wouldn’t be saved. So then how can you say that’s bad?

In fact, we should allow markets for kidney, liver, and marrow - all are things that can be donated safely without significant long-term problems for the donater, and will save peoples lives (and also money by cutting down on the amount of time people are waiting for a donation).

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