I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: Beth35 on July 26, 2010, 01:16:09 PM
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http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/thug_op_is_liver_worst_ZgPRPiFeY5mp1qcna0sn8O
It's a liver, not a kidney but still. This story just shocked me. This not only killed his wife but he killed his own liver by taking rat poison in order to try and take his own life and we give HIM a liver? What!?
I don't think it's right. Why give it to someone who is going to rot in prison and did this to HIMSELF when there people out there who are good people and who could take good care of this liver.
What do you think?
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Social factors -- such as wealth, fame, arrest or criminal records -- do not figure into the decision on whether to give someone an organ. That includes someone like Concepcion, who investigators said confessed to killing his wife.
And this is a lie. They told me I had to not only have medicare to get listed for a kidney, but I needed a secondary insurance to cover what medicare didn't. So that is considered wealth in my eyes. And how is a dude in prison going to keep health insurance? He is not working? Does the state pay for all prisoners medical care??? Go figure that. Murderers it better than the average joe when it comes to health care. Mental health is also a must when it comes to being listed. The dude killed his wife and tried to off himself. That is NOT what I would call mentally stable. Just sayin...
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There is a young guy who go to where Frank has dialysis that is a prisoner. He wears a bright orange jumpsuit, leg chains and is always accompanied by 2 guards who sit for his 4 hour session. I think it is such a waste of tax payer money. Not only are we paying for his treatment but also the guards pay to sit with him. It's only my opinion.
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Some time ago, there was a convict with kidney failure who was sentenced to death for his crimes. The judge ordered that he had to receive dialysis, because the State had to keep him alive until he could be put to death.
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Well, keeping someone alive to kill them is just odd. I guess I don't totally object to prisoners getting dialysis. I mean, there is not a long list of folks waiting for a machine and some dying before they get one. But a transplant? It just doesn't seem right. What if this guy gets the death penalty? Then that perfectly good kidney dies along with him?
What about all of the children or innocent folks who are dying each day on the list and this murderer gets it? Just unbelievable.
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There is a young guy who go to where Frank has dialysis that is a prisoner. He wears a bright orange jumpsuit, leg chains and is always accompanied by 2 guards who sit for his 4 hour session. I think it is such a waste of tax payer money. Not only are we paying for his treatment but also the guards pay to sit with him. It's only my opinion.
You have to think about "stealing a loaf of bread". (That was such a good play, but I digress). Is it worth a death sentence?
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I am totally with you, Beth, when it comes to organ transplants for death row victims. I have read recently, although I can't remember where, something about death row being where the prisoner dies by the state, or by "natural death" whichever comes first. Yet, they get organ transplants??? WTF??? There was a story on here not too long ago, maybe about a year ago, about a death row inmate getting moved up on the kidney transplant list in OR. It is an outrage! Organs are scarce, and they should go to people who are actual resonsible citizens who are not prone to murder, etc. Not only that, but stories like this are a great way to scare people away from signing up to be a donor, or to remove themselves from being a donor. We certainly don't need that! I don't understand how this can be done and be "okay", because it simply just isn't. I don't even want to think about how I would react if a death row inmate received an organ over a loved one.
KarenInWA
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I absolutely agree with you. To give a prisoner dialysis to keep him alive so they can execute him is just too stupid to even talk about. Even if he is a lifer or is in for murder, should not receive dialysis. No wonder things are all screwed up in this world.
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As far as I know : he is entitled to basic human rights such as medical care.
I agree it is a very stupid thing to do.
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Looks like we all agree on this one.
Rip it out and give it to someone who can be a productive citizen. :bow;
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I guess I still just can't get over this. Don't we have to see a social worker before we are listed to make sure that we are mentally healthy enough to be listed? I mean even if we forget that he KILLED his wife, the man tried to kill himself. The reason he lost his kidney is because he himself swalled rat poison!!! Does that sound mentally stable to you? Do you think a man who wants to die is going to take good care of a liver?
Someone pinch me b/c this is unreal. I would love to actually speak to the person who approved this.
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Does any of this make sense, to many goody too shoes in the wrong place. Where's the help for the people that have one or two years above the governments age limit on receiving a transplant.
If there's not an age limit there will be soon. We are human as well as convected felons or murders, and maybe a step above,,,,
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??? I clicked on the link but the story is no longer there. That's why I usually copy the whole story because they often go away. I'll keep looking, maybe find it elsewhere so I can read it.
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UPDATE: RETRACTION: see later post.
Many outraged as accused murderer gets liver transplant
Should doctors have given organ to someone else on long waiting list?
by Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
msnbc.com contributor
updated 7/26/2010 6:22:08 PM ET
COMMENTARY
Johnny Concepcion, a 42-year-old man accused of stabbing his wife to death, just received a liver transplant at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Now many are wondering how an accused killer could jump to the top of a long list of those needing transplants.
Concepcion has reportedly confessed to friends and relatives that he killed his wife, Jordania Sarita. Earlier this month, police found the 36-year-old woman stabbed at least 15 times in the home she had shared with her husband and their three children for 18 years. The two had recently separated.
After the murder, Concepcion took off and became the object of a huge manhunt by the New York City police. Knowing the cops were closing in, he swallowed a container of rat poison. After someone saw him collapse in the street and called 911, he was taken by ambulance to the hospital where doctors determined his liver had failed.
They searched the donor lists, a liver donor showed up, and Concepcion, who was charged with weapons possession and murder, received a transplant. My hunch is public funds paid the bill. As soon as he was released from the hospital he was taken to jail and is due in court in the Bronx to face the murder charge on Aug. 11.
So, what was Concepcion doing on the top of the liver transplant waiting list — which on Monday numbered 16,003 — when others who have not killed anyone or destroyed their livers by swallowing rat poison are desperately seeking new organs? And what were the doctors thinking transplanting a guy who had tried to kill himself, who showed up with a posse of police and whose new liver is not likely to ever get used outside prison walls?
The current system for distributing organs makes no exceptions either for murderers or attempted suicides. If there is a matching organ then the person who is the most in need, which Concepcion most certainly was, has top priority for it.
Newsvine poll: Should killers be banned from getting a transplant? To vote go to http://health.newsvine.com/_question/2010/07/26/4757198-should-killers-be-banned-from-getting-an-organ-transplant
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38419132/ns/health-health_care/
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UPDATE: RETRACTION: see later post.
Another version:
Accused murderer receives liver organ transplant while others wait to die
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) Johnny Concepcion is 42 years old. After divorcing his wife, she was found stabbed to death in their home, suffering at least 15 stab wounds. Concepcion reportedly confessed to his friends that he killed his wife, and he soon found himself the subject of a city-wide manhunt in New York City. On the run from authorities, Concepcion decided to kill himself by drinking a container of rat poison.
But that's not where this story gets weird. The weird part is that after the rat poison destroyed his liver, Concepcion found himself at the top of a liver transplant list at a hospital in New York City. With over 16,000 other people waiting for a liver -- many of whom undoubtedly are not murderers -- somehow Concepcion was chosen to receive the next available liver from an organ donor.
At a cost of several hundred thousand dollars (probably paid by taxpayers), Concepcion was given the new liver transplant and then arrested and taken to jail. He now awaits an August 11 court hearing to face the charge of murder.
Huge problems in the organ transplant industry
I've been an outspoken opponent of the organ transplant industry for several years. While admittedly the industry does save some lives, it has been apparent for a long time that the industry is far more interested in profit than compassion. Organ transplants make hundreds of millions of dollars for the hospitals, surgeons, organ transportation companies and other specialists involved in transplants. The families whose loved ones donate those organs, meanwhile, receive absolutely nothing for the gift of valuable organs they donate to this system.
This is a case where a "product" (the organ) is given freely to an industry that then turns around and seeks to maximize its profits often without regard to quality of life. And this case of Johnny Concepcion demonstrates this perfectly: Rather than giving the liver to a human being who truly deserves a second chance, the doctors decided to give it to a man accused of murder... and a man who destroyed his own liver by drinking rat poison.
To which I say, "Are you crazy?"
Shouldn't organ transplants go to those who deserve them?
If you drink rat poison and destroy your own liver, that should probably disqualify you from the transplant list. Why? Because you've already proven you don't value your own God-given organs. Why should modern medicine hand over a new one?
The answer, of course, is because there's big money to be made in transplants. So even the guy who consciously drinks poison and destroys his own liver is still on the transplant list. I suppose if someone shoots themselves in the chest, they'd still be on the list to receive a heart transplant too, right?
Well, the sad truth of the matter is that -- get this -- most people (but not all) on organ transplant lists have destroyed their own organs!
Yep, I said it. I told the truth: The majority (but not all) of heart, lung, liver and kidney transplant patients are those who suffer from a history of chemical abuse or nutritional abuse of their bodies. These people include lifelong smokers, drug addicts, alcohol abusers and junk food eaters.
Again, this is most but not all organ transplant recipients. Some of those waiting for organ transplants are truly innocent victims who suffered a car crash, for example, or a rare disease affliction through no fault of their own.
Now what I'm proposing here is going to be extremely unpopular in the organ transplant industry, but it makes sense from a human ethics point of view:
Shouldn't transplants first go to those who most DESERVE a second chance?
Commonsense guidelines for organ transplants
In other words, if your hospital has one spare liver, and you have to choose between three people who all need it (and they're all a recipient match), and the first person is an alcoholic who destroyed his own liver with drinking, and the second person destroyed his own liver with rat poison, but the third person was in a construction accident and lost half his liver through no fault of his own, shouldn't the third person get the liver?
Because, let's face it: There are not enough livers to go around. Not by a long shot. Most people on the transplant waiting list never get a transplant. Even some truly deserving people. And far too often, livers go to people who arguably don't deserve them because they decided to destroy their first liver.
In my view, we should start organizing transplant recipients along the lines of medical ethics, rating each person's "deserving" score based on their level of personal responsibility with the organs they already have. Why should taxpayers, in particular, pay for a half million dollar heart transplant procedure for someone who smokes three packs of cigarettes a day and lives on processed junk food while refusing to exercise? Isn't that a terrible waste of health care dollars?
I mean, if a guy wants to kill himself with cigarettes and junk food, that's his choice. And he's got one set of organs to destroy, and that's it. It's not right to give him a second set and let him destroy those too, especially when someone else may put them to a better use.
Seriously. I know these are not popular questions, and if we had enough livers to go around for everyone, we wouldn't need to ask these questions, but in an environment where livers are limited and funds are limited does it make any sense for a murderer to get a liver while some other innocent car crash victim dies while waiting for one?
Of course not. And the fact that the transplant industry awards these precious organs to the wrong people just demonstrates how far it has veered from the path of medical ethics. (The term "medical ethics" is almost an oxymoron these days...)
Let's nail down some simple rules for organ transplants. We'll call these "common sense rules" for an industry that has lost common sense:
• Rule #1) Murderers should not qualify for organ transplants. No brainer.
• Rule #2) People who consciously destroy their own organs (such as by drinking rat poison) should not qualify for organ transplants.
• Rule #3) People who choose to live unhealthy lifestyles by consuming processed junk foods, abusing drugs or avoiding basic self-care (exercise) should not quality for organ transplants either. Why? Because it's a waste to give a valuable organ to someone who isn't going to take care of it.
• Rule #4) Those individuals who lost their own organs through no fault of their own should move up to the top of the organ transplant waiting lists.
• Rule #5) People should be required to sign a contract before receiving an organ transplant, and that contract should commit them to avoiding alcohol and drugs (including dangerous OTC painkillers which cause liver damage, for example) and pursuing a healthful diet that will support their lifelong health.
Trading in human flesh
You might call these the five basic rules for sensible organ transplantation. These rules probably make perfect sense to you and me, but they make no sense whatsoever to the organ transplant industry. That industry, you see, earns the same amount of profit regardless of whether an innocent victim gets the organ or a convicted murderer gets it. It's all the same to them.
In fact, the organ transplant industry is rife with corruption and misdeeds. I've covered stories in the past where doctors and hospitals were caught secretly trading body parts for profit. Many U.S. hospitals now engage in the black market trafficking of illegally harvested organs (http://www.naturalnews.com/028994_o...). In fact, 44 people, including medical personnel, were recently arrested in the United States for their involvement in organ trafficking.
In addition -- here's another horrifying thought -- many of the organs offered up for transplantation are diseased organs to begin with. Sometimes organs are harvested from people who are riddled with cancer! These organs are then transplanted right into recipients with no warnings about the cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/027353_h...)
So what you have is an industry that will harvest an organ from just about anybody (cancer patients, smokers, drug users, chemotherapy victims, etc.) and transplant that organ into anybody else (murderers, rapists, smokers, etc.) and earn a hefty profit doing so.
It doesn't sound so nice when you look at the real story here, does it? The organ transplant industry is a lot darker and dishonest than what it's publicly made out to be.
Publicly, it's all sold to you as "saving lives." But behind the scenes, it's really about profiting from human flesh, regardless of whether it actually helps a human being who deserves it.
Reforms desperately needed
Again, this is not to say that the organ transplant industry doesn't sometimes do the right thing. I have no doubt it ends up saving many deserving lives, but this does not seem to be the driving factor behind its (literal) operations. The industry seems a lot more interested in finding any diseased organ it can get its hands on and thrusting it into any living recipient they can find without engaging in any sort of calculation about quality of life or human compassion.
And that's where the industry has gone terribly wrong.
Today, those who donate their organs have to face the very real possibility that their organs could be given to a murderer who may then use them to go out and commit even more murderers.
At the same time, those who receive organ transplants have no way to know whether those organs were harvested from cancer patients, drug abusers or chemotherapy victims. So even if you're "lucky enough" to receive an organ, it might already be riddled with cancer anyway. You're stuck with the transplant bill but might die of cancer from the organ you received!
Read this story, Body part harvesting company sold parts from dead cancer patients, drug users for use in surgery recipients (http://www.naturalnews.com/020109_o...)
Such is the status of the organ transplant industry today.
It doesn't have to be this way, however. There is arguably a place for organ transplants for true victims of accidents or other causes outside of their control. But for people who just eat junk foods, abuse drugs and alcohol, avoid exercise and live a toxic life, an organ transplant makes no scientific sense. But it does make money... and that's why they keep being performed.
Is it ethical to donate your organs to this system?
Make no mistake: Many U.S. hospitals deal in human flesh. They are waiting for car crash victims, suicide victims and other recently dead in order to rip their organs out of their body and transplant them for profit. And although this is beyond the scope of this particular article, I have seen disturbing evidence that if you list yourself as an organ donor on your driver's license, there is a chance your organs may actually be harvested before you are truly dead.
When you're an organ donor, there's a rush, after all, to cut out your heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and other parts before they lose too much oxygen. And the very best way to do that, medically speaking, is to make sure your heart is still beating when they begin harvesting.
I truly believe there are cases where organ donors have been turned over to the organ harvesting team rather than the resuscitation team even when they were not truly dead. But we'll probably cover that in another story on another day.
In the mean time, I strongly urge you to think carefully about your own organ donation status and how your organs could end up in the body of a murderer. I realize that not all organ donations are bad, and some organ transplants truly do save deserving lives, but until the organ transplant industry reforms itself and disavows the abuses outlined here, I personally will not support it, and I will urge others to avoid it.
This is sad because I know that many deserving victims of accidents need organ transplants. But the system in place today too often denies them access to those organs while wasting them on others who simply don't deserve new organs.
Above all, remember this: the best way to save lives is to take care of the organs you were born with. If you don't destroy the liver you already have, you won't need a new one!
What destroys livers? Pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter medications, for one thing. So does chemotherapy. Isn't it fascinating that the treatments of one branch of medicine (oncology) create more business for the transplant industry by destroying livers, hearts and kidneys? That's called repeat business.
If you really want to destroy your liver, by the way, take some acetaminophen painkillers (http://www.naturalnews.com/026565_d...). This common painkiller has also been linked with kidney damage (http://www.naturalnews.com/001523.html).
Think about it: If the medical industry really cared about protecting your liver, they wouldn't keep prescribing medicines that destroy livers!
http://www.naturalnews.com/029296_organ_transplants_liver.html
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That article makes a lot of sense. Except, when I went through my evaluation they would not list me until I had a bunch of tests.... yearly! And I know people who are not listed until they lose weight, or quit smoking or are not ever listed because they smoked a joint when they were 13. So, I thought it was pretty tough to get listed? Guess not!
One reason I'm not listed is the greed of these doctors and hospitals. The donor gets nothing and the doctors and hospitals and labs make huge amounts of money off the transplant even if it never works. The writer hits that nail right on the head.
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Rerun, I also thought I was put through a lot of scrutiny to become listed which is why I'm so surprised that this person actually got an organ. Who the hell screwed up there?
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Those of us on the list had to do back flips, sign our life away and promise our first born to pass all the evaluations. This just doesn't make any sense. How in the world can they think he is in a mental state to take care of this new organ? I don't really get it, either.
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UPDATE: RETRACTION:
The New York Post took down their story on July 27 and issued the following statement:
“In Monday’s editions of the New York Post we published a story that confessed wife killer Johnny Concepcion underwent a liver transplant operation at New York Presbyterian Hospital. The hospital today issued a statement that no such operation took place. The Post relied on two NYPD sources for its report and it is now evident they were misinformed. We apologize to our readers for the error. Prior to publishing the story, the Post sought official response from New York Presbyterian Hospital. The Post was denied information by the hospital which stated it could not discuss individual cases because it would be in breach of the [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule (HIPAA). Curiously, the hospital now sees itself free to publicly discuss Mr. Concepcion’s case.”
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Who gets to decide who deserves treatment for anything? If a person is on Medicare, and he is being treated for pulmonary problems brought on by years of smoking, why does he deserve treatment at all at the expense of taxpayers? He may contest that he paid into the system for years and now deserves his free governmental care, but his contributions funded the previous generation. Those of us who work are now paying for free medical care for those seniors who may be ill because of "misbehaviour" in their past. Again, who amongst us really has the moral authority to deny treatment for the "less deserving"? It's a bit of a slippery slope.
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UPDATE: RETRACTION:
The New York Post took down their story on July 27 and issued the following statement:
“In Monday’s editions of the New York Post we published a story that confessed wife killer Johnny Concepcion underwent a liver transplant operation at New York Presbyterian Hospital. The hospital today issued a statement that no such operation took place. The Post relied on two NYPD sources for its report and it is now evident they were misinformed. We apologize to our readers for the error. Prior to publishing the story, the Post sought official response from New York Presbyterian Hospital. The Post was denied information by the hospital which stated it could not discuss individual cases because it would be in breach of the [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule (HIPAA). Curiously, the hospital now sees itself free to publicly discuss Mr. Concepcion’s case.”
It apparently didn't happen.
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I'm not sure it didn't. I didn't find the story online at first. I went to the barber shop with my son and saw the story on the front page. There are pictures of this man in handcuffs and pictures of him being brought back to prison in a wheelchair. Could this be a cover up? Not sure, but this man DID kill his wife and was seen being brought back in a wheelchair. So, who knows?
As far as who deserves a transplant, I think people who willingly hurt themselves or try to take their life, they should not get transplants. Why would we give them a life saving transplant if they want to die anyway?
For those who have gotten sick b/c of years of alcohol use or smoking, they should be deemed sober and or quit smoking before being allowed an organ. It's not like those folks meant to hurt themselves. So I think it's a bit different in those cases.
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Oops!
:popcorn;
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Newspapers that rely on sensationalism to sell copy often play loosey goosey with their "facts".
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Indeed. Having a "morals test" for medical treatment is a very, very, very slippery slope.
Consider the fact that it is terribly unlikely that you would be the one making the rules.
Are you sure you are completely innocent in the eyes of others?
- rocker
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I absolutely believe this story is true. If people who aren't even citizens of this nation can get transplants, why not murderers? The story was retracted because both parties, the newspaper and the hospital, are covering their asses.
I'm kind of a hard stickler when it comes to transplants. If you were born with a condition that damaged your kidneys, its not your fault. If you eat yourself into oblivion, abuse drugs or alcohol, or fail to manage your diabetes, why should you expect to get a transplant before someone who is playing by the rules?
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You are all right how can we as a people believe anything in the press until honor is restored to this country.As long as a reporter would sell his sole for a story, maybe its true or not who knows.
This Country is the finest in the world and I don't know anywhere I'd rather be than in America, we just need to sort through a few bumbs in politics so we can smell the apple pie again.
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I dont think they should get transplants, bbut denying them dialysis wouldnt be right. I cant imagine the body dying because of that. I went 2 weeks, during a depression bout, without any treatment, and i felt like a bullet to my brain would be a good idea at that point. I couldnt move, I couldnt breath, I couldnt even think straight. It was terrible. My lips turned blue and i couldnt inhale. It was terrible, and I dont believe anyone would deserve that, even if they are getting the death penalty.