Why Should They Die?

Fact and Comment
Steve Forbes, Editor-In-Chief

Why Should They Die?

08.24.09, 12:00 AM ET

One of those arrested in July's extraordinary New Jersey roundup of mayors, legislators and others for alleged money laundering and corruption was a Brooklyn man accused of trying to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant operation. The accused allegedly boasted that he had brokered many such sales. This brought on the usual outcries over the need to crack down--including leveling stiffer penalties--on the selling of human body parts and organs.

There is a much better--and infinitely more humane--way to deal with this problem. Such surreptitious selling takes place only because there is a heartbreakingly long line of Americans waiting for a kidney replacement--more than 80,000 at last count. There are also shortages of livers, hearts and lungs.

The case of Apple CEO Steve Jobs underscored this mortal crisis when it was revealed that he had had a lifesaving liver transplant this spring. Some accused Jobs of "jumping the line." He didn't. The United Network for Organ Sharing, the congressionally created agency that administers the organ-donor process, divides the country into districts. Not surprisingly, certain areas have shorter waiting lists than others. Jobs simply listed with a transplant center in a region in which he'd have a chance of getting a new liver before he died. This incident once again points up the current system's deadly shortcomings.

Our organ-donor system depends on voluntary donors, and the network maintains the waiting lists. More than 4,500 Americans die every year because they don't get their needed kidney transplant; many others go through debilitating dialysis treatment--and eventual premature death. In addition, more than 1,000 are removed from the list each year because of declining health. Thousands more perish for lack of a liver, heart or lung.

How do we get more donors? Promptly take up a suggestion of Dr. Sally Satel and others to create incentives for people to become donors. Satel observed in a recent Wall Street Journal piece that there are a variety of ways in which this can be done. States could "offer health and life insurance to living donors or funeral benefits to families of posthumous donors."

One of the most effective and simplest things would be for states to waive fees for people applying for or renewing their driver's license if they agree to become a donor when they die.

Another solution would be to make it legal for people--under strict procedures concerning consent and safety--to buy an organ from a healthy adult. The public is not likely to sanction such sales, but there are other ways to increase the pool of donors.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0824/opinions-steve-forbes-why-should-they-die.html