Cato Study Finds Iran a Surprising Model for Kidney Markets

Cato Study Finds Iran a Surprising Model for Kidney Markets

Iran's compensation program completely eliminates kidney shortage

WASHINGTON, March 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The United States
suffers from an acute shortage of kidneys for transplant, with 73,000
people waiting for deceased donors to make organs available. Allowing
compensation for donors, an idea that has allowed Iran to completely
eliminate its waiting lists, would help solve this problem, reports a new
study by the Cato Institute.

In "Organ Sales and Moral Travails," Benjamin E. Hippen, MD, transplant
nephrologist, shows that Iran's system of compensated donation has
effectively provided the organs needed for transplant. "Iran is the only
country that legally permits kidney vending," he writes. "The waiting list
for kidneys was eliminated in 1999, 11 years after the legalization of
organ vending, and for the past 8 years, Iran has had no waiting list for
kidneys."

Concerns about the negative impacts of offering financial incentives
for kidney donation naturally arise. Hippen reports that Iran has addressed
this problem by putting a non-profit intermediary between potential kidney
vendors and patients in need. "Separating the role of identifying vendors
from the role of evaluating their medical, surgical, and psychological
suitability permits transplant professionals to avoid confusing judgment on
a vendor's candidacy with various financial and professional incentives to
perform more transplants," Hippen writes.

Though the Iranian system is not perfect, it offers lessons that would
be of value to American policy makers seeking to reduce the United States'
tragic organ shortage by setting up markets. "A review of 20 years of
experience with a living organ vendor system in Iran reveals successes,
deficiencies, and ambiguities," Hippen concludes. "If the discussion of
kidney markets in this country can progress beyond preconceptions as to
what can and cannot work, in Iran or elsewhere, to an examination of the
example of the Iran based on the evidence, that will be a significant step
in the right direction."

Link to study: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9273

The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan public policy research foundation
dedicated to broadening policy debate consistent with the traditional
American principles of individual liberty, limited government, free
markets, and peace.

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