LESSONS FROM THE LIVING KIDNEY VENDOR PROGRAM IN IRAN

[okarol]

Health Issues

April 24, 2008
LESSONS FROM THE LIVING KIDNEY VENDOR PROGRAM IN IRAN

The United States labors under the ill conceived notion that the sale of organs should be prohibited under all circumstances, says the Cato Institute.

What are the consequences of this policy?

    * In the United, 341,000 patients suffering from end-stage renal disease were dialysis-dependent in 2005 -- triple the number in 1988.
    * More than 73,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant from a deceased donor, and by 2010, the waiting list is expected to grow to nearly 100,000.
    * Since 1999 more than 30,000 U.S. patients with kidney failure have died waiting for an organ that never arrived.

Also:

    * Nearly 6.5 percent of the Medicare budget, 21 billion dollars was spent on behalf of 0.6 percent of eligible beneficiaries with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) in 2005.
    * Of that $21 billion, only $586 million was spent on kidney acquisition and transplantation.

In Iran however, the waiting list for kidneys was eliminated in 1999, 11 years after the legalization of organ vending.  For the past 8 years, Iran has had no waiting list for kidneys.  If a patient in need of a transplant cannot find a living biologically living relative willing to donate and waits for six months without receiving a kidney from a deceased donor, then the Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association (DATPA) identifies an immunologically compatible kidney vendor for the recipient.

DATPA is staffed by volunteers with ESRD and receives no remuneration for matching kidney vendors with recipients, and only Iranian citizens can act as donors and recipients.  Vendors are paid in two ways:

    * The Iranian government provides a fixed compensation to the vendor of approximately $1,200 plus limited health insurance coverage.
    * The vendor also receives remuneration either from the recipient or, from one of a series of designated charitable organizations; usually between $2,300 and $4,500.

Source: Benjamin E. Hippen, Organs Sales and Moral Travails'" CATO Institute, March 20, 2008.

For text:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-614.pdf

For more on Health Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=16

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=16412

[BigSky]

Actually the documentary channel had a little deal about Iran and kidney donation.

Their system isnt all that great as most that donate do it merely for the money of which most seem to end back in the place they started from.

http://www.documentarychannel.com/main/content/view/177/1/

[stauffenberg]

They do donate for the money, though since it officially changes hands through a committee of mullahs it is made to look less commercial.  I am never impressed by the arguments that paid kidney donors often turn out after a few years to be as poor as before they donated, since that is not the fault of the paid kidney donation system, but of the massive poverty in the countries where paid donation exists, which soaks up whatever money the poor get in a short time to deal with unemployment, lack of investment opportunities, need to pay for primary schooling for the children, and need to pay for basic social services which are free in the developed world.

Shortly after I went on dialysis an old friend from Iran coincidentally got in touch with me again.  When I told her I would probably die on dialysis, she couldn't understand it, since she just assumed the Iranian system was used everywhere in the world, so why didn't I just get a transplant?