Kidneys for Sale - Iranian organ donation

[okarol]

Kidneys for Sale - Iranian organ donation

Kerry Howley | June 2008 Print Edition

“What can Iran teach us about good governance?” is not a question often posed in Washington. But according to Benjamin Hippen, a transplant nephrologist in North Carolina, the Iranians have managed to do something American policy makers have long thought impossible: They’ve found kidneys for every single citizen in need.

As Hippen explains in a March report for the Cato Institute, the Iranian government has been paying kidney donors since 1988. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, donors and recipients work through an independent organization known as the Dialysis and Transplant Patient Association. Donors approach the association on their own; they cannot be recruited by physicians or referred by brokers with financial incentives. They receive $1,200 and limited health coverage from the government, in addition to direct remuneration from the recipient—or, if the recipient is impoverished, from one of several charitable organizations. The combination of charitable and governmental payments ensures that poor recipients are treated as well as wealthy ones.

Critics of organ markets often claim that where payments are permitted, altruistic donation will drop off. Hippen found this is not the case in Iran. The country’s deceased donor program, started in 2000, has grown steadily alongside paid donation. (Posthumous donations are not remunerated.) During the last eight years, deceased donations have increased tenfold.

Data on the long-term health of Iranian kidney doors is mixed and inconclusive, so Hippen recommends that any U.S. system closely track donors and provide them with lifelong health care. Since many potential kidney recipients are currently surviving on vastly more expensive dialysis treatment (paid for by Medicare), providing donors with long-term health care is probably more cost-effective than the status quo.

American critics continue to lament that Iran failed to adopt the U.S. policy of banning payment for organs in the mid-1980s. “Carrying this reasoning to its conclusion,” writes Hippen, “would entail admitting that in so doing, Iran would have also incurred our current shortage of organs, our waiting list mortality, and our consequent moral complicity in generating a state of affairs that sustains an international market in illegal organ trafficking.” No other country has managed to eliminate its kidney waiting list; the U.S. has a list 73,000 patients long. Who should be advising whom?

http://www.reason.com/news/printer/126057.html

[Marlon]

I am not sure that any news out of Iran is believable. Do they let in news reporters ? I have never heard of Iran being well known for medical care of any type. There are a considerale number of Iranian doctors who have fled to the US for good. How can their transplant Doctors be as good as other countries which are free to update the information with the International Medical associations.
  They are renown for Persian Carpets and terrorist weapons and the only way I can see them increasing their cadavers is by accidentally blowing themselves up.

[kellyt]

If I'm not mistaken they have absolutely no wait time for kidney donation.  No list, that is.   Can someone confirm or deny?   

[Marlon]

You need to contact Ahmadinejad for that information

[okarol]

"Iran's compensation program completely eliminates kidney shortage." http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=7568.0

[Marlon]

Iran is a dangerous place to be for Americans.  Unconfirmed medical reports from Iran are propaganda by that terrorist regime.
The report written by Dr. Hippel about Iranian reports are non confirmed in American nor European Medical Journals as truthful.
American Journalist are not allowed in , so it appears to be questionable . It may be pure BS. In the wealthy Mosley countries where American Journalists are allowed in, Organ donations are so low, that their citizens travel to Western countries, China and the Philippines for transplants.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/140108.html
Bush Calls for Release of Americans Held in Iran
President George Bush yesterday demanded the release of four Americans being detained in Iran, opening up yet another area of dispute on a day of feverish speculation that elements within the administration were pushing for military action against Tehran.

In a statement on the detainees, some of whom face espionage charges, Mr Bush said: "I strongly condemn their detention at the hands of Iranian authorities. They should be freed immediately and unconditionally."

It is the first public intervention from the White House on behalf of the four detainees - although administration officials said yesterday that there had been efforts behind the scenes.

The remarks came only days after American and Iranian diplomats met in Baghdad in their first formal talks since the severing of diplomatic ties in 1980 after the US embassy hostage crisis.

White House officials scrambled yesterday to demonstrate unified support behind a diplomatic policy toward Iran. Their task was made more challenging as the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, issued warnings about the "new crazies" in the administration who were pressing for military action. "I have no brief other than to make sure we don't go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other," he told the BBC. "You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran'."

Mr ElBaradei's comments led the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to offer swift assurances that the administration remained committed to a diplomacy with Iran - despite recent reports that the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney, was pressing for war.

The national security adviser, Steve Hadley, said Mr Bush had decided to make the statement yesterday because the Americans had been detained for some time and then charged, "and that represented an escalation on the part of the Iranians". He said tensions with Iran over issues such as its nuclear program and activities in Iraq remained unchanged.

"It is not helpful to resolving these outstanding issues we have with Iran - whether it is Iran activity in Iraq that destabilizes that nation, or progress on the nuclear issue - for Iran to be capturing innocent Americans who are in Iran on peaceful business, visiting relatives or other acceptable activity," Mr Hadley said. "It's an unfortunate development, and these people need to be let go promptly."

The arrests of academics Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, journalist Parnaz Azima and businessman Ali Shakeri, have proved awkward for Washington because they highlight a new $75m (£38m) program for democracy activists in Iran. Tehran accuses the four of trying to carry out a soft revolution against the government. Three have been accused of espionage, a charge that carries the death penalty. Mr Shakeri has not yet been charged.

Mr Bush said the four detainees had been working to improve relations between Iranians and Americans and posed no threat to Tehran. "Their presence in Iran - to visit or to conduct humanitarian work - poses no threat," he said.

He also called for information on the whereabouts of a former FBI official, Robert Levinson, who disappeared in March after flying to Iran's Kish Island. Mr Bush said he was troubled by Tehran's refusal to respond to US requests for information about Mr Levinson, funneled through the Swiss authorities.


EDITED: Fixed smiley - okarol/admin

[okarol]

The topic of this thread is Iran's ability to deal with their organ shortage.

[Marlon]

Yes, But it should be truthfull and not a fairy tale. The author didn't even go to Iran, he spoke of corresponding with people in Iran. He is an associate Editor to the American Journal of Transplantation and a Nephrologist in a private group practice. He didn't get his article into that Journal since it would not hold up to medical standards. The magazine which published it has no medical basis.

[monrein]

The article Karol posted is not really a medical article.  Rather, it addresses an issue of public policy which might help to explain why it appeared where it did.

[stauffenberg]

If you do a search under "Iran" + "kidney transplants" on the Pubmed Website maintained by the US National Institute of Health, you can find summaries of medical journal articles on the legal sale of organs for transplant in Iran.  A friend of mine is an Iranian and when I first told her I had kidney disease and would face a long wait for a transplant, she explained to me how the system in Iran works, and it was just that described in this article.