***I'll Give you a Dollar Tomorrow for a Kidney Today

[Zach]

Please go to the comments section of the New York Times article and let your voice be heard.



http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/new-hope-for-organ-transplants/?hp

December 17, 2008, 1:59 PM

New Hope for Organ Transplants?

By JOHN TIERNEY

For the first time, the number of Americans waiting for an organ transplant has surpassed 100,000, and if past experience is any guide, more than 6,000 can be expected to die next year. Meanwhile, the number of people donating organs has not been increasing — it actually declined slightly last year. But there may be some help on the way for people in need of a transplant, as the Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial.

The National Kidney Foundation, which has has been one of the chief opponents of proposals to offer incentives to donors, told the Journal that it will reconsider its position at a meeting next month. And a bill being introduced next session by Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican, would ease a federal restriction on providing any “valuable consideration” to organ donors. His bill would still ban direct cash payments to donors, but it would allow states to experiment with incentives like tax credits, contributions to 401K plans and tuition vouchers. In Pennsylvania, as Sally Satel has noted, the law has prevented the state from paying burial or cremation expenses for organ donors, even though it is legal to do so for people who donate their bodies to science.

Dr. Satel, who wrote about her own search for a kidney transplant in the Times Magazine, has enlisted an array of experts to design a system offering new incentives to kidney donors. The results of their work will be published in a new book from American Enterprise Institute, “When Altruism Isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors.” It’s coming out next month, just in time for the National Kidney Foundation’s meeting to reconsider its position.

Do you have any advice for the foundation, or for the members of Congress who will be considering Mr. Specter’s bill next year? Should these new incentives be promoted? And should even more incentives be considered — like setting up a market so that people could sell their kidneys?

[kimcanada]

I might be way out in left field but it seems to me that the "bigger business" dialysis gets the more poorly they are informing people about kidney donation...


I think that 50 odd years should be long enough that people know at least the basics about being a live donor. 

And if they think they are doing a good enough job, maybe it's time to get someone else in charge, perhaps the person behind the breast cancer campaign could take over our cause

[Sunny]

I think incentives are a great idea. I like the idea of tax write-offs, burial payments (for cadaver transplants), and free life-time medical care for living donors which might serve to ease their minds about donation. Short of flat out paying for kidneys, some incentives are in order if we want to motivate people to be living donors or cadaver donors. I don't think the U.S. is ready for a kidney buying system yet. We have to make little steps. Incentives are a good start.

[Rerun]

I said my piece.

                             

[Zach]

I said my piece.

                             

Fantastic piece, Rerun!!  (#45. December 18, 2008 1:18 am)

I hope more members of IHD will stand up and be counted on The New York Times comments page.

[thegrammalady]

i've said it before and i'm going to keep saying it. we pay medical costs, living expenses and sometimes outright cash incentives for surrogate mothers and don't call it buying a baby, why shouldn't we do the same thing for organ donors.

i put my  in and found others with similar comments.