I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: Wattle on June 02, 2007, 09:08:56 PM
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This is an older article I have come across while researching the topic of Jesus Christians.
We have a program here called Australian Story which it airing a program on Monday night about a young man who is going to Canada to donate a kidney to a women he has just met throught the group. She is nearing dialysis. The mother of the young man is trying to stop the donation. Here is the link: http://www.abc.net.au/austory/ Its titled Ash's Anatomy.
I have never heard of this group until now. Have any of you heard of it?
Would you give your kidney to a stranger?
The ethics and hazards surrounding living donors
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- Barry Mendez gave one of his kidneys to a stranger -- a good-natured act that has stirred concern among medical ethicists.
It is not unusual for doctors to get organs from corpses or from people who know the recipient. In 2005, for example, about 6,900 transplants involved living donors, nearly all of whom were relatives or friends of the recipient.
By contrast, Mendez is one of only about 400 people nationwide who are known to have ever donated to a stranger.
Mendez is a member of the Jesus Christians, a group that calls itself a "live-by-faith, work-for-God-not-money Christian community." There are 28 Jesus Christians worldwide and 15 have given kidneys. (Watch donating for salvation -- 2:26)
In Australia, where the group was founded, the government for the state of Victoria is suspicious of the Jesus Christians and has banned its members from donating to strangers.
The Australian press has alleged that leader David McKay has coerced members into donating. McKay says the Jesus Christians are not a cult and he has never coerced any of them into donating a kidney.
Mendez said he gave his kidney willingly.
"I have done something to help someone," Mendez told CNN after his surgery last year at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. "And that is the message of love basically, from my understanding, what Jesus was trying to teach us."
Many European countries ban so-called good Samaritan donors or make it difficult for them to donate. As a result, some like the Jesus Christians come to the United States.
Disagreement on the issue
Psychiatrists, surgeons and ethicists are split on the issue of whether people should donate organs to strangers. (Listen to arguments on both sides)
While Johns Hopkins and other prestigious transplant centers like the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have taken organs from Jesus Christians, others think the practice is patently wrong.
Donna Luebke, a practicing nurse and board member of the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees transplantation in the United States, said she cannot believe hospitals take organs from Jesus Christians.
"I think their leader's coercive of the followers," Luebke said. "I think there needs to be an investigation into what centers are doing those surgeries."
Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said hospitals have other concerns.
"They're not thinking about the donors first and foremost. They're thinking about the recipients," Caplan said.
"They're thinking about what that means to save lives, which is why they do this. What it means to keep them financially going, which is done by transplanting people.
"You're out of business if you don't have the organs," Caplan continued. "And that's the first and the second order of business. Kind of down at third or fourth [are] donor advocacy, donor protection."
Mendez's surgeon at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Robert Montgomery, said Mendez was given a psychological examination and found to be fit.
"Just because a large number of people in a group have done a good thing doesn't mean they're crazy," Montgomery said.
Physical requirements
Aside from these psychological and ethical issues, experts can't agree on physical requirements.
If someone has high blood pressure, should they be allowed to give a kidney? What if high blood pressure damages the person's remaining kidney years later?
If someone is grossly overweight, should doctors let them give a kidney, even though obese people have relatively high rates of kidney problems later in life? What kind of risk is acceptable?
"Why not?" said Dr. Benedict Cosimi, president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. "An individual may have what, by written guidelines, is alcoholism, but is a functional individual and can make a decision and wants to give an organ to a family member or a loved one.
"And I think they should be allowed to do that. And the same thing is true with individuals who have drug issues."
Cosimi said if there were more rules to living donation, fewer people would donate.
CNN found transplant surgeons have different ideas about risk. In many ways, it comes down to whether having a kidney or a liver section removed affects a person's health years later.
But hospitals don't routinely follow living donors for more than a year -- if that long.
A prominent transplant doctor told CNN, "Well, we don't track people for years after having bunion surgery, either."
The United Network for Organ Sharing says there have been more than 75,000 kidneys tranplanted from living donors since 1988. A study by the group found that 117 kidney donors have ended up years later on the waiting list themselves looking for kidneys.
Psychological hazards
There also is some indication that some people have adverse psychological effects after donating an organ.
A University of Pennsylvania study found that some donors become depressed, even suicidal, after donation.
One of the study's chief researchers, Dr. Robert Weinrieb, said people who want to donate to strangers, for nothing in return, make him particularly nervous.
"What makes me uneasy is the possibility that these people are trying to fix something in themselves," Weinrieb said.
"And they may be very disappointed once they've done that and found that the thing they've tried to fix can't be fixed."
Mendez, in his early 30s, has pronounced himself healthy, psychologically and physically well -- more than a year after his kidney donation.
He now travels through Europe doing missionary work.
"CNN Presents" teamed up with Deborah Shelton of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Center for Investigative Reporting to produce "Body Parts."
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/06/01/living.donors/index.html
© 2007 Cable News Network.
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i googled it, there is quite a bit on them, they even have a web site http://www.jesus-teachings.com. rather strange.
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i've been looking at some other web sites and reading some articles on what to me is a cult plain and simple. these people are just plain scary.
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i've been looking at some other web sites and reading some articles on what to me is a cult plain and simple. these people are just plain scary.
Why is that?
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i've been looking at some other web sites and reading some articles on what to me is a cult plain and simple. these people are just plain scary.
Why is that?
they advocate severing relationships with all family and friends.
not working for money and letting your faith in jesus provide for all their needs. yet they ask for donations for their literature, to me that's begging.
google it and you'll get a wealth of information
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That story is from a year ago, but there has been a lot of media coverage recently. I have met Dave McKay, their founder, through Living Donors Online. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Jesus Christians. Whether you believe in their philosophy or not, the truth remains that despite the fact that they are a very small group, a large percentage of them have donated kidneys to strangers. You can read a recent thread regarding a news story here. http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/dcforum/DCForumID7/4349.html
and from the intended recipient here http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/dcforum/DCForumID7/4353.html
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That story is from a year ago, but there has been a lot of media coverage recently. I have met Dave McKay, their founder, through Living Donors Online. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Jesus Christians. Whether you believe in their philosophy or not, the truth remains that despite the fact that they are a very small group, a large percentage of them have donated kidneys to strangers. You can read a recent thread regarding a news story here. http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/dcforum/DCForumID7/4349.html
and from the intended recipient here http://www.livingdonorsonline.org/dcforum/DCForumID7/4353.html
Thanks Again Karol for your expert tracking skills. I have now read up on the case and will be watching the show tonight.
I would love to see altruistic donations increase in Australia. Maybe if he was donating in Australia he might have got a better response from the media.
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Hospital refuses to accept kidney
June 4, 2007 - 2:15PM
The Sydney Morning Herald
A Canadian hospital has refused to accept the offer of a kidney to a stranger by an Australian religious cult member as a way of expressing his faith in God.
Sydney man Ash Falkingham is a member of the Jesus Christians, a group led by guru David Mckay, who believe kidney donation is the "ultimate" expression of faith.
Nineteen of the group's 30 members living in Kenya, Britain, the United States and Australia have donated a kidney as part of their desire to "live selflessly", ABC Television's Australian Story reports tonight.
Mr Falkingham believes the group, led by guru David McKay, is simply following the true teachings of Christ.
Mr Falkingham's operation was scheduled for April 30 - until the hospital questioned whether he had been coerced by the group, dubbed "the kidney cult".
His parents, Kate and Nick Croft, say they believe the Jesus Christians had "brainwashed" their son, and contacted health authorities in Ontario to express their disapproval of a plan they see as "madness".
The 22-year-old has spent the past 10 weeks in Canada waiting to hear whether the Toronto General Hospital would approve his donation.
Following a psychiatric assessment to determine whether Mr Falkingham was capable of giving informed consent, the hospital informed him at the weekend they would not go ahead with the operation.
He is now on his way back to Australia.
Mr Falkingham was in Canada for the operation because "non-directed" kidney donations are banned in Australia.
He said that under Australian law he would be required to have a long-term friendship with a recipient before donating.
He barely knows the Canadian woman, Sandi Sabloff, who was to have received his kidney, having met her online through the website Living Donors.
"The Jesus Christians believe that what Jesus said, he meant," Mr Falkingham said.
"I decided to do it [donate a kidney] because I like positive things that can be done to help people.
"And I also saw that they [other members] weren't really affected by the operation."
Mr Falkingham said he wanted to go ahead with the donation because he likes "positive things that can be done to help people".
"People might see me as ... young and naive and idealistic ... [but] I see it as a small thing," Mr Falkingham said.
"There are 6 billion people on the planet and helping one, I think it's just human nature."
But his parents contacted the health authority in Ontario, pointing out that later on Mr Falkingham might feel the hospital was responsible for not picking up that he was being coerced into donating his kidney.
Mr McKay decided kidney donation was the "ultimate" expression of faith after seeing the film A Gift of Love, the true story of a boy who donates a kidney to his grandmother.
Mr Falkingham joined the group three years ago, and since then his mother and stepfather have been trying to rescue him.
His mother said donating an organ to a complete stranger was "shocking".
"I was living in a world of aghastness," Ms Croft said of discovering her son's plan.
"I would say it [Jesus Christians] is a cult. I would say it's a sect. I would say it's madness."
When Mr Falkingham first joined the group contact with his family was limited to email.
"It seems like it's part of McKay's practice to make the new recruits cut off their ties with their friends and family," Mr Falkingham's stepfather, Nick Croft, said.
Mr Croft also accuses the Jesus Christians of draining his stepson's bank account - although Mr McKay says every member willingly puts their money into a "common fund".
Ms Sabloff said she was devastated and heartbroken at the news that she would not be receiving Mr Falkingham's kidney.
She suffers from a form of kidney disease from which her brother has already died.
Australian Story screens tonight at 8pm on ABC TV.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hospital-refuses-to-accept-kidney/2007/06/04/1180809387667.html?s_cid=rss_smh
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This is why it is so hard to get altruistic donations recognised in Australia. The negative media coverage they get is overwhelming.
I don't believe a kidney donation is a sign of true faith or any person should be 'encouraged' to donate as a sign of thier faith. But there are people out there that would like to donate a kidney to help someome else. Why not let them donate in Australia? :banghead;
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Here is the Transcript of the interview that was aired last night.
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s1942849.htm
Interesting interview. I am unsure how I feel about the whole issue and the people involved. Its all a little weird.