Transplantation: high risk of commercialization for patients and physicians

Transplantation: high risk of commercialization for patients and physicians
"Commercialization of transplantation has a potential to subvert and distort the traditional advocacy and caring role of doctors in the process of evaluation of potential living kidney donors", Dr. Gabriel M. Danovitch (UCLA Los Angeles) criticizes. "The inclusion of major financial rewards for donation puts pressure on transplant doctors to act against their best medical judgement and transplant donors to act against their best medical interests."

"Trust is a critical element of the donor evaluation process and in an altruism-based system that trust can typically be presumed because of mutual concern for well-being between the donor and the recipient: Such is not the case when the process is commercialized and anonymous. Coercion and even blackmail my be difficult to recognize in the standard evaluation process.

Commercialization also exposes both the donor and recipient to risks that are reflected in the high rate of complications in recipients of purchased kidneys and a lack of knowledge of the fate of paid donors..."

Danovitch and colleagues deliver an overview of current worldwide achievements, analyses, controversies, and dilemmas in medicine:

Organ Transplantation - Ethical, Legal and Psychosocial Aspects
W. Weimar, M.A. Bos, J.J. Busschbach (Eds)
Pabst Science Publishers, Lengerich/Berlin, 584 pages
ISBN 978-3-89967-415-6

http://www.pabst-publishers.de/aktuelles/20090629-2.htm