Stanek weekend question I: Should the government be involved in organ transplant decisions?
It’s already happening. In less than a week, two cases involving children in need of lung transplants have gone to court challenging government policy.
This leads to the larger question: Should the government be intervening in this sort of healthcare policy to begin with? Be sure to vote in the poll at the bottom of this post.
The backstory, from Politico, June 4:
A federal judge in Philadelphia has granted a temporary restraining order in the second case involving children needing lung transplants in as many days, raising questions among ethicists about political pressure, emotional media coverage and case-by-case decision making about allocating scarce organs.
The family of 11-year-old Javier Acostafiled suit on Thursday against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, seeking broader eligibility for a potentially lifesaving lung transplant for the boy. The family of Sarah Murnaghan [pictured above], 10, had gone to court a day earlier.
Both families challenged the current national transplant policy, which puts children younger than 12 first in line for organs from a child, even though pediatric lung donors are even rarer than adult donors. Both families wanted the age limitation lifted, so they could be eligible for organs from adult donors, too.
In both cases, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson ordered Sebelius to put the children on the adult waiting list. The children, who have cystic fibrosis and are at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, are now on both the adult and pediatric waiting lists….
The lung transplantation policy has come under fire from some members of Congress, too, who had pressed Sebelius to intervene. Some conservative blogs said she was acting like a “death panel”….
But experts in the transplantation community are worried that the cases could send a troubling message. Namely, if you’ve got a problem with a transplant waiting list policy, take your case to your local television station and sue the government.
And while you’re at it, recruit your congressional delegation to the cause, medical establishment be damned. Then you may move up the list….
This particular policy was implemented in 2005 after five years of deliberation over how to replace the first-come, first-served standard. That had been the norm to that date and paid no heed to medical urgency.
Commenter Jim on Dustin Siggins’ Facebook page noted:
On the one hand, Sebelius did the right thing by staying out of it (IMO). On the other, why does the government mandate age restrictions on these types of things? They should stay out of it, altogether.
If the girl was on the transplant list and went through the same screening as everyone else, she should qualify for whatever her doctors believe is best. Government involvement prohibits the doctors from doing their job and changes the medical market to look at society as a whole rather than as numerous individuals.
In this case, mob rule wins… everyone better just hope and pray that the girl survives or Sebelius and the Federal government will look like geniuses. And yes, this sets a terrible precedent that if you can sway a politician, you have a better chance than those already in line.
Your thoughts?
[Photo via Philly.com]
It’s worth noting that the current rules were put in place to HELP children. I did a bit of research on this – what was happening before was, wait times ruled everything – so when kids died, adults were getting the lungs (because they had waited longest), and kids were getting left out of the process too often – so they did the rules for kids, and the rules for adults, to make sure that kids weren’t at a disadvantage.
To answer the question – it seems to me that there needs to be rules, firm rules, and that all need to abide by the rules – and that those rules are overseen by the medical community, not the government.
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This reminds me of something I read years ago. A boy named Pierre had leukemia and needed bone marrow transplants. His Dad had had an extra-marital affair a few years previously that led to the birth of twins. Pierre’s family sued to have the bone marrow of the twins taken. The mother of the twins said, “I do not want to see my children in pain. My priority in this is my children.”
I don’t know how the court eventually ruled or what became of Pierre. It is interesting.
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B-B-B-But taking lungs out of a “brain dead” patient stops a beating heart! Being dismembered is not a natural death! You want doctors deciding who lives & who dies willy-nilly with no government oversight? How can pro-lifers support organ transplants?? OMG what about Terri Schiavo????
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Here’s the solution. Sarah just needs 40% of an adult lung so if Javier is the same blood type, then give the rest of an adult lung to him. That’s 2 transplants for the price of 1.
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Lisa, a person can live with 1 lung. A Lung transplant is ethical since a person can live with 1 lung. I hope that a kind person will give a portion of one of their lungs so that Sarah and Javier can live.
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The less the government is involved in the better.
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This really is a pile of C**P and I’m so incensed at the profound ignorance (means – ‘lack of knowledge’), Obamacare was about medical insurance: its as if the medicine itself didn’t need fixing/updating/a-basic-overhaul ,,,,. and that damned almighty buck strikes again ,,, and again …. and again!
In 1981 I traveled to Ascaffenburg, Germany to be treated by a medical professor Dr. Fravz Schmid, who was a proponent/researcher in a new form of medicine called: Cell Therapy [Zelltherapie in German]. I was one of the first worldwide to apply this procedure to my very rare disease. [[But as I soon found out it had helped literally thousands of kids with ‘hopeless’ conditions – ‘hopeless’ to standard/orthodox medicine.
The concept is very simple. Drugs mean sending a flood of one chemical to fix-a-problem. Say you wished to re-build your bathroom. You can choose: A) send a ton of floor-tiles only (delivered to the kitchen, of course); or B) send a wide-range of things that belong to a bathroom. Inject organ tissue and the affected organ will have what it need to repair itself- problem solved!
– sheep-DNA were found to be almost identical with humans (except for two amino acids) – so sheep were farmed as donor animals
– use fetal organ tissues + placenta, to trick the body into a fast-growth/repair phase
– freeze dry the tissues so ANY doctor can inject this material
– the material is not super-powdered, but the amino acids with the two non-human ones are distroyed by the immune system; the rest used for repair.
– the sequence of the amino acid determines which organ the cell-material goes to – so a doctor injecting subcutaneously in the lower back can repair the bran; the spinal columh; the liver; the pancreas; the heart; lungs; or any other tissue..
COST … a thorough revamping of ‘orthodox’ medical practice today, with its reliance on a ‘drugs-only’ approach and this is much, much less than any operation and more effective in outcome. Besides there is no need for lifelong immune-suppressing drugs. Demand change …. not make it illegal in the USA.
–
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SIDENOTE ;;; Sheep were also found to be without cancer … so Resisto-cell was developed. This is mainstream, and not only for rare things.
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Lisa, legal organ donation isn’t about taking organs from patients in vegetative states when doctors merely hypothesize that they are “brain dead”. Organ donation occurs when the body is fully and literally dead on it’s own accord. Time of death has already been called. Life saving measures have already been surrendered. There is literally nothing doctors can to do to prevent that person being in the grave. Modern medicine allows us to force a heart to beat and lungs to inhale/exhale in order to prevent the decay of other organs, during which time respectful surgery is performed on the already dead person so that their wish of helping their fellow man in one final act can be fulfilled. Organ donation doesn’t stop beating hearts - it medically forces them to beat just a little longer until it allows them to beat in another chest. Organ donation is not tearing apart a growing body but is precisely and respectfully removing select parts that have been willfully donated by the person who won’t be using them anymore. Doctors have no decision in the life of someone who donates an organ – that decision is out of their hands. The decision to give the organ is personal, by the individual or the family, only in response to the Divine decision that has been placed before them.
And honestly, the risks of such delicate scenarios cause a lot of people to think we should stay away from them… so don’t assume all pro-lifers are full-steam-ahead for organ donation. But there is no hypocrisy for pro-lifers who do support organ donation. The intent to to preserve as much life as possible and to place firm safeguards against any life being ended before the God-appointed hour.
Terri Schiavo took weeks to die from dehydration with no medical equipment propering her up because her body was alive and desiring hydration, though disabled and unable to retrieve it for herself.
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What do you think of the case I related?
Should the courts have forced Pierre’s half-siblings to give up their bone marrow?
It could be argued that it would be better for the twins in the long run because they would have a living half-brother as a result of the sacrifice.
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Sorry forgot to include that because of freeze-drying the cell material is very portable … easily fits into a pocket; travels anywhere – even to the remotet jungle/desert/mountaintop and shelf life of 10-20 years … means NO SHORTAGE, EVARRRRR!!!
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Laurie…you are wrong. First, we don’t know what really constitutes death. “Brain dead” and “vegetative” people have woken up. There was the story recently in the news about the teen who HEARD them say they were going to harvest his organs!!! He wasn’t “dead” after all. Because you actually CANNOT transplant dead tissue. Tissues start to die very quickly after death so the heart still needs to be beating to keep organs healthy enough for transplant. So doctors devised “brain death” as the standard.
Organ donation saves lives…while taking other lives. The whole thing bothers me because there are many cases where someone was declared dead but woke up.
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This isn’t the story I was thinking of but this was equally compelling, imo.
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/22/21-year-old-man-wakes-from-coma-before-doctors-take-organs/
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Denise – this is the case, right?
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-20/news/mn-5084_1_bone-marrow-transplants
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Laurie says:
Organ donation occurs when the body is fully and literally dead on it’s own accord.
Sydney is right. Laurie, your statement is wrong. Brain death is not death, and the tests involved to determine brain death can actually cause brain death. Very scary. And this is why, although I want any organs possible to be donated after my actual death, I will not sign up on my states automatic donor registry.
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Ex-GOP says:
June 8, 2013 at 3:57 pm
Denise – this is the case, right?http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-20/news/mn-5084_1_bone-marrow-transplants
(Denise) Yes. How sad. : (
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DRAWBACKS to Cell Therapy ::: Because of a constitution enacted after WW ii, Germany has some very strict laws … to some, they would be pro-life. These laws forbade human cellls being used as donor material. Such protection was not in place in Turkey, where many children (up to 2 years old), had their organs ‘harvested’. Prof Schmid said these cells showed no advantage over using sheep-cells. I can just hear PC voices now. First trimester cell material is too young. To be of any use at all a biological point of cell differentiation must be reached first.
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If the government did not set transplant policies, then the alternative to the government–the free market–would. How many people sincerely believe that it would be better to sell organs to the highest bidder?
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What about the case I mentioned?
Should the mother of the twins have been legally obligated to allow them to be tested to see if they could help their half-brother?
Was being in pain temporarily worse than knowing they could have saved their brother’s life and did not?
Was the Mom really concerned about her kids or getting back at Dad?
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Hey LisaC,
Like you, I wish to end abortion, But I believe it thrives in an atmosphere of modern medical complacency. Its been this way for 30 years but can the babies tolerate 30 more? Can you? Your question is based on futility because it implies that a reasonable response is ‘no’.
Are you willing to see the status quo … the culture of death …. until YOU DIE (when it won’t count any more)? I hope today that I have planted the seeds of just one possibility. So in 30 years, I won’t have to still be feeding dreams.
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“If the government did not set transplant policies, then the alternative to the government–the free market–would. How many people sincerely believe that it would be better to sell organs to the highest bidder?”
Basically this. But you never know, maybe some people would think it preferable if 70 year old millionaires get organs before poor 12 year olds.
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Sorry for my imprecise, non-medical language. I did not do an adequate job of saying what I meant to say (that organ donation and abortion are not in the same category for numerous reasons) - no bother now… but Sydney and Lming, you fit exactly what I was trying to say in my second paragraph – the risks involved in calling that precise moment are why many people consider organ donation very scary and something to be bothered by. Thanks.
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