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Kidneys'R Us

acuity said:
Are you actually opposed to organ transplants because they are not "holistic"? (which a transplant cannot be by definition). Or are you simply pointing out that an ethical dilemma exists according to some?
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No, not opposed to organ transplants due to their nature. It is IMO more than an ethical dilemma, it is a quality of life issue.

I don't have an answer, but I see a profound influence on social forces if the population spread biases heavily toward the aged. I don't know if that would be a beneficial, detrimental, or neutral effect overall.

DR
 
ponderingturtle said:
And what are the long term health effects of blood donation compared to the long term effects of donating a kidney?
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From the same Standford link:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/september28/med-scandling-092805.html

A lot of loved ones now realize that the waiting list for a deceased- donor transplant is so long that they're coming forward and offering to donate one of their own.

That goes hand-in-hand with improvements in the method for taking a kidney from a live donor. Laparoscopic or minimally invasive kidney donor surgery results in a more rapid return to daily life activities. While that was first reported about 10 years ago, it really took off in the late 1990s with technical advances in the procedure.

Now more than half of live kidney donations are obtained laparoscopically. Live-kidney donors return quickly to full, active lives without restriction on diet or physical activity. Police, fire and military personnel can all return to active duty after donation. Women may have children after donation. Life expectancy is not affected by donation.
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I am sure the operation is not risk-free and it is obviously more invasive than blood transfusion, but it seems to be a fairly standard procedure with no long lasting effects.

The only downside I can see is Ziggurat's earlier point concerning not having a "spare" kidney in case of some traumatic accident.
 
boooeee said:
From the same Standford link:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/september28/med-scandling-092805.html


I am sure the operation is not risk-free and it is obviously more invasive than blood transfusion, but it seems to be a fairly standard procedure with no long lasting effects.

The only downside I can see is Ziggurat's earlier point concerning not having a "spare" kidney in case of some traumatic accident.
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Jama article

THere many people report a degredation in health after donating a kidney and 97% would not recomend to others about selling kidneys
 
Loss Leader said:
First of all, would the price of a kidney be capped? Or would those in need have to enter a bidding war against each other wherein the wealthy will always get kidneys and the poor will always get screwed?
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This is different from today, how?
With a true free market, those kidney donors with exceedingly rare blood types could literally hold the dying for ransom. If an O+ donor didn't like a bid, there's another O+ donor right behind him. But if an AB- donor didn't like a bid, he could sit quietly and just watch the numbers go up. Hell, AB- blood donors are, I think, the only blood type that still gets paid. They could hold out for literally millions.
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And this is different from today, how? Oh yeah, rare tissue types simply aren't available, period, and many people die waiting for one. Guess encouraging people to donate with rare tissue types could cause the downfall of civilization, just like those with rare blood types have done. All those evil AB- donors who sit around demanding more money or they won't help save lives by donating their blood. Oh wait....

You're also assuming that people who would donate voluntarily, as a few do now, will instantly be overcome with greed; and that all organ donation programs will be instantly terminated.
But the real problem with this very dumb idea is that it creates a society that I, at least, do not want to live in. Prostitution is illegal in part because no little girl grows up thinking "I want to be a prostitute someday."
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That's patently ludicrious. How many little kids think "I want to be a low-paid manual labourour doing mind-numbingly dull and potentially hazardous work?" Guess we should prohibit garbage collection.

Prostitution is illegal in some areas due to puritanical attitudes toward sex. But there are a number of places in the world where it's legal. Yes, even in advanced, developed nations like the United States and Holland.

I am entirely for anything that would increase the availability of potentially life-saving items like kidneys, without compelling people to donate.
Kidney donation for profit should be illegal for the same reason. The only people who will ever do it are those who have to because their minds, their efforts, and their creativity have no value. Let's spend money making everyone valuable, not cutting off pieces of the ones who aren't.
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Or those who need money to advance their own life, like for secondary education, purchasing a house, etc. Hell, if I knew I could get even US$50,000 for selling one of my kidneys, I'd do it in a New York minute. That would get me the education to get out of this **** job and into a better paying slot in about a tenth the time and effort I would normally need.
 
luchog said:
Or those who need money to advance their own life, like for secondary education, purchasing a house, etc. Hell, if I knew I could get even US$50,000 for selling one of my kidneys, I'd do it in a New York minute. That would get me the education to get out of this **** job and into a better paying slot in about a tenth the time and effort I would normally need.
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That's part of the problem right there.

If you knew that you could get $50,000 for your kidney to buy a house, you'd do it. This means that the next time a house goes on sale, you would be able to afford to bid $50,000 higher than someone who didn't sell a kidney.

Pretty soon, the market has this factored in. With the sudden influx of money, house prices are now $50,000 higher than they used to be. GIving up a kidney is now a more or less mandatory part of home buying, unless you're extremely lucky or wealthy.

We've already seen this effect in college prices; fifty years ago, working your way through college was considered a practical option. In most cases now, it's not. Thirty years ago, it was possible for parents to send their children to college without dipping into their home equity. Today, that's more or less no longer possible. Thirty years from now, will college prices have risen to the point that students need to sell organs to make tuitioni payments? If not, what will stop them?

Which would you rather see -- your daughter, kidney-less at Harvard, or your daughter, at Enormous State University but with two kidneys?

I'd rather see her not get faced with that dilemma at all....
 
drkitten said:
That's part of the problem right there.

If you knew that you could get $50,000 for your kidney to buy a house, you'd do it. This means that the next time a house goes on sale, you would be able to afford to bid $50,000 higher than someone who didn't sell a kidney.

Pretty soon, the market has this factored in. With the sudden influx of money, house prices are now $50,000 higher than they used to be. GIving up a kidney is now a more or less mandatory part of home buying, unless you're extremely lucky or wealthy.

We've already seen this effect in college prices; fifty years ago, working your way through college was considered a practical option. In most cases now, it's not. Thirty years ago, it was possible for parents to send their children to college without dipping into their home equity. Today, that's more or less no longer possible. Thirty years from now, will college prices have risen to the point that students need to sell organs to make tuitioni payments? If not, what will stop them?

Which would you rather see -- your daughter, kidney-less at Harvard, or your daughter, at Enormous State University but with two kidneys?
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drkitten, I think your slippery slope may have ignored the differences in orders of magnitude. What about the daughter being at Enormous State U and 15,000 stashed away for grad school? For the wedding? :cool:

How many new students in college each year?

How many kidney replacements each year?

Orders of magnitude.

Not seeing where you get that the effect is big enough to materially change the market.

How many houses sold each year?

And another point. The 50,000 may put luchog into a market, as an entrant, where there was one less market participant previously. This adds nominally, at best, to a few bids being a few thousand different for a house, rather than your postulated entire sum overreaching another's bid.

DR
 
Darth Rotor said:
I don't have an answer, but I see a profound influence on social forces if the population spread biases heavily toward the aged. I don't know if that would be a beneficial, detrimental, or neutral effect overall.
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But you seem to be saying "Hold on, lets not do this yet". How are you going to determine if it's good or bad? Why not just let it happen?
 
acuity said:
But you seem to be saying "Hold on, lets not do this yet". How are you going to determine if it's good or bad? Why not just let it happen?
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Why not just use asbestos in all buildings?

I see where you are coming from: "let's deal with that when we get to it." Not an invalid position, but not one to evoke much thought or planning.

DR
 
How much planning went into advancing life expectancy by medical research? How much planning went into whether electricity should be made available to the public? How much planning went into whether or not to develop the H-bomb? As far as I know, there is not much planning involved in technological or societal progress.

I can see an argument in favour. I just don't think it happens
 
Darth Rotor said:
drkitten, I think your slippery slope may have ignored the differences in orders of magnitude.
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You evidently aren't familiar with college tuition recently. There are colleges today where $50,000 won't buy a year's education.

How many new students in college each year?

How many kidney replacements each year?

Orders of magnitude.
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Actually, all this means is that the current $50,000 price tag is unsustainably high, and that if hordes of desperate college students become able to sell kidneys, the market will be flooded and the price will drop. Meaning your daughter will be at Enormous State with about $1,000 tucked away.

In general, making something saleable that was not saleable before will simply have the effect of pumping more money into the market as people sell it. The net effect is simply to inflate the overall prices.

You're contradicting yourself. If the effects of selling a kidney are to give a lot of money to the seller, then the market for highly competitive goods will simply rise to the present cost plus a kidney. If the effects of selling a kidney are not to give a log of money to the seller, then not as many people will sell kidneys, and a lot of people will undergo unnecessary surgery for very little benefit. The actual effect will probably be somewhere in between.

Either way, the overall effect is negative.
 
drkitten said:
You evidently aren't familiar with college tuition recently. There are colleges today where $50,000 won't buy a year's education.
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Sez you. My daughter is a senior in HS. :p Those "colleges" have priced themselves out of my debt tolerance.
Actually, all this means is that the current $50,000 price tag is unsustainably high, and that if hordes of desperate college students become able to sell kidneys, the market will be flooded and the price will drop.
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That I'll buy, but that wasn't your original scenario. I was going to add a bit about prices dropping, but didn't. Haha, you beat me to it.

In general, making something saleable that was not saleable before will simply have the effect of pumping more money into the market as people sell it. The net effect is simply to inflate the overall prices.
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Only if in significant volume, and value is beyond marginally influential.

Seen the price of a PC lately, compared to 1987?

You're contradicting yourself. If the effects of selling a kidney are to give a lot of money to the seller, then the market for highly competitive goods will simply rise to the present cost plus a kidney.
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Again, only if the market has a significant supply and demand for kidneys, which is where your original problem of orders of magnitude comes in. The presence of Porsches being sold by the VW dealer doesn't materially influence the price of my Saturn sedan.
Either way, the overall effect is negative.
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Either way, 5,000 kidneys versus 5 milliion college tuitions is a pimple on the Professor's Economic ass.

DR
 
boooeee said:
I'm not against state lotteries, although I can understand the reasons people oppose them. However, with state lotteries, there are other viable methods of revenue generation (taxes, bond measures, etc.). I know of no other solution that would eliminate the need for a transplant waiting list.
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But I fail to see eliminating the transplant waiting list as necessary. Organ transplants are a life-saving luxury.
 
boooeee said:
From the same Standford link:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/september28/med-scandling-092805.html


I am sure the operation is not risk-free and it is obviously more invasive than blood transfusion, but it seems to be a fairly standard procedure with no long lasting effects.

The only downside I can see is Ziggurat's earlier point concerning not having a "spare" kidney in case of some traumatic accident.
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Giving blood isnt risk free either. People having a seizure while giving blood is not that uncommon, often locking up their arms and lodging the needle deep into the arm.

Our phlebotomy teacher told us a horror story of this 250 lb biker dude having a seizure during a blood drive while he was eating candy, our teacher was a pretty tiny lady, she was climbing on this dude trying to pull his arms down to find the needle and realizing he was going to choke, so she gets the sucker out of his mouth and is able to pull down his arm and the needle is completely lost in his bicept,

You can have your forearm or hand crippled during a blood transfusion or suffer tendon/nerve damage, and there is a chance of hitting an arterie which can really hurt someone.
 
drkitten said:
That's part of the problem right there.

If you knew that you could get $50,000 for your kidney to buy a house, you'd do it. This means that the next time a house goes on sale, you would be able to afford to bid $50,000 higher than someone who didn't sell a kidney.

Pretty soon, the market has this factored in. With the sudden influx of money, house prices are now $50,000 higher than they used to be. GIving up a kidney is now a more or less mandatory part of home buying, unless you're extremely lucky or wealthy.
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Wow! You're either greatly overestimating the nimber of kidneys needed each year, or underestimating the number of houses sold each year. Also you're assuming that every dollar received from a kidney goes into housing.

The reality is the relatively few kidneys sold would have a negligible effect on any market you pick, excepting of course the kidney market.
 
drkitten said:
In general, making something saleable that was not saleable before will simply have the effect of pumping more money into the market as people sell it. The net effect is simply to inflate the overall prices.
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Incorrect. Totally. It is not inflationary to un-restrict a market. Quite the opposite. You can sell stuff on e-Bay today that no liquid market existed for previously. Has that pushed up general prices? Or has it kept them down?

You're contradicting yourself. If the effects of selling a kidney are to give a lot of money to the seller, then the market for highly competitive goods will simply rise to the present cost plus a kidney.
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Please show this using rudimentary economics. The person who has bought the kidney has less cash to spend on the same goods. No money has been added to the system. How do prices rise?

If the effects of selling a kidney are not to give a log of money to the seller, then not as many people will sell kidneys, and a lot of people will undergo unnecessary surgery for very little benefit. The actual effect will probably be somewhere in between.
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Contradictory.
 
i couldnt edit my post- just a quick appology for the spelling/grammar errors. ugh, i really need to watch that!
 
WildCat said:
Payton was not a candidate for a transplant, was not on a waiting list.
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I recall there having been a discussion on his "place in line" for a transplant, I guess I didn't read all of the news stories after that. Thanks for the update.

DR
 
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