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This is the first of a series on human organ donation/transplantation I will be posting on this blog. Why will I be doing this? Because I am convinced that the transplantation of human organs is BIG BUSINESS. While it illegal to buy and sell human tissue and human organs for transplantation, it is legal for individuals to donate their tissue and organs to be transplanted into other persons who desperately need such transplanted tissue and organs in order to live a better life and in many cases, such transplanted tissue and organs are necessary for the recipient to stay alive.
While it is illegal to buy and sell human tissue, donated tissue and organs when transplanted in recipients produce a lot of money for the doctors making the removal or the insertion of tissue and organs and for the medical facilities, hospitals or clinics. Transplant operations can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obviously then it is not unreasonable to describe the medical practice of removal and/or transplantation as BIG BUSINESS.
Donors of tissue and organs act out of compassion. The same cannot be said of the health care industry. Example: last year the Chinese government brought charges against local officials in the western region of China who were systematically putting political dissidents in prison and then executing them in a mobile medical facility where their tissue and organs were removed and shipped throughout China where wealthy Chinese paid hundreds of thousand dollars for organ transplants. That practice is not confined to China but is present more or less in many countries.
While such a violation of human rights probably does not occur in the United States, there is illegal trafficking in tissue and organs. What immediately concerns me is the suspicion that the interest of the health care industry and tontos utiles promoting legislation such as the currently pushed Texas Senate Bill 303 and the Texas House Bill 1444 is that such legislation promotes the ‘third way’ for passive euthanasia. Simply put, it is so easy for trained health care personnel to have a naive patient check off boxes on a document like a POLST document that both authorizes withdrawal of treatment (including nutrition and hydration) and the donation of the patient’s organs. George Orwell is probably nodding his head when he hears some proponents of ‘palliative care’ push their agenda; he warned us to look behind the meaning of words.
– Abyssum
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How Organ Donation Works
by Tom Scheve
Tee Hui Yi waits at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur for a heart donor match.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
Registering as an Organ Donor
While making the decision to become an organ donor takes some time and thought, actually registering as a donor requires little effort. Most states let you register as an organ donor when you register or renew your driver’s license or state ID. Additionally, the majority of states have organ donation registries that can be accessed online. Signing and carrying an organ donation card will also provide consent for organ donation in the case of your death.
When registering, you’ll designate whether you wish to donate all of your organs upon death, or just certain ones, as well as your tissues and eyes. Being a designated or potential organ donor will not affect medical care that’s provided to you. And once your organs have been removed, the incisions are sewn back up and your body remains visually unaltered for viewing in open casket.
When registering as an organ donor, it’s important to notify your family about your decision. That way, your family won’t be surprised by the news shortly after your time of death. If you’re planning a whole-body donation, you’ll need a designated person to contact the institution you’ve selected once you have died.
There are two different types of donors: living and deceased. Deceased donations result from either cardiac death or brain death. These donations require prior consent from the potential donor or the donor’s family. In some states, the medical examiner can provide consent in the case of an unclaimed body. To date, there have been more deceased donations than living donations
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Donations following a cardiac death are the least common type of deceased-donor transplants. Once a donor dies, the organs must be quickly removed, packaged and transported. In the case of cardiac death, organs begin to lose function quickly, sometimes resulting in imperfectly matched donations — and, it’s a scramble to find a match for the organs.
When it’s determined that the brain has ceased working (no electrical activity, blood flow or function in the brain) and the condition is irreversible, a person is declared brain dead. It’s possible to sustain organ function through use of a respirator and other means. For this reason, more donations are made in the case of brain death because it offers time to find matches for the organs as well as to prepare for the removal of the organs while maintaining their functional capacity. Organ donation doesn’t affect the medical care or considerations given to a brain-dead patient.
Between 1998 and 2008, there were more than 91,000 living donations. In 2006, nearly 46 percent of organ donors were living donors, and accounted for 21.6 percent of all organs donated
. Organs you can donate while still alive include: a kidney, part of the pancreas, part of a lung, part of the liver or part of the intestine. The majority of living donations are made up of single kidneys. Overall, more females than males become living donors, although there are more males on organ waiting lists. The 35-to-49 year demographic contributes the most living donors, followed by 18-to-34-year-olds and 50-to-64-year-olds
. Living donors should not be afflicted with H.I.V., diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, heart or kidney disease, or other infectious diseases.
Why do donated kidneys have so much company in their new homes? Next, we’ll learn more about donated organs.
Organ Math
Computer scientist Tuomas Sandholm from Carnegie Mellon University has developed an algorithm that can analyze data from 10,000 different pairs and produce a variety of matches between multiple pairs
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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 