Doctors OK Web-Arranged Organ Transplant

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Rachel in NY
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Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2004 1:11 pm
Location: NY, USA,

Doctors OK Web-Arranged Organ Transplant

Post by Rachel in NY »

Doctors OK Web-Arranged Organ Transplant.... The operation, scheduled for Wednesday, is believed to be the first transplant arranged through a Web site designed to match organ donors with recipients, said Jeremiah Lowney, medical director of MatchingDonors.com, where the two men made contact.....

Click the link below to read the full article.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... antallowed
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"When life keeps giving you lemons, get to work and make a tall frosted pitcher of icy cold lemonade."
Andy
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Post by Andy »

I was quite surprised when I read this for myself on a different website. It does go to show that there are some genuine people out there, and as long as they can assure that there is no money being exchanged then lets hope that this may change things for the future.
:)
We are the way we are, if we werent, I wouldnt be me and you wouldnt be you!

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Elaine
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Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 11:06 am
Location: south west

internet transplant

Post by Elaine »

Wow wotever next eh???? :shock:

Interesting article, Glad worked out for better :lol: ................. Elaine ;)
LadySycamore
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website

Post by LadySycamore »

Dialyze.org:
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Chatroom, Support, Advocacy and more!

Dialyze.org MemberGroup on MSN:
http://groups.msn.com/Dialyze-orgMember ... sages.msnw
Cheryl in CT
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Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 10:17 pm
Location: Connecticut, USA

further to the "web-matched" organ transplants

Post by Cheryl in CT »

Organ donations from strangers trim waiting list but raise questions
By LAURA MECKLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — Log onto an organ donor Web site and you will find desperate people looking for strangers who might give a kidney or piece of liver.
''My friend, Josh, is 26 years old and needs a kidney transplant. He has had cancer since the age of 2,'' reads one message.
''Vietnam Veteran with 3 little children desperately needs AB+ liver,'' says another.
''I have a cousin ... that is very sick in hospital, he needs a liver transplant very urgently ... my aunty came up with the idea to look in the internet for one,'' someone else pleads.
The national transplant waiting list has grown to more than 87,000 because organ donations from the dead have not kept up with demand. For help, frustrated patients increasingly are turning to the living, even to strangers.
That worries bioethicists, surgeons and federal officials who oversee the transplant system, which is designed to treat all patients fairly.
Most troubling is the possibility that people will buy and sell organs, an illegal practice that is but difficult to uncover if participants are willing to lie about it.
Last year, 86 people donated to people they did not know; in 1997, there were none.
Last week, surgeons in Denver transplanted a kidney into a patient who met his donor through MatchingDonors.com, a commercial site.
Denver doctors delayed the surgery for two days amid concerns about the for-profit site and questions about whether the recipient might be paying the donor for his kidney. After the hospital got both men to sign affidavits swearing there was no such payment, the surgery went ahead.
Still, hospital officials said there were ethical concerns they hoped federal officials would sort through.
The for-profit nature of MatchingDonors.com, where patients pay $295 per month to post a profile, made officials particularly nervous. But the same sort of matching is rampant on livingdonorsonline.org, a nonprofit site that provides a billboard forum for people looking to find or offer an organ.
''I imagine when people are in need of a lifesaving organ, they'll do what they can to get one,'' said Dr. Andrew Klein, a surgeon who is chairman of the transplant network's living donor committee.
Some fear that could include paying someone to donate, which could be hard to trace if strangers simply explained that they met on the Internet.
That possibility ''is a very real concern,'' said James Burdick, who directs Health and Human Services Department's transplant division.
Gregory Pence, a bioethicist at the University of Alabama, said it ''almost seems inevitable that it would happen.''
Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, co-founder of MatchingDonors.com, said organ sales may be possible, but he is not worried. ''You have to trust people,'' he said.
Experts also are concerned about the open-market nature of the Internet. They say it is unfair to give an edge to people who are simply better at recruiting donors over others who are sicker and ranked higher on the national waiting list.
''We're trying to keep the playing field as level as possible,'' said Dr. Mark Fox, chairman of the ethics committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing, the national transplant network.
''I don't think the fact that you can write the most appealing ad or got lucky and found someone on the Internet should give you special consideration,'' Fox said.
Traditionally, patients who need transplants have waited on the national list for an organ donated by someone who died. Patients are ranked by a complex formula.
Lowney does not agree that giving an organ to one person is unfair just because someone else might be in greater need. The bottom line, he said, is, ''You're giving life to someone.''
The network has approved a resolution suggesting that donations from ''altruistic donors'' go to the next person on the list. But this is simply a recommendation, with no enforcement envisioned, Klein said.
Living donation has inherent ethical issues as healthy people are having surgeries that will do them no good. There are real medical risks to the donor that are not well documented and not consistently explained.
Still, the number of living donors has climbed steadily over the past few years to 6,811 last year, with living donors now outnumbering dead ones.
The vast majority of living donors give a kidney, which is relatively safe because people typically have two kidneys and only need one.
Also, research has found that kidneys from the living are just as good, if not better, than those from the dead, and that matches do not have to be medically exact to be successful. Laparoscopic surgery, where the kidney is removed through a small incision, has reduced the pain and recovery time for the donor.
About 5 percent of living donors gave a piece of liver. In this operation, each part of the liver grows into a whole organ.
Few people have given a piece of lung, which is combined with another slice of lung from a second donor.
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