Take the kidney before you are dead

jenrio

 Boy, these people don't want to wait for their kidneys:

http://gma.yahoo.com/surgeon-remove-kidneys-transplant-donors-death-162522325--abc-news-health.html

For Chris sake, find a new solution, invest in innovation, make kidneys out of adult stem cells instead of coveting other peoples' kidneys before they are even dead.

Same goes with cancer cure.  Faster clinical trials, try more things sooner, invest in science and innovation.   Instead of mammogramming everybody after 40, not mammogram anybody under 40 to save cost, when it doesn't even catch the cancer in some high risk women.   Find the darn cure. 

leggo

Interesting. Having thought it over, and assuming he is correct, if I were brain dead, they would be welcome to my kidney before someone turned off the machine. (Not that they'd want the one from my cancer-infested body). It will be interesting to see how others feel on the issue.

jenrio

I suppose we not only can't make the wait list for organs, we also rank near the bottom when it comes to desirability of our organs :-)

leggo

I wonder, could someone with metastatic cancer even give an organ? (providing it's cancer-free). I've always wondered. They have little to choose from in my body, but they could have my corneas or something. Nothing there....yet.

ETA: if not, I should probably quit pretending and stop putting that sticker on my driver's license.

jenrio

Probably should not donate organs.   There are cases where recepients got cancers possibly from the donated organs...    

I just hope that one day, nobody would need to donate an organ or receive a donated organ.    So organ donation is as strange as people sharing a single coat, a strange custom of the past.    Or as strange as people cutting off their breast to save their lives, or blasting chemo to save their lives, or go for mammograms every year hoping to save their lives.    Many ideas may not be ready for prime time, but they are new and deserve investment.   My blogs goes into some of them. 

leggo

With all we know about cancer, isn't it odd that one person's cancer can become another's through donation? So many questions, like how an organ from someone with ovarian cancer, for example, with a clean organ donated to a male would even have the possiblity to cause the disease. I guess we'll never know. Probably something they've never even researched.  I'm thinking if I was a guy desperate to live and needed a liver, I'd be willing to take my chances, doubting though, that it would be a possibility. If they were smart, they'd look into it. I believe in the not too distant future, cancer will reach epidemic proportions and then what? It'll be hard to find an organ, that's for sure. Frickin' cancer...so many questions with so few answers.

cp418

kayb - sadly I agree.