A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it • Hacker News Board

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#111

Post by smcnally » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 4:28 AM UTC

pdq wrote: post #47

This is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way as unethical, but the best way to incentivize organ donation is if the donors get paid a market price for the organ. The donor is giving up a valuable piece of their body, taking time and large medical risks in surgery, and likely reduced life expectancy. If you walk through the current process, everyone in the donation gets paid -- doctors, nurses, hospital, pharma…

One change could make a difference to the availability of transplantable organs in the US: make donation upon death opt-out vs opt-in on drivers' licenses.

There are arguments on both sides of opt-out ("presumed consent"), but even the cons argue more about ethics and lawsuits -- re dead people who clearly no longer need the organs -- than that there'd be more organs available to the living who might.

pro: https://sparq.stanford.edu/solutions/opt-out-policies-increa...

con: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/presumed_...

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#112

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 5:00 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #62

pdq wrote: post #47

This is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way as unethical, but the best way to incentivize organ donation is if the donors get paid a market price for the organ. The donor is giving up a valuable piece of their body, taking time and large medical risks in surgery, and likely reduced life expectancy. If you walk through the current process, everyone in the donation gets paid -- doctors, nurses, hospital, pharma…

You're missing a very big point 5. The quality of organs goes down. It's been extensively studied for paying for blood donations, and the consensus is widely to discourage the practice. https://www.statnews.com/2016/01/22/paid-plasma-not-blood/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/308403-blood/

The blood market is very different from the kidney market, and simply translating conclusions from one to the other is very dubious.

Blood donations produce the needed amount of blood, and that system basically works. So it makes sense to not take any risks to expand the already sufficient supply.

Meanwhile the kidney transplant world is desperately tragic. About a dozen Americans die each day from lack of a kidney. Even if an added kidney supply would be lower quality on the margin, it would save a huge amount of lives.

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#113

Post by Retric » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 5:08 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #99

M_Grey wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to find a lot of people jumping through that hoop, given that 5 seconds with Google is all that it takes. This isn't some controversial developmental theory, and this isn't a formal debate.

As a general rule, in scientific circles anyway, the person making an assertion is the one who gets to support it. Asking "Why do you believe that?" is always valid.

[citation needed], people generally need to pass a crank test or be ignored as not worth the effort of speaking to.

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#114

Post by Retric » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 5:11 AM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #44

dragonwriter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, healthy people are born with empathy. Most of the reading I've done seems to suggest that that's something that's developed at a very young age, and very sensitive to early childhood environment, rather something people are born with.

It's a normal part of childhood development. The original comment suggests that hate is inborn and empathy is learned - no real evidence for that.

Empathy is a far more complex emotion.

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#115

Post by solotronics » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 5:15 AM UTC

pdq wrote: post #47

This is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way as unethical, but the best way to incentivize organ donation is if the donors get paid a market price for the organ. The donor is giving up a valuable piece of their body, taking time and large medical risks in surgery, and likely reduced life expectancy. If you walk through the current process, everyone in the donation gets paid -- doctors, nurses, hospital, pharma…

I think an unfortunate side effect of this would be increased organ theft.

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#116

Post by leodeid » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 6:18 AM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #14

There are real risks in the actual donation, of course. And some lifelong things you need to worry about. It does affect treatment of other things. For example, if you happen to have a rotator cuff injury, you can't just take high doses of anti-inflammatory meds for a month. You have to do physical therapy and steroid injections. And, in our wonderful US healthcare system, you'll get near-zero aftercare beyond a few…

Can you explain the part about injury recovery? Are you not allowed to take the medications because it would stress your kidney too much? (Also, do you mean NSAID drugs, or are there issues with pretty much all anti inflammatories?)

What are some of the things that you find yourself needing to advocate for yourself about? Isn't long term care just annual creatinine level tests (which looks like a simple blood draw)?

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#117

Post by lenkite » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 6:59 AM UTC

timecube wrote: post #48

pdq wrote: post #47

This is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way as unethical, but the best way to incentivize organ donation is if the donors get paid a market price for the organ. The donor is giving up a valuable piece of their body, taking time and large medical risks in surgery, and likely reduced life expectancy. If you walk through the current process, everyone in the donation gets paid -- doctors, nurses, hospital, pharma…

A big issue with allowing organ markets is that impoverished people can practically be forced to sell their organs.

I request you to kindly read up more on this subject. Your 'big issue' already exists today! The poor in countries like India are already forced to sell their organs to rich donors in the West through the black market where they are paid a pittance. Debt collectors in India make a killing by preying on the poor. The rich pay the middle-men a truck load of money, but the actual donor gets very little at the end. Formally paying donors will at-least give them a much better price without the middle-men taking most of the money.

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#118

Post by Qantourisc » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 7:37 AM UTC

Hmmm in hindsight this is logical, you got 2 kidneys of a certain size. Expected do 1 job together. And since biology doesn't like wastefulness (as it cost energy, room, and nutrients to maintain) the kidneys are dimensioned to a safe/good size. Now when you remove 1, the other one has to do twice the job. Possibly severely dipping under the safe size.

In short, redundancy != excess

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#119

Post by doikor » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 8:22 AM UTC

tajen wrote: post #71

chrisseaton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't understand any other context for drafting 18 year olds other than taking advantage of their youth and incomplete development Physical fitness surely? Isn't 18 or 19 around the physical fitness peak? I'm guessing that people are on average are significantly stronger and more robust at 18 than they are at 28. I think the British Army has 26 as the limit for joining in the first place for officers at least. Al…

I'd say the peak strength must be 22-26, because 18-years-olds are really thin and lean (source: I love men ;)) – unless they've been practising musculation, but once again, if they practice musculation at 24, they'll be much bigger. But it takes well above 2 years to train a professional, so profesional recruitment takes them earlier. However, concerning draft followed by almost-immediate use on the battlefield, giv…

It kinda depends on what kind of strength. For things where the athlete is rather lightweight/small and does some kind of fast/twitchy power moves you peak out somewhere before 30. But when all you need is pure strenght you have 30 to 40 year old world champions in many sports (you still have to start training when a lot younger to make it though) for example in power lifting where you have a lot of todays world champions born in the late 70s/early 80s.

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of sending 18-20 year olds into battlefield is that if they die society spent less money/effort into teaching them some other valuable skill that would have been lost without getting the benefit out of it (due to the person being dead)

Re: A kidney donor at 18 now regrets it

#120

Post by tremon » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:38 AM UTC

bcherny wrote: post #67

chrisseaton wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, often welfare systems won't give you aid if you have assets such as cash or a home. Would your organs be considered assets?

I'm not sure if it was ever verified, but reminds me of this story from 2005 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/148...

At the risk of sounding bitter: it's from a UK "newspaper" and it concerns mainland Europe. You should assume the article needs additional proof, not just verification.