My friend’s ex-husband, the father of her 2 oldest kids, died a few weeks ago from a sudden heart attack, and they had his memorial service today. I went to the get-together afterwards, and while I knew from his obit that he had been an organ donor, I didn’t know what they used and hadn’t planned to ask. However, she told me that they were able to use his eyes, skin, and - get this - bone marrow! I had never heard of that being harvested from an organ donor, and it sounds like this tissue is only used for research so far, usually into growing stem cells.
Yes, I am an organ donor, and they can have everything from me that still is usable after I have died. Here in Germany, we sadly have an opt-in system, so I always carry a donor card with my personal data, and of the several options for giving consent to donation, I checked “Yes, I permit that after medical confirmation of my death, organs and tissue from my body can be taken.” So I’m aware that they probably remove more than my inner organs, and I don’t mind.
We,(in Arkansas, not sure about every state) have opt-in on our drivers license.
I opt-in. Not sure my junk/guts are any good.
My heart may be usable.
Bone marrow? Hmm? Not heard that one. Must be a reason. The bone marrow donor list is long, I just didn’t think it could be taken after death. Like you said, research.
I know alittle about donor lists, I’m on all kidney donation lists. Not that I’m all that viable, at this point. Apparently I’m not worth saving.
An ex of mine got a liver transplant nearly twenty years ago. She told me that they were studying doing bone marrow transplants along with the liver transplants which could mean not needing to take anti rejection meds for the rest of your life.
tl;dr: you need to die in a very specifc way, even when agreeing to being a donor … so all 2 component need to be met.
don’t you have to die a very specific way in order to become a donor?
IIRC you need to be brain-dead, iow … body living but no brain activity, to allow for all the logistics (planning operations on both ends of the supply chain, etc…) to be programmed.
So, they keep you propped up for a day or three, and then things can move orderly
so just keeling over will NOT get you harvested even when being a donor… (happy to learn more/confirmation/falsifiaction)
also: aren’t there certain age-limits beyond which will not harvested (insert high-milage engine analogy)?
I’ve heard about people who, for whatever reason, stopped taking their anti-rejection meds and never rejected their organ. It’s believed that stem cells in the transplanted organ engrafted into the recipient’s bone marrow, and therefore the body no longer recognized it as foreign.
Not any more! This story surprised me when it happened quite recently.
My old hospital once had a 83-year-old organ donor. (I can tell you about this because it was in the newspaper.) He was working on his roof and fell off, and while none of his solid organs qualified for donation, his assorted tissues were, and his family said yes.
I have heard similar stories. My transplant recipient gf and I split up over ten years ago so I am not so up on the transplant scene anymore.
I used to have “Be the Match” (the National Marrow Donor Program) as a client. My understanding, and the link below is consistent with this, that they will not accept applicants over age 40 to join their bone marrow donor registry. They will keep people who had previously joined the registry on the donor rolls past age 40, up until age 60 (though doctors may opt to not select older donors).
That said, I think that age limit is for donation to a patient; the OP is about donation which is apparently used for research purposes.
Yep. I signed up when I was in my 20s when they had to get a blood sample. I recently tuned 60 and aged out.
I was really bummed out when they sent me the “You’re too old and decrepit to be of any use to us now!” letter. Of course, they worded it slightly differently…
I had pretty much the same message given to me by the members of their communications team, who were my clients, when I asked about signing up. “Oooooh, yeah, we’d love to have you sign up, but we can’t take you, because you have to be 40 or under to join the registry. We’re so sorry about that!”