# Family says DeKalb teen being denied heart transplant **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 13, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139 "2013-08-13T15:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/81 "2013-08-23T03:43:29Z")
PS it may have been some reason other than age. It was a long time ago, and I don’t remember the details exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/82 "2013-08-23T10:47:52Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > If the story that was reported on Fox ( it’s the only US media I get here ) is true, a young boy was placed on the list for a transplant after a media campaign to overturn the criteria that said he was too young. I believe some other posts on here are referring to the same situation. It was a young girl who needed new lungs. She did get her transplant but if I recall she died of complications. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/83 "2013-08-26T08:12:34Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It was a young girl who needed new lungs. She did get her transplant but if I recall she died of complications. You are correct about the patient being a girl. As I said in my next post, it was a long time ago and my memory is not great now. I wonder if they will ever be able to transplant memory parts of the brain, without also transplanting the personality? Be a good cure for alzheimers if they can. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/84 "2013-08-26T09:43:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Maybe it isn’t - whether or not a person should be eligible for an adult-sized organ should be based on the patient’s actual size, and not the patient’s age. Some 12 year olds are adult sized, some are not. Handled properly this makes the decision once again based on medical criteria (actual size) rather than an arbitrary marker (calender age). Depending on the organs, they can be split for several patients. I’ve heard of that done for both lungs and livers; for a heart it wouldn’t be possible. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/85 "2014-03-19T13:43:20Z")
Update: kid got his heart, was [doing well as of October](http://thegrio.com/2013/10/15/teen-transplant-update-anthony-stokes-making-steady-recovery-after-initial-non-compliance-denial/). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_I\_Am](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@Sam\_I\_Am](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_I_Am)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/86 "2014-03-19T14:29:24Z")
I’m glad he is doing ok, I hope he still is. I am wondering, media intervention aside, how often a transplant board would initially say no, to scare a teen into compliance, then later say yes. It is so common for teens to feel invincible, and if the heart problems hit him suddenly, it could have taken a wake-up call of a “no” to make him understand. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/87 "2014-03-20T21:23:04Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Which of course is something we don’t know much of anything about. For all we know, he is a good kid who got mixed up in the wrong crowd, and the rest of the waiting list is full of pedophiles and 419 scammers. As anybody knows, getting mixed up with the wrong crowd does not get one a police record: it is what one does when with that crowd. What indication do you have about the rest of the waiting list and any crimes that need bringing to light? If they have records, I suspect that the medical board would take that into account. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/88 "2014-03-21T13:26:47Z")
> [@Sam\_I\_Am](#): > > I am wondering, media intervention aside, how often a transplant board would initially say no, to scare a teen into compliance, then later say yes. It is so common for teens to feel invincible, and if the heart problems hit him suddenly, it could have taken a wake-up call of a “no” to make him understand. ISTM that needing a heart transplant in the first place is about as big a wake up call as one could hope for. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/89 "2015-04-02T01:10:25Z")
UPDATE! [Well done!](http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/georgia-teen-who-got-donated-heart-dies-in-crime-spree-cops/ar-AAajise) > [@](#): > > Stokes, of Decatur, allegedly carjacked a Honda, then burst into a Roswell home and shot at an elderly woman as he tried to rob her, WSB-TV reported. > > “A lady said a person kicked in the door to break into the house. She was inside the living room and saw the suspect, who was wearing a mask,” Lisa Holland, of the Roswell Police Department, told the news station. > > Stokes then took off at a high speed as cops chased him down the highway. He smashed into a 33-year-old pedestrian before losing control and plowing into a pole. > > "He did a fishtail spin going around to the right and hit a pedestrian. I saw a white shirt fly up in the air,” witness Claudia Kuklis told WSB. What a tremendous piece of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/90 "2015-04-02T02:02:32Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > What a tremendous piece of shit. I wonder if they were able to harvest any of his organs. This is not the first time I’ve seen a patient throw away his 2nd chance at life (via organ transplant) by bad behavior that was pretty damn predictable based on prior behavior. So it goes. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/91 "2015-04-02T02:05:44Z")
So much for having a change of heart. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/92 "2015-04-02T02:13:15Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > So much for having a change of heart. _golf clap_ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/93 "2015-04-02T02:17:37Z")
Well, it looks like one side pretty clearly won this debate. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/94 "2015-04-02T02:32:27Z")
I saw this while perusing the news this morning and was surprised by how viscerally angry it made me. Transplant committees have to make some extremely difficult decisions that some might see as cruel or draconian. They take a ton of factors into consideration, and they need to keep to the same decision-making process for everyone or else it isn’t fair. That they made one determination for this kid based on that exacting process, then reversed themselves because a bunch of bleeding heart laymen with no actual knowledge of the full facts of the situation or of transplant medicine started screeching about it in the media had me very upset at the time. If there is one area that public pressure should never come to bear on, it’s these sorts of decision-making processes. That it has ended like this, indicating that their original decision to deny based on risk factors was well-founded, makes me sick. Whether there’s some poor HLHS kid out there with a failed Fontan who died while this kid got the heart doesn’t bear thinking about. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/95 "2015-04-02T02:45:36Z")
First they tried to kill him by denying him a heart, and now they had the cops take him out. He was so victimized by the Man. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/96 "2015-04-02T03:20:00Z")
They tried to make him a better person… I guess his heart just wasn’t in it. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/97 "2015-04-02T03:35:18Z")
his heart for sure wasn’t in it. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/98 "2015-04-02T03:56:59Z")
I’d be really happy if the people who bulldozed the decision and took it to the media, got a bill for both the transplant and the disaster that happened today. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/99 "2015-04-02T04:03:53Z")
I just wanted to go on record that I have known teenagers as young as 14 completely in charge of their diabetic regimens, and teenagers, on the ketogenic diet, who prepared it, and stuck to it even at school, teens who took medication for various conditions, and were very responsible, teens with disabilities who handled themselves in public school even with needing to work with note-takers and resource teachers, and still made the honor role, including one kid who got up on his own every morning and made his own breakfast and lunch, and then cooked dinner for himself and his father every night, because his father got up at five every morning for a commute, and didn’t get home until after six. There needs to be some kind of word that encompasses how both tragic and stupid this was, but this kid does not represent all teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139/100 "2015-04-02T04:23:25Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > Well, it looks like one side pretty clearly won this debate. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. And confusing an anecdote with data. The people who were “right” in this thread were advocating that compassion should not be a factor in the decision. Yet it was their own inability to have compassion for criminals that was factored into their decision. The first post was calling the guy scum, an emotional, non-detached reaction. Seems they want compassion to be considered, given to everyone but certain people. Considering someone’s criminal behavior is not relevant. Most criminals do not wind up killing themselves through their actions. Supposedly, at 15, this kid had one criminal thing on his record. He was not on track to be the kind that killed himself, even if he remained a criminal. If you want to remove compassion, then you have to remove the ability to judge whether this person is the type of person you approve of. The sole issue is whether or not the heart will be wasted. He was, again, near the top of the list. His risk factor for death may have been higher due to being a criminal, but there’s no way it would completely pull him off the list. The only relevant factor is whether the heart will go to waste, and it doesn’t go to waste if the person survives. Basing it on whether you like the person should never be a factor. Finally, if going to the media gets a decision reversed, that means that the consensus morality is against that decision, and thus the original decision was immoral. Morality, absent some God from on high, is ultimately about what society thinks is moral. It’s just the social contract. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-says-dekalb-teen-being-denied-heart-transplant/666139.md?page=6)