I don’t know specifically about diabetes but your overall health is certainly taken into account. If you have a disease that quickly attacks the liver and will shortly attack the new one, then you won’t get a new one. If, like some forms of hepatitis, it could very slowly attack the new liver, you’ll get on the list.
I don’t know about every insurance policy in the country but my gf’s drugs are covered by her insurance and my policy would cover me if I needed them.
Even to someone over 70 years old? Even to someone who will continue to shoot up heroin? Even to someone who also has a bad heart who won’t survive the operation? What about a serial killer on death row or even a habitual violent criminal?
I hope that’s hyperbole. Failing that, you’re a fucking asshole.
The “slightest chance” of what? That an already very sick person might up and die anyway, taking his scarce replacement liver with him? That the transplant recipient might, like plenty of other sick and well people, fail to protect his new organ from every conceivable insult? That a sick person who used a substance that was prescribed to alleviate symptoms of his illness might turn into a raging substance abuser and break his new liver?
I agree that it’s a bullshit criterion. My gf’s doctors in CA would agree with you. The thing is that that guy wouldn’t get one anyway, pot or no pot. If you got upset over that article, you were played, my friend. This is his last ditch attempt to get media pressure on his side to save his life.
I suspect that he knew all along that he was a poor candidate for transplant so he kept on smoking. He knew exactly what he was doing and chose not to quit. My girlfriend made a different choice and she got on the list.
Other things aside, it is the smoking that is the chief clinical issue here.
Smoking any substance decreases the chances for a good outcome. Worse healing, lousy tissue perfusion, reduced oxygen levels, the whole ball of wax.
Active smokers aren’t candidates for most transplants. Period.
“Yes” on “up and die.” There aren’t exactly buckets of livers lying around- it’s not like the feds are refusing to hand them out because they don’t like the guy. If a kid gets the liver and leads a full life, better that outcome than this guy gets it and dies, thus taking two people with him.
“Please try to be serious” on “fail to protect.” You’re not under an obligation to stay inside in a bubble, but you certainly shouldn’t skip happily through traffic either. Of course, you know this (or at least you should), which is why this argument fails.
“Please try to be serious” on “raging substance abuser.” The “sick person” is sick because he used intravenous drugs, not marijuana. Furthermore, he can’t even use marijuana after the transplant because it is likely (not “could,” but "“is likely”) to kill him.
The simple fact is that this guy is a poor candidate for a liver transplant by any criteria. If you want to cry about marijuana users being scapegoated, you really need to find a better test case. That’s why Rosa Parks is a gigantic civil rights hero and Claudette Colvin is a footnote- because when you want to make a point, you pick the person most likely to garner not just sympathy, but logical backing. This guy ain’t your Rosa Parks.
Very interesting, as a result of this post I read up on Claudette Colvin, whom I did not know about. Thanks Happy Scrappy Hero Pup.
I’m not suggesting that it should be. I am agreeing with you that
The article and the OP seemed to be suggesting that the only thing disqualifying this patient from his transplant was his use of medical marijuana.
As Happy Scrappy mentions, this guy is not a good choice for a test case for medical marijuana.
Regards,
Shodan
The only thing disqualifying him from getting on the list in the first place is his use of medical mj. That said, down near the bottom of the list with two weeks to live and not being on the list is a distinction without a difference.
I think that pot should be legal, for medical reasons or not. I also happen to know that some of these medical mj advocates a some serious low life assholes. They don’t give a crap about medical mj, they just want pot to be legal as do I but they will go to any lengths and will exploit people along the way. A very famous songwriter who I will not mention by name is one of them. He found out about my girlfriend while she was still sick. He and a bunch of other advocates contacted her while she was near death to try to get her to be their poster child. She would have been the perfect case but her activism would have killed her. They knew that and expected her to help them anyway just so that they could go to a hash bar without flying to Amsterdam.
As it happens, I agree with you, but even if it were legal this guy would still be downgraded on the list if he smoked it, given what Dr. Qadcop (and Dr. Reyes) say about smoking and its effects on healing.
Even if the article were giving us all the relevant facts - which I suspect may not be true - this is not a good poster child for medical marijuana.
Although I suspect that much of what you say about marijuana - sorry, “hemp” - advocates is true. Medical marijuana is a wedge they are using to try to get the stuff legalized. Which is all well and good, but better they should say “marijuana is a relatively cheap and safe way of getting wasted. I want to get wasted, so I should be allowed to.” That I can get behind. The idea that hemp is going to fix the environment, solve our agricultural problems, or that it is just the thing even if you are dying of liver disease or have had a transplant just makes them look stupid for over-stating the case.
If you want to get high, weed is probably safer than alcohol. But let’s not try to convince me that it is safer than jujubes.
Regards,
Shodan
Maybe I am wrong, but I interpreted that to mean that everyone is automatically an organ donor unless they opt out (you must carry a card saying “not for donation,” or it is automatically assumed that you will allow donation).
That is one of the two ways that would result in a much higher level of donation. The other method is to allow for the sale of organs (and in the case of the liver the value of the liver goes to the deceased’s estate).
I just reread that I and I don’t think so but if I am wrong I will still disagree but take back the name calling.
A sale isn’t practical. In most cases, there isn’t enough time to do an Ebay style auction. My girlfriend had to be within a 90 minute drive from the hospital at all times when she was near the top of the list.
Yeah - I honestly do not know either. Maybe the OP can restate.
The sale aspect would operate as an incentive to be a donor. If you knew that on your death another $250k might go to your kids, you might make sure that your donor card was up to date. It would not be an ebay auction as much as it would be an incentive to sign the card.
Kidneys would be on ebay FAST, I would think.
Jesus, where do you think all this money is going to come from?
Apparently, in Austria you get stuck at the back of the line for donations if you had previously opted not to be a donor yourself. Seems like a fair but strong incentive to me. That combined with “presumed consent” seems like the way to go. A couple of years ago Ontario flirted with the idea of presumed consent but chickened out.
I can get behind that one. Fair is fair. Then again, I signed my first donor card when I got my first driver’s license when I was 16.
I have issues with that. I don’t have any idea how many livers that could be used don’t end up getting used. Most people who die don’t have donation quality livers due to disease or condition. If you don’t have a signed card, your next of kin can make the decision for you.
From the surgeon and hospital predominantely. The market has already set a value on organ transplant surgery. However, one of the providers is not allowed ANY of that value, so the remainder of that value accrues solely to the medical team and the hospital. They are, in effect, getting a subsidy from the estate of the deceased.
For more input from the medical perspective:
For input from an economist:
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2006/01/should_the_purc.html
I also think marijuana should be legal, and I agree with your point. It really doesn’t matter if marijuana is legal or not. Alcohol is legal, but I am sure active chronic alcoholics are excluded from the transplant list. If smoking cigarettes or MJ makes a recipient vulnerable to infection, then not smoking should be a criterion.
Who would pay for the organ? The recipient?
The same people that pay for it now - a combination of the recipient, insurance or the state depending on circumstances.
Nope Ontario is an opt in program, there is a box i think when you renew your license at the ministry. As someone else mentioned, the opt out method was looked at but I dont have any history on why it was rejected or shelved.
Declan