# Organ Transplant Girl Rant (not very passionate)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 23, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887 "2003-02-23T02:24:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Quasar)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/1 "2003-02-23T02:24:57Z")
I don’t know all the facts, but according to [this article](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20030223/ap_on_he_me/transplant_error&e=2&ncid=514) that girl who had that botched organ transplant and then got a second transplant finally died. This is sad and unfortunate. But her family decided not to donate any of her organs. WTF?!? Of all the fucking people on the planet who should appreciate organ donation… Bleh, like I said, this rant isn’t very passionate. I just think it’s asinine and it has further reaffirmed my hatred of humanity. Anyway, that’s my rant. You are free to share your dismay as well.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/2 "2003-02-23T02:33:47Z")
From that same article:
> [@](#):
>
> …doctors told the family it was due to the time Jesica was connected to life support.
>
> “Life support ruins kidneys, it ruins brains, it ruins all the organs of the body,”…
The article didn’t delve much into it, but perhaps they decided not to donate them on the advice of a doctor, since the organs may have been damaged.
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### Author:  [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/3 "2003-02-23T02:42:29Z")
The family has to be in immense shock and grief. Put yourself in their shoes, painfully losing a beloved family member through a trajic circumstance, and give it a rest. It’s not the time to play “they oughta”.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/4 "2003-02-23T02:45:47Z")
They’re still not sure they believe she’s dead.
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Quasar)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/5 "2003-02-23T02:49:29Z")
Ehh, I don’t know. From the article it really didn’t sound like they were desperately trying to donate her organs to repay the kindness she received and advised not to by doctors. It sounds like they didn’t believe in the practice and decided against it. I admit I don’t know most of the particulars, but I’ll be truly surprised if I’m not pretty much right. Also, as for their grief, I guess I’m not a very sympathetic person. I haven’t been in their shoes exactly, but I’ve had to lose a loved one unexpectedly and I immediately brought up the topic of organ donation. But perhaps that’s just me.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/6 "2003-02-23T02:54:01Z")
**Jimmy** , I’ve really got to say that I’m getting prepared to not like you very much.
Have you had any of your children die recently?
QtM, MD
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### Author:  [@Horrifying\_Howler\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horrifying_Howler_Monkey)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/7 "2003-02-23T03:51:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Renee McCormick, a spokeswoman for a charity created to pay Jesica’s medical bills, said the Santillan family didn’t know until then that doctors were taking her off life support.
My reading skills aren’t great. They (the Doctors) didn’t ask the families’ permission to take her off life support? I though they had to have consent? Or have I been watching too much ER?
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/8 "2003-02-23T04:00:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Magayuk \*
> \*\*My reading skills aren’t great. They (the Doctors) didn’t ask the families’ permission to take her off life support? I though they had to have consent? Or have I been watching too much ER? \*\*
When certain legal criteria for death have been met, (Example: no brain function, no blood flowing to the brain. Both criteria met in this case) there is no need to get permission to turn off life support machinery.
QtM, MD
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/9 "2003-02-23T04:53:29Z")
OOOK, IANAD but I think organs are usually worth one transplant only, of course that goes for the heart and lungs only, as for the other organs, unfortunately other forces like liability and autopsy research (something I think very possible in an extraordinary case like this), would make the donation of other organs a no go.
Not to mention the mess blood cloth and medicines could have on the other organs:
> [@](#):
>
> Dr. Karen Frush, the hospital’s medical director of children’s services, has there was no sure way to tell when the brain damage occurred. But Mack Mahoney, a family friend and Jesica’s chief benefactor, said doctors told the family it was due to the time Jesica was connected to life support.
>
> “Life support ruins kidneys, it ruins brains, it ruins all the organs of the body,” he said.
>
> The Santillan family declined to donate any organs from Jesica’s body, Puff said.
Was the family told something that was not accurate? If I were on their shoes I would also have declined to donate if they told me that other organs were damaged also.
**Jimmy Quasar** , if you don’t get another cite for your asinine affirmation that they decided to decline organ donation, outside a concern of damage to the other organs, prepare to have humanity defended by making sure your ass gets ripped in the next Black Hole.
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### Author:  [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/10 "2003-02-23T06:18:17Z")
[http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030222\_1554.html](http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030222_1554.html)
“He said the family declined to donate any organs from Jesica’s body, including the heart and lungs that had been donated to her in an operation Thursday. He did not know if those organs had been in any condition to use in a second transplant.”
Now, obviously the same heart and lungs wouldn’t still be useful. But couldn’t there possibly be something else that WOULD be? If there wasn’t, the doctors wouldn’t have asked.
And sorry, they are NOT excused because of what they have been through. Tons of other people have had to make the same agonizing choice of taking a loved one off life support and letting their organs be harvested so that others might live.
It’s really sad for the poor girl, because in this whole thing, she’s the only one who’s done nothing wrong. And she’s the one that suffered the worst fate.
But her parents are assholes of the highest order for refusing to let her organs go to someone else. You get TWO sets of transplanted organs, but you don’t give any when the chance comes up? Fuck that.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/11 "2003-02-23T06:26:35Z")
What the fuck is wrong with some of you?
Almost every donation is made by people who are in a very stressful, sad time of their life. Including the parents of dead kids.
these people are the first ones who should be on the donation band wagon.
Isn’t it true that had the doctors not fucked up this girls may not have died and the transplants would have saved her life?
What are some of you thinking?
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### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/12 "2003-02-23T06:39:25Z")
An episode of “ER” a few years ago\* featured a girl who got a heart transplant that didn’t work, so the heart was removed and passed on to someone else. “The Domino Heart” was the name of the episode and the procedure. I’m not sure if this is really possible, or if it is possible with a heart-lung transplant, but given how few of these procedures are done anyway, I doubt it is very common.
Dr. J
- Please don’t tell the folks at work I used this as a source, OK?
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Quasar)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/13 "2003-02-23T07:18:50Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan \*
> \*\ ***Jimmy** , I’ve really got to say that I’m getting prepared to not like you very much.
>
> Have you had any of your children die recently?
>
> QtM, MD \*\*
You might not like me? You’re breaking my heart, man.
Look, just to answer your question: No, I have not had any of my children die, in fact I have no children. I’ve lost a parent to very sudden and tragic circumstances, but I will be the first to acknowledge that such a thing pales in comparrison to the emotional shock of losing a child. That’s a non-issue, to me.
**pkbites** essentially summed up my point here. Unfortunately, the parents in this case are not the first, nor will the be the last, people to have to make this sort of decision. I suppose I’m a terrible person to you, **QtM** , because I feel it’s horrible for people who have taken full advantage of the organ donation program to not want to give back to it.
Obviously, we don’t have all the facts at hand here and most of this rant is hypothetical, based on the limited information at hand. My disgust is not aimed at these people specifically, but at the idea that people would be so selfish. I think that anyone who receives a donated organ should quite possibly become mandatory organ donors, but again, that’s just my view on the issue. I’m all for comforting grieving families and all that good stuff, but I think that such total disregard for human life (namely the lives of those who donated the organs in question) is without excuse.
Terrible person, signing off…
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### Author:  [@pervertatoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervertatoid)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/14 "2003-02-23T07:30:05Z")
Look. The organs may or may not work. If they do, then they will be used, as long as permission is given. If they don’t, though permission is given, then they won’t be used. The doctors can determine whether the organs are good, not the parents. The parents’ decision to donate or not to donate should have nothing to do with whether or not they were told the organs may or may not be good. If the organs don’t work, then obviously, they’re not going to rip them out of her to stick in someone who’s going to get no use from it. (Then again, seeing how they screwed this whole job up, I wouldn’t put it past them.) Regardless, the parents’ decision not to donate can’t be associated with the idea that the organs will or won’t work. Unless they’re, again, being selfish and saying, “Well, they might not work, so let’s not take the chance and have them ripped out of her for nothing. Let’s not take that chance to save some other poor girl’s life.”
I understand that it’s tough, but…(perhaps I’m just a “Terrible person”, too) if you’re dead, you’ve got no use for your organs. Give them to someone who can use 'em.
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### Author:  [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/15 "2003-02-23T12:38:40Z")
Ditto **pkbites**.
**Qadgop** - did you simul with **Jimmy**? Only in his post he mentioned he had had to “lose a loved one unexpectedly.” Maybe it wasn’t a child, but I think it gives him a valid enough viewpoint on the subject.
I don’t think we know all the facts here, and it may be they had been advised her organs weren’t suitable. It may have been they were clinging to hope that she wasn’t totally dead, and would recover.
But like **pk** and others, if they declined for pretty much any other reason, then that is fairly fucked selfish behaviour. There are no mitigating circumstances of grief, because as parents of a child needing donor organs herself for so long, they would know _ **exactly** _ how other parents feel in this situation.
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### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/16 "2003-02-23T12:50:00Z")
Even if the donated organs were no longer viable, there are many other organs and tissues in the body. For example, we donated my fathers corneas (and other bits and bobs) when he died. I hope never to be in a position where I am forced to make the decisions that family is being forced to make, but I find the _concept_ of a family who have accepted donations, not themselves being card-carrying doners hard to fathom.
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### Author:  [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/17 "2003-02-23T12:58:04Z")
I can’t remember if anything from my dad was donated after he died. I’m almost positive that he had the “organ donor” sticker on his CA drivers license at the time of death, and I know that if anyone had asked, we would have given permission. BTW, how would this organ donor thing work? If he has that on his drivers license (the sticker indicating that he gives permission to be a donor) would the doctors still have to ask for permission from the family? (Sorry for the small hijack.)
Regarding the subject of the OP: I agree with pkbites as well. If the family didn’t want the girl’s organs donated even if they were viable, then that is weird and shitty behavior. But I kinda think that the organs were not viable.
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### Author:  [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/18 "2003-02-23T13:04:50Z")
Recently there was PSA campaign here in California that boiled down to “Make sure you’re loved ones know you want to donate, because even if you have the little sticker, it’s still up to them.”
IANAD, nor AIAOH (Organ Harvester).
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### Author:  [@Jkayla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jkayla)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/19 "2003-02-23T13:38:48Z")
If the family opted to not donate as the article orginally mentioned implied (next to the statement about the ruined organs), has anybody thought that it could be for lawsuit reasons? Perhaps they need the body for a full autopsy or something.
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### Author:  [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/organ-transplant-girl-rant-not-very-passionate/156887/20 "2003-02-23T13:50:31Z")
**Jimmy Quasar** , I agree with you 100%. I have another point that falls under the heading of “Organ Transplant Girl Rant (not very passionate)” but it isn’t the same gripe. Hope you don’t mind the minor-hijack. If you want me to create a new thread about this, I’ll be glad to.
Were the organs that she rec’d from a specific donor who wanted her to have them or did she get them simply by being on a UNOS list? If she did just get them from being on UNOS list (and not from a donor who wanted her specifically to have them), can someone explain to me why illegal aliens would be allowed to be recepients for transplant organs? I mean, this story was very sad and I’m sorry that this girl suffered, and I’m sorry that that her family lost a loved one. I don’t fault the parents. Were it my child, I would have done exactly the same thing to get her somewhere where she might get the care she needed. However, I really need to take a long look at the system in place which allows her to do this.
From what I have gathered, Hospitals are allowed to perform 5% of their transplant surgeries on “non-citizens”. Here on vacation with a Visa? Great. Have a green card? No problem. Illegally smuggled accross the border? Hold the phone, I need to think about this one. [This site](http://www.lifelinkfound.org/wait.asp) claims that as of Friday there were 198 people waiting for a heart/lung transplant. [This site](http://www.carolinadonorservices.org/display.cfm?displaySection=news&sub=newsReleases) claims that “Last year, 6,096 people died waiting for organ transplants” By my math, that’s almost 17 people/day. I wonder how much time some of those 198 people (who aren’t in the news everyday) have to live? I’d be more than just a little fucking cheesed if it was my dad who died becuase she got the organs that he needed.
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