An ethical question: financial reward for bone marrow donors?

[Sam Chiu]

Alice Gann Kaspar <kas...@TENET.EDU> wrote:
>
> WAIT A MINUTE!! AREN'T WE TALKING MAJOR MISINFORMATION HERE??
>
and quoted a previous article of mine:
: In the case of organ donation, either
: the donor is dead, or in the case of living donors, their health is
: going to be adversely affected for the rest of their lives.

I apologise for the misinformation. Mike Holloway has also pointed
out there is no evidence to suggest health problems for living donors.
I was intending to say, donors of solid organs will have a permanent
loss of a body part which is not replacable. Of course this poses no
problem if the organ is donated to, say, a loved one. The ethical
question comes in when someone does this out of short-term financial
gain.

Anyway, sorry about my blunder.

I also intend to ring up the Anthony Nolan centre on Monday to clarify
a couple of questions:

. pregnancy and its effect on the donor's chance of matching
. possibility of cryo-preserving the donor's bone marrow

Hope I get it right this time. :)

--
Sam Chiu <cc...@cus.cam.ac.uk>

[Louise Clarke]

Thank goodness. I am planning to donate a kidney to my identical twin
brother. Misinformation can damage what is otherwise a bona fide good idea.

I just finished reading Starzl's book about himself. He says that in
1972, he stopped doing living-related donor kidney operations on the
grounds that some donors were coerced, and that as a pratice it set
families up for long term psychological difficulties.

Since my operation is going to occur at Presby, I queried them about
Starzl's position. You can bet there are disagreements! One thing is
clear: he did not stop doing them primarily because of perceived medical
risk. My understanding is that there is no evidence of any long-term ill
side affects.

This is worth discussing.