Organ Harvesting Before "Brain-Death" Increasingly Common, Concerned Doctors Warn

LifeSiteNews ^ | 3/21/07 | Gudrun Schultz

[shorty_harris]

Your characterization is that a rich sheik showed up at St. Vincent with a wad of cash looking for a liver, and that a corrupt transplant team took his offer and slipped him to the top of the list. I'm sorry if that's what you believe.

If they were just looking for money, why didn't this corrupt team hold out for $500,000, or $1 million? Money was apparently no object to this guy. He ended up paying the going rate anybody else without insurance would have paid. And even if this corrupt team had declined the organ, as they should have (because the intended recipient was unavailable) , that didn't mean they wouldn't have gotten it anyway; some of the top candidates for that organ were right there at St. Vincent.

Others should by all means read the referenced article. But don't stop there...read other reports of the incident. Read the UNOS report. Hopefully others will reach the conclusion I have...that this facility committed a mammoth blunder, and tried to cover up their error by falsifying other records.

[swain_forkbeard]

An easy solution to what? How does that scheme address the issue of harvesting organs from donors who are not yet dead?

[swain_forkbeard]

So you really think it was a mammoth blunder that just happened to involve a large fee and who-knows-how-many unreported payments? A mammoth blunder that just happened to benefit a wildly rich man? Occam's razor argues quid pro quo.

[beezdotcom]

I used to think this guy was a bit nutty...now I'm not so sure...

[Elyse]

You just keep pushing the envelope slowly back and pretty soon it's wide open.

[Jubal Harshaw]

I appreciate the difference of opinion. Now that I think I understand your characterization of what happened, I don't agree with your assessment, but at least it makes some sense.

That said, however, I would urge anyone reading the UNOS report to keep in mind that UNOS is not a court, and not an investigative agency. Rather, it is a transplant surgeon's club. It's run by transplant surgeons and funded by transplant programs, which are, again, run by transplant surgeons. Whether or not you believe UNOS is run for transplant surgeons is an assessment you will have to make.

UNOS's failure as an investigative agency, however, is not really in doubt. After all, UNOS recently failed, for two years, to notice that the University of California, Irvine, did not, in a legal sense, have a transplant program from approx. 2003 to late 2005 (dates from memory; may be off by a year). During that time, the University of California, Irvine:

did not have a full time transplant surgeon

perfomrmed a few transplants, but below state and federal minimums required to maintain proficiency, and that were supposed to be required to maintain certification

had half the department of anesthesia sign a petition asking for training on liver transplant anesthesia. The background to the petition was apparently that UC Irvine was supposed to be a transplant center, but the anesthesiologists were not trained to do transplant anesthesia. The petition was rebuffed, the anesthesiologists did not get transplant anesthesia training, and the petition organizer, Dr. Glenn Prevost, was fired.

had a certification from transplant surgeon Dr. Marquis Hart that he (Dr. Hart) would be full time at UC Irvine. Dr. Hart apparently never was full time at UC Irvine, but was full time at UC San Diego, approximately 100 miles away.

UNOS detected none of this, and continued to offer organs to UC Irvine, which allowed UC Irvine to get federal funding for running a transplant program. It took a civil suit (filed by would-be transplant patient Elodie Irvine, who waited in agony for two years for a transplant that would never come, despite the fact that, over the two years, 95 organs were basically suitable for her), courts, discovery, and newspaper coverage to make UNOS aware of all this. In other words, it's not too clear that a UNOS report is worth the electrons with which it's displayed.

[Jubal Harshaw]

I appreciate the difference of opinion. Now that I think I understand your characterization of what happened, I don't agree with your assessment, but at least it makes some sense.

That said, however, I would urge anyone reading the UNOS report to keep in mind that UNOS is not a court, and not an investigative agency. Rather, it is a transplant surgeon's club. It's run by transplant surgeons and funded by transplant programs, which are, again, run by transplant surgeons. Whether or not you believe UNOS is run for transplant surgeons is an assessment you will have to make.

UNOS's failure as an investigative agency, however, is not really in doubt. After all, UNOS recently failed, for two years, to notice that the University of California, Irvine, did not, in a legal sense, have a transplant program from approx. 2003 to late 2005 (dates from memory; may be off by a year). During that time, the University of California, Irvine:

did not have a full time transplant surgeon

perfomrmed a few transplants, but below state and federal minimums required to maintain proficiency, and that were supposed to be required to maintain certification

had half the department of anesthesia sign a petition asking for training on liver transplant anesthesia. The background to the petition was apparently that UC Irvine was supposed to be a transplant center, but the anesthesiologists were not trained to do transplant anesthesia. The petition was rebuffed, the anesthesiologists did not get transplant anesthesia training, and the petition organizer, Dr. Glenn Prevost, was fired.

had a certification from transplant surgeon Dr. Marquis Hart that he (Dr. Hart) would be full time at UC Irvine. Dr. Hart apparently never was full time at UC Irvine, but was full time at UC San Diego, approximately 100 miles away.

UNOS detected none of this, and continued to offer organs to UC Irvine, which allowed UC Irvine to get federal funding for running a transplant program. It took a civil suit (filed by would-be transplant patient Elodie Irvine, who waited in agony for two years for a transplant that would never come, despite the fact that, over the two years, 95 organs were basically suitable for her), courts, discovery, and newspaper coverage to make UNOS aware of all this. In other words, it's not too clear that a UNOS report is worth the electrons with which it's displayed.

[firewalk]

Thank you for your post

[LIConFem]

Hey, I'm still using that!! ping.

[xzins]

Think about organ harvesting from partial birth abortions....

Could the huge liberal push to preserve partial birth abortion actually be based on behind-the-scenes lobbying by organ harvesters?

Anyone have the data on organs to infants/children from partially-born abortions?

[shorty_harris]

Thanks for the debate.

UNOS gets it's funding in part from the Federal Government, partly from corporate grants, partly from membership fees (all transplant centers are members). For the duties it performs, it makes perfect sense to me that it's made up of transplant surgeons. I wouldn't want some bureaucrats, insurance agents, or a group of electricians deciding which organ goes where. Anyway, in spite of their alleged shortcomings, I'll give at least as much weight to the UNOS report as I will to an L.A. Times reporter.

[RKBA Democrat]

"I will make a prediction. You don't know squat. All you know is what you read on the Internet."

And you have a tendency toward both extreme remarks and ad hominem attacks. It's obvious that you're more interested in attacking those who disagree with your point of view than you are in actually engaging in debate.

My grandfather used to tell me that I shouldn't get into urinating contests with skunks. I'm going to take his advice.

[A. Pole]

Free Market at work!

[rlmorel]

Yes. You cannot fight back because what I said is the truth.

What I have an issue against is irrational threads like this that put the fear into people that the transplant services out there are filled with bloodthirsy surgeons waiting to harvest the organs of people that are not dead, and that we are only a step away from killing and harvesting organs from the disabled or criminals. IF YOU THINK I AM EXAGGERATING AND MAKING EXTREME REMARKS-READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE YOU SHOOT OFF YOUR MOUTH.

I have seen the way transplantation can change and save people's lives, but getting enough people to agree to be donors is difficult because of irrational, stupid, uneducated idiots like the people who wrote the article in this thread and the people who pepetuate its slander and mistruths.

If I have a tendency towards extreme remarks and ad-hominem attacks, it is beause rationality and moderate discussion is lost on ideologues like you and the people who wrote this article with an agenda in mind. So the answer is yes, I am coming over the top with both barrels.

If it stifles the conversation on this thread, GOOD.

If this were a real, civilized discussion about the benefits or drawbacks of transplantation services, I am fine with that. What I am not fine with is the tone and insinuation of this article.

I am going to be as nasty and rude as I have to be to squash it, because it is an untrue, fallacious slanderous perception that has a MEASUREABLE effect on the lives of REAL people who need organs, but cannot get them because of the slander and innuendo put forth in this crap. If I have to shut people like you up, one at a time, I am going to do it.

[mouser]

No, be honest and say that you are killing sick patients for their organs

Remember who profits from organ harvesting not the patient, not the patients family. It is the Dr who harvests them.

So the Dr who decides you are ready to be harvested has a very large $$$$$ incentive. If anyone profits it should be the patients family>

[RKBA Democrat]

"So the answer is yes, I am coming over the top with both barrels."

That's nice to know. Enjoy your rant. Alone.

[rlmorel]

Not going to happen.

You have no problem with slandering an entire group of people in the way liberals have slandered the President and his administration, accusing them of personally war profiteering on the blood of our men, which is one of the most ghastly and heinous slanders imaginable.

This is no different, to accuse an entire group of KILLING people just to line their pockets, because that is what this line of thought does.

Since you are honest enough to define yourself as RKBA Democrat, I presume you are a liberal since you cannot be a Democrat and not be a liberal.

I have found that if one lets liberals build their arguments on a foundation of lies and disinformation (which precisely defines the nature of the argument against transplantation in this article and in your's and other's arguments here) it is impossible to tear down the arguments later. So I am NOT going to let you or anyone else get away with it.