Today’s must-read: Ed Morrissey‘s compelling book review and article in today’s WSJ:
Organs Needed, Supply Limited
What to do when the wait for a transplant can take seven years?
More than 1,000 Americans die every year awaiting a kidney transplant. Surgeons in the U.S. perform about 7,000 of the transplants annually, but that doesn’t come close to meeting demand: As many as 250,000 patients require kidney dialysis — all of them subsidized by Medicare — but half of them are deemed not sick enough to warrant referral to a transplant program. The wait for a kidney transplant from a cadaver-donor can take seven years.
I’m familiar with these statistics, and the wrenching stories they suggest, because my wife has lived in this precarious wait-and-hope world. She was the recipient of a cadaver-organ transplant, and twice in her life she was blessed with the unbelievable good fortune of receiving kidney donations from friends. Non-family donors are rare, and even within a family, as in our case, finding a good tissue match can be a challenge.
Desperation, then, can slowly seep into the wait for a kidney transplant.
These are the books Ed reviewed,
At Hot Air, Ed asks, Is it time to offer compensation for live kidney donations? This is not an abstract question. As techonology improves, the answer to that question may save your life.
Go read both Ed’s article and post.
