New York State bills propose to be more generous to living donors

 Frank McCormick points out an op-ed in the Albany Times Union newspaper, coathored by a medical ethicist and a kidney donor:

Commentary: Kidney donors are heroes. We need to treat them that way.  by Arthur Caplan and Sammy Beyda

"if just a small fraction of Americans donated their kidneys, the 100,000- person organ waitlist might be eliminated. It stands to reason, then, that we should enact some sort of legislation to incentivize kidney donation, but many have argued against paying Americans to sell their kidneys, and federal law prohibits such sales.

"However, there is another way to proceed that preserves core transplant donation values while seeking to increase living kidney donation. A new bill in the state Legislature would fully compensate New Yorkers for the costs associated with living donation, and another would offer free health insurance to anyone who donates.

...

"What the New York legislation understands is that kidney donation is an act of commendable public service, one that deserves all the honors that we give to public servants like soldiers, nurses, EMTs, and firefighters. Instead of trying to pay donors in a market system that would treat donation as a transaction, we should properly treat donors as what they are: heroes trying to help those in dire need.

...

"There’s a real opportunity for New York to lead the nation in stamping out death and disability due to kidney disease by taking bold steps to increase living kidney donation. As a bioethicist and a kidney donor, we recognize that now is the time to act. State lawmakers should prioritize these bills and provide a safety net for those willing to be donors. You should not lose money or risk debt to be a hero."

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Here's a paper about treating donors as heroes:

Niederle, Muriel and Alvin E. Roth, “Philanthropically Funded Heroism Awards for Kidney Donors?, Law & Contemporary Problems, 77:3, 2014, 131-144.  )

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And as I've noted before, kidney disease is persistently among the top ten causes of death in the US and around the world, with over 50,000 deaths in 2020 in the U.S.

Saturday, April 17, 2021

The Leading Causes of Death in the US for 2020