An anthropologist (Dr. Elham Mireshghi) looks at the market for kidneys in Iran

Elham Mireshghi completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at UC Irvine in 2016. Her dissertation is
Kidneys on Sale? An Ethnography of Policy, Exchange, and Uncertainty in Iran

Here's the abstract:
"Since 1997, Iran has implemented the world’s only program for living paid kidney donation. The program has been developed and administered by a non-profit NGO – the Kidney Patient Foundation (KPF). Though sanctioned by Shi‘a Muslim jurists and celebrated in the West as the “Iranian Model,” the program has been rife with moral unease and uncertainty in Iran. While organ donation after death is valorized, undergoing transplantation for cash is stigmatized. Furthermore, there is little agreement among policy actors that facilitating paid organ giving is a good idea. In this dissertation, I examine kidney “selling” both at the level of the exchange – where I analyze the experiences of kidney givers and recipients – and at the level of institutional and bureaucratic process, legal and scientific reasoning, and practical and ethical negotiation, to explain how Iran came to uniquely sanction and bureaucratically routinize kidney selling. I disentangle the dense threads of moral reasoning and experience among a range of actors - from donors and recipients to doctors, policy activists, and Islamic jurists – that undergird the policy’s development and implementation. I have conducted ethnographic field research (2011-2013), including observation inside medical and Islamic institutions in Tehran and Qom, and indepth interviews of kidney givers and patients, KPF personnel, doctors and legal scholars and jurists. I have also analyzed Islamic legal texts, as well as visual and textual media.

"My analysis brings together analytic approaches within the anthropology of public policy, medicine, morality, and exchange, while also contributing to a growing interest in Iranian Studies to venture beyond themes of repression and resistance. I consider Iran’s living kidney giving program within the context of Iran’s post-revolution medical modernization projects, its haphazard economic liberalization, and ongoing commitment to social welfare, alongside an examination of the role of Islamic jurists and other “experts” in policy making. I elucidate the socio-economic conditions and aspirations that motivate kidney givers, and the “medical imaginary” that facilitates their decision as well as the legal reasoning of jurists. Lastly, I offer an alternative to the “commodity paradigm” in examining exchanges involving money that can contribute to bioethical discussions of organ sales."



Here's a paragraph describing the reduction in waiting time for a kidney transplant resulting from the market:

"The culmination of these regulations has resulted in a much shorter wait for kidney transplants in Iran than is the case in, for example, the United States, where paid donation is prohibited and most organs from unrelated donors come from cadavers and brain-dead individuals. This has often been touted as one of the most important outcomes of permitting kidney sales. In the US, if one does not find a donor among family or friends or an “altruist” living stranger, then the wait can take nearly four if not more years. In Iran, the wait can be a little over a year, if not less; though celebratory reports on what is now called the “Iranian Model” often claim that there is no waiting list at all .... If a patient chooses non-living donation, then much like the US the wait can take much longer than a year. "

Much of her interaction was with a social worker who was reluctant to enroll kidney sellers:
"Management was not unaware of Ms. xxx’s principled opposition to kidney selling and her attempts at talking people out of it. Ms. xxx explained to me once that she framed her activities as a benefit for the organization in the form of counseling for sellers. It would garner legitimacy for a program that had frequently come under domestic and international scrutiny, she argued. So management and Ms. xxx shared an interest in counseling prospective donors while assuring that a certain number made it to the list. For management, the interest had to do with protecting the organization’s credibility while also assisting in the treatment of suffering kidney patients. For Ms. xxx, it had to do with ensuring that fewer young men and women fell into what she called the “sick cycle of disease and poverty” (what she deemed to be the likely result of kidney selling) while also maintaining her employment."

One aspect of her work concerns the religious rulings that permit the Iranian kidney market.

Here's a quote from Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi  about what can be sold:
“The severing of an organ from a living person and the transplantation of that to someone whose kidneys have both decayed (fasid) is permissible on the condition that the owner (sahib) of the organ consents, and his life (jan) is not put into danger; and caution requires that if money is received in exchange, that it be in exchange for the permission to proceed with the taking (giriftan) of the organ, and not the organ itself.”

 I blogged about this part of Dr. Mireshghi's work earlier here:

Friday, June 5, 2015

The Shi'a religious jurisprudence behind Iran's legal market for kidneys

French university admissions

The World View has a story on what I take to be ongoing attempts to reform university admissions in France in response to sometimes conflicting concerns.

The Reform of French University Admissions
by Stephanie Mignot-Gerard , March 13, 2018

"After months of extensive consultations, the French Minister of Higher Education and Research, Frederique Vidal, disclosed her bill for a reform of the French public universities admission system on October 30. The reform was rushed due to the turmoil of the random enrollment of 3000 bacheliers at 169 university programs. The randomized procedure concerned the fields of studies where student applications exceeded the seats available (especially in sport studies, psychology and law). The new system had been in place for a couple of years, but remained unnoticed until massive numbers of students were affected this year. A glitch in the software—Admission Post Bac (APB)—allowed 2016 bacheliers to re-start their first year in university in a different field. The result spurred student union protests throughout the summer.
...
"Prior to 2008, when APB was put in place, students had to rank 24 degree choices and university seats were allocated through a complex algorithm that took into account high school grades and the geographical location of student’s home. With the 2017 reform, students can only make 10 non-ranked program choices at any university within the national territory. But the major innovation is twofold. First, high school teachers now have responsibility for providing orientation and offering recommendations based on the choices a student has made. Second, even if the decision about where to apply remains with the student, universities still have the autonomy and right to reject them.

"Student unions remain divided on the government proposal. The reformist association, the FAGE, now a leader at the national level, sees the government’s decision to allow students to decide where to study as a victory. On the other hand, the leftist UNEF claims that the government project undermines the French legal principle of higher education for all and calls for demonstrations. Surprisingly, high school and university students are not easy to mobilize; the UNEF actually—likely deliberately—seems to ignore that the selective admission taboo ended a long time ago. A survey by the magazine L’Etudiant in 2016 of 2500 high school and university students indicated that more than 57% were in favor of some selection."

Surrogacy becomes legal in the state of Washington

Above the Law has the story:

Washington State Flips Its Anti-Surrogacy Stance
"Following the trend of jurisdictions named after our first president, Washington State just enacted into law a comprehensive new Uniform Parentage Act, effective January 1, 2019. While the state had previously allowed altruistic surrogacy — the type where you don’t get paid and where it’s really hard to find a very nice person willing to be pregnant for you for free — the Super Surrogacy-Friendly New Law (not its official name), eliminated the previous state ban on compensated surrogacy."
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And here's the Act itself (although not in a format that makes it easy to read...)
Chapter 26.26 RCW UNIFORM PARENTAGE ACT

The demand for blue eyed babies (from American sperm donors) in Brazil

The WSJ has the story:
Demand for American Sperm Is Skyrocketing in Brazil
Explosive growth spurred by more wealthy single women and lesbian couples turning to U.S. donors

"Over the past seven years, human semen imports from the U.S. to Brazil have surged as more rich single women and lesbian couples select donors whose online profiles suggest they will yield light-complexioned and preferably blue-eyed children.

"is one of the fastest-growing markets for imported semen in recent years, said Michelle Ottey, laboratory director of Virginia-based Fairfax Cryobank, a large distributor and the biggest exporter to Brazil. More than 500 tubes of foreign semen frozen in liquid nitrogen arrived at Brazilian airports last year, officials and sperm-bank directors said, up from 16 in 2011. Complete data from Anvisa, Brazil’s health-care regulator, isn’t yet available for 2017.
...
"Money is also a factor setting parameters for the DNA import boom. Carefully categorized and genetically vetted sperm from U.S. providers has to be procured from Brazilian fertility clinics at a cost of some $1,500 a vial, often as part of an in vitro fertilization procedure that costs roughly $7,000 an attempt. Whites are more likely able to afford that in a country where about 80% of the richest 1% are white, according to Brazil’s statistics agency.

"Imports are rising in part because many Brazilians simply don’t trust the national product. Unlike in the U.S., it is illegal to pay men to donate their sperm here, so domestic stocks are low and information about Brazilian donors sparse.

“It basically says ‘brown eyes, brown hair, likes hamburgers’ and what their zodiac sign is—that’s it,” said Alessandra Oliva, 31, of the information available on local donors. She has 29 pages of information on the American father of her 14-month-old son, from a photo of him as a child to genetic tests for cystic fibrosis."

The NCAA cartel

The March 2018 issue of the Review of Industrial Organization is devoted to a Symposium: The NCAA Cartel

In the Introduction, Roger Blair begins by noting
"Becker (1987) once characterized the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as a “cartel in Sheepskin clothing,” which seems to be an apt description. Under the organizing umbrella of the NCAA, the member institutions collusively exploit both monopolistic and monopsonistic power. "

Here's the table of contents

1. Symposium: The NCAA Cartel—Introduction

   Roger D. BlairPages 179-183
   
2. 

   OriginalPaper

   The National Collegiate Athletic Association Cartel: Why it Exists, How it Works, and What it Does

   Allen R. Sanderson, John J. SiegfriedPages 185-209
   
3. 

   OriginalPaper

   Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics

   Brian Mills, Jason WinfreePages 211-229
   
4. 

   OriginalPaper

   Modeling Competitive Imbalance and Self-Regulation in College Sports

   Rodney FortPages 231-251
   
5. 

   OriginalPaper

   Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football

   Michael A. Leeds, Eva Marikova Leeds, Aaron HarrisPages 253-267
   
6. 

   OriginalPaper

   State of Play: How Do College Football Programs Compete for Student Athletes?

   Jill S. HarrisPages 269-281
   
7. 

   OriginalPaper

   Strategic Interaction in a Repeated Game: Evidence from NCAA Football Recruiting

   Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. RuseskiPages 283-303
   
8. 

   OriginalPaper

   The Role of Broadcasting in National Collegiate Athletic Association Sports

   Allen R. Sanderson, John J. SiegfriedPages 305-321
   
9. 

   OriginalPaper

   The NCAA and the Rule of Reason

   Herbert HovenkampPages 323-335
   
10. 

    OriginalPaper

    Whither the NCAA: Reforming the System

    Andrew ZimbalistPages 337-350
    
11. 

    OriginalPaper

    The NCAA Cartel and Antitrust Policy

    Roger D. Blair, Wenche WangPages 351-368
    

Organ donation in Singapore: mandated choice?

Here's a commentary on deceased organ donation controversies in Singapore:

Mandated Consent – Not a Viable Solution for Organ Transplant in Singapore
Jing Jih Chin, Annals Academy of Medicine, February 2018, Vol. 47 No. 2, 71-73.

The final paragraph:
"While there is no denying the ethical value of a properly administered mandated consent policy, the practical solution for Singapore’s low rate of cadaveric organ transplant in the immediate and near future is unlikely to be found in such a system. What is critical to sustaining organ transplantation as a collective societal institution is to step up the efforts to change mindsets through sharing of knowledge and promotion of altruism and social compact between citizens. Ultimately, we need to negotiate an appropriate and sustainable balance between an individual’s right of autonomy and his obligation towards communal interests."

The next radio spectrum frontier?

The allocation and reallocation of radio spectrum for modern uses has reorganized how spectrum is used.  But the growth of mobile computing, communication, entertainment, and whatever else continues to make presently usable, unassigned spectrum scarce.

Commercial satellite company Intelsat owns the rights to a lot of C-Band spectrum, and are seeking more flexibility in using it, or re-licensing it.
Here's their current proposal, probably not the last word.

Expanding Flexible Use in Mid-Band Spectrum between 3.7 and 24 GHz, GN Docket 17-183
*********

Update on 3.7-4.2 GHz (May 31, 2018)
CTIA Calls for FCC Vote on CBRS Band at July Meeting
"Baker also urged the commission to set an aggressive timeline to clear "hundreds of megahertz" between 3.7 GHz and 4.2 GHz, as well as establish a plan for future spectrum auctions."

More, from Bloomberg:
Intelsat Soars as Proposal for New Airwaves Uses Progresses
By Todd Shields, June 1, 2018

Kidney donor/sellers in Iran face social stigma--2 papers

The first of these two recently published papers is a report compiling interviews taken some time ago:

Coercion, dissatisfaction, and social stigma: an ethnographic study of compensated living kidney donation in Iran
Sigrid Fry‑Revere,  Deborah Chen,  Bahar Bastani,  Simin Golestani,  Rachana Agarwal, Howsikan Kugathasan, and Melissa Le
International Urology and Nephrology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11255-018-1824-y, Online, February 2018

Abstract: "This article updates the qualitative research on Iran reported in the 2012 article by Tong et al. “The experiences of commercial kidney donors: thematic synthesis of qualitative research” (Tong et al. in Transpl Int 25:1138–1149, 2012). The basic approach used in the Tong et al. article is applied to a more recent and more comprehensive study of Iranian living organ donors, providing a clearer picture of what compensated organ donation is like in Iran since the national government began regulating compensated donation. Iran is the only country in the world where kidney selling is legal, regulated, and subsidized by the national government. This article focuses on three themes: (1) coercion and other pressures to donate, (2) donor satisfaction with their donation experience, and (3) whether donors fear social stigma. We found no evidence of coercion, but 68% of the paid living organ donors interviewed felt pressure to donate due to extreme poverty or other family pressures. Even though 27% of the living kidney donors interviewed said they were satisfied with their donation experience, 74% had complaints about the donation process or its results, including some of the donors who said they were satisfied. In addition, 84% of donors indicated they feared experiencing social stigma because of their kidney donation."

Here's an excerpt from the discussion of social stigma:  

"Some donors had a general sense that people had negative impressions of donors. One donor pointed out, “When people find out that you have donated, they start looking at you in a different way. They start keeping their distance.” Another donor explained what he thought was going through
people’s heads: “Oh, he sold his kidney, he’s not a good person.”
***********
and here's a paper with reports from an internet survey:

The Social Stigma of Selling Kidneys in Iran as a Barrier to Entry: A Social Determinant of Health
Mohammad Mehdi Nayebpour  Naoru Koizumi
World Medical and Health Policy, Volume10, Issue1, March 2018,
Pages 55-64
"Abstract
Iran is the only country in the world currently with a legalized compensated kidney donation system, in which kidney sellers are matched with end‐stage renal disease patients through a regulated process. From a practical point of view, this model provides an abundance of kidneys for transplantation as opposed to the American model that relies on altruistic donation. The major concern about adopting the Iranian model is the possibility of exploitation. A large body of literature exists on this topic, but few have focused on its cultural aspects. This paper sheds light on the cultural implications of the Iranian model by providing empirical evidence on the social stigmas against kidney sale in Iran. We claim that these stigmas act as barriers to entry to the supply market of kidneys. Due to the conditions created by social stigmas, kidney sellers are forced to consider not only monetary rewards but also cultural factors. Thus, they tend to be more cautious and try to avoid impulsive decisions. Such social stigmas act as unofficial regulatory forces to keep kidney sale as the last resort for the poor, to diversify the supply market by age, and to stretch the decision‐making process in the absence of a mandatory waiting period for transplantation."

from the discussion:
"Our survey demonstrated that an immense amount of negative stigma is directed toward kidney sellers in Iran from society. Comparison of our findings to those reported by Ghods et al. (2001), who studied the actual characteristics of kidney sellers, reveals stark differences between perception and reality. Ghods et al. interviewed 500 kidney sellers in Iran in 2001 (Ghods et al., 2001). The study reports that only 6 percent of them were actually illiterate (while 71 percent of our respondents thought kidney sellers are illiterate), 88 percent had elementary to high school degree (while only 22 percent of our respondents thought kidney sellers have a high school education), and 6 percent had university degrees and above (6 percent of our respondents thought kidney sellers have above high school education). This gap between the actual profile and the perception of kidney sellers indicates that while Iranians benefit from the current policy, they have a grave stigma against it. The other important gap between perception and reality appears in question 5. About 15 percent of people consider that kidney sellers are drug addicts and 56 percent are not sure whether kidney sellers are drug addicts or not. This particular perception is stunning, since by law kidney sellers undergo a series of strict medical tests before becoming eligible for selling. "

Bar Ifrach on market design at Airbnb

Here's a talk today at the Harvard Kennedy School that caught my eye:

Bar Ifrach (Director of Data Science, Airbnb): 'Search, Pricing and Marketplace Dynamics at Airbnb'

Date: 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: 

Darman Room, Taubman Building, Harvard Kennedy School

Join us for a Behavioral Insights Student Group lunch with Bar Ifrach.

Bar Ifrach is a Director of Data Science at Airbnb, leading a group of over 60 data scientists who cover Airbnb's core business unit -- Homes -- across analytics, inference, and algorithms. In addition, Bar is a member of the Homes business' leadership team that designs strategy and oversees execution across Airbnb's main product. Bar begun his academic studies at Tel Aviv University, where he completed a BA in economics in 2007. Following that, Bar completed a PhD in operations research and economics from Columbia Business School in 2012, researching learning and pricing in online marketplaces and game theory. After a postdoc at Stanford University, Bar joined Airbnb as a data scientist in the marketplace team in 2013, where he focused on optimizing matching through personalized search and marketplace design. In 2014 Bar founded Airbnb's pricing team that currently provides prices suggestions to millions of hosts. In 2015 and 2016 Bar managed Airbnb's Marketplace data science team, fueling Airbnb's rapid growth through multiple efforts, including scaling Instant Booking to the majority of the business.

Topic of talk: Search, Pricing and Marketplace Dynamics at Airbnb

In his 2016 book Who Get What -- and Why, Nobel laureate Alvin Roth defined three general principles for successful marketplace: thickness, congestion-free, and safe and simple. In this talk, we will illustrate these principles using unique examples from Airbnb's two-sided marketplace and tie them back to Airbnb's success. In addition, we will discuss challenges and solutions in measuring the efficacy of marketplace design changes in light of these principles.

Market design and kidney exchange: Public lecture at USC

I'll be speaking at USC today:

March 19

Al Roth

Stanford

*IEPR Distinguished Lecture Series Location: University Club, Scriptorium Time: 4:00 PM Title:  "Unusual markets: the case of kidney exchange"

Child marriage in the U.S., and in India

Is 13 too young to marry?  If pregnant??

Not yet in Kentucky.
Vote on bill to outlaw child marriage in Kentucky delayed after opposition from conservative Family Foundation

"A bill outlawing child marriage in Kentucky had been expected to receive a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but that vote has been delayed due to last-minute opposition by the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky, according to the bill’s lead sponsor.

"Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, filed Senate Bill 48 on the first day of this year’s session of the Kentucky General Assembly, which would prohibit anyone under the age of 17 from marrying and only allow 17-year-olds to marry with a judge’s approval.

"Under the current law in Kentucky, 16 and 17-year-olds can marry with their parents’ permission, and a girl of any age under 16 can marry as long as they are pregnant and marrying the expectant father. Likewise, a boy of any age can marry a woman that he impregnates under the current law.

"Adams filed the bill after media reports detailing how Kentucky has the third-highest rate of child marriage in the country — with more than 10,000 children married from 2000 to 2015"
**********

And from Tennessee
Child marriage in Tennessee: Lawmakers take action to close legal loophole

"Two Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills to prevent marriages in Tennessee where a party is under 18 years of age, after a national nonprofit cited three cases in the state where 10-year-old girls were married to adult men.

"Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, who is sponsoring the legislation with Rep. Darren Jernigan, D-Old Hickory, said at a press conference Monday that while many Tennesseans believe the minimum age to marry is 18, a loophole in state law actually allows a judge to waive the age requirement and does not state a minimum age.

"The State Department views child marriage in other countries as a human rights abuse, yet it’s something that happens with frequency in Tennessee and across the country," Yarbro said"
**********

And India: Uphill Battle Against Child Marriage Is Being Won in India, for Now
"Data released by Unicef on Tuesday found that a girl’s risk of marrying before her 18th birthday in South Asia fell by more than a third in the last decade, from nearly 50 percent to about 30 percent, in large part because of progress in India.

Child marriage here is finely threaded with other practices, including the exchange of a dowry from the bride’s family to the groom, and sometimes with sex trafficking, making it difficult to tackle any one issue without addressing others. Social workers said there are no easy solutions.

...

"Though India’s numbers are promising, a recent analysis of census data highlighted another disturbing finding. In pockets of India, incidents of child marriage are decreasing in rural areas, but increasing in urban settings.

Researchers involved with the study say it is unclear what is causing that phenomenon. One hypothesis is that an uptick in migration from villages to cities could mean that these weddings have simply been redistributed."

When an academic conference can save lives (market for interventional cardiologists)

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the story:
Academic Conferences May Save Lives — by Keeping Big-Name Doctors Busy

Here's the medical paper on which it is based:
Acute Myocardial Infarction Mortality During Dates of National Interventional Cardiology Meetings
Anupam B. Jena, Andrew Olenski, Daniel M. Blumenthal, Robert W. Yeh, Dana P. Goldman, John Romley,
Journal of the American Heart Association. 2018

"Thousands of physicians attend national scientific meetings annually. Within hospitals, the composition of physicians who attend scientific meetings may differ from nonattendees who remain behind to treat patients, potentially resulting in differences in care patterns and outcomes for patients hospitalized during meeting dates. A quasi‐experimental evaluation of outcomes of patients hospitalized with acute cardiovascular conditions during the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual meetings compared with identical nonmeeting days in the surrounding weeks found that, within teaching hospitals, patients admitted with cardiac arrest or high‐risk heart failure during meeting dates had lower adjusted 30‐day mortality compared with similar patients on nonmeeting dates"

Match Day for medical residents--NRMP results announced

Today is Match Day: later today, graduating American medical students, and quite a number of other young doctors will learn where they will work next year.

Here's one description: The Final Countdown: Match Day 2018.

Here's another:
NRMP Match Week will Reveal Future for Thousands of Resident Physician Applicants
NRMP Main Residency Match continues to grow, with 2018 Match expected to be largest in history.

And here's my all time favorite, courtesy of Hogwarts.

Last minute bidding on the New York Stock Exchange

The WSJ has the story (the url is better than the headline:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-closing-time-the-stock-market-heats-up-like-a-bar-at-last-call-1521038300)

What’s the Biggest Trade on the New York Stock Exchange? The Last One
"The NYSE operates between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., but much of the action has moved to the final moments, thanks to index funds and others that flock to the day’s closing auction"

"Last year, 26% of all trading activity on the NYSE’s flagship exchange took place in the last trade of the day, up from 17% in 2012, exchange data shows. Last year, trades at the close accounted for more than 8% of trading volume in S&P 500 stocks, nearly four times what it was in 2004, according to Credit Suisse .

"While individual investors may follow the market through the day, especially in the past turbulent weeks, it is likely they own funds that track major stock indexes like the S&P 500 whose values depend on prices determined in the closing auction.

"In this auction, traders electronically send transaction orders to the NYSE, home to more than 2,000 companies that include such blue-chip names as Boeing Co. , Walt Disney Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp. The exchange’s computers match the millions of buy and sell orders, with human traders on the NYSE floor sometimes stepping in to help.

"At least $10 billion worth of shares are traded in the NYSE’s closing auction on an average day, with a final tally of stock prices typically listed by 4:05 p.m.

The “close,” as traders call it, has grown in importance as investors pour into index-mutual funds and other vehicles that passively track various stock-market indexes, including exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. "

Drugs in sports

An editorial in The Guardian reminds me of the heyday of bicycle racing.
The Guardian view on drugs in sport: a deep corruption: "A devastating report from a parliamentary select committee shows a culture of studied evasion around the abuse of performance-enhancing substances in professional sport"
...
"Over in the world of professional cycling, Team Sky, founded to “win clean”, turns out to have had a terrible problem with asthma among its athletes. Sir Bradley Wiggins apparently suffered from an asthma that could only be treated with a steroid which has the side-effect of allowing endurance athletes to lose fat rapidly while maintaining muscle mass. This is legal provided a doctor has certified that the drug is needed to treat the asthma. "
**********

Here's the parliamentary report: Combatting doping in sport

Summary: "There is overwhelming evidence of the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. Some are illegal in any respect; others are legal, but are used in suspicious ways. Whether permitted for selective use or banned outright, performance enhancing drugs can have serious consequences for the integrity of sport and the wellbeing of individual athletes. The huge increase in financial rewards for successful sports men and women carries the increased risk of incentives to use drugs to cheat. Our long inquiry has relied on detailed oral and written evidence, academic research, investigative journalism, and whistleblowers, to uncover this covert and pervasive activity across different sports. The inquiry studied both agencies responsible for policing the use of performance enhancing drugs, and the programmes that, as our report will demonstrate, have used them in questionable ways. In particular, our inquiry has found acute failures in several different organisations in athletics and cycling: a failure to share appropriate medical records with anti-doping organisations; a failure to keep proper internal records of the medical substances given to athletes; and a failure to outlaw the use of potentially dangerous drugs in certain sports. All of these failures have occurred in an under-resourced national anti-doping infrastructure, which has had neither the financial means nor powers of enforcement. Some steps have been taken to alleviate this context and the failures it has permitted, but these measures have come too late. We call on those bodies identified in this report to pay serious attention to our recommendations; we cannot afford to allow these same failures to happen again."

Duke switches to random roommate matching

Is it a good idea to allow college students to choose their own roommates?  Duke University returns to administrative matching of first year roommates, with Dean Random making the match.

Inside Higher Ed has the story (and the url makes for an informative headline: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/02/duke-university-blocks-students-picking-their-roommates-freshman-year 

Here's the actual (pithier) headline and subhead
Random Roommates Only
"Duke University takes away from first-year students the ability to pick their roommates. This move goes against recent trends -- and raises questions about diversity, tolerance and the college experience."

"Duke University has removed from students what has become one of the most significant aspects of matriculation at many colleges: picking a first-year roommate

"Beginning with the Class of 2022, the roommate-selection process will be entirely governed by the university, with assignments largely made at random -- a shift, officials said, meant to stem the recent movement of students self-selecting peers with similar perspectives and backgrounds to their own, fueled by social media connections made before arriving on campus."

Transplant diplomacy between China and the Vatican

The Global Times, a publication of the Chinese Communist Party, reports on further discussion with the Vatican on organ transplantation, in connection with an anticipated agreement on the appointment of Catholic Bishops in China:

China to attend Vatican organ trafficking meeting
Beijing, Holy See exchanges promoting mutual respect
By Li Ruohan Source:Global Times Published: 2018/3/11 2 

"Chinese scholars will join an anti-organ trafficking conference in the Vatican on Monday and Tuesday, to share the country's experience and boost people-to-people exchanges between Beijing and the Vatican. 

"This is the second time China has been invited by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) to attend a meeting in the Holy See, as China's reforms on organ transplant have increasingly received papal and global recognition.

...

"In 2017, more than 5,100 deceased Chinese citizens had voluntarily agreed to donate their organs after death, saving, or improving the lives of more than 16,000 people, according to official data obtained by the Global Times on Sunday. 

"China criminalized unauthorized trading of organs in 2011, a crime for which the death penalty can be handed down in severe cases. From 2007 to 2016, 174 people were arrested in China for organ trafficking.
...
"China and the Vatican have no diplomatic relations. Lately there has been widespread speculation the two sides are close to a consensus on the appointment of bishops in China, a positive sign for improving relations between Beijing and the Vatican."
********

HT: Frank McCormick

Here's a story in the Washington Post about the larger diplomacy:
A Catholic bishop and his rural Chinese parish worry about a deal between Beijing and the Vatican   

By Emily Rauhala March 11

Tax credit for organ donors in Maryland

The Baltimore Sun has the story:
Maryland House passes bills on organ transplants, sponsored by speaker who was saved by a liver transplant

"The Maryland House of Delegates on Thursday unanimously passed two organ donations sponsored by House Speaker Michael E. Busch, whose life was saved by a liver transplant last year.

One would provide a $7,500 tax credit for living donors to help defray their costs of donating all or part of an organ.
...
"Gov. Larry Hogan has announced his support for the bill.

"The second Busch-sponsored measure would treat vehicles delivering donor organs or medical personnel en route to a transplant operation as emergency vehicles. That would allow them to use flashing signals and permits them to speed or go through traffic signals if they can do so safely.

"The two bills now go to the Senate, where passage is expected."

Cat meat in India

Here's a somewhat complicated story from Chennai, which focuses on cat meat being sold as mutton and other deceptions, and on pet cats being killed. But what caught my eye is that there is an ethnic group that enjoys eating cats:

In Chennai, a debate about cat meat after NGO’s crackdown on nomadic community
The Narikoravar are a marginalised group, traditionally known to kill feral cats for meat.

"The Narikoravar are a dwindling community. There are only around 200 families left in Chennai now, said Rajkumar, former president of Tamil Nadu’s Narikoravar community. They originally lived in forests and were hunters. Now, Rajkumar said, most of them make a living collecting paper and plastic from garbage cans and selling them to waste paper shops, earning less that Rs 100 a day. In 2016, the community was included in the list of Scheduled Tribes in Tamil Nadu.

The Narikoravar are traditionally known to kill feral cats and eat their meat. “Now they have moved to the city, so them killing domestic cats isn’t justified,” Pereira argued. “It is not categorised as food in India. Slaughter that happens anywhere outside a slaughter house is illegal. And more than anything, it’s an act of cruelty. Cats are trapped, kept in little cages and gunny bags.”
************

HT: Mostly Economics blog, by Amol Agrawal.