Thursday, September 19, 2024

Getting more transplants,, two recent articles

 Frank McCormick, and Martha Gershon point me to two articles about increasing kidney transplants.

The first one is by Dylan Matthews in Vox Future Perfect. Here are its first paragraphs and last sentence (the middle is well worth reading too if you're new to this debate..)

The moral case for paying kidney donors.
Kidney donors save lives. Why aren’t we compensated for it?

"A few months ago, I wrote about a proposal called the End Kidney Deaths Act, which seeks to make sure that every one of the more than 135,000 Americans who get diagnosed with kidney failure every year has access to a kidney transplant.

"Its method is simple: a federal tax credit worth $10,000 a year for five years, paid to anyone who donates a kidney to a stranger. It’s the kind of thing that would’ve helped a lot when I donated a kidney back in 2016. Elaine Perlman, a fellow kidney donor who leads the Coalition to Modify NOTA, which is advocating for the act, estimates the measure will save 100,000 lives over the first decade it’s enacted, based on conversations with transplant centers on how many surgeries they can perform with their current resources. Polling has shown this kind of measure has overwhelming public support, with at least 64 percent of Americans supporting a system where a government agency compensates donors.

...

"Not enough nurses? Pay nurses more. Not enough waiters? Pay your waiters more. Not enough kidney donors? Here’s a crazy idea: Pay us."

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And here's an article in Healthcare Brew, by Caroline Catherman:

From pigs to payouts, weighing solutions for the US kidney shortage.  About one out of every 20 people waiting for a kidney transplant die each year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Scientists, policymakers, and other experts are scrambling to find a solution.

It also talks about the End Kidney Deaths Act, and pig kidneys and more effective deceased donation as well.

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