Kidney exchange comes to Hungary

Péter Biró  writes with good news about kidney exchange in Hungary.

 Here's the announcement from the  University of Pécs, of the first kidney exchange performed in Hungary, following the first legislation passed to legalize kidney exchange in 2014. (And more details follow from a second announcement below.)

The first cross-donation kidney transplant was performed in Hungary at the University of Pécs Clinical Center  2026.01.29

"The first cross-donation kidney transplant performed in Hungary a few days ago can be considered a new milestone in the history of organ transplantation in Hungary. Within the framework of the living donor kidney exchange program, two women received new kidneys at the Department of Surgery of the University of Pécs Clinical Center (PTE KK), which gives them the opportunity for a better quality of life. It is particularly interesting that in both cases the organ donor was a male member of the other couple.

...

"In his speech, Dr. Péter Szakály, Head of Department of the Department of Surgery of the University of Pécs, emphasized that: The establishment of a national pool was of fundamental importance in this program, and this program will be able to operate successfully in the future as well if there are as many such couples as possible. He also added that compared to traditional kidney transplantation, living donor transplantation is always a much greater challenge (...) Transplantation with a living donor comes with increased responsibility, as it involves a healthy donor. In this case, two surgeries were performed at the same time: Ádám Varga, assistant professor, and I simultaneously removed and replaced the organs between the two pairs from the adjacent operating room. 

"Since 2014, the law allows this type of transplant, but no specific surgeries have been performed so far. Recognizing this shortcoming, at the initiative of the National Hospital Administration, the four kidney transplant centers in Hungary and the Regional Kidney Transplant Committees operating there, in cooperation with the National Blood Transfusion Service, have developed a nationally uniform program in accordance with the legislation in force, which ensures equal opportunities for all patients who voluntarily enter the program. This became the living donor kidney transplant exchange program, which was launched in Hungary on June 21, 2024. The search for optimally compatible pairings between the pairs applying for the program is carried out with the help of a software developed for this purpose." 

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And here is the emailed announcement forwarded by Peter Biro, who has been a champion of kidney exchange in Europe for many years now:

Dear EURO-KEP Colleagues,

 

We are pleased to inform you that we have reached a significant milestone within the Hungarian Kidney Paired Kidney Exchange Program (HKEP), in line with the objectives of the EURO-KEP initiative.

 

On January 20, 2026, the first two kidney transplants were successfully performed in Hungary within the national living donor kidney exchange program. The surgeries took place at the University of Pécs Clinical Centre, marking the first realization of kidney cross-over donation in the country.

We believe that this milestone, supported by a well-structured professional and patient information campaign lasting more than a year and a half, will contribute to increasing the number of living donor kidney transplants and encourage more patients and voluntary donors to join kidney exchange programs. This, in turn, will support further kidney exchanges and improve equal access to transplantation.

 

Chronology and key developments of the Hungarian KEP

• June 2024 – With the support and authorization of the National Directorate General for Hospitals (OKFŐ), a nationally unified kidney paired exchange program was launched, coordinated by the National Blood Transfusion Service, with the participation of all four Hungarian kidney transplant centers and regional waiting list committees.
• Since the launch – The matching algorithm has been run every three months; to date, six matching runs have been completed, involving 57 donors and 44 recipients. The seventh run is scheduled for tomorrow.
• July 2025 – A key legislative amendment entered into force, allowing:
• simultaneous transplants among more than two donor–recipient pairs in a closed chain,
• transplant surgeries to be performed in different centers, enabling patients to remain at their original listing centers and
• not only incompatible pairs can join the program, but compatible pairs in the hope of better matching.
• Following the legal amendment, an updated and detailed printed patient information package was distributed nationwide, with the involvement of all dialysis units and transplant centers.
• During the optimization process, a clinically acceptable match was identified between two married couples. In both cases, the male partner donated a kidney to the female recipient of the other couple. The transplant surgeries were performed on 20 January 2026 at the Surgical Clinic of the University of Pécs Clinical Centre. In both cases, graft function started immediately. The recipients and donors are in good condition and both patients were discharged home on Friday.

We consider this achievement a significant milestone in Hungarian transplantation and a meaningful contribution to the shared European objectives of the EURO-KEP project. We remain committed to continuing this work in the service of saving lives.

 

Best regards,

 

Dr. Sándor Mihály, Ph.D  
Director of transplantation

Honorary College Associate Professor at Semmelweis University

General Secretary of the Hungarian Transplant Society

EDTCO Past-Chair 2023-2025

 

 

Organ Coordination Office

Central Waiting List Office

National Organ and Tissue Donation Opting-out Registry

Hungarian Stem Cell Donor Registry

 

The market for used underwear, in the journal Genre, sexualité & société

 The study of repugnant transactions and controversial markets can lead to some strange markets.

 In the latest issue of the journal Genre, sexualité & société (after right clicking to translate to English) :

Product qualification in a contested market: The case of the used underwear market
by Ludine Cayla and Julien Gradoz
https://doi-org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/10.4000/154ww 

Abstract: This article focuses on the used underwear market, defined as the market for underwear that has been worn by one or more individuals and sold unwashed, meaning it contains deliberately left secretions and fluids. It distinguishes websites where the nature of the product sold must be concealed (such as resale websites for secondhand items) due to the prohibition of the transactions, and websites where the product can be openly discussed (such as websites specializing in the sale of sexual items). This distinction allows for the study of the issue of product qualification and disqualification in a contested market, which has been hardly explored. More broadly, this article helps identify the main characteristics of an overlooked market that, until now, has only been the subject of sensationalist analyses. 

"this is a "contested market," that is, a market in which some people would like to carry out transactions, but third parties oppose them on the basis of moral considerations. This opposition can then translate into constraints placed on the organization of the market (Roth, 2007), such as its prohibition (e.g., organs), the prohibition of advertising (cigarettes), difficulties in obtaining a bank loan (pornography), the imposition of punitive taxes (sodas), or even the stigmatization of participants in the transactions. Contested markets have been the subject of a substantial body of literature over the past decade (e.g., Steiner and Trespeuch, 2014; Bertrand et al ., 2020; Bertrand and Panitch, 2024; Gradoz and Dekker, 2025), and this article proposes to analyze the used underwear market based on this literature, moving beyond the sensationalism that has prevailed until now. This literature has focused in particular on the justifications used by third parties to challenge the existence of certain markets, or on the strategies implemented by participants in transactions to cope with the constraints resulting from this challenge." 

Why I Chose to Get E. Coli. — by Josh Morrison

 Josh Morrison is a glutton for (effective) altruism: he's a nondirected kidney donor (who founded the advocacy organization WaitlistZero), and he's an advocate of human challenge trials for vaccines, who founded the organization OneDaySooner.  He reports his own recent experiences as a challenge trial participant, in MedPage Today:

Why I Chose to Get E. Coli. — Human challenge trials can accelerate medical innovation  by Josh Morrison

" challenge trials have been essential for scientific advancements that may not have been possible (or would have taken much longer) with traditional studies. Challenge studies were crucial to developing malaria vaccines. The correlates of protection they established for influenza immunology are still used to license flu vaccines today, and they played an important role in discovering the origins of both ulcers and yellow fever.

"The E. coli vaccine study I joined was at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Vaccine Development (CVD). Two of my friends had been in studies at the CVD and had positive experiences overall. I felt like the E.coli vaccine in particular was an important one, so I decided it was time for me to participate too.

"To start, half the participants received the first vaccine in the series and half got a placebo. These initial shots and their associated follow-up were part of eight appointments over 3 months. At our appointments, we had our vitals checked and, in some cases, we had our blood collected or received another vaccine. At appointments the week after a vaccination, we'd provide a stool sample. The study culminated in a 9-day quarantine in Baltimore where were we were exposed to the infectious agent: It was time to drink the E. coli.

"The E. coli was suspended in a bicarbonate solution and tasted like Gatorade without the sugar or flavoring. I remember chuckling nervously as I drank it alongside my fellow participants. It was such an odd experience; I felt like an astronaut counting down for liftoff. 

...

"People's motivations for being in the study included the money (about $4,500). But most of my fellow participants were also excited about the chance to be part of important research and were motivated by the novelty of the experience.

...

"

This was the first challenge study I've participated in, despite having been connected to the field for 5 years. I run 1Day Sooner, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of challenge study volunteers. Some of my colleagues have been challenged in Shigella, Zika, Malaria, COVID, and Salmonella studies. But I never have because I live in New York and I'm not aware of any institutions in New York that run challenge studies. That may sound surprising, but there are only about 30 challenge studies globally each year, and the U.S. is a relative laggard compared to Europe.

"You might be wondering, would I participate in another one? I would, though I'd prefer something outpatient that didn't require a strict quarantine."

 

 

Interview with Joel Mokyr: "I'm Not Sure Democracy Will Survive"

 Joel Mokyr, the Dutch-Israeli-American 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics for his work on the history of technology, is interviewed in Haaretz.  He's worried about democracy, but still optimistic about technology.

'I'm Not Sure Democracy Will Survive': Israeli 2025 Nobel Laureate Fears for the West's Future  by Guy Rolnik

“I can envision a world where democracy and the legal institutions we know and cherish do not survive, while technological progress continues. And some argue that this may really be what we need, because the greatest technological challenge we face today is climate change – and it's very hard right now to claim that democracies are handling it well. By contrast, China has been manufacturing electric cars endlessly, they've been manufacturing solar panels, they've been addressing climate change."  

Would you want your daughters to live in a technologically advanced but undemocratic world?

 
"No, but I'm not sure I can prevent it. Democracy is a modern product. Most societies in the past, including those that produced Newton, Galileo and Spinoza, were not democratic societies. The notion of democracy never occurred to them. This idea was born – or at least revived – in the Enlightenment, in the 18th and 19th centuries, and even then, it took many years for democracy to become the most common form of government. 
"Democracy isn't something that keeps evolving – there have been very serious setbacks. Between the two world wars, many countries pulled back from democracy, putting in place some form of dictatorship. Even France, which protected its democracy – as soon as the Germans arrived it all collapsed. So democracy is a fragile system. I'm not sure democracy will survive, but I'm sure technological advances will."

...

“ How worried are you about the future of Israel? 

 
"This is a difficult question. The Middle East is a huge graveyard for prophecies. Compared to the Israel you were raised in during the 1950s and 1960s, its geopolitical situation is better than ever. The threat from Arab countries, which was very real in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, is practically gone. Almost all Arab countries have accepted its existence. The countries hostile to us are, in fact, Muslim non-Arab countries – which is a kind of sad progress. 
"The big problem – the huge gorilla in the room – is what nobody addresses: Israel needs to learn that it cannot succeed in doing what South Africa tried and failed to do. You cannot live indefinitely as an occupying army without morally destroying the country from within."

Ethical considerations and global cooperaton in transplantation, Wednesday in Cairo

It's Wednesday morning in Cairo, and here's today's conference schedule, which will include discussion of (and voting on) global cooperation in transplantation. (See my earlier post for context.) 

 

8:00 AM 08:30 AM	Opening Session of Ethical Consensus Global Consensus on Emerging Ethical Frontiers in Transplantation: Innovations & Global Collaboration	HALL A
Strategic Co-Leaders (Alphabetical)	Alvin E. Roth (Stanford University, USA) John Fung (University of Chicago, USA) Mark Ghobrial (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Osama A Gaber (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Sandy Feng (UCSF, USA) Valeria Mas (University of Maryland, USA)
Chairs (Alphabetical)	Ahmed Elsabbagh (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Medhat Askar (Baylor University, USA) Mohamed Ghaly (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar) Mohamed Hussein (National Guard Hospital, KSA)
Scientific Committee (Alphabetical)	Abdul Rahman Hakeem (King’s College Hospital, UK) Dieter Broering (KFSHRC, KSA) Hermien Hartog (Groningen, the Netherlands) Hosam Hamed (Mansoura University, Egypt) Manuel Rodriguez (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico) Matthew Liao (Center for Bioethics, New York University, USA) Nadey Hakim (King’s College, Dubai, UAE) Stefan Tullius (Harvard Medical School, USA) Varia Kirchner (Stanford University, USA) Wojciech Polak (Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Leadership of Jury Committee (Alphabetical)	Chair: John Fung (University of Chicago, USA) Vice-Chairs Hatem Amer (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA) Lloyd Ratner (Columbia University, USA) Maye Hassaballa (Cairo University, Egypt)
08:30 AM 09:30 AM	State of Art Lecture (1, 2)	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Mahmoud El-Meteini (Ain Shams University, Egypt) Mehmet Haberal (Baskent University, Turkey) Sandy Feng (UCSF, USA)
08:30 AM 09:00 AM	From Dr. Starzl to the Future: The Evolution of Transplantation and the Call to Continue the Journey John Fung (University of Chicago, USA)
09:00 AM 09:30 AM	Organ Transplant Ethics: How Technoscientific Developments Challenge Us to Reaffirm the Status of the Human Body so as to Navigate Innovation in a Responsible Manner Hub A.E. Zwart (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands)
09:30 AM 11:00 AM	Working Group 1:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Ali Alobaidli (Chairman of UAE National transplant committee) Hermien Hartog (Groningen, The Netherlands) Khalid Amer (Military Medical Academy, Egypt) Lloyd Ratner (Columbia University, NY, USA) Thomas Müller (University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland)
09:30 AM 09:50 AM	Keynote Lecture: Xenotransplantation: Scientific Milestones, Clinical Trials, Risks, and Opportunities Jay Fishman (MGH, USA)
09:50 AM 11:00 AM	WG1 Presentation & Panel Voting Matthew Liao (Center for Bioethics, New York University, USA) Hosam Hamed (Mansoura University, Egypt) Daniel fogal (New York University, USA)
11:00 AM 11:30 AM	Coffee Break
11:30 AM 01:00 PM	Working Group 2:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Daniel Maluf (University of Maryland, USA) Karim Soliman (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Marleen Eijkholt (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands) Refaat Kamel (Ain Shams University, Egypt) Varia Krichner (Stanford University, USA)
11:30 AM 11:50 AM	Keynote Lecture: Smart Transplant: How AI & Machine Learning Are Shaping the Future Dorry Segev (NYU Langone, USA)
11:50 AM 01:00 PM	WG2 Presentation & Panel Voting Hub A.E. Zwart (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) Varia Krichner (Stanford University, USA) Eman Elsabbagh (Duke University, USA) Mohammad Alexanderani (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
01:00 PM 02:30 PM	Working Group 3:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	Ahmed Marwan (Mansoura University, Egypt) Ashraf S Abou El Ela (Michigan, USA) Mostafa El Shazly (Cairo University, Egypt) Peter Abt (UPenn, USA) Philipp Dutkowski (University Hospital Basel, Switzerland)
01:00 PM 01:20 PM	Keynote Lecture: Ischemia-Free Transplantation: A New Paradigm in Organ Preservation and Transplant Medicine Zhiyong Guo (The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, China)
01:20 PM 02:30 PM	WG3 Presentation & Panel Voting Jeffrey Pannekoek (Center for Bioethics, Cleveland Clinic, USA) Abdul Rahman Hakeem (King’s College Hospital, UK) Georgina Morley (Center for Bioethics, Cleveland Clinic, USA)
02:30 PM 03:30 PM	Lunch Symposium	HALL B
03:30 PM 05:00 PM	Working Group 4:	HALL A
Chairpersons (Alphabetical)	David Thomson (Cape Town University, South Africa) Lucrezia Furian (University Hospital of Padova, Italy) May Hassaballa (Cairo University, Egypt) Abidemi Omonisi (Ekiti State University, Nigeri) Vivek Kute (IKDRC-ITS, Ahmedabad, India)
03:30 PM 03:50 PM	Keynote Lecture: Framing the Conversation: Ethical considerations at the foundation for global transplant collaboration Marleen Eijkholt (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands)
03:50 PM 05:00 PM	WG4 Presentation & Panel Voting Alvin Roth (Stanford University, USA) Marleen Eijkholt (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands) Michael Rees (University of Toledo, USA) Ahmed Elsabbagh (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Nikolas Stratopoulos (Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands)
05:00 PM 05:30 PM	Closing Session of Ethical Consensus Global Consensus on Emerging Ethical Frontiers in Transplantation: Innovations & Global Collaboration	HALL A
Strategic Co-Leaders (Alphabetical)	Alvin E. Roth (Stanford University, USA) John Fung (University of Chicago, USA) Mark Ghobrial (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Osama A Gaber (Methodist Hospital, Houston, USA) Sandy Feng (UCSF, USA) Valeria Mas (University of Maryland, USA)
Chairs (Alphabetical)	Ahmed Elsabbagh (University of Pittsburgh, USA) Medhat Askar (Baylor University, USA) Mohamed Ghaly (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar)
05:10 PM 05:30 PM	State of Art Lecture (3): Reflections from a Transplant Pioneer: Ethics, Policy, and the Future of Global Collaboration Ignazio R. Marino (Thomas Jefferson University, Italy/USA)

 

Divergent views on behavioral economics: books by Loewenstein and Chater, and Thaler and Imas

 You could hardly have two more different books on behavioral economics, both by important contributors to the field. Chater and Loewenstein regret their part in what they feel has turned into a scam, while Thaler and Imas celebrate how it has gone from victory to victory.

It's On You.  How they rig the rules and we get the blame for society's problems 
by
Nick Chater and George Loewenstein
 

"Two decades ago, behavioral economics burst from academia to the halls of power, on both sides of the Atlantic, with the promise that correcting individual biases could help transform society. The hope was that governments could deploy a new approach to addressing society’s deepest challenges, from inadequate retirement planning to climate change—gently, but cleverly, nudging people to make choices for their own good and the good of the planet.

"It was all very convenient, and false. As behavioral scientists Nick Chater and George Loewenstein show in It’s On You, nudges rarely work, and divert us from policies that do. For example, being nudged to switch to green energy doesn’t cut carbon, and it distracts from the real challenge of building a low-carbon economy.

"It’s on You shows how the rich and powerful have repeatedly used a clever sleight of hand: blaming individuals for social problems, with behavioral economics an unwitting accomplice, while lobbying against the systemic changes that could actually help. As two original proponents of the nudge principle, Nick and George now argue that rather than trying to “fix” the victims of bad policies, real progress requires rewriting the social and economic rulebook for the common good."

 

###### 

 

The Winner's Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now
by Richard H. Thaler  and Alex Imas  

"Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and rising star economist Alex O. Imas explore the past, present, and cutting-edge future in behavioral economics in The Winner’s Curse.

"Why do people cooperate with one another when they have no obvious motivation to do so? Why do we hold on to possessions of little value? And why is the winner of an auction so often disappointed?

"Over thirty years ago, Richard H. Thaler introduced readers to behavioral economics in his seminal Anomalies column, written with collaborators including Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. These provocative articles challenged the fundamental idea at the heart of economics that people are selfish, rational optimizers, and provided the foundation for what became behavioral economics. That was then.

"Now, three decades later, Thaler has teamed up with economist Alex O. Imas to write a new book with an original and creative format. Each chapter starts with an original Anomaly, retaining the spirit of its time stamp. Then, shifting to the present, the authors provide updates to each, asking how the original findings have held up and how the field has evolved since then.

"It turns out that the original findings not only hold up well, but they show up almost everywhere. Anomalies pop up in people’s decisions to save for retirement and how they carry outstanding credit card debt. Even experts fail to optimize. The key concept of loss aversion explains missed putts by PGA pros and the selection of which stocks to sell by portfolio managers. In this era of meme stocks and Dogecoin, it is hard to defend the view that financial markets are highly efficient. The good news, however, is that the anomalies have gotten funnier." 

 

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

 Hans Kjellberg  informs me that the eminent sociologist of markets, Michel Callon has died. Kjellberg writes about his long collaboration with Callon, including an interval during the Covid pandemic that involved the three of us:

"A more recent collaboration was the essay “The design and performation of markets: a discussion” that I curated between Alvin Roth and Michel for a special issue of AMS Review on theorizing markets (with Riikka Murto). I had spoken to Michel about contributing an essay to the issue, but when Alvin suggested that they do something together, Michel very quickly accepted this intellectual challenge. Their exchange took place at the height of the pandemic, and I acted as the go-between and facilitator of their (mostly email-based) exchange of ideas. It developed into a great example of what is needed in contemporary society: two intellectual giants coming from very different starting points engaging in an open and earnest conversation to try to understand each other’s point of view. If you have not yet read it, have a look at: https://lnkd.in/dBxJBbtW."

Here's the obit from the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation:

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

"Michel Callon passed away on July 28, 2025. 

...

"With an interest in economics (and economy) since his early days, Michel Callon developed a keen understanding of markets in the late 1990s, focusing on the role of scientific knowledge and technical devices. The 1998 collective volume he edited, The Laws of the Markets, paved the way for an original analysis of market phenomena that many researchers in France and other countries would follow. In Market Devices (2007), Callon, Yuval Millo, and Fabian Muniesa compiled a collection of texts emblematic of the variety of devices used in the organization of markets. In Market in the Making (2021), he analyses how market arrangements work and questions their integration into contemporary society. "

Here are all my blog posts mentioning  Callon.