It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong - Andrew P. Napolitano [70]
Sally Satel, M.D., who received a kidney transplant in 2006, tells a story in her article, “The Waiting Game,” about a proactive young man on dialysis.17 Amazingly, Alex Crionas met a man at a party who offered to donate one of his kidneys to Crionas. Unfortunately, Crionas had also created a Web site to help attract potential donors via the Internet, violating parts of the National Organ Transplant Act. As a result, the transplant center refused to perform his surgery, even though Crionas and the donor did not even meet on the Web site (they met at the party). The surgery center’s reasoning for denying him the transplant: Brokered transplants “undermine trust in the whole system.”18 It seems to me the system has already been undermined. Fortunately, after seeking out a different transplant center, Crionas was finally able to receive his transplant, which was a success.
Bad Effects and the Black Market
The organ black market is alive and well. In fact, the black market may account for 5 to 10 percent of transplants worldwide.19 I do not have to look to faraway places like India or the Philippines to back up my claim; I can look as close as my home State of New Jersey. In July 2009, Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum was accused of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. The recipient would pay $160,000 while the donor received $10,000. According to the complaint filed in federal district court in New Jersey, this was not Mr. Rosenbaum’s first dance. He had brokered many deals over the past ten years.20
Unfortunately, the effects of criminalizing organ donation are exactly opposite of the government’s intent. Dr. Satel states that the strategy of “cracking down” on organ trafficking is doomed because “it ignores the time-tested fact that efforts to stamp out underground markets either drive corruption further underground or cause it to flourish elsewhere.”21 So, instead of allowing people to be compensated for their altruistic act of donation, the government must monitor and build criminal cases against rabbis selling organs in New Jersey. In addition to the danger of black markets, there is the threat of physicians being forced to use organs of lesser quality because of such low supply. The United States’ intense shortage has increased the use of these so-called expanded-criteria organs—in other words, organs that are not suitable for transplant.22 Kidneys are not as “good” when they are donated by people over sixty years old or by people who have a history of medical problems. These organs are more likely to fail in the recipient than organs from younger, healthier donors. Because of the federal government’s restrictions, these lesser quality organs are transplanted anyway.
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In his Wall Street Journal piece, “The Meat Market,” Alex Tabarrok described the level of desperation reached by those in need of organs. The situation is so dire, “at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine, five patients received transplants of kidneys that had either cancerous or benign tumors removed from them.”23 These acts of desperation are forced upon these ailing individuals based on rules and regulations passed by the government. Tabarrok goes on to explain that while expanded-criteria organs can be a useful (albeit dangerous) alternative to the shortage, their use also means that the organ shortage is even more drastic than it appears “because as the waiting list lengthens, the quality of transplants is falling.”24 These “alternatives” are not alternatives at all. The fact that people are resorting to these extreme measures to access organs when organ donors could be compensated is unacceptable and immoral. The government must take a second look.
And the Money?!?
Kidney dialysis is a federal entitlement (no) thanks to the 1972