Doctors Transplant Same Kidney Twice In Two Weeks

kkleiner writes "Twenty-seven-year-old Ray Fearing suffered from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a common type of kidney disease, and needed a new kidney. His 24-year-old sister, Cera Fearing, wanted to give him hers. The transplanted kidney immediately began to grow diseased, so doctors removed it. But then something happened that, according to the doctor who performed the procedure, had never been done before. The unhealthy kidney was removed from Ray, and replanted into another patient, and the kidney became healthy and has remained in this second patient ever since."

Re:Get me a hammer!

[wisnoskij]

You know that there is a always far more demand then availability.
No matter what happens it probably saved a life.

Re:Get me a hammer!

[sco08y]

You know that there is a always far more demand then availability.
No matter what happens it probably saved a life.

There's an adequate supply, it's just illegal to sell organs.

Re:Get me a hammer!

[Morty]

I think the assumption was that the brother's disease, which was genetic, was causing problems with the new kidney. But because $recipient2 did not have that disease, if transplanted to $recipient2's body, the kidney would recover and work correctly. A genetic disease not present in the kidney should not follow the kidney. The actual results would vindicate that theory.

Re:Get me a hammer!

[clang_jangle]

You are correct -- the value of this is the discovery that when an organ is diseased it may be a symptom of a greater problem. It actually seems pretty obvious when you think about it.

Re:Get me a hammer!

[wisnoskij]

I don't think that is the fear at all, I think the fear is that people will have their organs stolen while they are alive.
People get killed for their couple hundred dollar iPads, if a healthy person has dozens of saleable organs then they could be worth 10s of thousands of dollars.

Ports

[lannocc]

Just goes to show that human-parts package management should be treated like a BSD Ports or Gentoo Portage installation; you need to take the entire system into consideration when looking at changes.

Re:Get me a hammer!

[sco08y]

Because that libertarian attitude every one should be able to enter any contract he wishes without restriction doesn't account for the realities of power play in this world.

The realities of power are that really rich people, right now, can fly to countries to get organs from desperate people. So all we're really doing is exporting the problem.

The reality of medicine is that being put on a donor waiting list is a death sentence for the "99%".

And the reality of organ transplants is that most people suffer organ failure due to poor health, poor diet and smoking / drug abuse. You probably see more poor and middling people, per capita, needing organ transplants because wealthy people take better care of their bodies.

Only desperate people would sell their organs for money.

So it's better that they simply remain desperate? They don't seem to think so. Do they get a say in the matter? Freedom of choice? My body, not the government's? Does that only apply to abortion?

Allowing people to sell organs would give very rich people with organ failure an incentive to make the life of potential donors hell.

Sure, that would make perfect sense if rich people were all part of some vast conspiracy. In reality, any sane person, rich or poor, has every incentive to avoid hugely invasive surgery, and as much as people don't want to be donors, they want to be recipients even less.