Students should be allowed to pay off their debts by selling a kidney, an academic said. With three people on the kidney transplant list dying in the UK every day and thousands more receiving dialysis, Dr Sue Rabbitt Roff says it's time to look at regulated payments for live kidneys. Under the Human Tissue act (2004), it is currently illegal to buy or sell organs for transplant. However, Dr Rabbitt Roff, a research fellow in medical sociology at Dundee University, argues that a standard payment of £28,000 - equivalent to the average UK annual income - would encourage people to consider donating an organ. It would be an incentive across most income levels for those who wanted to do a kind deed and make enough money to, for instance, pay off university loans,” she said in a personal view article published online in the British Medical Journal. "We have recently moved to allowing donation of strangers' live kidneys, in which an individual decides to give to someone whom they will never meet and with whom they have no emotional or genetic relationship. "That is a huge shift from the approach of last century, when it was largely assumed that genetically related members of families would want to donate among themselves." A properly regulated system would not resemble the illegal market in transplant organs that currently exists in several countries where poor people are exploited, she said. The rising numbers of number of people with diabetes and high blood pressure also means that demand for kidney transplantation is set to rise. However, not everyone agrees with Dr Rabbitt Roff. Dr Tony Calland, Chairman of the British Medical Association's Medical Ethics Committee, said: “The BMA would not support payment for donating organs. "We believe that one of the best ways to increase organ donation is to move to a system of presumed consent with safeguards – this would have to be supported by the public and be preceded by a high profile public awareness campaign. “Organ donation should be altruistic and based on clinical need. Living kidney donation carries a small but significant health risk. Introducing payment could lead to donors feeling compelled to take these risks, contrary to their better judgement, because of their financial situation.”
Sux if later in life you end up in a situation where you really need to donate, like for your children or wife/husband, ahh well, atleast you paid your uni fees early
IMHO, A false sense of economy in that getting "paid" around 50 Grand (the approximate Pound equivalent in USD) is nowhere near what it costs to treat a dialysis patient for a year (inclusive of all adjuncts). Many people are under the mistaken rationale that since they have two kidneys, they only need one and the other is considered a "spare" that they can lose, or donate. That isn't really true. The best way that I can describe it is, that overall renal function is the total combined ability of both of your kidneys. An analogy would be say, ...both your Mom and Dad goes to work to keep the family housed and fed. If one is out of work (or missing) then the other has to work a lot harder just to break even. In terms of kidney function then, the loss of one kidney means the other has to work twice as hard, thus accelerating the second kidney's risk of eventual failure.
To a certain degree it defeats the purpose of 'donating' because to donate we usually see it as a goodwill. They are donating because they feel the need to and not because of the price of money. Knowing this now people may go 'crazy' and start to 'donate' their liver just for that money. In my opinion, it's not worth it. Body parts are priceless and as Ralph said, it will make the other organ work harder and ultimately can be fatal when you need it (when the only organ stops working).
Frankly, the idea of making money by selling a kidney is really a non starter. Prostitution can generate a much stronger stream of income over a purveyor's lifetime. In fact, it is one of China's strongest domestic and export industries. With sites like Sugar Daddy popping up in the US (BTW, New York University has the largest number of affiliated student or alumni members), it's obviously much easier to commercialize and rent a body part rather than having to sell a body part.
^ kinda like renting out a 'body part' that people can make use of, then getting cash for it but still having that 'body part' to use again.
thats wrong selling parts for money thats like saying the richest people has the freedom to increase their life exectancy from someone who is healthy. it could represent like murder totally so wrong
isn't this a very sad world? I think it's a damn sad and pathetic world when anyone has to sell any body parts vs donate. And sell it to get an education, that's just too disheartening. The governments of this world ought to be ashamed of themselves where only the privileged young children get an education and the poor does not. It sucks but the war of the haves and have-nots continues ... and the haves wants the have-nots to not get an education; that way, the haves elites get to control the have-nots public. They do need someone to turn those grapes from the vineyard into wine so they have something to toast with. Conspiracy theory? just maybe ... As for the selling to get ipad3 or iphone or anything material, that idiot does not deserve to have the kidneys.
