Will you donate your organs to help others?
Discussion
No Vixpy, not that! ;)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1754799,00.html
[quote=The Times Online]
Delivering a body blow to science
Matthew Syed
The Human Tissues Act will prove a dangerous obstacle to important medical research
THREE THINGS can happen to a dead body: it can be dumped in a grave to be eaten by worms, cast into a crematorium to be incinerated or donated to the medical profession for the good of mankind. You might have thought that public policy would emphatically favour the latter. But no, the Human Tissue Act, of which the main provisions come into force next year, seems to assign greater value to corpses than to living people in desperate need of an organ donation.
Not only has the Government failed to grasp the nettle of “presumed consent” (in which everyone is assumed to have consented to the use of their organs unless they have explicitly registered an objection), but also new draft guidelines advise doctors to allow relatives to veto organ removal, even when the deceased carried a donor card. A pathologist friend of mine told me this week that objections are typically expressed thus: “Oooh, I couldn’t possibly bear the thought of Johnny being cut up like that!” To give legislative weight to such fastidiousness is absurd.
*
If this sounds cold-hearted, let me give you some statistics that will really chill your blood. Today more than 8,000 people in the UK are waiting for an organ transplant, many in considerable pain. Last year 452 died while waiting in hope. Many lose their lives before they even get on to the waiting list. Why allow the relatives of the recently deceased, who often admit later that they would have made a more rational decision had they not been asked at a time of emotional distress, to trump such vital interests?
BBC 1’s Casualty programme on Saturday evening gave viewers a vote as to which of two patients should benefit from a donation. But it failed to tell us that we would not need to make so many life-and-death decisions if we got to grip with the chronic organ shortage. By pussyfooting around in its approach to dead bodies, the Government is giving a kicking to some of the most vulnerable in our society. One depressing consequence of this is that a significant number of those on the waiting list take off to foreign climes to purchase an organ from a living third-world donor, something that is forbidden in the United Kingdom. The poor have no option but to wait in vain.
The Human Tissue Authority’s position on the retention of body parts for medical research after a post-mortem examination is equally flawed. The new consent forms could have been drafted by some malign figure seeking to halt the precious flow of human tissue into the path lab. The forms are so lengthy that doctors rarely have time to complete them and, even if they try, the wording is so graphic that relatives tend to leg it before signing. In consequence, the number of post mortems has plummeted, something that could have “seriously damaging implications for the future of medical research and training” according to Peter Furness, professor of pathology at Leicester General Hospital.
All this dangerous nonsense has come in response to the Alder Hey scandal, in which children’s bodies were stripped of their organs without parental consent. The real scandal, however, was not the stripping per se but the deceit of Dick van Velzen (who lied to parents about his procedures), coupled with the fact that he was so disorganised that many of the organs were not used for research purposes.
The wider worry is that the moral myopia evident in the Human Tissue Act seems to infect every facet of the contemporary debate on medical ethics. Take the perilously timid approach to embryonic stem cell research. The United States, for example, refuses government funding to scientists who wish to carry out potentially ground-breaking research on the surplus embryos created by IVF treatment. Which is fine with me, so long as the culpable legislators are never allowed to benefit from any treatment inspired by such research.
Senators profess to be worried that embryonic research fails to respect the dignity of “potential persons”. Rarely can such a vacuous concept have found its way into a debate purporting to provide enlightenment. When is this “potential” supposed to kick in? It is no less absurd than the Roman Catholic contention that coming in a condom is tantamount to murder.
In case you were wondering, these supposedly precious embryos are at the same stage of development (five to nine days) as those that are routinely terminated by the Pill without anyone raising a whimper. Thankfully, the British Government has repudiated the position of the United States and operates one of the most liberal regimes in Europe, in which licences have been awarded to researchers to create embryos for medical research.
It is possible that, in years to come, scientists will be able to grow organs in the lab and find cures for a range of debilitating diseases and injuries including Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart disease and multiple sclerosis.
The fundamental problem with our approach to ethics, manifested in both our mythologising over corpses and embryos, is our inability to separate emotion from policy. The only factor that should enter our moral and legal deliberations is that of welfare, a concept that is meaningless when applied to entities that lack self-consciousness. Never forget that the research that we are so reluctant to conduct upon embryos and dead bodies is routinely carried out on living, pain-sensitive animals. This double standard will come to be seen by future historians as one of the great barbarisms of the age.[/quote]
Personally, if I died and my heart, liver, kidneys etc were in good enough nick I would want them to be used to help others be they stuck in a person or in a jar.
Believe me I understand how difficult it is as a relative to offer this to the docs. My father died suddenly of a massive heart attack and my mother offered the doctors the option of any of his vital organs ('cept his heart of course - it was a bit buggered by then :)) shortly after it happened. She consulted us kids first and we were kinda cool with the idea that bits would be used in other people. Strangely enough it is a kind of immortality isn't it?
I am just sad that more people aren't as selfless and giving as my mum. :(
Ace-T :)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-1754799,00.html
[quote=The Times Online]
Delivering a body blow to science
Matthew Syed
The Human Tissues Act will prove a dangerous obstacle to important medical research
THREE THINGS can happen to a dead body: it can be dumped in a grave to be eaten by worms, cast into a crematorium to be incinerated or donated to the medical profession for the good of mankind. You might have thought that public policy would emphatically favour the latter. But no, the Human Tissue Act, of which the main provisions come into force next year, seems to assign greater value to corpses than to living people in desperate need of an organ donation.
Not only has the Government failed to grasp the nettle of “presumed consent” (in which everyone is assumed to have consented to the use of their organs unless they have explicitly registered an objection), but also new draft guidelines advise doctors to allow relatives to veto organ removal, even when the deceased carried a donor card. A pathologist friend of mine told me this week that objections are typically expressed thus: “Oooh, I couldn’t possibly bear the thought of Johnny being cut up like that!” To give legislative weight to such fastidiousness is absurd.
*
If this sounds cold-hearted, let me give you some statistics that will really chill your blood. Today more than 8,000 people in the UK are waiting for an organ transplant, many in considerable pain. Last year 452 died while waiting in hope. Many lose their lives before they even get on to the waiting list. Why allow the relatives of the recently deceased, who often admit later that they would have made a more rational decision had they not been asked at a time of emotional distress, to trump such vital interests?
BBC 1’s Casualty programme on Saturday evening gave viewers a vote as to which of two patients should benefit from a donation. But it failed to tell us that we would not need to make so many life-and-death decisions if we got to grip with the chronic organ shortage. By pussyfooting around in its approach to dead bodies, the Government is giving a kicking to some of the most vulnerable in our society. One depressing consequence of this is that a significant number of those on the waiting list take off to foreign climes to purchase an organ from a living third-world donor, something that is forbidden in the United Kingdom. The poor have no option but to wait in vain.
The Human Tissue Authority’s position on the retention of body parts for medical research after a post-mortem examination is equally flawed. The new consent forms could have been drafted by some malign figure seeking to halt the precious flow of human tissue into the path lab. The forms are so lengthy that doctors rarely have time to complete them and, even if they try, the wording is so graphic that relatives tend to leg it before signing. In consequence, the number of post mortems has plummeted, something that could have “seriously damaging implications for the future of medical research and training” according to Peter Furness, professor of pathology at Leicester General Hospital.
All this dangerous nonsense has come in response to the Alder Hey scandal, in which children’s bodies were stripped of their organs without parental consent. The real scandal, however, was not the stripping per se but the deceit of Dick van Velzen (who lied to parents about his procedures), coupled with the fact that he was so disorganised that many of the organs were not used for research purposes.
The wider worry is that the moral myopia evident in the Human Tissue Act seems to infect every facet of the contemporary debate on medical ethics. Take the perilously timid approach to embryonic stem cell research. The United States, for example, refuses government funding to scientists who wish to carry out potentially ground-breaking research on the surplus embryos created by IVF treatment. Which is fine with me, so long as the culpable legislators are never allowed to benefit from any treatment inspired by such research.
Senators profess to be worried that embryonic research fails to respect the dignity of “potential persons”. Rarely can such a vacuous concept have found its way into a debate purporting to provide enlightenment. When is this “potential” supposed to kick in? It is no less absurd than the Roman Catholic contention that coming in a condom is tantamount to murder.
In case you were wondering, these supposedly precious embryos are at the same stage of development (five to nine days) as those that are routinely terminated by the Pill without anyone raising a whimper. Thankfully, the British Government has repudiated the position of the United States and operates one of the most liberal regimes in Europe, in which licences have been awarded to researchers to create embryos for medical research.
It is possible that, in years to come, scientists will be able to grow organs in the lab and find cures for a range of debilitating diseases and injuries including Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart disease and multiple sclerosis.
The fundamental problem with our approach to ethics, manifested in both our mythologising over corpses and embryos, is our inability to separate emotion from policy. The only factor that should enter our moral and legal deliberations is that of welfare, a concept that is meaningless when applied to entities that lack self-consciousness. Never forget that the research that we are so reluctant to conduct upon embryos and dead bodies is routinely carried out on living, pain-sensitive animals. This double standard will come to be seen by future historians as one of the great barbarisms of the age.[/quote]
Personally, if I died and my heart, liver, kidneys etc were in good enough nick I would want them to be used to help others be they stuck in a person or in a jar.
Believe me I understand how difficult it is as a relative to offer this to the docs. My father died suddenly of a massive heart attack and my mother offered the doctors the option of any of his vital organs ('cept his heart of course - it was a bit buggered by then :)) shortly after it happened. She consulted us kids first and we were kinda cool with the idea that bits would be used in other people. Strangely enough it is a kind of immortality isn't it?
I am just sad that more people aren't as selfless and giving as my mum. :(
Ace-T :)
I'd be happy for bits from my parents to be shared, and I know that any of my relatives would be supportive of me donating my bits once I pop it (in fact the way we are I expect everyone will be an organ donor).
Given time I think people will come round - it's not particularly prevalent in the modern psyche, but the up and coming generation will be accepting I reckon. Seems to be this greater acceptance of mortality but yet an ever increasing respect of movements where we seek to delay the inevitable.
Given time I think people will come round - it's not particularly prevalent in the modern psyche, but the up and coming generation will be accepting I reckon. Seems to be this greater acceptance of mortality but yet an ever increasing respect of movements where we seek to delay the inevitable.
I went on the list as soon as it was introduced, I have carried a card for decades. I have also made a point of reminding them about the skin bank too. Mrs BG is registered and BG junior too which I feel is especially important as kids parts are hard to come by.
They can use anything they want, and whats left can be cut up by students for amusement.
They can use anything they want, and whats left can be cut up by students for amusement.
I'm happy for any bits to be used for transplantation and have had a donor card for many many years. However I don't like the idea of medical students having my body to play with. I understand how important it is for students to learn but I think that some would be disrespectful. Even though I'd be dead it does bother me to think of my body being used for that.
spicy said:
I'm happy for any bits to be used for transplantation and have had a donor card for many many years. However I don't like the idea of medical students having my body to play with. I understand how important it is for students to learn but I think that some would be disrespectful. Even though I'd be dead it does bother me to think of my body being used for that.
Understandable, but it's for a good purpose. The prodding will help future doctors perform better operations on people. To me, that makes it worth it.
Balmoral Green said:
I went on the list as soon as it was introduced, I have carried a card for decades. I have also made a point of reminding them about the skin bank too. Mrs BG is registered and BG junior too which I feel is especially important as kids parts are hard to come by.
They can use anything they want, and whats left can be cut up by students for amusement.
Having worked in anatomy.. I can vouch for the ammusment bit....
commendable to have the donor cards.
just be aware that if you end up on life support and die(brain dead) they keep the body bit alive so they can place the organs....
Just so you all know.
My next of kin has my permission to donate everything but my corneas(that though gives me the willies!!)
oh and my liver coz that wouldnt be fair,.............
goo-goo-gjoob said:y
I was thinking of donating my body to a university or something for medical research or student practice. Probably will, just have to find out how to do it.
You have to call the medical school and register.
If you die in suspicious then u have to have PM so no good.
if you die from a disease no good,
you have to die from normal stuff.
at least that is how it used to be.
t, I said it. 
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