Comment Re:Not a registered organ donor? Then no transplan (Score 1) 405
People with 'dumbass' -- read, legitimate; just because it isn't your religion doesn't mean it is an invalid moral position -- religious objections to donating organs ALSO have religious objections to receiving organs.
*I* object to most organ transplants on purely pragmatic grounds: The technology is not sufficiently mature to be doing mass transplants of organs other than kidneys and corneas. Average post-transplant survival from other organs? Less than five years. And, of those five years, three, on average, are spent in the hospital. Average cost is $2-5 MILLION. Until we can overcome the real problems with rejection in a more uniform way, organ transplant should be strictly experimental, and aimed at curing those problems, UNLESS the individual involved is capable of paying the WHOLE freight him/herself. Otherwise the societal cost is just too much. We need the insurance and tax dollars that are spent on organ transplant to pay for other life-saving medical treatments that will treat / cure MANY more people for the cost of each transplant.
*I* object to most organ transplants on purely pragmatic grounds: The technology is not sufficiently mature to be doing mass transplants of organs other than kidneys and corneas. Average post-transplant survival from other organs? Less than five years. And, of those five years, three, on average, are spent in the hospital. Average cost is $2-5 MILLION. Until we can overcome the real problems with rejection in a more uniform way, organ transplant should be strictly experimental, and aimed at curing those problems, UNLESS the individual involved is capable of paying the WHOLE freight him/herself. Otherwise the societal cost is just too much. We need the insurance and tax dollars that are spent on organ transplant to pay for other life-saving medical treatments that will treat / cure MANY more people for the cost of each transplant.
