"Kids get preferential treatment"

Okay, there was a recent article in the paper about a kid who needs a transplant. I feel for the kid and hope and pray it all works out. He seems like a very mature kid, takes his medicines on his own, etc. But there was a comment from his doctor saying "kids get preferential treatment" in terms of transplant lists and get moved up over adults. Pissed me off. The sickest should be at the top of the list, regardless of age. Of course I mentioned that elsewhere and people didn't like it. So I just wanted to vent here where I know it will be understood.

Yeah, why save a likely productive and contributing member of society in lieu of a kid with an unknown future? Brilliant. That does not seem to conform to medical ethics to me--I would think the doctors would triage the waiting patients in order of the severity of their need, period. Not some sentimental reason with no medical basis that I can see.

The only people who should get preferential treatment for organ donation should be the people who will do the best with the donated organs, regardless of age. With such a limited resource, it seems like it is a waste of an organ to put it in anyone who would fare poorly and die, or reject the organ.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

That sucks! The list should be in order of who needs it most. Hey if I was on a list and a kid needed it more, much as I dislike kids, I' d deal with it like I would anyone of any age who needed it more. I really get tired of all this child-centric bullshit! Just for the hell of it, if I were someone with minor kids, would that mean my kids need me any less than the kid who gets jumped to the head of the line needs the transplant? Yeah, I'm sorry this shit happens to kids...hell, I'm sorry that it happens to ANYONE, but this shit makes me see red!

According to the Mayo Clinic website, children "usually need organs smaller than those an adult can provide," so I wonder if the doctor was simply placating the parents OR was this some sort of exceptional case?

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organ-donation/FL00077

Well, I get how you feel. For example, I don't think a twelve year old should get it over a 30 something year old. However, what about a 12 year old and 75 year old, who should get it then? The 12 year old has a better chance of surviving an evasive operation than the 75 year old. Personally, I think the 12 year old should get it. I think age is definitely something to take into consideration but, it shouldn't be the deciding factor.

Kaia

Remember that case a few years back where that hospital made a really gross error in tranplanting some organs that didn't match the blood type?
Remember, it was nothing but a couple of fucking illegals and the farking moo couldn't even speak English. And we have citizens who have been waiting for years and this illegal bitch gets one ahead of everything?
F*** the illegals.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

That "Mermaid" girl has already had TWO kidney transplants and she is only eight and will likely need others as she continues to deteriorate and age. That's TWO adults who didn't get a kidney who will either remain dependent on dialysis and gravely ill, or they will die. The little Siamese twins who were recently separated got a new kidney as well. ANY kyd getting treatment at any location of the hundreds of St Jude charity hospitals will zoom to the top of the list. One thing that pisses me off more than anything else regarding organ donations and kyds, is that religious lobby group that keeps that law on the books regarding water head and brain dead bayees who generally only live hours or days, can NOT be organ donors EVEN WHEN their parents desire that they donate. Most of these bubble headed kyds have relatively healthy bodies and "normal" internal organs, so they could save God only knows how many lives.

Yet, one of the criteria for donation is that they are over a month old (I think it's a month, possibly only a week) and are considered LEGALLY brain dead. Since most of them don't live for more than a few days at the most, then that alone rules that whole bunch out. The ones who do manage to make it to a month, generally have a partially functioning brain stem, but often no actual brain at all or maybe a section of a brain, which only controls rudimentary functions similar to what a person in a persistent vegetative state would have like involuntary blinking, involuntary physical reaction to stimuli, and sometimes breathing, coughing, hiccups, etc........SOMETIMES the latter, sometimes not even that. At this time, HUNDREDS of baybees who are born every year and all die within days because of horrific neurological birth defects, can NOT be organ donors, because of religious fundies. I vote that we give THOSE kyds preferential treatment and honor their parents' right to donate their organs.

I have changed my views on organ donation. I think that organ donation should be mandatory when any possible healthy organs can be salvaged and not even mention it to the famblee, just cut the shit out and be done with it. I don't think that emotional loved ones need to worry with it or make any decisions about it either, while live people are sitting in wheelchairs or on their death beds while the famblee in mourning mulls it over. There should be strict guidelines such as at least two doctors signing off on it, and as strict a criteria about it as if it is a decision to pull the plug on someone. I do NOT think that people like that Van Houten woman should be allowed to lay in a coma for TWENTY EIGHT YEARS at the tune of 300k a year too, when if they if they had pulled the plug and cut out her organs many years ago, other people may have lived. Until then though, organs should go to the best matched and most critically ill and whether they are a kyd or adult should be of NO consequence.

I don't think organ donation should be mandatory. I have the fear myself, probably unfounded, that some kid-loving doctor will not try as hard to save me because my organs could save a kid. I'm not a big person, so my organs would probably work for a preteen/teenager.

if a persons worth becomes what their body parts are worth, then thats a problem.

to have people deciding what happens to me, its a small step into harvesting flesh.

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Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

I say kids should be at the BOTTOM of the list. If I had my way, the most contributing members to society (with age consideration) would be at the top and it would go from there. Fuck this shit of "SAAAAVEEEEE THE CHIIILLLLDRRREEENNNNN"

What has a 9 year old done to 1. contribute ANYTHING or 2. to have earned their right to ANYTHING?????

Brats do not get automatic preferential treatment in the transplant recipient acceptance process except within their age group. The rules prohibit an adult liver from being transplanted into a child, and vice-versa except in extreme cases. The exceptions are well documented and the guidelines are nearly written in stone. A transplant committee and the governing organizations operate under very tight scrutiny after several bad incidents, and all of the decisions that are made are audited thoroughly--as they should be.