In 2004, a total of 26,984 Americans received an organ or tissue transplants, which was a 6 percent increase from 2003. Currently, organ transplants are at a record high and has increased 11 percent since then. There are 88,000 Americans still on the transplant waiting list. In the past year, 6,228 of them have died in the past year while waiting.
What reigns supreme, however, in the debate of transplants is entitlement. Protests rage over a man who sought a new liver because he had abused his liver with alcohol over the years. Prioritizing the needs of patients and their personal history has become a major ethical problem. Many people agree that a man who wants a new liver from alcoholism should not have the same priority as someone who is suffering from a chronic life threatening disease of genetic or natural causes.
In the recent case of Todd Krampitz, the 32 year old who advertised for a liver in a public billboards on a Houston highway, critics say that the liver given to him could have been used to save someone else's life. They disapproved of his method of bypassing the standard system of the waitlist to obtain a liver.
But who is to say that Krampitz didn't deserve that organ as much as the other person on the list who also had the same disease? Who is entitled, or should be given a new chance at life? What laws have been implemented to enable efficient, fast transplantation of organs?
Distribution of donated organs follows a strict set of governmental guidelines. The people waiting to receive certain organs receive them on a basis of not only blood and tissue matching, but also on the basis of location. Local patients near the donated organ take precedence. The United States has mandated that it be divided into 11 geographic regions, with a Organ Procurement Organization serving each one.
First priority will be received by the best match with tissue type. If no one in the region is in need of the organ, it is then offered to surrounding regions. Then it is offered to other places in the United States should it not be needed in those communities. There are exceptions given only to perfectly matched kidneys (family, for example) and extremely urgent liver failure patients.
Organ transplants and its origins have been tightly woven in the rise of modern science. Progress gained momentum in the 20th century, however. Medicine and the improvement of technology during this century as well as the rise of modern medicine enabled a better understanding of the body and its mechanisms. As a result, new procedures were created.
Among them were the first successful attempts at organ transplantation in the early 1900s. By the 1940s, the discovery of immunology improved the quality of transplants as well as the guidelines of the surgery. By 1954, the first successful transplant of a kidney from one human to another is documented. The next decade showed a new confidence from medicine, with successful transplants of the lung, liver, heart and pancreas. Donor Cards were created in the 1960s as legal documents medicine. Animal to human transplants were also introduced at the time. By 1968, the United States had achieved successful heart transplants.
The procedure is extremely delicate. Organs also run the risk of being rejected from the receiving body. Patients must take a series of medications, along with immunosuppressors to prepare the reception of a new organ. These medications can come with unpleasant side effects and also be very harsh on the body. During surgery, anticoagulants must be administered to prevent blood clotting from attaching the arteries and veins of the new organ in place. The blood's temperature is reduced so that the organ can be put in place. Upon successful completion of the transplant, the body is gradually warmed back up to body temperature.
The transplant procedure can be very exhausting for both physicians and the patient. Recovery is very long and also runs the risk of rejecting of the organ. Rejection of an organ can be hyperacute, which can occur shortly after the surgery, or chronic, where the rejection can continue for years until a degree of health problems begins to arise again.
In short, the organ donation and transplantion process is both a harrowing and ethical quandary for all parties involved. As of now, there still remains no set explanation for who is more deserving of a chance at a new life. In the realm of American health policy, however, it could remain an argument for some time.
