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« Firefly | Main | Sick in America » October 18, 2007AlloDerm is people!This Reason article from March about the macabre industry which processes human tissue into surgical products is rather apropos reading for the Halloween season. The author, Kerry Howley, points out that everyone is making a profit from donated human remains--except for the individuals (or their family members) who make the decision to donate their body tissues. Howley suggests that people should be allowed to sell their body tissues--a transaction which is strictly forbidden by current law. As opposed to the strictly-regulated system of organ donation, tissue donation is relatively unregulated. A wide array of for-profit enterprises have sprung up to collect and process donated tissues. By law, they are not allowed to sell the tissue, but rather to charge a "reasonable" price for their services. Whether the tissue banks and biotech firms are providing services as the law describes, or whether they are (as Howley argues) actually selling body parts as commodities seems to be a matter of perspective. If I buy a wooden object that an artist has sculpted from a piece of driftwood, am I paying him for the wood, or for the service he has provided in transforming it into something I'd like to display in my home? There does appear to be some need for reform in the tissue donation/processing system. But I'm not convinced that allowing people to sell their tissue would solve anything. In true libertarian fashion, Howley implies that the scarcity of organs available for transplant and the relative availability of tissues is due to the strict regulation of the former and light regulation of the latter. However, as the article mentions, the chief reason for the scarcity of organs is the limited set of circumstances under which they can be donated--they generally must come from healthy, young people who died from car crashes or other lethal injuries. Tissues, by contrast, can be taken from older people, and from people who die from chronic disease, etc. Nor does it seem to me that allowing people to sell their body parts (or, more likely, the right to take ownership of their body parts upon their death) would increase the supply for patients in need of transplants. Doing so would change many people's perception of the re-use of body parts from a noble, altruistic act to a queasy transaction. Since it is likely that there would still be fewer organs available for transplant than patients in need, a true market for organs would turn the current waiting list system into a bidding war. While I oppose socializing health care, I also cannot stomach the idea of a purely capitalistic system where a rich person could buy a new organ to replace one they've ruined by smoking or alcohol abuse, while a poor person with a congenital defect has no opportunity for a better and/or longer life. Posted by Eric Seymour at October 18, 2007 09:01 AM CommentsI don't know about the tissue donation industry, but I do know about the current situation with kidney. Kidneys are, I believe, the organ with the most need today and most people have two of them and can function on one. It has been shown without a doubt that a market, or a "bidding war," for kidneys would help many, many people live longer. I had difficulty with it at first too, but I can't rationalize away more people dying at the expense of our society's "queasiness." Posted by: Matthew at October 19, 2007 07:35 AM | permalink Posted by: JohnS at October 19, 2007 09:25 AM | permalink Posted by: Anonymous at October 19, 2007 11:25 AM | permalink So let the rich and poor both die, while you allow the government to control and regulate what you do with your body. Good Plan. Posted by: John at October 19, 2007 05:46 PM | permalink John, My argument is that allowing people to sell organs or tissues would probably *not* increase the supply, but would almost certainly make it harder for poor people to afford transplants. If you know of any evidence which shows the opposite, I'd be interested in seeing it. Posted by: Eric Seymour at October 22, 2007 12:26 PM | permalink Post a comment |
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