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Comment by scrabble | Hacker News Reader

I was an anonymous living donor who kicked off a donation chain. I don't think it's a big deal. Recovery sucked for a couple weeks, but when you consider the benefit alongside the developments occurring in medicine all the time, it's almost nothing.

This is fantastic news. People should not need to die while being stuck on a waiting list. Super happy to see this news today.

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It's so amazing that it works! (Donor here as well.) I would love to see the support system expanded. Even with the recipient's insurance footing the bill for the surgery, there's still a significant burden on donors to be able to provide the time off to do the transplant in many cases.

I'm starting with my own state to help find ways to lower that threshold for potential donors here: https://www.change.org/p/minnesota-state-house-give-minnesot...

I can imagine this is a problem for many potential donors. As a software dev, I was on vacation for three weeks. Of course, I mainly sit and type while I work and have unlimited vacation.

But I can definitely see this being a problem for those who are not as fortunate in their work.

I scheduled mine over the holidays, and it worked out very nicely. Additionally, it meant I was around my family for any necessary support during recovery. All in all, it was very smooth.

How about just paying people for their organs? Let the market work. Is that really such a bad idea?

There's a reason you can't sell your kidneys...

Poor people are the most likely to be exploited and the most likely to use their donated organs. It's been shown that empirically economically incentivising organ donation crowds out altruistic organ donation, a non negligible source of supply and that those who donate for money do not experience a long term economic benefit but do experience long term health consequences.

So what? That's up to them. People who buy organs are paying a fair price. Why do you want to infantalize poor people by denying them the opportunity to participate in the market?

By ignoring the reality of the situation you create a demand for people to cause severe risks to their health for short term problems, preying on the least educated group of people who have a severe information asymmetry... You also crowd out an altruistic source as it no longer becomes a societal issue but rather an economic one.

You also create an unnecessary class problem as middle and upper class people have access to organs, but not poor people who are the actual source of supply...

Thanks for being a donor, much appreciated by those who were given a new life and their families.

Just curious, is their similar restrictions to donating organs as there is to donating blood? Such as homosexuality?

It probably varies by country, but no. The blood donor restrictions (which also include travel, tattoos etc) are far more "blunt" due to the low levels of interaction with the donor and so on.

Donating organs as a live donor is a process including full medical records, batteries of tests and long interactions with medical professionals.

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