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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> How would a reasonable person not want to be an organ donor??

Because I have fundamental issues with the economics of organ donation. I do not want my organs used in million-dollar surgeries to save elderly rich people. I would much rather that money be spent more efficiently on younger/poorer people where it can save more lives. How many flu shots could be purchased for the cost of one heart transplant? I cannot change the economic realities of modern medicine, but the least I can do is not contribute my own flesh towards the problem.

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Fifty years ago, Larry Niven had some "moral tale" SF stories where the demand for transplant organs led to capital punishment for traffic violations.

Also, technically there is no difference between cannibalism and organ transplants - ingesting the flesh of others of your species to save your life.

Except that some organ donation doesn't involve doing damage to the donor. Blood/marrow donations are different than 'solid organ' donation. A blood donation can save a life very cheaply and the recipient will live normally, without the lifelong costs/complications of carrying a donated solid organ.

"No kidney for you, little girl. It might have gone to an old person."

Yes. No kidney for her, but flu shots for 10,000 ... saving many hundreds. The reality is that saving lives is now a matter of resource allocation. Procedures such as organ transplantation take resources from far more efficient treatments that can save many more lives.

I wish I had recorded something I saw at the gym years ago. An old and obviously ill man was bragging about how his firm could hire young interns, pay them nothing, and fire them at the drop of a hat. A young man overheard, walked over to him and said "I;ll never have your money or power, I cannot stop you from being a jerk, but when your liver starts failing you aren't getting even a piece of mine." He then ripped up his organ donation card.

> The reality is that saving lives is now a matter of resource allocation. Procedures such as organ transplantation take resources from far more efficient treatments that can save many more lives.

Do you have a source for this? To me, it seems extraordinary that we're capped out of medical resources in such a way that, were someone to not have donated their organs, ~10k flu shots would be provided instead of the various potential transplants. (I tried some internet searching but everything talking about resource constraints was talking about the organs themselves, not the general medical resources).

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