Hacker News Reader

Comment by OscarCunningham | Hacker News Reader

Not everyone who needs an organ transplant gets one. So could it be that recipients are privileged in some way that also prevents them getting dementia?

View on HN

Very nice to read a balanced paper, but a hospital might very well ( and, I think, illegally ) give some transplant people priority. Isn't that what happened to Steve jobs? No one is supposed to jump the queue, but he did. If 'queue jumping' is illegal, and happening at one hospital, I could imagine that as the kind of stunning bias shown in the data, and everyone involved would say it isn't happening

As I recall it he didn't so much "queue jump" as he used his private plane to travel to another state within a specific window of time from where he lived, which most people who lived outside of the transplant state couldn't do. So he was able to get on multiple transplant waiting lists.

Transplants are coordinated regionally. Jobs just purchased homes in multiple areas with shorter wait times than California. One of the advantages of being rich.

Incorrect. You don't have to be rich. I am currently being evaluated for deceased donor transplant outside my home state of California. You just have to register at another center and you are allowed to multi list. Some states have residency requirements but lot of them do not.

You can multi list at different transplant clinics across the country. They just require you to be able to travel quickly on call. Steve Jobs has a private jet so he pick anywhere in the US.

And each type of organ has different priority criteria. Kidneys for example you have a wait time and compatibility score. Liver is by MELD score and how healthy the person it (sick enough to need it but not too sick!)

Also a lot of transplant patients fall under Medicare and are not rich at all.

Also wondering if lifestyle choices of those post-op have anything to do with this. i.e. better diet, exercise, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com