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Comment by giarc | Hacker News Reader

There are enough kidneys, there are not enough donors. I suspect we could get closer to balance if we changed to opt-out or presumed consent.

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There are many issues with organs from people killed in accidents. Availability, randomness of occurrence, suitability, immunity.

To be able to have a 'manufactured' supply seems much better, not least or especially if it is ultimately possible to remove all immunity problems.

The current system, whether opt-in or opt-out, is because we simply don't know how to do better. On demand grown organs using the recipient's own DNA seems to be the holy grail. I reckon we'll get there someday.

UK is now opt out, and yet still at a shortage. According to a doctor friend, most people who die simply aren't suitable donors. Their old knackered organs, ravaged by whatever disease killed their owner, are no use.

As cars get automated, there will be fewer kidneys (and other organs) available despite opt out.

Motorcyclists are still your core optimal donation demographic though.

There's also the option for living donation.

"Why I gave my kidney to a stranger — and why you should consider doing it too"

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/11/12716978/ki...

Or we could start allowing the remuneration of donors, and not just everyone else involved in the transplant process. Paying for kidneys is legal in Iran, and guess what? No shortage there.

As long as there's a moral and ethical framework governing it to prevent abuse.

An ex-colleague of mine got a kidney transplant in China, most kidneys are from either volunteer donors or prisoners that have given their consent.

Although it is not impossible for this type of system to be gamed, having proper governance around it might be a good way forward.

How can you claim that? Certainly those who cannot pay are suffering from a shortage.

Another example is plasma donation to make plasma therapies. No country produces sufficient plasma for plasma therapies to meet the needs of their patient population unless they compensate for that donation. The few countries that do compensate are US, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Czech Republic.

> The U.S., with only five per cent of the world’s population, provides more than 70 per cent of all the plasma used to make plasma therapies for the whole world.

> If you add plasma obtained from Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic — the other countries where compensation is offered — compensated plasma accounts for 89 per cent of all the world’s plasma for plasma therapies.

> This is worth emphasizing: There is no country in the world that manages to collect all the plasma needed for plasma therapies using non-compensated plasma collections. Every country in the world that uses plasma therapies depends on compensated plasma collections.

https://theconversation.com/not-compensating-canadian-blood-...

Surely this just leads to people who are desperate being taken advantage of ...

People have no desire to donate organs only to have them go to people they might not like or wish were dead. Why give up a kidney to some baby boomer whose generation ravaged the Earth and left their children so poor? We must grow organs from scratch.

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