> If you're an organ donor in the U.S., there's a 25% chance your kidney ends up in the trash.
That’s a wild number of wasted kidneys compared to the supply.
It's not that wild if you dig in a little; not every kidney you take out is going to wind up suitable for transplantation. There's some research into expanding the "suitable" criteria:
https://www.kidney.org/news/kidneys-initially-deemed-unfit-t...
> The study tracked 291 kidneys that became available from 172 deceased donors but were at first rejected for transplant between January 2014 and December of 2016. The kidneys were initially refused using code 830, which indicates that the organ was of low quality or the donor’s age was too advanced. The organs were subsequently procured by Southwest Transplant Alliance in Dallas and transplanted into patients on the kidney waitlist.
https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/organ-transplantation/kidney/receiv...
> There may be problems with the donor or organ that mean the kidney has a higher risk of failure than you or your transplant team are willing to accept. You may have problems, such as a recent infection, that makes you unsuitable to undergo transplantation at that time.
You can list yourself as an organ donor and have health issues. You kidneys might be good and your liver shot. Or your lungs and corneas good and everything else a disaster.
The idea that 25% of us have goods that aren't worth selling, does not blow my mind.
Emphasis mine. Transplantation in the US is a gigantic stats same, and a lot of transplant teams will pretty blatantly try to fake their stats.
I read a news article the other day about a "lead transplant doctor" in the US had been only accepting patients highly likely to recover, thus leading to his high success rate (and the deaths of other, potentially saveable patients). The hospital he was at released a statement defending him, citing...his high transplant success rate.
Comments on the article included anecdotes of people who were living kidney donors, who had felt chronically ill/weaker since their transplant, who had transplant teams insisting that it was not in fact related to the transplant because it would affect their stats.