Donorcycles: Motorcycle Helmet Laws and the Supply of Organ Donors

the PMC and harvesting organs of alienated people, name a better duo

  • CthulhusIntern [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Also, fuck opt-in organ donor nonsense. You're dead? Your organs aren't destroyed or unusable? They should be donated. What are you going to do, complain about it? You're dead.

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah I get that - my local hospital's blood donation program keeps the blood for patients rather than selling it for research, i switched to donating there so that the people who are already getting fucked over by our shitass healthcare system don't end up dying from lack of blood. I'm O neg so i get hounded for my blood a lot. and if i'm dead idrc if someone makes a profit putting my kidneys in another person to save their life, at least they went to good use.

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          I’m O neg so i get hounded for my blood a lot

          random question, have you ever had an ulcer? and what is your diet like?

          • crime [she/her, any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            No, but it seems like it's only a matter of time considering how bad my acid reflex can get. Diet's super inconsistent but decent rn. How come?

            • BolsheWitch [she/her, they/them]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Yeah that’s a hella specific question and now I’m curious what kind of cool crank shit they’re going to reply with.

            • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3497328/#b22-ijms-13-13308

              type Os have more stomach acid and higher ulcer rates (but lower stomach cancer rates)

              • crime [she/her, any]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Huh, that's neat! Didn't realize that my blood type was a factor in all my stomach problems lol

    • Koa_lala [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      We have an opt-out system here, I opted out. I just don't feel comfortable with it. Just out of curiosity, do you all think everyone should have a rationally sound argument for opting out?

      • Nephroni [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah you should have a pretty good reason for opting out. Some religious beliefs don't like organ donation.

        But to me it seems a selfish decision to opt out. You aren't using the organs anymore, you don't need them.

        There are children on the waiting list who are going to die if they don't get organs.

        Thousands of people die every year just in the US because they are waiting for kidneys

        • Koa_lala [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Because we have an opt-out system, the vast majority of people choose to donate their organs. About 73% of people will donate their organs. As opposed to the US, where only about 54% decide to donate. I think there's a meaningful difference between those circumstances.

          Not to mention that "only 3 in 1,000 people die in a way that allows for deceased organ donation". Which makes the chance of me personally being responsible for someone not being able to be helped very small.

          So the problem is more a matter of how people die than how many people donate.

      • Budwig_v_1337hoven [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It's your own body. If there is any sphere of the world in which having a non-rational/a-rational position on is totally valid, it's your own body imo

          • Budwig_v_1337hoven [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            it's not yours, yes - but it is you - or, it will have been you.
            Organs aren't simple possessions to be utilized, they are what constitute you. Sure, you can look at the utility function of a bit of human tissue shaped into an organ and decide that it may better serve someone else at a point where you are no longer - but that decision should be your own conscious decision, in my humble opinion.

            I'm a donor myself, but I find it questionable to try and guilt or otherwise coerce or even worse, rationalize people into donating.

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      my ghost will write a sternly worded letter about how its creepy that im inside of someone while theyre inside of someone who is potentially inside of another person and it will certainly be received

    • shiny [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      sometimes people aren't actually dead when their organs are harvested

        • shiny [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          The Premature Burial by Edgar Allen Poe. Just kidding - the issue is that organ harvesting has to come from a body where the organs aren't without oxygen for extended periods of time, because once they are deprived of oxygen they are useless. This means a good chunk come from brain dead (NIH) donors, which is determined somewhat ad hoc.

          Currently, there are no specific protocols in place for this, and there are notable variations in the management strategies implemented across different transplant centers.

          A potential organ donor is defined by the presence of either brain death or a catastrophic and irreversible brain injury that leads to fulfilling the brain death criteria...Evaluation of brain death should be considered in patients who have suffered a massive, irreversible brain injury with identifiable causes

          The issue here being that sometimes people recover after brain death (Medscape) but we don't know because they're immediately harvested (same source) and the determination of brain death is, again, ad hoc:

          there is no way of knowing how many people recover from brain death because they are usually quickly removed from life support or become organ donors

          Recently, however...some experts (question) whether brain-dead patients are truly dead and more families (have a right) to legally fight a loved one's brain death diagnosis

    • inshallah2 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      You’re dead.

      He rubs his hands together at all the money he could make now via the organs. And all the money he could make later once he gets his AI-Brain tech to work.

      The hurdle is the annoying waiting for the traditional metrics used to measure death. If only he could get the body a day or two ahead. Better organs. Better brains. He'll find loopholes. Or make his own.

      He laughs to himself. He wonders if Bezos he thinking the same thing. Of course he is - Musk says to himself.