Living people can donate kidneys, and since we have two, continue to live normal lives.
But not always. Too often, the potential risk to life and health is underplayed.
Taking out a kidney is serious surgery, requiring full anesthesia and intubation. Occasionally, a donor dies–as just happened tragically in San Francisco, leading to a suspension of living kidney donations at UCSF. From the San Francisco Chronicle story:
The risk of a kidney donor death following surgery is about .03 percent, or three deaths in every 10,000 cases. Most kidney transplant recipients receive kidneys from deceased donors, but those received from living donors generally have better outcomes.
Two kidney donors died at U.S. transplant centers in 2014 and two deaths, including the one at UCSF, have been reported this year, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, which runs the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list and oversees transplantation nationwide.
This tragedy doesn’t mean that people should be prohibited from donating a kidney.
But, as I wrote here, I do think it is an important reason why we should never allow kidney suppliers to be paid for their organs–as some commentators, such as Sally Patel, urge. (Patel’s life was saved when she received a kidney from the writer, Virginia Postrel.)
If kidneys can be bought and sold, only the poor or financially desperate will be the sellers. In so doing, they risk life and future health.
As a matter of public policy, we should not allow such potentially deadly exploitation. The current legal ban on buying organs is the correct approach.
Kidey Selling is Dangerous