BMJ  2007;334:1194-1195 (9 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39237.609132.59

Observations

Medicine and the media

The dangers of triage by television

Department of Medical Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Erasmus MC/University Medical Center Rotterdam

The much criticised "win a kidney" gameshow on Dutch television may have turned out to be a hoax that was later hailed as a "fantastic stunt," but that still doesn't justify it, write Inez de Beaufort and Frans Meulenberg

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

"Shameful," "Disgusting," and "An idea so sickening: it must stem from Holland"—these were some of the headlines on 25 May, the day the Netherlands' BNN Broadcasting Company announced its Big Donor Show. The idea of the programme was that a terminally ill woman, 36 year old Lisa, would talk live in the studio with three pre-selected young patients, all in need of a kidney. Then she would choose which of them would receive her kidney before her death. Viewers would be able to advise her via SMS messages.

Predictably, news of the show provoked a worldwide storm of moral disgust: "Outcry over TV kidney competition," reported the BBC, while the New Zealand Herald referred to "Organ Idols." When the programme was broadcast on 1 June, 1.2 million people tuned in, 23 000 "voted," and 50 000 people downloaded or ordered a donor-registration form.

The founder of BNN, one of . . . [Full text of this article]

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