Case against paying donors was a litany of errors

doi:10.1136/bmj.a596

Published 1 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a596
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a596

Letters

Should we pay organ donors?

Case against paying donors was a litany of errors

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

Chapman’s essay against paying donors to increase thesupply of organs for transplantation incorrectly conflates theabuses and abysmal outcomes of illegal, underground organ traffickingwith proposals for a regulated market in organs in developedcountries.¹ ² Furthermore, Chapman incorrectly asserts thatorgan donation is non-existent in Iran, where organs have beenlegally purchased from vendors since 1988. But deceased donationdid not meaningfully exist in Iran until 2000, when parliamentprovided legislative recognition of brain death as death. Since2000, uncompensated deceased donation in Iran has increased10-fold, and as of 2006 represented 15% of all organs procuredthat year,³ rather than the "implosion" of donation predictedby Chapman.

Chapman’s view that every patient able to pay will befaced with the question of whether they should wait for deceasedorgan donation, seek a family donor, or simply buy one, vastlyunderstates the bleak realities of renal failure. In the . . . [Full text of this article]

Benjamin Hippen, transplant nephrologist

¹ Carolinas Medical Center, 2711 Randolph Road, Building 400, Charlotte, NC 28207-2027, USA

benjaminhippen@gmail.com