At Monday’s Beyond Labels session, we’ll discuss organ donations–especially of kidneys, where living donors can provide an organ (humans have two of them) without undue risk.
While we selected the topic almost two weeks ago, “Maine Calling” has since had a program on the subject. Here’s a link to the “Live Organ Donation” segment, which aired on April 15.
Here’s a link to an NYT Op/Ed piece that sparked the suggestion that we cover the topic at this time: “Let People Sell Their Kidneys. It Will Save Lives.”
And here’s a link to a 2018 article examining the question “Would government compensation of living kidney donors exploit the poor?“
After we set the subject, a frequent participant, Richard J. sent an email highlighting recent advances in genetic technology and “Xenografts” (a new word for me). He points out that, as this technology advances and becomes more commonplace, the ethical questions around live organ donation may become moot. He wrote quite a long email, but he should be in attendance on Monday to express his views. In the meantime, here are three links he provided on the subject:
- In a First, Genetically Edited Pig Kidney Is Transplanted Into Human | Harvard Medical School
- Results of Two Cases of Pig-to-Human Kidney Xenotransplantation | New England Journal of Medicine (nejm.org)
- Scientists grow humanized kidneys in pig embryos (sciencenews.org)
So we’ll have a chance to discuss medicine, ethics, and developing technologies, all in one Beyond Labels session.
See you Monday.