(Polka Dot)
The organ donor waiting list in America is a long one. There’s far too much demand for a very limited supply. In 2010, 89,316 people were on the kidney transplant waiting list, while the number of living donors was only 6,282, and the number of deceased donor transplants was 10,622. Freakonomics is no stranger to the repugnant discussion of the organ market. America’s particular organ donation policies, however, aren’t practiced everywhere. Singapore and Israel give priority to potential recipients who were already registered donors. A new working paper written by Judd B. Kessler of Wharton, and Alvin E. Roth from Harvard further tests this idea of priority-to-participants in an incentivized game. Here’s the abstract:
Organ donations from deceased donors provide the majority of transplanted organs in the United States, and one deceased donor can save numerous lives by providing multiple organs. Nevertheless, most Americans are not registered organ donors despite the relative ease of becoming one. We study in the laboratory an experimental game modeled on the decision to register as an organ donor, and investigate how changes in the management of organ waiting lists might impact donations. We find that an organ allocation policy giving priority on waiting lists to those who previously registered as donors has a significant positive impact on registration.
Could this be it? A not-so-repugnant solution to all our organ donation woes? A way to increase the number of registered donors above the current 40% of the adult population in the U.S.? Maybe. The authors explain a little more about the nature of their thought experiment:
It may be that the donor-priority organ allocation policy increases registration rates in part because the allocation rules allow for non-donors to be excluded (or to have a smaller probability of receiving an organ), effectively turning the registry into a club good and generating an incentive to become a donor.
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Someone already pointed out the complications of some people being ineligible for donation, and I would like to add children to that list. My daughter has a condition that could eventually require an organ transplant. Should such a system allow someone like me to get priority on a child’s behalf by registering myself for donation?
I think it would make more sense to sign your daughter up. She might need X, but if (heaven forfend) she died in a car wreck, she might be able to donate A, B, and C (depending on her health situation).
If parental donations could substitute, then you’d sign up and gain priority for both yourself and your children. The system would get one donor and two to twelve priority recipients (depending on how many children you have). It would be better for the system to get one donor for every priority recipient.
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I agree with this article’s premise but wouldn’t it be more efficient to just allow donors to become sellers? We are legally allowed to donate organs but we are not allowed to sell organs. Do we not own our own bodies? Are you OK with people dying while waiting for a kidney transplant when most of us have two kidneys and only need one?
If people could sell organs there would be no organ shortage, but it’s not legal to buy or sell organs. But giving registered organ donors preferred access to organs is already legal. See http://www.LifeSharers.org. John Stossel put it this way: “There ought to be a free market in organs, but since that’s illegal, LifeSharers may be the next best thing.”
I think organ donation should be an opt out system where opting out puts you on the lowest tear for receiving an organ.
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Perhaps a more accessible marketing experiment would be to ask whether people would become blood donors if they became priority recipients after donating a certain amount of blood.
I felt it most unfair to learn that South Africa’s top blood donor, having donated hundreds of units over his lifetime, had no priority access to blood if he needed it. I see that arrangement as being a deterrent to would-be donors.
Excellent idea.
Worrying about those who are not good donors is an unnecessary distraction, it’s a totally solvable problem.
To get priority you MUST be on the donor list no matter your condition. Your HIV or potentially cancerous organs may be useful to someone (someone who also may be low on the list). If not, then your corpse could be used to study whatever it was that makes you a poor donor.
Someone else has mentioned this issue already but what about those of us who can’t donate our organs? My genetic history excludes me from donating any blood, plasma, or organs despite the fact that I am healthy and would happily do it. If I am ever in a position to need an organ transplant should I be lower on the priority list because of something that is out of my control?
What about just paying healthy registered organ donors a small amount per month?
I think that they should change the name of it from “Organ Donation” to “Organ Exchange.” It’s silly to make it a pro bono action, when it would be much more effective as a mutually beneficial program.
In this case, you’re only eligible to receive the benefit of receiving a functional organ if you’re on the list that promises to give it up if you die. And, if you all of the sudden need one, you’ll be excluded from the opportunity to receive one if you were not already on the list. Religious reasons don’t allow to give your organ up? Fine, just don’t expect that religion to help you when it matters. Too afraid of them killing you more quickly to get your organs? Well, you can feel that way, but you’ll probably be safer with organs to receive. That way, the people who aren’t too stupid or selfish to be a “donor” won’t be slowing down the ones who buy into the system when they don’t even help it along at all.
What about the game theory in this. i.e. enough organ donors that the list goes away because supply is ample.