February 1991: Living Organ Donation: Shifting Responsibility

[Clark]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/614549

February 1991
Living Organ Donation
Shifting Responsibility
Aaron Spital, MD
Author Affiliations
Arch Intern Med. 1991;151(2):234-235. doi:10.1001/archinte.1991.00400020010002

Abstract
Living donors have been with us since the birth of renal transplantation.1 They have served us well, often providing the recipient the best hope for a successful outcome. Yet, as Singer2 recently emphasized, after more than 30 years, the use of living kidney donors as a means of alleviating the severe organ shortage remains controversial. Most controversial is the use of unconventional living donors (ie, those who are genetically unrelated to the recipient and those who are at added risk).3 Furthermore, a few prominent transplant physicians have even questioned the continued acceptance of traditional living-related kidney donors.4,5 It seems timely to review some of the issues involved as living donors have recently been called on to provide other organs as well.6 I emphasize that the following discussion is directed only toward altruistic adults and should not be extrapolated to paid donors; the latter group raises.

[Clark]

Beats me why between Google's AI and JAMA's AI this popped up as "news" in my feed, but imagine if we were still arguing about whether living donation was ethical under any circumstances?