The Price of Life: $50,000 for an Egg, Why Not $1,500 for a Kidney? An Argument to Establish a Market for Organ Procurement Similar to the Current Market for Human Egg Procurement
Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: Organ transplantation once again became a major headline when basketball star Alonzo Mourning announced his retirement from professional basketball on November 24, 2003, because of a lifethreatening kidney disease which required an immediate kidney transplant. 1 Within the next two days, nearly 30 people had called the Kidney and Urology Foundation of America asking to donate a kidney specifically to Mourning. 2 Less than one month later, an unidentified family member donated a kidney to Mourning, who underwent a successful transplant.3 Mourning was very fortunate; in 2000, the average waiting period for a kidney transplant was 1,195 days, over 3 years.4 Solid organ transplants became a medical life-saving reality when Dr. Joseph Murray successfully transplanted a kidney from one identical twin to his brother on December 23, 1954.5 The progress of organ transplantation was slow, due partly to limited physiological knowledge and partly to doctors' initial inability to control organ rejection.6 However, success did finally come for organs other than kidneys: the first successful 1. 'Zo Can't Go Mourning Forced to Retire, Will Need Kidney Transplant, at
Author: Margaret R. Sobota
Institution: Washington University in St. Louis
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1580692798