Prince Ikari
Chicken Zombie
Prince Ikari
I am glad that she was finally able to get the lung she so desperately needed. I do hope she makes a safe and speedy recovery and is finally able to move on and enjoy her life. A child that young should not have to go through all of that.
That Under 12 Rule though is seriously ******** up. Yes I understand that an adult lung has more of a chance of failing within a child as opposed to an adult but at least allow that child to have a chance. A child should not have to wait until the least needing adult has a lung. It should be according to the needs of each individual regardless of their age. To tell a child that you cannot have the organ you need so you will probably die while the guy next door could go years without one but is going to get his soon is just cruel and inhumane. Completely immoral too. If anything I hope this story leads to some dramatic changes in the way organ donations and transplants are done in the future. I think stat wise it is about 64% of children waiting for transplants die without one while only 20% of adults do and that is not right.
Why should another adult die in place of this child that may have had a way better chance of accepting those lungs and would probably only need one transplant to live a much longer time?
First off, that's a baseless assumption. There are guidelines in place that focus on the overall health of the person in question and the likelihood that they ever have or possibly will engage in unhealthy behaviors that would make such a transplant pointless. Your entire argument is based on a one-sided emotional appeal. You don't even know who would have gotten those lungs if the girl didn't. And (big shock here) most people don't like the idea of a life-giving organ going to someone who is simply going to damage it when they're already in such short supply and there are plenty of people who honestly need such organs through no fault of their own. Children are not the only "innocent victims" here. They're just the ones that get the most press.
Secondly, doctors and the ethics panel made up of those doctors, ethicists, patient advocates, and former recipients (AKA: people who actually know what they're doing) care who the organs will have a better chance of working for. They care because giving the organ to someone not suited for it usually leads to complications that usually include DEATH. Because while emotions would have us all wanting to automatically save the innocent little girl over the nasty old adult, it doesn't work that way in reality. In reality, there is a limited supply of organs for which there is a very big demand, and every person who gets one is at least a couple others who will die because they didn't. And, sad to say, some people simply have a better chance of accepting certain organs than others. In a case like this where ANY decision will lead to someone dying, the last thing these people want is for the precious organs that were donated to go to waste because they chose to give them to someone they were not suited for, complications arose, and the person died. So not only will the other people still die, but the one they die instead of will also die, making ALL the deaths (those of the donor and the other potential recipients) completely pointless. THIS is why they care. They care because it works and, as doctors, they want to save as many lives as they can based off of what will actually work. If the adult has the higher rate of success than a child in regards to a particular set of organs working and not...y'know...falling apart and potentially killing the person they're transferred to, then the doctors need to go with the person who has the higher chance of success or risk losing them both and wasting life needlessly. And no, they can't simply just take the organ back out and give it to someone else. Organs don't work that way.
The issue here is that for the sake of this little girl, an adult donor's lungs (TWO lungs, not just one) will both have to be heavily altered to fit inside of her. This can easily lead to complications in an already complicated situation. In addition, because these are adult lungs, they are fully grown organs being placed inside of a still growing little girl. These lungs will last her, at best, a couple of years before they either wear out due to the heavy alterations or they simply can't function for her anymore because, being ADULT lungs that were chopped up to fit her and all, they can't grow with her and she will reach a point fairly soon where they will not be able to keep up with her still growing body. So at best, the girl's family bought her a couple more years of life before she has to be put back on the transplant list, and only at the expense of one or even two others who could have been fully helped but clearly don't matter as much to you because they're adults who probably deserve it even though you know nothing about them.
And all of this is ignoring the very real fact that this girl is in the final stages of CF. The final stages where she is going to die no matter what they do, and even the precious new set of lungs isn't going to fix that and has, in no way whatsoever "saved" her life. If she doesn't die needing a new lung transplant a couple years down the road because the CF has affected her new lungs that weren't fit for her in the first place or said lungs wear out precisely because they were not fit for her, she's going to die anyway because the CF itself will run its course and ravage the rest of her body. She has, in all scenarios, a couple years left to live. A couple years left to live on a pair of brand new, heavily mutilated, temporarily-functioning lungs that could have gained someone else a few more decades with less complications.
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