The Organ Transplant Industry - 2375 Words

Dagny Layman Mia Wall AP English C 23 May 2015 Tough Choices: Efficiency vs. Equity in the Organ Transplant Industry Across the country, sick men, women, and children wait for new chances at life: donor organs. A young woman, chest riddled with cancerous tumors, learns that in order to survive she needs new heart within the next year. A grandfather, withered and jaundiced, slips slowly into a coma as years of heavy drinking take their final toll. A tiny infant, born with underdeveloped lungs, lies motionless in an oxygen-rich, tank-like crib as his mother holds his minuscule hand and prays he will hang on just a little bit longer. Some patients wait for hours, months, or even years before an organ becomes available and they are given a†¦show more content†¦Alcoholics wait hopelessly, knowing that due to the nature of their illness, they have slim chances of getting new livers. After all, who would give a new organ to someone who destroyed his previous one? And as these thousands of patients wait and hope, committees of m edical professionals create policies to regulate organ allocation, policies that give the gift of new life to some patients and destine others to wait for chances that will never come. When medical professionals create organ allocation policies, their main decision comes down to a simple question: should their policies place a higher emphasis on equity or efficiency? Policies emphasizing efficiency primarily aim to avoid wasting organs. Although the definition of â€Å"waste† varies, efficiency advocates discourage allocation to those estimated to die soon, such as the elderly, or those who have caused their own disease. Pro-equity advocates tend to consider such judgments of value biased and unfair. Policies emphasizing equity are concerned with fairness in the allocation process: assuring the criteria remain unbiased towards any one group (e.g. race, sex, age, sexual orientation, etc.). Opening up the use of â€Å"worth† as a criterion leaves room for human bias. Fortunately, the United Network for Organ Sharing continuously reviews and modifies organ allocation policies within the United States. Within