This topic seems to be near-and-dear to the "heart" of free-market economists everywhere....
It seems the U.S. might actually allow the sale of human organs for transplant in the near future. This raises some interesting issues. On the one hand, obviously we should expect the quantity of organs supplied to increase if payment is allowed, and this is clearly good for recipients who are willing to pay. The story is at: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&u=/nm/20020214/hl_nm/wannabuyanorgan_1 (I'm appending the text below.) On the other hand, there are some disturbing "agency" issues involved. For example, family members expecting payment for organs might authorize less-aggressive medical treatment than the patient might prefer, at a time when the patient may not be able to speak for him/herself. Essentially, this would be people "stealing" the organs when the "owner" is unable to prevent theft. This is probably already a problem for people with large estates and relatives who like money more than people; alloing organ sales will expand this problem to more people. Also, organs might be removed before people are really dead; after all, if there is profit in declaring people dead, there will be more erring on the side of declaring death in cases where there is room for debate. This is already a problem with organ-donation of the type authorized on driver's licenses; allowing payment will simply expand the class of people with such motivation to include relatives as well as doctors, and will increase the overall incentive to declare people dead. So, despite the fact that I am generally a free-market advocate, I think allowing this particular market raises all sorts of complicated ethical issues which can be boiled down to "property rights" issues -- in other words, who owns a person's organs? That person, or his/her relatives? Who owns a person's life, in the sense of having the right to declare someone dead in questionable cases, and/or authorize treatment in questionable cases? If I write an advance directive that says I want all possible extreme measures to save my life, can someone else over-ride that, let me die, and then sell my organs for profit? --Robert Book [EMAIL PROTECTED] University of Chicago ============================================================ http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=594&u=/nm/20020214/hl_nm/wannabuyanorgan_1 Doctors, Government May Allow Payment for Organs Thu Feb 14,10:18 AM ET NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The medical community and the federal government are edging closer to allowing payment for body parts needed for transplants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Such compensation was outlawed by Congress in 1984, but with 79,000 people awaiting transplants, a committee of the American Medical Association has begun designing a pilot program to test the effects of various motivators, including payments for organ donations from cadavers, the Journal said. The committee, the AMA's influential Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, is already convinced that any moral concerns about payments for organs are outweighed by the needs of patients, the Journal said. The AMA's governing house of delegates is slated to vote on whether to support such a pilot in June, the Journal said. An advisory committee to US Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson is also considering whether to recommend that the ban on payments be lifted for organs from cadavers and live donors as a way to alleviate the organ shortage, the Journal said. The American Society of Transplant Surgeons has already endorsed payment for cadaveric organs to the families of the deceased, the Journal said.
