Zionist vortex of money and body parts to bake their matzah

[Aimless]

So let me get this straight. Israel has a very dire situation wrt availability of organs because few people donate and doctors aren't able to steal dead people's organs. Israel's situation is worse than that of many other western countries (although no doubt it's bad for everyone). Why is it insane to think that some of the disparity may be reduced through education/brainwashing? About 15% of Sweden's population is in the national donor registry, which provides them with a way to ensure that their families respect their wish to donate their organs in case of their death (and makes for a smoother process overall). There's mounting social pressure to get registered, and donating blood is already akin to a religious activity. I can't give any due to my malaria-tainted blood so I get no cinnamon buns and nice glasses

[Loki]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...294974029.html

Are you talking about the same Sweden?

[Aimless]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...294974029.html

Are you talking about the same Sweden?

Of course I'm talking about the same Sweden, and the question is, can Israel do as well as Sweden (sucky as that may be) through education/brainwashing? Financial compensation after death may be nice for the relatives, but relatives are a major concern mostly in the cases of those people who haven't already succumbed to the shaming campaign and registered as donors. Granted that's 85% of the population, but we can talk about those once Israel approaches 15%.

[Aimless]

Actually come to think of it we could probably solve our problem by just discontinuing the public healthcare system. Many of the donors would die and only those who could afford it would get access to the feast of kidneys

[Loki]

Of course I'm talking about the same Sweden, and the question is, can Israel do as well as Sweden (sucky as that may be) through education/brainwashing? Financial compensation after death may be nice for the relatives, but relatives are a major concern mostly in the cases of those people who haven't already succumbed to the shaming campaign and registered as donors. Granted that's 85% of the population, but we can talk about those once Israel approaches 15%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_t...e_of_donations

Israel is already at 10%. If Sweden is at 15%, that puts them near the bottom of Western European states by the way.

And this doesn't really deal with the underlying issue: are you willing to see hundreds or thousands of your countrymen die each year because a sufficient number of your citizens aren't responsive to moralizing? How many dead are you willing to tolerate before you think your moralizing will have the desired effect?

[Nessus]

Because of your dislike of me, you're trying to make this into a socialism vs. capitalism thing.

I take it any post of mine in a thread of yours is redundant?

[Aimless]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_t...e_of_donations

Israel is already at 10%. If Sweden is at 15%, that puts them near the bottom of Western European states by the way.

Then is it possible for Sweden and Israel to do as well the second best Western European state? You keep missing the point. The point isn't that Sweden is amazing; the point is that even without strong financial incentives you may perhaps be able to get more people in Israel to sign up for donation.

And this doesn't really deal with the underlying issue: are you willing to see hundreds or thousands of your countrymen die each year because a sufficient number of your citizens aren't responsive to moralizing? How many dead are you willing to tolerate before you think your moralizing will have the desired effect?

That's a very difficult question to answer, almost as difficult as finding out how many grandmothers Americans want to kill to get government out of healthcare. There are about 760 people in Sweden waiting for organs right now, and almost all of them are on dialysis while waiting for suitable kidneys that aren't eg. ravaged by age. Last year they transplanted about 740 organs. I would definitely welcome improvements, and I think offering to pay for funeral costs would improve matters, but let's not succumb to melodrama eh. Dialysis sucks but it isn't death.

[wiggin]

Most people do not like going to surgery, and this is particularly true when they don't actually need the surgery. It is incredibly naive to assume that the only or even the biggest "cost" of donation is time off work and medical costs. The reality is that people don't want to go under the knife, and you're going to have to appropriately compensate them for doing otherwise. And I can safely say that most Americans would need something in the high thousands to do this. So what you're stuck with is appealing to people's morality and ignoring the physical and psychological cost of a voluntary surgery. It might make for a great logic in shul, but it's not going to convince people in the real world.

There is a better argument to be made about educating people to donate when they die. But even then, people don't want to be cut up, even after death, and there's very little you can do to change those feelings. Monetary incentives will only get you so far in this scenario because the donor won't be in a position to use the money (I'm not ruling out the idea that people care about their relatives, but it's unreasonable to assume they care more about them than about their own interests). The only sure-fire way to get people to donate upon death is to provide them some reward when they are alive.

My main concern is donation of vital organs after death - I think that it's very hard to convince someone to donate a kidney or liver unless they are either a saint or have a family member at stake. It happens, but absent some serious incentives I agree no amount of talking will convince most people. The big religious/cultural qualms in Israel, though, are not associated with live organ donation. I suspect there will be a 'halo' effect, but that's not what this program is dealing with - it's organ donation cards for after death, not live organ donations.

I strongly suspect that if more people donated organs after death, the need for live organ donation would be much less (even zero), so this is largely a moot point. The supply of dying people every day is much higher than the supply of live saints.

I do think that an incentive program for after-death donation would be very successful, though. People go to great lengths to preserve their estate from taxes, so providing a significant tax cut/write-off would conceivably change behavior. I'm not sure it's really a great idea, but I can see the argument for it.

Think about what the anti-smoking campaign emphasized. Was it how quitting would help society or how quitting would prevent cancer and respiratory illnesses? Sorry, but the appeal of this campaign was entirely to the smokers' own interests.

Fair enough.

And this doesn't really deal with the underlying issue: are you willing to see hundreds or thousands of your countrymen die each year because a sufficient number of your citizens aren't responsive to moralizing? How many dead are you willing to tolerate before you think your moralizing will have the desired effect?

I know this was directed at Minx, but seriously? I'm not suggesting a propaganda campaign is the only way to go - I just think that tampering with triage is very dubious from an ethical perspective, so that particular intervention is unacceptable. There are other options for incentives, which have all sorts of potential drawbacks, but it's possible to have a decent debate about which is best. I'm not ruling out some sort of economics-driven solution in principle if it can be both ethical and get around other externalities. I just think that Israel in particular is ripe for some serious proselytizing given the prevailing cultural priorities.

[Loki]

My main concern is donation of vital organs after death - I think that it's very hard to convince someone to donate a kidney or liver unless they are either a saint or have a family member at stake. It happens, but absent some serious incentives I agree no amount of talking will convince most people. The big religious/cultural qualms in Israel, though, are not associated with live organ donation. I suspect there will be a 'halo' effect, but that's not what this program is dealing with - it's organ donation cards for after death, not live organ donations.

I strongly suspect that if more people donated organs after death, the need for live organ donation would be much less (even zero), so this is largely a moot point. The supply of dying people every day is much higher than the supply of live saints.

I do think that an incentive program for after-death donation would be very successful, though. People go to great lengths to preserve their estate from taxes, so providing a significant tax cut/write-off would conceivably change behavior. I'm not sure it's really a great idea, but I can see the argument for it.

A quick search suggests 42% of Americans are on the organ registry, and yet we still have a chronic shortage of organs. Considering that this is about average for a Western country, and many of those Western countries already tried large-scale education campaigns, I doubt you're going to increase that number without providing concrete incentives. In fact, those 42% are probably the ones most likely to respond to ethical arguments, and they're already convinced!

I'm not opposed to your solution, though I don't think it would have as much of an effect as what has been proposed here, but I don't quite understand why it's ethically ok to reward someone for an organ transplant after death but not during life. I suppose it wouldn't lead to the same kind of moral hazard as the alternative, but surely these rewards would tempt poor people more than rich ones?

I know this was directed at Minx, but seriously? I'm not suggesting a propaganda campaign is the only way to go - I just think that tampering with triage is very dubious from an ethical perspective, so that particular intervention is unacceptable. There are other options for incentives, which have all sorts of potential drawbacks, but it's possible to have a decent debate about which is best. I'm not ruling out some sort of economics-driven solution in principle if it can be both ethical and get around other externalities. I just think that Israel in particular is ripe for some serious proselytizing given the prevailing cultural priorities.

Given how low the numbers are in Israel, I suppose playing up the moral argument can have some effect, but given what I said about the US above, even that is unlikely to resolve the organ shortage. The way I see it, every day we don't deal with this issue, people are dying because they couldn't get a transplant. Is that really preferable to a situation where people obtain some real benefit from donating? At the very least, it seems like a good solution until a better one can be thought of and implemented. I will note that we've had decades to think about this issue, and yet no such solution has been proposed.

Then is it possible for Sweden and Israel to do as well the second best Western European state? You keep missing the point. The point isn't that Sweden is amazing; the point is that even without strong financial incentives you may perhaps be able to get more people in Israel to sign up for donation.

By 5%? That would still be half the rate of the average Western country. Coincidentally, I'm amazed by your cheer-leading for Sweden on an issue on which it severely lags behind comparable countries. I somehow doubt that you don't have numerous people dying due to a lack of organ transplants given how low your organ donation rate is.

[wiggin]

A quick search suggests 42% of Americans are on the organ registry, and yet we still have a chronic shortage of organs. Considering that this is about average for a Western country, and many of those Western countries already tried large-scale education campaigns, I doubt you're going to increase that number without providing concrete incentives. In fact, those 42% are probably the ones most likely to respond to ethical arguments, and they're already convinced!

It's a bit more complex than that - even if 42% are registered, their families don't all end up agreeing to donation upon death. Also, those same statistics suggest that more than twice that percentage of Americans support organ donation in principle, so I think there's rather a lot of room for improvement. Regardless, the relevant statistic is not organ donor registries, but number of organ donors per million population. In the US that's in the mid-20s IIRC (26 or so?), which is higher than the EU average but not the best.

Actually, as an aside on the live vs. dead thing: there are a number of live donors today - some 6k and change most years - but those live donors are mostly family members (about 3/4 IIRC), and they generally only save one life at a time. Dead donors are both more numerous in the US and save far more lives (average of about 3 per body I think??) - not to mention working for all organs. It clearly makes sense to try to increase our numbers where they will do the most good, and I think focusing on posthumous donation is the way to go.

I'm not opposed to your solution, though I don't think it would have as much of an effect as what has been proposed here, but I don't quite understand why it's ethically ok to reward someone for an organ transplant after death but not during life. I suppose it wouldn't lead to the same kind of moral hazard as the alternative, but surely these rewards would tempt poor people more than rich ones?

Moral hazard reasons aside (and other issues with rewarding the living), I was not suggesting that incentives should be done away with. I just don't think that incentives should change triage decisions - my ethical qualm was about changing transplantation criteria from simple medical need, not the very idea of incentivizing donation. In fact, even an education campaign effectively works as a social incentive, which has been shown to be relevant economically. I think there are big issues to work out with incentives for live donations that are separate from donation after death, but in principle I'm not opposed to incentives. (The poor/rich thing is actually a poor argument - it might work for paying funerary costs, but it would be rather the opposite if it reduced estate taxes.)

Given how low the numbers are in Israel, I suppose playing up the moral argument can have some effect, but given what I said about the US above, even that is unlikely to resolve the organ shortage. The way I see it, every day we don't deal with this issue, people are dying because they couldn't get a transplant. Is that really preferable to a situation where people obtain some real benefit from donating? At the very least, it seems like a good solution until a better one can be thought of and implemented. I will note that we've had decades to think about this issue, and yet no such solution has been proposed.

Plenty of people have proposed incentives for organ donation; it just has not yet been widely implemented because of aforementioned concerns about moral hazard and the like. I don't think it has been ignored as an alternative, it just has not been widely accepted as viable. I don't know if I agree with this, but you make it sound like no one even suggests it.

[Aimless]

By 5%? That would still be half the rate of the average Western country.

By whatever percentage you'd need to bring it up to the level of the best Western country in the whole world, or even up to the 30% of the US (which would be lovely). Here, look:

Then is it possible for Sweden and Israel to do as well the second best Western European state? You keep missing the point. The point isn't that Sweden is amazing; the point is that even without strong financial incentives you may perhaps be able to get more people in Israel to sign up for donation.

All of this is in response to your claims about the possible impact of educational efforts. That's it. I'm not addressing the possible problems of offering financial incentives or prioritising donors, and I've acknowledged that those strategies would have advantages.

Coincidentally, I'm amazed by your cheer-leading for Sweden on an issue on which it severely lags behind comparable countries. I somehow doubt that you don't have numerous people dying due to a lack of organ transplants given how low your organ donation rate is.

Look man, opposing your melodrama and countering some of your claims isn't the same as cheering the Swedish state's mass murder of heart-failure patients. That said, I got the info from the Swedish organ donor registry. They keep track of everything in Sweden Sweden's a small country with a healthy populace and a pretty good healthcare system, so there's a limit to how "numerous" these deaths can be. The demand side of the equation is friendlier here than it is in many other countries. Now, I'd like to tell you that even one lost life is too much, but we're not playing the moralising game here are we? I'd be surprised if we were because in that case every single American would be crouched up in a corner crying rather than posting.

According to those involved with coordinating transplantations in Sweden, it would be more than enough if everyone who claims they'd like to donate their organs would 1. just tell their relatives and 2. register on the donor registry. Moreover, healthcare personnel are bad at identifying donors in a timely fashion and giving them appropriate management, and there is a lot of room for improvement there. The elderly are rarely candidates for harvesting hearts and kidneys, the organs that are most in demand in Sweden.

I wonder what'd happen if more elderly persons in Sweden became registered donors. They'd have to expand all the ICU:s I suppose. It may be more effective to just reduce the demand as much as possible given that you can't really count on available organs to be viable or appropriate.

[Aimless]

Btw, given that many studies have found that there're many misconceptions about organ donation I think there may be room for improvement even in the US.

[CitizenCain]

BTW I can't emphasize enough how imperative it is for everyone here - assuming they are not excluded due to various criteria - to donate blood products regularly. You are literally saving lives if you do.

Well, to make Loki's point more pointedly, what's in it for me? As a general rule, I don't much care for people, being that they're generally pretty contemptible, so "saving lives" doesn't do much for me except for a mild chuckle.

I don't like getting stabbed with... well, anything, but sharp metal objects especially, nor do I enjoy taking time out of my day to answer a bunch of very personal questions about my life. I could be incentivized to, of course, and in fact, I sold plasma a few times back in my college days when I needed a little extra money to go out and enjoy myself... but it seems that government and society feel that preventing some moral hazard is more valuable than getting my blood, so in my body is where it'll stay until the cops riddle me with bullet holes, and y'all can have as much of it as you can manage to collect at that time.

On the other hand, I'm on the organ registry, because it's free, involves ticking a box when I get my driver's license, and I don't give a shit what happens to my corpse once I'm no longer using it. So yeah, all about the incentivization. Gimmie a compelling enough reason to go get stabbed and weakened once a week, and I will. Don't, and I won't.

Btw, given that many studies have found that there're many misconceptions about organ donation I think there may be room for improvement even in the US.

And how much of that is related to the incredible capacity for stupidity and gullibility in the average human? Most of these "misconceptions" are just so mind-bogglingly dumb that I'd argue those suffering from them are perfect candidates for immediate organ donation, given that the subjects are already brain-dead anyway.

I doubt you'd agree, but either way, there's really nothing that can be done to "educate" someone who's scared away form organ donation by ridiculous tales of organ theft and the like.

[wiggin]

Well, to make Loki's point more pointedly, what's in it for me? As a general rule, I don't much care for people, being that they're generally pretty contemptible, so "saving lives" doesn't do much for me except for a mild chuckle.

I don't like getting stabbed with... well, anything, but sharp metal objects especially, nor do I enjoy taking time out of my day to answer a bunch of very personal questions about my life. I could be incentivized to, of course, and in fact, I sold plasma a few times back in my college days when I needed a little extra money to go out and enjoy myself... but it seems that government and society feel that preventing some moral hazard is more valuable than getting my blood, so in my body is where it'll stay until the cops riddle me with bullet holes, and y'all can have as much of it as you can manage to collect at that time.

On the other hand, I'm on the organ registry, because it's free, involves ticking a box when I get my driver's license, and I don't give a shit what happens to my corpse once I'm no longer using it. So yeah, all about the incentivization. Gimmie a compelling enough reason to go get stabbed and weakened once a week, and I will. Don't, and I won't.

I consider it charity, and of the free and lifesaving variety. But you could be, you know, a selfish dick, and then you'd be right. I'm obviously not going to convince you, but I was assuming that most of the forum members here were rather more public spirited than yourself.

(For the record, I don't have a problem with incentivizing blood donation, but in the absence of incentives I still think people should donate regularly.)

[CitizenCain]

I consider it charity, and of the free and lifesaving variety. But you could be, you know, a selfish dick, and then you'd be right. I'm obviously not going to convince you, but I was assuming that most of the forum members here were rather more public spirited than yourself.

Good luck with that. The thing about these public-pressure campaigns to increase blood donation (etc), is that they're only effective at all while they're going on. Once the pressure's off, people return to their old habits and the path of least resistance. To overcome that, you need to somehow integrate the desired behavior with a new or existing habit, or incintivize the behavior.

And for what it's worth, people looking for charitable donations usually do everything they can to make donation easier and remove barriers to donation, the absence of which in donating blood is probably a big factor in why only 3% of people donate on even an occasional basis in this country. Convincing people to get grilled on their sex life and then stabbed for no compensation is a hard enough sell without adding in the need to drive somewhere and work around the Red Cross' schedule for the privilege.

[CitizenCain]

I consider it charity,

An additional thought occurs along the "charity" lines, and it is that typically people are allowed to choose where their charitable donation goes, and not obligated to offer it up to any random asshole, or worse, a pool of random assholes who do harm to the donor.

Hell, just think, your blood may well have saved the life of a white-power banger or other anti-Semitic asshole.

If I could impose restrictions on who may have my blood to control for that factor, I'd probably be more charitable about the idea... but I can't, so it's staying inside me. If that makes me a "selfish dick," well, I've been called a lot worse, so I don't think I'll lose any sleep over it.

[wiggin]

Good luck with that. The thing about these public-pressure campaigns to increase blood donation (etc), is that they're only effective at all while they're going on. Once the pressure's off, people return to their old habits and the path of least resistance. To overcome that, you need to somehow integrate the desired behavior with a new or existing habit, or incintivize the behavior.

And for what it's worth, people looking for charitable donations usually do everything they can to make donation easier and remove barriers to donation, the absence of which in donating blood is probably a big factor in why only 3% of people donate on even an occasional basis in this country. Convincing people to get grilled on their sex life and then stabbed for no compensation is a hard enough sell without adding in the need to drive somewhere and work around the Red Cross' schedule for the privilege.

Er... at most major employers I've seen they have regular blood drives during work (granted, my sample is biased since I work in a medical field). It takes about 20 minutes, and employers will often give you time off to do it. The Red Cross will also contact you if you've donated before and try to get you in a habit of donating. I've found that absent specialized donations (apheresis, double RBC donations, etc.) donating regular ol' whole blood is relatively easy and painless.

I'll admit that going out of your way can be difficult - I don't donate whole blood because I'm AB+, so they ask me for regular apheresis donations (and they ask every two weeks instead of every 8); I'll admit that this is a far greater amount of time and effort involved. But most plain vanilla whole blood donations are fairly straightforward.

An additional thought occurs along the "charity" lines, and it is that typically people are allowed to choose where their charitable donation goes, and not obligated to offer it up to any random asshole, or worse, a pool of random assholes who do harm to the donor.

Oh, please, most charitable donations go to organizations and you have no control over the specific person it gets to. The recipients could be assholes just as much as blood recipients.

Hell, just think, your blood may well have saved the life of a white-power banger or other anti-Semitic asshole.

Personally, if I can save a life, I couldn't care less how despicable they are.

[CitizenCain]

Personally, if I can save a life, I couldn't care less how despicable they are.

Really? That seems especially haphazard and uncharitable.

Even downright cruel to the rest of those who now have to suffer the existence of a despicable asshole you prevented from no longer being a problem for the rest of the world. (In the general case of course.) Seems to me like an ethical wrong to save the life of someone who will go onto to inflict harm on his fellow man... gotta say, the SOC's approach to evil men seems to be the better one. Not that every problem in life can or should be solved by the precise application of .223 rounds, but some sure can. Even less of an ethical question when all that is required is inaction to allow nature to run its course.

[RandBlade]

I've always thought this was intrinsically fair for 2 reasons:

1: If you're prepared to accept, you should be prepared to give (Haredi take not, if one isn't kosher both can't be).
2: Otherwise it creates a perverse incentive that if you can save just one of two medically-equivalent patients you should save the non-donor, because then the donors organs become available.

I'm a registered donor but have never given blood, I can't. No tick box saying I can't, I physically don't seem able to. Don't know if it's blood pressure or something else but even getting a tiny amount of blood drawn for a test takes an age and repeated attempts. Been advised repeatedly by doctors I'd be sent away after a few minutes if I went to give blood as I'd be wasting their time. No clue why that is.

[Nessus]

No clue why that is.

Of course you don't.

[wiggin]

1: If you're prepared to accept, you should be prepared to give (Haredi take not, if one isn't kosher both can't be).

Is this a good reason to deny medical treatment? Say you were a black physician who was treating a white supremacist. The patient would have refused to treat you if the situations were reversed; should you deny him medical care?

I do not think hypocrisy is pretty, but I also don't think it's ground for changing triage decisions.

2: Otherwise it creates a perverse incentive that if you can save just one of two medically-equivalent patients you should save the non-donor, because then the donors organs become available.

I find this unlikely to be the case - most of the matching is done by computer anyways (and the same argument could be made about any organ donor registry - there is a widespread belief in the public in a number of countries that doctors do not treat organ donors as aggressively as those who are not registered, though there is precious little evidence it is true). I actually think the number of cases where this new Israeli law will actually matter is vanishingly small - you'd need two equivalent matches and nearly equivalent medical needs in order for this precedence to take place. But in principle I still find it unethical.

[Aimless]

And how much of that is related to the incredible capacity for stupidity and gullibility in the average human? Most of these "misconceptions" are just so mind-bogglingly dumb that I'd argue those suffering from them are perfect candidates for immediate organ donation, given that the subjects are already brain-dead anyway.

I doubt you'd agree, but either way, there's really nothing that can be done to "educate" someone who's scared away form organ donation by ridiculous tales of organ theft and the like.

The examples I've seen mostly have to do with concerns that doctors won't try as hard to save their lives, uncertainty about religious aspects, misconceptions about brain death, relative misconceptions about the organs not doing much good, worries about not being able to have an open-casket funeral, that sort of thing.

[RandBlade]

Is this a good reason to deny medical treatment? Say you were a black physician who was treating a white supremacist. The patient would have refused to treat you if the situations were reversed; should you deny him medical care?

Yes there is a big difference. The white supremacist doctor who refused to treat black patients would not be accepted as a doctor in the first place, or tolerated to do that, nowadays.

I do not think hypocrisy is pretty, but I also don't think it's ground for changing triage decisions.

The hypocrisy issue isn't the ground for changing triage decisions. The change is justified by sound medical reasoning and basic fairness.

The hypocrisy simply refutes the notion that this would be discriminatory and unfair on Haredi etc ... no its not. If they want to follow rabbic advice that they're allowed to donate to save lives then they can do. If they decide they want an organ but don't want to donate, then that's a choice and has no grounding in religion whatsoever.

Its worth noting that some religious groups think its wrong to give OR receive blood/organs. These on the one hand are consistent, and on the other are utterly irrelevant to this conversation.

[RandBlade]

Of course you don't.

What's that supposed to mean?

[LittleFuzzy]

I physically don't seem able to. Don't know if it's blood pressure or something else but even getting a tiny amount of blood drawn for a test takes an age and repeated attempts. Been advised repeatedly by doctors I'd be sent away after a few minutes if I went to give blood as I'd be wasting their time. No clue why that is.

Oh god, so many allusions to make, how can I choose just one?

[Nessus]

What's that supposed to mean?

I think Fuzzy knows, too.

[Dreadnaught]

THE HIV.

[RandBlade]

No I don't have Aids thanks. Just my blood is really slow at coming out. Urgh, that sounds just as bad ...

[Aimless]

THE HIV.

Randian stinginess

[LittleFuzzy]

Can't squeeze blood from a stone.

You need a heart to pump blood.

Capitalist management sucks the blood from the working man, it doesn't give it back.

I have more