Opt-out scheme for UK organ donation flounders
England’s opt-out scheme for organ donation does not seem to be working. Rolled out in 2020, the system was supposed to provide an 100 extra donors...
Incentivising family consent for organ donation
Doctors and economists are always searching for ways to make more organs available for transplant. With a market in organs off the table in most...
Second recipient of genetically modified pig heart transplant dies
In a setback for the field of xenotransplantation, Lawrence Faucette, the second person in the world to receive a genetically modified pig heart transplant, died...
A second pig heart transplant appears to be successful
A 58-year-old patient with terminal heart disease became the second patient in the world to receive a successful transplant of a genetically-modified pig heart on...
Belgians opting out of their opt-in organ donation policy
The number of Belgians who say they are ready to donate their organs after their death has reached a record number, as has the number...
Pakistani police break up organ trafficking gang
Pakistani police have arrested eight members of a organ transplant gang who allegedly are involved in 328 illegal kidney transplants. The ringleader, according to the...
Could newborns solve the kidney shortage crisis?
Kidneys from newborn babies could be a “game-changing” solution to organ shortage crisis, according to an American study. According to a paper presented at the...
Nigerian power couple convicted in London over organ trafficking plot
In May last year, a young Nigerian man stumbled into a police station into the English town of Staines, in Surrey, and appealed for help....
Mass confusion
Massachusetts politicians who proposed that prison inmates could reduce their sentences if they donated organs have retreated from their original proposal. BioEdge was one of...
New frontiers in organ donation: from DDR to ODE to LVOD
After Organ Donor Euthanasia (ODE), what’s next? Living vital organ donation (LVOD) – giving your heart away even though you aren’t ill or dying. Apologies...
Massachusetts politicians propose prisoners as organ donors
Massachusetts is a state where conservatism goes to die, so it was astonishing to read a bill in its legislature to effectively pay prisoners for...
The ‘dead donor rule’ takes another one on the chin
Another attack on the dead donor rule comes in this month’s Journal of Medical Ethics. Anthony P. Smith, a philosopher at the University of Utah,...