‘Ridiculous’ transplant law leaves mother in lurch
My daughter would have given her kidney to me
A British mother has complained that her daughter’s kidneys were given to strangers when they could have helped her. Rachel Leake, 39, has kidney failure. When her daughter 21-year-old daughter Laura died after an asthma attack, Ms Leake suggested that she be given a kidney. Laura had expressed her interest in being a living donor and would certainly have approved, said her mother. However, sticking to the letter of the law, hospitals authorities gave Laura’s kidneys and her liver to needier patients.
The head of the Human Tissue Authority, Adrian McNeil, told the BBC: "The central principle of matching and allocating organs from the deceased is that they are allocated to the person on the UK Transplant waiting list who is most in need and who is the best match with the donor. In line with this central principle, a person cannot choose to whom their organ can be given when they die; nor can their family." "It’s an absolutely ridiculous law," says Ms Leake. "Laura’s helped three people through this, but Laura would have wanted to help me." ~ BBC, Apr 12
- How long can you put off seeing the doctor because of lockdowns? - December 3, 2021
- House of Lords debates assisted suicide—again - October 28, 2021
- Spanish government tries to restrict conscientious objection - October 28, 2021
More Stories
Mortality rates for American kids are rising for the first time in 50 years
US President Joe Biden is so concerned about the future of American children that he inserted a mandate for affordable...
Will Pope Francis be composted?
Will Pope Francis be composted instead of buried in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome with his predecessors? It’s unlikely. But...
The virtues and the vices of the outrageous
A Norwegian bioethicist, Anna Smajdor, recently set out a case for “Whole Body Gestational Donation” – using the wombs of...
More than 200 people have been treated with experimental CRISPR therapies
Scientists believe that CRISPR gene editing technologies will transform medicine. But how many people have been treated so far? According...
Asia-Pacific IVF market could reach US$46 billion by 2031
According to a market survey by Allied Market Research, IVF is booming in the Asia-Pacific region. The market size was...
Third global summit on human genome editing: Moving on after the He experiment
The much anticipated Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing was held in London earlier this month to explore the...