| The Nasty Side of Organ Transplanting Second Edition Norm Barber Copyright Chapter 10 Coercion Coercion and the Sales Pitch The experience of producing this monograph has taught me that the least reliable sources for accurate transplant information are offices established by government and industry to promote organ donation. This is a polite way of saying the donation agencies won’t tell the whole truth. They lack any faith that a balanced understanding will encourage people to sign up as organ donors. They prefer the used car salesman tactics of trickery and deceit to entice the person to register as a donor. They appear to believe that citizens knowing both positive and negative aspects of harvesting and transplanting would avoid registering as donors or consent to harvesting of next of kin. So like the Australian Kidney Foundation they play the Give and Let Live Fallacy. Give and Let Live Fallacy The Australian Kidney Foundation parks their caravans outside shopping centres throughout the country. They pretend to be offering free blood pressure tests and kidney health advice. I entered their caravan in Rundle Mall, Adelaide, and before I’d uttered a word a sales woman hit me with, "Do you want to be an organ donor". I said, uh, no. The atmosphere turned heavy enough to cut with a knife and the three staff suddenly clenched their mouths and stared at pieces of paper. I mentioned the blood pressure tests which one woman performed then, without indicating the result, returned to her piece of paper. Even under pressure she only muttered, "okay", and "more exercise". Their presence in the Mall was to obtain organ donors not to give preventative illness advice as claimed. Their promotional slogan is “Give & Let Live”, but kidney transplants rarely save lives. They change lifestyles. Dialysis is an unpleasant, unhealthy experience that does little except save lives. People rarely die from kidney failure and dialysis. The relatively high death rate among dialysis recipients is because many people, virtually on their deathbed with multiple organ failure, are dumped on dialysis for a few months before they die. These are different from healthy people suffering only kidney failure who won’t die from this disease as long as they get dialysis. Many prefer it to a kidney transplant. Tricky, Disrespectful Language Kidney Foundation donor cards say, "I request that after my death any part of my body be used in transplantation for the treatment of others." Let us look at this language. The words, "I request" suggests the donor is asking a favour rather than making a generous response to the Foundation’s call for help. "After my death" doesn’t signify whether it is cardiac death with a cold, grey, stiff body or brain death where part of the brain remains alive, the heart continues to beat and the body remains soft and warm. Nowhere in the Australian Kidney Foundation promotion material is it explained the extent of harvesting and the phrase "Any part of my body" isn’t limited to just the vital organs as Kidney Foundation material implies. It means absolutely anything. "For the treatment of others" doesn’t mean "Give & Let Live" it means any treatment from a heart transplant to a nose job, sex change operation or changing breast size. The Australian Kidney Foundation seeks consent for body parts removal before and not after the donors understand what they are agreeing to. The Special Donor Card The South Australian Organ Donation Agency (SAODA) in 2000 was distributing a leaflet they knew was false. It said over 3500 children and adults were currently awaiting a life saving transplant in Australia. They knew this was false because statistics published by the agency show that in July, 2000 only 2802 were waiting while the Victorian Donor Registry said just 2% were children. And what of these lifesaving transplants? 1784 of the hopeful recipients were awaiting kidney transplants, where dialysis is exchanged for a transplant rather than a lifesaving procedure. Another 745 hopeful recipients were old people waiting for cornea transplants to improve their eyesight but not to save their lives. This left only 273 waiting for a "lifesaving" transplant, 87 of which were waiting for livers despite many having ruined them through alcoholism or Hepatitis C via dirty needles. 20% on the liver waiting list wanted second and third livers each of which has a higher failure rate than the previous. This leaves 186 transplant hopefuls of whom 66 were waiting for a pancreas due to a diabetic condition often caused by unhealthy living and eating. Like kidney transplants pancreas grafts don’t save lives but only alleviate the need for pig insulin. Graft survival rates average less than five years when the recipient will be demanding yet another pancreas. This finally leaves 120 patients waiting for hearts and lungs of which 10% are on their second and third hearts. In any case, half the heart recipients will live longer if they don’t get a transplant, as explained in Mario Deng’s study of German heart recipients described elsewhere in this book. This ratio interpreted into the Australian figures mean that at least thirty of the heart recipients won’t increase life expectancy with their so-called lifesaving transplant. This leaves perhaps only a hundred of those on the whole Australian transplant list whose lives will actually be saved by a transplant, and then we can ask, for how long and how good will their lives be? One might also question the so-called shortage of harvestable livers in Australia. The Queensland government has been selling liver transplants, using Australian livers, to customers who fly in from Japan for the surgery. The Japanese government pays for the transplant allowing the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane to maintain and improve its transplant skills, and make a small profit, without the government paying the costs via Medicare, which would be the case if the livers were transplanted into Australians. Wendy Edmond, the Queensland Health Minister said, “There were actually spare livers for transplantation.” If this is true then one could reasonably question the extent of the shortage of livers in Australia or, perhaps, Australians were being denied transplants of available livers because it is more profitable to sell them to Japanese. 48a 18,000 Lives Saved? The leaflet goes on to say, "Transplantation is a unique treatment which has saved the lives of over 18,000 Australians." The truth is that 89% were kidney and cornea transplants and most of the other 11% died quite soon after surgery or within a few years from drug-induced cancer or organ rejection. For a tiny fraction of the total the "life saving" surgery temporarily extended their lives in a usually still sickened body but it wasn’t like pulling someone out of a raging river. The leaflet avoids informing the donor and says organs are removed "when the brain function stops forever." The magic word is "function". Its use cleverly avoids acknowledging any definition of brain death. "When the brain function stops forever" means, in their language, the ability of the brain and brain stem to maintain all vital bodily processes is severely impaired. So when they say "brain function stops forever" they mean some parts of the brain that control vital bodily processes are dead, injured or dormant. Though the condition they refer to as, "brain function stops forever" is usually terminal within a few days some parts are still alive and may include those responsible for higher consciousness. Simply put, the prospective donor is agreeing to allow harvesting to begin on their body while their heart is still beating and other functions continue with the possibility that some consciousness may still reside in their being. How Much Harvesting? The leaflet says as many as nine people will benefit from the organ or tissue donation from one person. The promoters uncharacteristically minimise the figure because telling the actual number would expose what the transplant industry may be planning for the donor’s body. One Australian government source in 1996 said up to 32 people receive parts from a corpse. The United States record is 422 with the average being over one hundred recipients per donor. The promoters apparently designed the leaflet to attract religious people. A large, colourful picture on its front was filled with singing young people with upraised hands and closed eyes similar to Christian Revival meetings. Donor Card Aimed At Children The attached donor card, on the leaflet described above and distributed by the South Australian Organ Donation Agency, was aimed at children. The Gold Donor Card was designed like an ATM card with National Australia Bank emblazoned in large letters. Another emblem said "Donor Recipient Medical" despite the card being a donor card and not a recipient card. The agreement to donate viscera, tendons, skin and organs said, The holder of this Gold Donor Card understands and appreciates the value of becoming an organ donor and has discussed this decision with their family. This innocuous language allows a child to pledge their body for organ harvesting without actually acknowledging it in writing. This disguises the fact that harvest promoters target children away from their parents. Promoters cover themselves saying children must have parents or next of kin consent because in Australia, and most other countries, hospital protocol allow parents or next of kin to veto harvesting regardless of a child’s intent. The promoter’s plan is to hit shocked and distressed parents with the line of, "your child would have wanted it." Another reason for targeting children is to build up intending donor numbers for propaganda reasons as children have a low death rate and the donor industry wants every one they can get. The Australian Transplant Awareness Association published the leaflet and donor card, but who are they. Karen Herbertt, Executive Director of the South Australian Organ Donation Agency that distributes their material, couldn’t remember. Media Collusion The Organ Donor agencies don’t mind the media falsely interpreting the transplant industry. Dr David Hill, writing in the book, Beyond Brain Death, cites an instance when a child he knew had liver problems with a life expectancy of one year. Transplanters gave him three liver transplants which all failed and he died that year. Despite the public expense and increased suffering of the child, whose life was not extended, the media hailed the three failed transplants as a victory of modern science. Sunday Mail In the Adelaide Sunday Mail of 3 September 2000 Robyn Riley erroneously reported that "2000 Australians needed a life-saving organ transplant" As shown above most of those hopefuls are awaiting non-lifesaving grafts. Robyn also said "As many as 500 people died waiting." Some transplant hopefuls, mostly on dialysis or awaiting corneas, may die during the year but usually from old age, car smashes, and traumatic injuries or from causes that a transplant wouldn’t have helped. But five hundred? Perhaps, if they joined a Senior Citizens Awaiting Transplants Cruise, the ship sank with no survivors, perhaps then, 500 could die on the waiting list, but not otherwise. Choice Magazine Choice Magazine analyses the quality of products and services and is published by the Australian Consumers Association They test items like washing machines for noise, water and power use, operating costs, purchase price, reliability and quality of wash. They also analyse products like those tricky mobile phone contracts. The August 2000 Choice ran an organ donation feature which included deaths on the waiting list, happy transplant stories, how to register for donation and addresses of donation agencies. Choice used euphemistic language describing skin, bone, ligaments, tendons and fascia destined for harvesting as "tissue" which sounds like Kleenex or gift wrap rather than the smelly blood and guts material it is. Choice erroneously claimed kidney harvesting requires a beating heart which is proven untrue by current Japanese kidney transplanting practices. In their article Choice diverted from their usual product and service analysis by avoiding the negative aspects of transplant technology. They neglected mention of the controversy of brain death diagnosis, that donors are paralysed and often anaesthetised before harvesting, that anti-rejection drugs cause AIDS-like immune deficiency diseases or that kidney transplants rarely save lives. The above could be forgiven since research in this field is difficult, expensive and time consuming. But what can’t be forgiven is that Choice didn’t say that Australian survival statistics are suppressed. They knew this because they had to use United States statistics. Choice staff wrote the article to cloud readers’ understanding of transplanting not to inform them. Time Magazine You would expect Time Magazine with its vast resources to do better than Choice but they are similarly mesmerised by the technology and appear unable to provide an informative and balanced report. The Time Australia edition of February 26, 200151 contained an article titled "Life Out Of Death" by Leora Moldofsky in which the same dreamland myths were propagated without question. Ms Moldofsky reported that Graeme Spencer of Canberra was waiting for a kidney and pancreas transplant then mourns in the following paragraph that "Spencer has a 5% chance of dying before suitable kidneys become available" Graeme Spencer wanted one kidney and a pancreas, and the waiting time for a kidney alone is one to three years in Australia (Australians Donate May, 1999). After receiving these organs his chance of dying during the first year is 5.5%, according to American statistics from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which is a higher death rate than if he missed out. So what are Time Magazine and Leora Moldofsky mourning about? A statement by Graeme that, "There’s always hope I’ll be cured but it’s so frustrating that it hasn’t yet happened" goes unchecked by Time. Most medical experts will say a transplant is not a cure. It is exchanging one medical condition for another. The US rejection rate of a pancreas/kidney transplant for one year is 17.4%* for the pancreas and 8.6%* for the kidney so Graeme certainly won’t be cured. His body will probably kill the pancreas within five years and he will want another one requiring further dangerous surgery. *(March 2001 figures from United Network for Organ Sharing, USA. Australian survival/death statistics currently suppressed) The article also says "…a single organ donor can save up to nine lives". How? Has any donor ever saved up to nine lives? For how long? Time magazines uses tricky journalism where emotion-stirring life and death examples are recounted to trigger our compassion. Then it states that 2000 are on the waiting list neglecting to note that most of the 2000 are waiting for corneas to improve or regain eyesight or for kidney transplants. |