🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <2qbd6i$m3a@ysics.physics.sunysb.edu>, mhollowa@epo.som.sunysb.edu
>says:
>>The people who propagate
>>this trash are contributing to the death of thousands of people.

>Wrong.  I don't believe that pornography should be outlawed because it _might_
>cause violence, I don't think newsgroups like alt.2600 should be censored
>because they _might_ cause system security violations,

The words "outlawed" and "censored" did not appear in my posts.
That's a reductio ad absurdum, a debating ploy  - and its wasted.
I'm not interested in debating the issue with someone who doesn't
give a damn about the facts.

Your fantasy is something that wouldn't have occurred to me.  Most
of us don't need a law to keep us from yelling "fire" in a crowded
theater.  I was surprised when I found that there was one.  There
should be sufficient humanity left in the general population to keep
harmful myths from being believed by the majority.  But only if the
myths can be countered with facts and, more importantly, only if
enough people say loudly and clearly that there is no evidence to
substantiate the myths.

>and I don't think that
>sci-fi and open discussion should be cut up because you make the unsupported
>statement that you THINK that it will decrease organ donation.

Another debating ploy.  Calling for statistics.  Just what are you
protecting?  Anyone's personal experience with negative attitudes
toward organ donation, and the effects of specious myths in general,
would be enough for most people.  It does happen however, that HHS
funds the Scientific Registry for Organ Transplantation and that
recent accusations of racism in organ allocation have prompted
analysis for disparities due to race and the cause of those
disparities.  Myths of racism connected to all kinds of tissue and
organ donation and allocation are rampant and widely believed in
some minority populations.  This is reflected in the extremely low
number of anatomical gifts of all sorts from members of some (not
all) minorities in the US.  These myths have been causing their own
self-fulfilling prophecy.  Since transplantation requires tissue
type matching, especially for kidney and bone marrow transplants,
and certain HLA and DR types predominate in ethnic and racial
groups, the lower rate of donation can be shown to result in longer
time on the waiting list as well a higher mortality on the waiting
list.  These are people who die because others who could have saved
them didn't give a damn.  Its particularly bad in bone marrow
transplant where six antigen matches are necessary, much more rare.
The reports and statistics are all available from medical journals
and UNOS at (804) 330-8500.  I'm sure that you're going to run right
out and get them.

>For instance,
>I happen to believe the contrary:  that it will actually INCREASE organ
>donation, because airing of the issue, even in the most sensationalistic and
>far-fetched ways, only draws attention to the shortage of organs, which is
>something most people don't even think about.

Not only does that fly in the face of common sense, there is no
evidence for it.

>   The fact is that responsibility for the organ shortage does not
>rest on me.

The fact is, it does.

> It does not even rest on the great majority of people
>who don't donate organs because they didn't see or notice where the
>little stickers were, and didn't stop to think about it till ...

The stickers, cards and signatures on the back of driver's licenses
in other states, are completely superfluous, meant only to boost
awareness.  At best, the organ procurement specialist can present
the card to the family as a way of indicating the deceased's
choice.  There is no legal mechanism in the US by which an
individual has final say over how their body is to be used for
anatomical gifts after death.  The next of kin have complete control
with our present UAGA laws.  Some states have modified their UAGA so
that a signed driver's license, or whatever, can be used legally,
but only if no family can be found.  These laws are untested, and as
far as I know, unused.  Due to the public's irrational attitudes
toward organ donation, thanks to myths, hospitals will not risk even
the possibility of litigation.

>   P.S.  I think it's pretty arrogant of you to casually discount
>the belief of what is apparently a substantial number of people in
>poor countries,

Having substantial numbers of people believing wrong and harmful
things is nothing new, even in rich countries.

>that they are being hunted for this purpose, based
>on a *very* indirect argument and your notions of plausibility,

Myths of organ stealing, and technically impossible black markets,
have existed in Latin-America since before 1982.  In all that time
no one has presented anything other than innuendo and more rumors.
There's a report that the KGB had propagated rumors in Latin-America
that children were being kidnapped and killed and their organs being
taken to the US for sale.  I'm currently trying to track down the
source of this report from people who've published it (UNOS Update,
June '93).  Currently, the New York Times and other reporters in
Guatemala and Honduras have noticed that politicians opposed to US
backed governments are the ones most loudly spreading the myths of
Americans killing children, and those politicians are gaining political
support as a result.

>There
>have already been a number of misallocations of samples taken for
>"drug tests", the most glaring being the case of the General
>Electric workers who were tested for AIDS without their knowledge,

The only connection I can make from this innuendo to the myths the
poster is defending is the general theme of distrust for the medical
profession that runs through myths about organ transplantation.
I've come across people who insist on spreading their myth for the
expressed purpose of hurting doctors.  They don't seem to realize
that they're missing their target entirely.  If transplant surgeons
weren't making a living doing transplants they'd simply be doing
some other surgery.  The only people being killed by the myths are
the patients.

>Similarly, workers in a "third world" plant could be
>tested secretly for HLA,

This simply extends the ignorant premise that's its easy to find an
organ for transplant, and then easy to stitch it in.  A six antigen
match can take place in this country in, on average, 1 in 20,000.
Not many plants of that size in Latin-America.  Finding a match in
these circumstances, allocating organs and tissues, and coordinating
patients and surgeries, takes several cooperating organizations,
each fairly large themselves, and many people.  Application of your
atrocity scenario also requires that surgeons and a large number of
medical professionals have no professional or moral ethics.  It also
requires that transplantation be something that is needed (or
elective for some ridiculous reason) by sufficient numbers of evil
rich people.  And how many years has this been going on now you say?

These myths are as credible as flying saucers and Elvis sightings.
For years now, no one has produced any credible reason to believe
that they aren't just the fantasies of people stiking out against
something other than transplant recipients.   The negative attitudes
toward organ donation that they propagate in this country are
killing people.

Mike Holloway
mhollowa@ccmail.sunysb.edu