person. we don t know if that happened here. i don t think it did. i think she just got pushed up a list. a judge said she had to be added to that list for ten days until we figure out the merits of the rule. she s very sick. that s why she climbed to the very top of the list. i think she probably got a general donation. you want to prevent problems like sarah, very important to sign your donor card. you ve mentioned before, you said you believe that sarah might not be the best candidate for a lung transplant. can you tell me why? there are a couple of reasons. the adult lung will probably be cut back and a piece used. that makes some transplant surgeons it won t work so well. she does have cystic fibrosis
donor card administered by the dmv for from relatives if the donor failed to indicate desire during her lifetime. let s reverse that. a national opt out system would presume consent of the deceased to have their organs harvested unless they opted out. nobody s going to be taking your organs without consent but if you say nothing, you ll be presumed to have opted in. i m not just guessing here. the system s been tested in europe as of 2010, 24 european countries have some form of opt out, which some call presumed consent. spain, austria, and belgian yielding high donor rates. art is head of the medical ethics and he agrees, telling me, quote, your organs aren t going to do you much good when you re dead. i think we d get much more donors if we just shifted the responsibility to say what you want to do about donation from saying i want to do it from having to say, i don t want to do it. most people say they do want to donate. so why don t we make that the
two words, opt out. see, opt in is the current national u.s. policy. it requires explicit consent from the donor given through a donor card administered by the dmv or relatives if the donor failed to indicate desire in his or her lifetime. let s change that. an opt out would assume the deceased have their organs harvested unless they opted out. no one will take your organs without consent but if you say nothing you will presume to have opted in. i m not just guessing here. the system has been tested in europe. as of 2010, 24 european countries have some form of opt out which some call presumed consent with spain, austria and belgium yielding high donor rates. art kaplan is head of the division of medical ethics at nyu. he agrees, telling me, quote, your organs aren t going to do you much good when you re dead. i think we would get more donors if we shift the responsibility to say, what you want to do
to save more lives or save more years of life from starting to give kidneys from young donors to younger recipients. shepard: is it more you can keep people alive longer if the kidney goes to a young person or matches are better for reasons that this young doctor wouldn t understand. it s really because a younger donor organ from someone who has died can keep someone alive for a lot longer period of time. if you give an organ to someone in their 50s and 60 s more likely not to do well with it kidney transplant. that takes another kidney. looking at this tough situation where rationing has to be faced, we don t have enough kidneys right now people don t sign donor cords. we have to make tough choices. the prudent thing to do is start to say let s save the most lives. let s save the most years of life. shepard: those of us who have healthy kidneys can sign a donor card. aside from that, i have seen this around in places.
shepard: i hear you. it s fine unless it becomes my dad. you know what i mean? it s tough. it s a hard thing to face rationing. when we got to look at eyeball to eyeball. shepard: we can fix it though. because everybody sign as donor card we fix it. at the end of the day we are to blame. we have got to get more organ donors in there. shepard: doctor, it s great to talk to you. thank you. arthur kaplan with us today. just a little while in until the space shuttle discovery starts its last scheduled mission ever. the astronauts strapped. in nasa tapped off the tanks. they are yacking away in there. a live report from kennedy space center on the florida s space coast. that s next.