4 ms·
> Some physicians and ethicists question the relative morality of allowing thousands to die just because the means of saving them is considered repugnant. A reg
by carbocation 12y ago
> Some physicians and ethicists question the relative morality of allowing thousands to die just because the means of saving them is considered repugnant. A regulated marketplace, they say, could all but eliminate the shortage.
If synthetic organ synthesis (or regenesis) is successful, the field of transplantation will explode and the driver for this black market will disappear. Until that time, we're stuck with an ethically delicate situation. Curious to hear what HN thinks of creating such a regulated market, and whether it's fundamentally different from unpaid donations or chained donations.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago> If synthetic organ synthesis (or regenesis) is successful I'm rooting for it and I think we should devote more resources to further that field. Apart of being able to completely eliminate both organs shortage and the problem of organ black market, we can expect lab-grown meat to appear as a side effect of early research. There are lots of problems - not only ethical, but related to energy and fossil fuel usage - that we could solve if we didn't have to kill that cow to eat our burger.
- tomkinstinch 12y agocarbocation, I know of the Ott lab's work on regeneration (or rather, recellularization) of explanted organs[1]. Do you know of other pioneering work in the field, or similar efforts to follow? 1. http://ottlab.mgh.harvard.edu/?page_id=205 http://ottlab.mgh.harvard.edu/?page_id=205
- carbocation 12y agoI'm not up to date on the latest, but my understanding of the state of the art seems similar to yours.
- dave_sullivan 12y agoI remember reading this in the economist a long time ago: http://www.economist.com/node/8173039 http://www.economist.com/node/8173039 It advocates a market-based solution. At the time I thought it made a lot of sense. I still think it does.