Organ Donation

Mantel, Barbara. "Organ Donations: Can the growing demand for organs be met?." CQ Researcher 15 Apr. 2011. More than 110,000 Americans are on organ-transplant waiting lists, and demand for kidneys, lungs, hearts and other donated organs far exceeds the supply. Eighty percent of those waiting for organs need kidneys, in part because of rising incidences of obesity, hypertension and diabetes. States have made it easier for people to register as donors, either online or when obtaining or renewing a driver's license. Also, hospitals have been working to increase the number of families that allow a loved one's organs to be donated at death. But some transplant advocates are proposing more controversial measures, such as rewarding donors with financial compensation. Advances in bioengineering may eventually shrink the organ gap, allowing surgeons to transplant organs engineered from a patient's own stem cells. But for complex organs such as lungs and kidneys, that goal is probably decades away. From the CQ Researcher. Reprinted with permission from CQ Press.

Glazer, Sarah. "Organ Trafficking: Can the smuggling of human organs be stopped?" CQ Global Researcher 19 July 2011. Headline-grabbing arrests of kidney brokers and renegade doctors provide...
glimpses into a global black market in human organs that is thriving from South America to Asia. The World Health Organization estimates that 5–10 percent of the 100,000 organs transplanted each year have been purchased illegally, typically from poor people desperate for cash. In China, thousands of organs reportedly have been forcibly removed from prisoners to feed a lucrative “transplant tourism” business. The full scope of the global organ black market remains unknown because transplant doctors and hospitals either don't know the organs were trafficked or are complicit in the deals. Critics say hospitals should disclose the source of all transplant organs so illegal sales can be tracked. Some doctors say legalizing government payments to organ donors — as Iran has done — is the only way to eliminate trafficking, but the mainstream medical community says such payments would only exploit the poor. Artificial organs eventually could help satisfy the growing demand for organs, eliminating the black market.

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Keyword Search Example: ( organ or organs or kidney* ) AND ( donor* or donat*) AND united states

Books

Print: Bramstedt, Katrina A. and Rena Down. The organ donor experience : good samaritans and the meaning of altruism. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. Pasco Main Collection RD129.5 .B73 2011.

ebrary search: "Donation of Organs" OR Transplantation of Organs" - Ebooks available include:

• Committee on Increasing Rates of Organ Donation. Organ Donation : Opportunities for Action. National Academies Press, 2006.
• Munson, Ronald. Raising the Dead : Organ Transplants, Ethics, and Society. Oxford UP, 2002.
• Siegel, Jason and Eusebio M. Alvaro. Understanding Organ Donation : Applied Behavioral Science Perspectives. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.