Sebelius: I Can’t Step Into Girl’s Transplant Case (When Other Children Are Just As Sick.)

[Yo_Mama]

9. No, that's not fair

It's not like switching a car battery. This family is asking for criteria to be changed from what they were, but if the criteria were set in the beginning to maximize successful transplants (saved lives), then changing them will in effect be killing people randomly.

Your analogy doesn't work, because when we stay the execution of someone, we don't do it by putting someone else in the electrocution chair.

There are other medical criteria used to figure out whether a person should be on the transplant list at all. Infections, etc. Everyone's innocent. To some extent, criteria are set to maximize success rates. This may mean that person A has a very low chance at a transplant through no fault of his/her own, but it also may mean that two more people out of every 20 survive per transplant. Because there are shortage of organs, the whole process involves an attempt to make the basic unfairness as fair as possible.

The HHS Sec can ask for a review of whether those criteria are well set, but I don't think she has the right to randomly override the decisions which were made by panels of experts who probably know a whole hell of a lot more about the ins and outs of it. A ten year-old this sick from CF probably is no more than the size of an average eight year old. Look at an 8 year-old's chest, and then look at an adult's chest. It's got to be difficult and involve chopping up the organ, which has got to mean lower success rates.

Then too, there's always the chance that they could try to transplant adult lungs in and fail, and two weeks later a better match could arise which would have given this child a much better chance.

I don't know jack about the ins and outs of this. But I was inspired to read what the criteria are, and they are size matching for little kids. I can't imagine why they would do that unless it increased the success rate.