A debate over whether paying living kidney donors is practical or ethical is brewing in the medical community as the number of donors continues to steadily decline.
More than 98,000 people are currently waiting for kidneys in the U.S. alone, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, with more than 4,500 fatalities while waiting for a donation last year. Meanwhile, the number of donors has fallen to 13,040 in 2012.
A research group in Canada wanted to find out if offering financial incentives would save money over the current organ donation system. They determined that paying living kidney donors $10,000 apiece would save about $340 per patient, compared with ongoing costs of dialysis.
"We don't have enough organ donors coming forward," said Dr. Braden Manns, the leader of the study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. "We need to figure out a way to solve that problem. We shouldn't throw out, out of hand, solutions that could increase donations." Read the full article here:
A kidney for $10,000? Paying donors actually pays off, new study finds
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