The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> IN DEFENSE OF MATCHING DONORS br> Re: Lawrence Henry's An Update on Transplant : /p>

As an FBI Special Agent with 12 years of service, mostly in the Counterterrorism field, imagine my surprise to log onto The American Spectator website and read Lawrence Henry's weekly column calling me a smarmy, sanctimonious liberal of questionable conscience because of my decision to donate a kidney to a fellow law enforcement professional I met via the website Matchingdonors.com.

In his piece, Mr. Henry recounts his own negative experience with Matchingdonors.com that led him to the conclusion that donating a kidney via an Internet-facilitated match is morally objectionable. I can't help but wonder if his opinion would have been different had he achieved positive results after he spent his week begging strangers for a kidney on the web. Furthermore, I fail to see the moral distinction between Mr. Henry appealing publicly to strangers within his church congregation and my recipient, Brenda, making her appeal to a larger audience of strangers via the web.

The fact that Mr. Henry failed in his attempts to successfully procure a kidney via Matchingdonors.com should be no surprise as he only gave it a week's worth of effort. Brenda's profile remained on the site for two years before I stepped up to help. Part of that may have been due to her having one of those hard-to-match blood types Mr. Henry cited in his piece.

The other factor is that living "stranger" kidney donations are very rare. Less than 100 individuals in America will step forward this year to donate kidneys to complete strangers. During the three-year history of Matchingdonors.com, the site has facilitated less than 50 kidney donations at a time where over 90,000 Americans await transplants. This tiny niche of the transplant field is hardly worth all this ethical hand-wringing when the number of lives being saved is relatively paltry.

I share Mr. Henry's concerns with the expensive price tag associated with a lifetime membership to Matchingdonors.com. The site's administrators (with whom I have no affiliation) informed me that they are a non-profit entity operating at a loss, yet they are committed to working with those in need by waiving fees or negotiating payment plans based upon the customer's financial means. Personally, I think a better option would be for the United States to follow the lead of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, which recently inked a deal with Matchingdonors.com to put 100% of the country's organ transplant waiting list on the site.

Mr. Henry is also right in his public policy analysis regarding the need to compensate living organ donors and switch to a "presumed consent" system for cadaver donors. Curing diabetes would also be a big help. However, his vitriol toward Internet organ matching and those of us who've volunteered to help is misguided and more than a little bizarre.

The best argument in favor of Matchingdonors.com is Conservative to the core: it's my kidney, and I'll give it to whomever I damn well please. Would Mr. Henry police my charitable financial giving with the same zeal that he wishes living organ donations to be regulated?

p>Finally, I wish Mr. Henry best of luck with his forthcoming third kidney transplant. He indicated it will most likely be a paired or swap donation, another innovative solution to deadly kidney donor shortages. I only hope that the stranger whose kidney he receives is treated fairly and not subjected to name-calling in public forums. br> --

topics:
Health Care, Business, Islam, Environment, Law, Military, NATO, Immigration, Oil