{"id":622,"date":"2012-10-14T04:55:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T04:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=622"},"modified":"2014-02-09T05:00:45","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T05:00:45","slug":"ending-the-war-on-kidneys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2012\/10\/ending-the-war-on-kidneys\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending the War on Kidneys – Article by Sanford Ikeda"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sanford Ikeda
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
October 13, 2012<\/big><\/span><\/div>\n
Recommend this page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
\n
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The war on drugs can be dated to 1914, although the phrase \u201cwar on drugs\u201d was coined in 1972 during the presidency of Richard Nixon.\u00a0 The war on kidneys began in 1984.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an oft told tale how drug prohibition has led to the promotion of organized crime, skyrocketing violence here and abroad, and a simultaneous increase in potency and decrease in safety.\u00a0 (See here<\/a> and here<\/a> for examples.)\u00a0 The solution to these perhaps unintended but predictable negative consequences is legalization.\u00a0 So it is, too, with the sale of organs\u2013kidneys in particular.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Iran\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since 1984, under the leadership of Senator Al Gore, the United States government has made it illegal to buy or sell kidneys and in so doing has effectively launched a \u201cwar on kidneys.\u201d\u00a0 Again, the consequences, unintended but predictable, are mostly if not wholly bad.<\/p>\n

According to the Human Resources and Services Administration<\/a> there are currently over 93,000 persons in the United States on the waiting list for a donated kidney.\u00a0 Another source<\/a> estimates that the list grows by 3,000 to 4,000 candidates a year.\u00a0 Between 1988 and 2008 yet another source<\/a> reports that the number of kidney transplants performed in the United States has ranged from 8,873 (in 1988) to a high of 17,091 (in 2006) for an average of about 13,847 per year.\u00a0 While that may indicate a dwindling list of candidates, the reality is that the number who die each year still runs into the thousands.<\/p>\n

The United States Department of Health and Human Services<\/a>, for instance, claims that 18 people die each day waiting for a kidney donor.\u00a0 That\u2019s 6,570 deaths a year, and though their figure for the waiting list is considerably higher than the HRSA\u2019s, they are in the same ballpark.<\/p>\n

Kidney sales are legal in Iran<\/a>, which offers a mix of private and government financing for kidney transplants.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, waiting lists there are practically nonexistent (because of a larger supply), and so is the number of people dying while waiting for one.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the incidence of black markets and of \u201cmedical tourism\u201d<\/a>\u2014in which relatively wealthy foreigners travel to relatively poor countries to buy local kidneys or have other procedures performed at lower cost than in the United States\u2014would probably fall, much as legalization of alcohol after Prohibition saw the downfall of speakeasies and bathtub booze.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the Downside?<\/strong><\/p>\n

And although some estimate that the cost of a kidney may be as high as $100,000\u2014which would make the total cost of the transplant procedure around $350,000\u2014keep in mind that in addition to the value of the lives saved, the savings from unnecessary kidney dialysis is about $70,000 per person per year<\/a>.\u00a0 (See also this article<\/a> from The<\/em> Economist<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Some argue that only the rich would get organs and only the poor would die giving them up.\u00a0 Existing black markets and medical tourism already reinforce any such tendency by keeping prices high.\u00a0 Would a free market in organs mean that the relatively poor would supply the relatively rich?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 More generally, would abuses occur?\u00a0 Yes, they would, just as they do in other aspects of organ transplantation\u2014such as in shabby hospitals or lousy medical care. Nobody suggests banning hospitals or doctors because some hospitals and some doctors occasionally screw up.\u00a0 The cure lies largely in greater competition, the prerequisite of which is making organ sales legal.<\/p>\n

Some are put off by the very idea of a market in kidneys, and many who aren\u2019t might have some reservations about extending the list to other parts of our bodies.\u00a0 Some of this can be attributed to a socio-ethical resistance to \u201ccommoditizing the human body.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps this is a valid concern.\u00a0 Interestingly, there is a legal market for cadavers, so it seems to be OK to pay for bodies but not for organs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What about other organs or body parts?\u00a0 The thing about kidneys\u2014or eyes, ears, hands, and feet\u2014is that removing them from our bodies does not entail death or, in the case of kidneys, any significant decline in the quality of life to the donor.\u00a0 But what about selling something vital such as a heart, which would spell certain death?\u00a0 That\u2019s a difficult question that we may not have to settle just yet.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start with kidneys.<\/p>\n

The Moral Alternative<\/strong><\/p>\n

I confess to being uncomfortable with the thought of selling off body parts. In the same way, I would never recommend to anyone, including myself, taking cocaine for fun.\u00a0 But I would stop short of banning cocaine, and my qualms about selling body parts doesn\u2019t keep me from staunchly supporting legalization, especially when a strong case can be made (as in this video by Professor James Stacey Taylor<\/a>) that banning it would itself be immoral.\u00a0 Selling body parts for money should be no more illegal than letting people make a living fishing for crabs on the high seas or give up their lives for a cause they believe in.\u00a0 I may disapprove of a practice that harms the practitioner, but that by itself doesn\u2019t give me the right to stop it, especially if it harms no one else.<\/p>\n

Finally, today it\u2019s considered perfectly legal and moral to allow husband A to give up his kidney to his wife B without compensation.\u00a0 Or, if A\u2019s kidney is not a match for B, it\u2019s okay for A to donate to C, whose husband D could then donate to B.\u00a0 That is like trading a goat to Jack to get a pile of bricks to trade to Jill for a sack of grain, which is what you wanted for your goat in the first place.\u00a0 While the Internet and creative websites have made organ bartering of this kind easier than in the past, humans long ago developed another institution that gets the job done much more easily:\u00a0 buying and selling for money.<\/p>\n

Crimalizing activities\u2014whether\u00a0 drugs, prostitution, or organ sales\u2014typically generates consequences that are usually unintended but, with the aid of some basic economic knowledge, mostly predictable.\u00a0 After decades and over a trillion dollars spent and countless lives ruined, a summit of Latin-American politicians earlier this year declared that \u201cthe war on drugs has failed,\u201d<\/a> a sentiment echoed around the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time that our government ended the war on kidneys, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sanford Ikeda<\/a> is an associate professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of <\/em>The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was published by The Foundation for Economic Education<\/a> and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution United States License<\/a>, which requires that credit be given to the author.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sanford Ikeda October 13, 2012 Recommend this page. ****************************** The war on drugs can be dated to 1914, although the phrase \u201cwar on drugs\u201d was coined in 1972 during the presidency of Richard Nixon.\u00a0 The war on kidneys began in 1984. It\u2019s an oft told tale how drug prohibition has led to the promotion of organized crime, skyrocketing violence here and abroad, and a simultaneous increase in potency and decrease in safety.\u00a0 (See here and here for examples.)\u00a0 The solution…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[1448,1446,227,84,1444,12,1441,59,1449,310,146,1443,1442,898,900,899,1445,1447],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-politics","tag-black-market","tag-free-choice","tag-free-market","tag-freedom","tag-health-care","tag-iran","tag-kidneys","tag-liberty","tag-medical-tourism","tag-medicine","tag-morality","tag-organ-donors","tag-organs","tag-prohibition","tag-sandy-ikeda","tag-sanford-ikeda","tag-transplants","tag-war-on-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/2071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}