UPDATED: Newest Grand Prize – Kidney for Transplant
Friday, June 1st, 2007Since I am currently on the waiting list to receive a kidney transplant, I found this article from The Australian very disturbing:
DUTCH broadcaster BNN plans to air a television show next week in which a terminally ill woman will decide who out of three young patients will get her kidney.
Viewers will be able to advise the 37-year-old woman, known as Lisa, via text messages which of the candidates to pick, the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper said.
The show is scheduled for next Friday in a prime time spot.
BNN, whose former director died from kidney failure after spending years on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, told the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper that the show wanted to highlight the acute shortage of donors in the Netherlands.
At first blush, this seems to be a way around some of the rules governing live donors in the Netherlands. There, a living donor must prove that they are related in some way to the transplant recipient in order for the donation to be legal. Also, except for live kidney donations, no one there is allowed to choose who their donated organs go to.
Regardless, this whole idea just smacks of bad taste. Dangling a chance of a life-saving transplant organ in front of three people in desperate need of one seems cruel, at best. Really, what is this terminally ill patient going to base her choice on? Who has the nicest smile? Who makes her laugh? Who tells the most sad tale regarding their need for her kidney? It seems that the one method of choice would be the fairest – using medical evaluation to determine who among the three is most in need — isn’t even being considered. In a country where the number of people who donate organs is woefully inadequate, the whole idea of this game show becomes obscene.
Hat Tip: HotAir.com
UPDATE: According to MSNBC this entire thing was a hoax:
AMSTERDAM – A television show in which a woman would donate a kidney to a contestants was revealed as a hoax Friday, with presenters saying they were trying to pressure the government into reforming organ donation laws.
Shortly before the controversial program was to air, Patrick Lodiers of the “Big Donor Show” said the woman was not actually dying of a brain tumor as claimed and the entire exercise was intended to add pressure on the government and to raise public awareness of the need for organs.
The three prospective recipients were real patients in need of transplants and had been in on the hoax, the show said.
Those crazy Dutch! What will they do next?
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