Organ Donation Can Kill



Volunteering for organ donation is shorthand for showing you think about other people. Each year in the US, 9,000 people die waiting for a transplant, and it’s not like you’ll need your liver in heaven or Jannah or wherever. So by all means, sign up, but for the love of God make sure you’re healthy beforehand, because the hospital sure won’t.

In the early 2000s, organs from a deceased alcoholic were sent to around 40 patients. Within two years, eight recipients had come down with Hepatitis C, a disease you may recognize as one you really don’t want to have. According to the Wall Street Journal this happens more often than we’d like to think. One woman donated a kidney, unaware she was infected with the parasite Strongyloides. The man who received it felt fine for three months, then began vomiting blood and quickly expired. All told, at least 97 serious infections from donated organs were recorded in a 2007 study, with many more thought to go unreported by hospitals. The trouble is that, in their panic to get new organs inside a patient, doctors usually only test for obvious stuff like HIV. So if you’re unwittingly carrying a rare parasite, you’re going to pass it on to whoever gets your kidneys. And what might not harm you can be lethal to others.

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