Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's
Speaker 1: s Y s K Selects, I've chosen January two thousand
Speaker 1: ten episode called How Organ Donation Works. We get into
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of organ donation, that what you
Speaker 1: can do and what you can't, and we also talk
Speaker 1: about the black market for organs um, which is something
Speaker 1: that's been in the news recently. There has been a
Speaker 1: huge Reuters expose on the secondary organ donation market for
Speaker 1: profit market, which is worth reading too, especially if this
Speaker 1: episode floats your boat. So I hope you enjoy How
Speaker 1: Organ Donation Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Lark with me as always as Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, who I assume has two functional kidneys. I do,
Speaker 1: but I would give one up for you, brother. Wow,
Speaker 1: would you really? Maybe? I think I think that three
Speaker 1: Chuck as a living donor maybe not? But if I died,
Speaker 1: then sure you get thanks. Man. What about your liver,
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty certain I'm gonna need somebody's livers. I
Speaker 1: don't know that you would want mine either, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'd be like getting Mickey Mantle's liver. I
Speaker 1: need like a we need a virginal liver, don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I can just start over again, wash it in vodka.
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about, Josh? We're talking about
Speaker 1: organ donation, Chuck perfect, which I find absolutely fascinating. UM.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen fifty four, let me take you back
Speaker 1: a little bit here, the first successful living human to
Speaker 1: human organ donation took place. It was a kidney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a great story. Kidneys actually remained the most
Speaker 1: commonly donated and UM received organs. But this was actually
Speaker 1: a couple of twin brothers, one of whom was dying
Speaker 1: of chronic nephritis. Yeah, Richard and Ronald Herrick. And Richard
Speaker 1: was the one dying, and Ronald was in good shape, right,
Speaker 1: and Ronald said, well, you know what, you're my twin brother,
Speaker 1: and I don't really want you to die young, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you one of my kidneys. And UM.
Speaker 1: There have been uh some other transplants before that. They
Speaker 1: didn't work out though, well some of them did, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't live human to human UM like for example,
Speaker 1: the first I think the first organ, the first donation
Speaker 1: or transplant that ever took place was way back in
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty where they fused part of a dog's skull
Speaker 1: under human's head and that graft worked. H We have
Speaker 1: taken testicles from monkeys and successfully in playing them into humans.
Speaker 1: A pig kidney was successfully transplanted into a human vein transplants, uh,
Speaker 1: And a lamb kidney was put into a recipient in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three and that person lived for nine days.
Speaker 1: But nineteen fifty four finds the first time a living
Speaker 1: person donated an oregan to another living person, and it
Speaker 1: was successful. And the reason why, they think was because
Speaker 1: they're twins, there was a very low chance of rejection, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the story is great because Richard, you know that
Speaker 1: the dying brother had a moment, a clear moment where
Speaker 1: he literally, like the day before, said don't do this. Man,
Speaker 1: get out of here right now. And the brother said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you my kidney like it or not, chump,
Speaker 1: and he did. And it was a great story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they actually both lived to ripe old ages reproduced,
Speaker 1: so they fulfilled their destinies humans. And since then, Josh,
Speaker 1: there have been more than a half a million of
Speaker 1: these organ transplants performed. Right, We've gotten a lot better
Speaker 1: at it. Um. As I was rambling off that list
Speaker 1: of stuff that took place before nineteen fifty four, we
Speaker 1: have and exponentially better. Uh. In two thousand three, we
Speaker 1: successfully transplanted a tongue. Yeah, I saw that, which I
Speaker 1: could use a tongue transplant. A slightly thinner tongue would
Speaker 1: would do me a lot better. I think you had
Speaker 1: a fat tongue. Yeah. And do you remember the um,
Speaker 1: what do we do the face transplant? Huh um. That
Speaker 1: woman actually remember she got her face from a suicide victim.
Speaker 1: That was in two thousand five and in two thousand six,
Speaker 1: so I know it's coming. A cadaver's penis was transplanted
Speaker 1: onto a living humane and that man gave it back. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I love The reason they gave was because of uh.
Speaker 1: It caused psychological problems between the man and his wife,
Speaker 1: which I can imagine. Let your imagination running with that one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just uh. I would say the same thing would
Speaker 1: happen to my household. So thanks to m A better
Speaker 1: understanding of how the human body works of blood type,
Speaker 1: of the development of anti rejection drugs like Chuck said,
Speaker 1: we've hit about half a million transplant surgery so far. Right,
Speaker 1: So Chuck actually is hot and heavy, uh to to
Speaker 1: give out a stat and this is a very special
Speaker 1: stat because it's actually most likely going to change by
Speaker 1: the end of the podcast. Yes, these are taking away.
Speaker 1: These are current stats. If you go to the website
Speaker 1: u n O s dot org, the United Network for
Speaker 1: organ Sharing, they actually have up to the minute statistics
Speaker 1: on who needs what and who's giving what and what
Speaker 1: operations are being performed. And I didn't realize this, but
Speaker 1: it's up to the minute because earlier in the day
Speaker 1: I checked on kidneys and the number actually dropped by
Speaker 1: three about an hour later on the waiting list, So
Speaker 1: three people got kidneys in that like half hour span.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna read a couple now and then
Speaker 1: we'll check back in for fun in twenty minutes and
Speaker 1: see if that's changed at all. Okay, I'm gonna write
Speaker 1: this down to Chuck because we'll never remember it. This
Speaker 1: is the first time we've ever used a laptop in
Speaker 1: the studio and a pen usually just us in our mouths. Uh. Total, Josh,
Speaker 1: we got one five hundred and five thousand, two people
Speaker 1: are waiting for organs, and we'll do kidney because that's
Speaker 1: the most popular. Eight three thousand and twelve people are
Speaker 1: waiting for a kidney as of two oh three pm.
Speaker 1: All right, and we'll check that in twenty minutes and
Speaker 1: hopefully those numbers have gone down. Yeah, because that will
Speaker 1: mean that either the people on the waiting list have
Speaker 1: died or they received a transplant. I guess we could
Speaker 1: put those two, we could compare against one another, and
Speaker 1: maker we could surmise for So, Chuck, what are organs? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I had a feeling you're going to ask me that, Josh,
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, okay. Organs are systems of cells, Josh
Speaker 1: and tissues, and they all are in our body for
Speaker 1: a very specific reason, each one. And what I like
Speaker 1: about the organs is that they are all over equipped,
Speaker 1: which is what you're looking for in an organ. You
Speaker 1: don't want like the heart to be like boy, if
Speaker 1: it beats one beat less, you're really screwed. So um
Speaker 1: our art. Actually, a twenty year old's heart beats pumps
Speaker 1: about ten times more than the amount of blood we need.
Speaker 1: And uh, we we have this reserve capacity in all
Speaker 1: of our organs. As young lads and lasses. Right. But
Speaker 1: as Tom Chief, who you know as my bff who
Speaker 1: wrote this article, he points out that the corneas, when
Speaker 1: you talk about eye transplants, they're talking about corneal transplants. Um,
Speaker 1: they actually don't necessarily deteriorate like all the other organs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Um, So the corneas of seventy five
Speaker 1: year old donor are just as good, considering you know,
Speaker 1: there's not more wear and tear than say a twenty
Speaker 1: year old. Yeah, you could put a seventy year old
Speaker 1: person's cornea inside of a young person and there would
Speaker 1: be no difference. Right. But for organs, they deteriorate with age.
Speaker 1: Well that's the bad news, right, Um, so eventually you
Speaker 1: may need one, right, Well, yeah, because what happens is,
Speaker 1: let's say one organ can deteriorate while the rest of
Speaker 1: your body remains pretty healthy. That's actually best case scenario,
Speaker 1: as weird as that sounds, because that means you can
Speaker 1: just swap that sucker out and you'll be fine again. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: that that's in a very ideal utopian world. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what happens. The problem is, there is a lot more
Speaker 1: people in need of organs than there are organs available
Speaker 1: right right, there's um a waiting list. Some aren't so bad.
Speaker 1: I think kidneys go pretty quick, as you're you're talking
Speaker 1: about earlier. The longest wait I found, um was the
Speaker 1: old heart lung combo. That median wait time was six
Speaker 1: point seven years. It's a long time to wait for
Speaker 1: a heart and a long if you need it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a long time because nobody goes I'm probably gonna need
Speaker 1: a heart and a long combo. Eventually, I'll just put
Speaker 1: myself on the waiting list. Now you need it, like
Speaker 1: the moment you go onto that waiting list and you
Speaker 1: have to wait six point seven years until you get it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's why. Um, the mortality rate while waiting for
Speaker 1: a heart, which is that's not as bad as I
Speaker 1: would I would be, like the lungs are, and um,
Speaker 1: the ever actually is the worst good Yeah, sorry, um.
Speaker 1: There's two ways you can get organs from a live
Speaker 1: person or a dead person. Yes, Traditionally we don't take
Speaker 1: organs like the heart from a live donor because they
Speaker 1: would be a dead donor. After that, you can take
Speaker 1: things like uh, the liver pancreas uncommonly, but it can
Speaker 1: be done a portion of the intestine, um, blood, blood,
Speaker 1: stem cells, bone, marrow, bones, all and bones. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: giving up a bone that's really something like, I mean
Speaker 1: after that, you just kind of have this floppy arm,
Speaker 1: but somebody else has a bone, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's pretty nice. You Know. What I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: about the kidney deal, like why you can give up
Speaker 1: one kidney and still be okay, is that most of
Speaker 1: the times when your kidneys are affected, they are both
Speaker 1: affected at the same time, so it's one's never gonna
Speaker 1: go down and you'd be like, oh, I wish I
Speaker 1: still have my healthy kidney because they both would have
Speaker 1: been unhealthy. And uh, all right, I think we've arrived
Speaker 1: at the liver Chuck. This is fascinating to me. It
Speaker 1: is where where should we start? Well, let's just start
Speaker 1: by saying that the liver can grow. It's like the
Speaker 1: starfish of oregans. Yeah, it can regenerate itself, which is
Speaker 1: just freaking amazing. Sure. Um, So, for instance, let's say
Speaker 1: you wanted to split your liver in half and transplant
Speaker 1: that into two different people. You could do that. You
Speaker 1: could and actually, if you're an adult donor, they can
Speaker 1: cut off a portion, a child sized portion, UH, which
Speaker 1: is I think the same as like a child sized
Speaker 1: meal where you get like three chicken nuggets from UH
Speaker 1: and give it to a kid and chuck, this is
Speaker 1: so great. It grows along with the kid right to
Speaker 1: a full size liver once again, but in step with
Speaker 1: the kid's maturation. Right, that's just mind boggling. Let's say
Speaker 1: you needed a piece of your liver. Let's say you
Speaker 1: needed liver replace and I cut half of my liver
Speaker 1: off and gave it to you. My liver would eventually
Speaker 1: grow to full size once again. Yeah, if I live
Speaker 1: that long, so mine would grow and yours would grow.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing is with the liver, you don't
Speaker 1: even have to take out the old liver. You can
Speaker 1: just put in the new one. It's like the best
Speaker 1: organ on the planet. It really is, and our favorite
Speaker 1: organ because of the function that it serves. So Chuck,
Speaker 1: Like I said, you can neither be a dead donor
Speaker 1: or a living donor. A dead donor can donate anything, right,
Speaker 1: including your yeah, and your eyes, um, heart, lung, all
Speaker 1: that stuff that you can't really take from a living donor. Um.
Speaker 1: But there are some exceptions. If you have HIV or
Speaker 1: disease causing bacteria in your blood stream or tissue. They're
Speaker 1: not going to be taking your organs. Um, And if
Speaker 1: you are a practitioner of the Shinto religion, there's not
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of organ donation going on there either, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not only that, but if you are Amish, they might
Speaker 1: support your donation if there is a certainty relative certainty
Speaker 1: of success, but they're more reluctant if it's uh less
Speaker 1: probable of success. Right. And Tom actually mentioned why the
Speaker 1: Gypsies don't agree with the organ donation. They believe that, um,
Speaker 1: you need your body for the first year to get
Speaker 1: around the afterlife. Apparently after that you got it down
Speaker 1: pat and you don't really need it any longer. Um.
Speaker 1: But he didn't mention Shinto, but I looked it up. Uh.
Speaker 1: They believe that the corps is impure. The body becomes
Speaker 1: impure after death. So would be like, here, take this
Speaker 1: rotting piece of flesh that will save your life, but
Speaker 1: you're going to be impure while you live. Interesting, So,
Speaker 1: as a result in Japan, uh doing donation rates are
Speaker 1: like really really low like the USA. Yeah, and Jehovah's
Speaker 1: witnessed we should cover them because we're we always like
Speaker 1: to talk about them. Uh, they're not opposed to it,
Speaker 1: but they have one rule which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: You can donate your organ as long as they drain
Speaker 1: all of the blood out of the organ first before
Speaker 1: giving to someone else. So I guess we're not big
Speaker 1: on translusions. I don't think so, that'd be my guess. Yeah, okay, Um,
Speaker 1: how do you register Chuck? Well, it's pretty easy. Actually
Speaker 1: in most states, you can do it at the d
Speaker 1: m V, which I always found interesting. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: do it right with there when you're getting your new
Speaker 1: driver's license. And uh here in Georgia, actually we used
Speaker 1: to have the one of the highest donor rates, or
Speaker 1: I should say one of the most expansive donor registries
Speaker 1: in the country. And the reason was when you went
Speaker 1: to go get your driver's licenses. I'm sure you remember, Um,
Speaker 1: they'd knock seven bucks off of your driver's license. I
Speaker 1: love that. So you were an idiot if you didn't
Speaker 1: sign up. The problem is that there's not supposed to
Speaker 1: be any kind of compensation whatsoever for being even though
Speaker 1: this was legal under state law. Um. The Georgia Organ
Speaker 1: Procurement organization, which we'll talk about a minute. Um, they
Speaker 1: were very hesitant to draw from the Georgia donor list
Speaker 1: because they weren't sure if the person was just looking
Speaker 1: for the seven bucks off or else if they really
Speaker 1: wanted to be an organ donor. So actually, the contribution
Speaker 1: rates were very low in comparison of the size of
Speaker 1: the registry in Georgia until two thousand five when they stopped.
Speaker 1: They stopped it, I think to actually give you a
Speaker 1: T shirt too that says I sold my lungs for
Speaker 1: seven dollars. That's illegal, and all I got was this
Speaker 1: lousy T shirt. Yeah. No, under UM law, you can't
Speaker 1: have any valuable compensation for organ procurement, right what we'll
Speaker 1: get to that too, the whole black market deal. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Chuck, if you're a dead donor, how do you donate?
Speaker 1: There's two ways, right? Uh? Two ways, sure, two ways
Speaker 1: of death. Brain death and cardiac death. Is that what
Speaker 1: you mean? Obviously? Cardiac death is um a little trickier
Speaker 1: because you only have a certain amount of time to
Speaker 1: get the organs from the body. Brain deaths a lot
Speaker 1: easier in one sense, because um, there could be is
Speaker 1: you know, weeks to find a match and to prepare
Speaker 1: the organ for donation and get it carried out. But
Speaker 1: there's a wrinkle there. So there's a lot of wrinkles there.
Speaker 1: Let me let me say something about cardiac death first, right,
Speaker 1: Um this there are there are no laws really governing
Speaker 1: organ procurement. It's not a case by case basis, And
Speaker 1: basically everybody involved in the organ procurement process does their
Speaker 1: best to walk a very cautious line while harvesting organs
Speaker 1: to try to save other lives, right, yeah, because there's
Speaker 1: families involved grieving obviously. Um. With cardiac death, there was
Speaker 1: a board I think out of Harvard in the late
Speaker 1: nineties that established a five minute wait time from the
Speaker 1: cessation of a heartbeat. Right, so, you you take somebody
Speaker 1: off a life support, wait for the heart to stop beating.
Speaker 1: Five minutes after and while this this the heart's winding down,
Speaker 1: you're prepping the patient for surgery. Five minutes after, Uh,
Speaker 1: somebody pronounces the person dead and they cut them open
Speaker 1: and take the organs. But in five minutes the heart
Speaker 1: is useless pretty much at that point. Some of the
Speaker 1: other organs, like the liver, the kidneys, maybe the lungs
Speaker 1: can survive that five minutes, but the heart's gone. So
Speaker 1: if you have a cardiac death, you have a useless heart,
Speaker 1: even though the heart might have been perfectly healthy. Five
Speaker 1: minutes again right, So there was this doctor in Colorado
Speaker 1: that said, you know what, there's no law whatsoever that
Speaker 1: says I have to wait five minutes. This guy did
Speaker 1: a lot of research and found in the medical literature
Speaker 1: the longest duration between the cessation of a heartbeat and
Speaker 1: the spontaneous regeneration of a heartbeat ever recorded was sixty
Speaker 1: five seconds. So he started a sixty five second rule,
Speaker 1: got the pants suit off of them. It was an
Speaker 1: unsuccessful lawsuit, and now all of a sudden, the president
Speaker 1: has been set and now there's a sixty second rule
Speaker 1: out there that some people adhere to. That is how
Speaker 1: organ procurement has been established in the US. Somebody pushes
Speaker 1: the envelope, they get sued. They if the cases uh
Speaker 1: isn't one by the by the plaintiff, then you have
Speaker 1: a new rule. Isn't that weird? There's like zero guidance
Speaker 1: for organ procurement except that the person has to be dead.
Speaker 1: We don't have any real definition for death. Well, that's
Speaker 1: where brain death gets really really true. Exactly. Take it, Chuck, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, you're the you're the expert here.
Speaker 1: I don't. I can't weigh in morally because I don't
Speaker 1: know what I think. Really Nah. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: what I might believe for myself, but I don't know
Speaker 1: about establishing guidelines for others. But we need them, though,
Speaker 1: don't we? Yeah? But I don't want to make up
Speaker 1: those rules, do you know? And apparently the federal government
Speaker 1: doesn't either. Um. Every once in a while, I think
Speaker 1: Carter assigned a panel to create a white paper on this,
Speaker 1: and I guess George Bush did right before he left office,
Speaker 1: because there was one that came out in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. Either Bush did right before he left office
Speaker 1: or it was like the first thing Obama did when
Speaker 1: he came into office. But there was a very recent
Speaker 1: white paper that came out that said, Okay, here's how
Speaker 1: we feel about brain death. Right, here's the problem. Back
Speaker 1: in the fifties, I think we came up with this
Speaker 1: thing called the ventilator. And with the ventilator, you can
Speaker 1: keep somebody who for all intents and purposes dead, you
Speaker 1: can keep their organs functioning. So you're masking death. We
Speaker 1: have no idea what would happen if that ventilator wasn't there,
Speaker 1: would the person die? And if the person does die,
Speaker 1: how long do we have to wait until we say
Speaker 1: that that person is dead? Right? So the the ventilator
Speaker 1: made it so we could procure organs more easily in
Speaker 1: brain death because we can keep them alive. At the
Speaker 1: same time, it blurred the line between life and death. Well,
Speaker 1: now they came out with this recommendation that said brain
Speaker 1: death is disengagement of no the um end of meaningful
Speaker 1: engagement with the rest of the world, which really widened
Speaker 1: the scope of who exactly is dead. And so when
Speaker 1: you have a brain dead patient and you procure their organs,
Speaker 1: what what you actually do is you have to run
Speaker 1: them through this battery of tests where you are um
Speaker 1: shining lights in their pupils. Uh, there's an ice water
Speaker 1: injection into the ear canal to see if you move
Speaker 1: toward or away from the stimulus um And there's this
Speaker 1: battery of tests to establish brain death. And then here's
Speaker 1: the clincher. They do an apneus test where they take
Speaker 1: you off the ventilator for two minutes and see what happens,
Speaker 1: and see what happens. Inevitably, the um, the heartbeat is
Speaker 1: going to slow down. And then after two minutes they
Speaker 1: put the ventilator back on. But that two minutes where
Speaker 1: your brain was starved of oxygen was enough to to
Speaker 1: create real brain death if you weren't before. Wow, think
Speaker 1: about that. This is why they call you supplementary research man. Right,
Speaker 1: that's why that's your superhero. Can you hear like people
Speaker 1: fast forwarding through to get through this, partners, It's like Josh, Josh, Josh, Josh. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we have this, we have this new definition of
Speaker 1: brain death. And when the second apnea test happens and
Speaker 1: you're declared brain dead, what they anesthetize you, they inject
Speaker 1: you with anti paralytics. Will you into that hospital room
Speaker 1: and they harvest your organs, so you actually die from
Speaker 1: a lack of organs present in your body. So that's
Speaker 1: that it's a ghoulish matter. And this these people who
Speaker 1: are in charge of making sure that people donate and
Speaker 1: keeping the image of organ donation is a gift of
Speaker 1: life alive, have to battle with this, the fact that
Speaker 1: it's a very ghoulish process. So who's who's in charge
Speaker 1: of this stuff, by the way, for what for that
Speaker 1: whole soap op spiel anytime, buddy, Yes, Josh. That would
Speaker 1: be called an O p O, which is an organ
Speaker 1: procurement organization and they are federally designated nonprofits and they
Speaker 1: are local all over the country. There's usually UM one
Speaker 1: in the central location of a state and then different
Speaker 1: satellite office is obviously because you need to be close by.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't be hopping all over the country
Speaker 1: to get these organs, although that happens as well. And
Speaker 1: they basically responsible for awareness, recruitment, evaluation, UM organ removal,
Speaker 1: and transportation. So they're the people that's standing there with
Speaker 1: a cooler waiting to drop your organ in there and
Speaker 1: rush it to the recipient. They're also the people that
Speaker 1: talk to the family generally. Well. Sure, so anytime somebody dies,
Speaker 1: you the hospital is legally obligated to notify the organ
Speaker 1: procurement organization, right and you know this this is a
Speaker 1: good point to bring this up. If you want to
Speaker 1: be an organ downer or if you are, you really
Speaker 1: need to tell your family the stuff, and you should
Speaker 1: have it all in your living will because things can
Speaker 1: get a little ugly. UM for instance, let's say you
Speaker 1: are from a very strict religious background. Maybe your family
Speaker 1: doesn't want you cut up. They think that would be
Speaker 1: a bad thing, but you want it. You gotta have that,
Speaker 1: you know, in paper on paper, in writing, right, you
Speaker 1: need and if you have a documented um in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, even if you if your family is like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't want to donate the organs, the organ per
Speaker 1: human organization will say, you know what, ts sorry, he
Speaker 1: want he or she wanted to be an organ owner.
Speaker 1: And the last thing you want after you die is
Speaker 1: for your spouse, let's say, to have to mountain this
Speaker 1: campaign against your family like a tug of war like that.
Speaker 1: You gotta have it all spelled out nice. Um. So
Speaker 1: where are we? The United Network of organ Sharing that's
Speaker 1: another group. This is where that's where you got the
Speaker 1: kidney statistics. We're gonna go back on and look at right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in Richmond, Virginia, and they are responsible for placing
Speaker 1: donated organs um and maintaining the waiting list like you
Speaker 1: just said. And they never close No. Seven three sixty five,
Speaker 1: which is how it should be. Obviously, we should calling
Speaker 1: them right now to see if they're open now. Let's
Speaker 1: not do that. I'm sure they're open. And then Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, right, Yes, the
Speaker 1: s R t R. And they basically maintain like every
Speaker 1: amount of data you could possibly want on transplants, right
Speaker 1: for like policy makers and doctors and drug makers and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Yes, And there was one more
Speaker 1: called the ORGANS sorry, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network,
Speaker 1: and they're they're just another network that matches people with
Speaker 1: recipients and has waiting list that kind of thing, right,
Speaker 1: So this is actually a pretty um lean, mean streamlined machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Procurement and Donation Network. It has to be right, So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you were saying like they can't be hopping all over
Speaker 1: the country, but they have to sometimes. So what happens
Speaker 1: with like, let's say somebody dies in Sacramento and they
Speaker 1: have the perfect heart that somebody in Tampa needs. What
Speaker 1: happens while they will put it into a cooler and
Speaker 1: fly to uh what was the destination? Tampa? Tampa? They
Speaker 1: fly to Tampa. Apparently like the hospital in Tampa. Those
Speaker 1: people will go fly to Sacramento, take possession of it,
Speaker 1: and then fly it back unless there's somebody in the like, like,
Speaker 1: let's say somebody in Sacramento needed it and somebody at
Speaker 1: the Sacramento General Hospital died. That's when that cooler comes in.
Speaker 1: Which have you seen the one that's at the office.
Speaker 1: We have an organ transplant cooler. Yeah, it's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: roxane keeper tab in its. Uh. You know what I
Speaker 1: thought was really cool is if you were on the
Speaker 1: organ donation list as a living donor, you are actually
Speaker 1: given consideration if you need an organ transplant yourself. And
Speaker 1: they said that they won't like bump you to the
Speaker 1: top of the list, but they will give that a
Speaker 1: little bit of extra weight, which I think is that's
Speaker 1: only right. Did you also see that? Um, if you
Speaker 1: are a living donor and you usually your insurance company
Speaker 1: won't raise your rates after that, but move to another
Speaker 1: insurer change like plans, they'll hit you with a pre
Speaker 1: existing condition. That's how evil. Seriously you sign up for listening,
Speaker 1: I will give someone my kidney as a living human
Speaker 1: and the insurance companies are like, oh, well, you might
Speaker 1: have to charge a little extra for that. Don't you
Speaker 1: think we should start publicly executing CEOs of insurance companies?
Speaker 1: It should be part of the healthcare reform package. Right,
Speaker 1: of course we don't mean that, right, Thanks for the
Speaker 1: Ceoh so chuck. When when you're talking about people running
Speaker 1: around with coolers and all that, it kind of creates
Speaker 1: this harried pace right in your mind. Um, and that's
Speaker 1: very much true. You have a very short amount of
Speaker 1: time for an organ to survive. Remember I said, like
Speaker 1: even five minutes can kill a heart once it's deprived
Speaker 1: of oxygen, which it stops beating, right. Um. What happens
Speaker 1: when you die too, The body undergoes all these huge changes. Um.
Speaker 1: That happened almost immediately, Like, um, there's this uh, parasympathetic
Speaker 1: flow of chemicals right um, which is like kind of
Speaker 1: fight or flight on steroids. So I guess it's a
Speaker 1: sympathetic flood. Like dopamine levels increase eight hundred percent, epinephrin
Speaker 1: levels increase, nor EEF levels increase. So all these chemicals
Speaker 1: that are meant to like either speed you up or
Speaker 1: slow you down or just flooding fro the body. That's
Speaker 1: why you have to take the drugs right most times, Well, no,
Speaker 1: this is when you die. So when they're trying to
Speaker 1: harvest these organs, they're like trying to get them out
Speaker 1: of the body before this flood just damages these things
Speaker 1: I thought you meant as a recipient that would happen. No,
Speaker 1: that'd be pretty awesome though, to have your dopamine levels
Speaker 1: raised eight percent, right, But it's not as easy as
Speaker 1: just throwing the new heart in there either and sewing
Speaker 1: you up and say good luck with your life. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's not you. And uh, there's also some expectation that
Speaker 1: you lead a very healthy life after that. You're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be drinking or smoking or swearing, and um,
Speaker 1: you have to stay away from call girls and things
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, you shouldn't get a new liver and
Speaker 1: then like dive into the vodka bottle. You're you're pretty
Speaker 1: much signing a contract to become ned Flanders after you
Speaker 1: get your organ donation. Yeah. Actually, just over Christmas heard
Speaker 1: of a friend of a friend of a family member
Speaker 1: that was a candidate for I think a liver transplant
Speaker 1: and they would not do it because he wouldn't enter
Speaker 1: um rehab. Really yeah, wow, so that's hardcore. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: guy's dedicated to the booze, isn't it. Yeah, pretty much. Um,
Speaker 1: And also you're if you are a recipient, there's some
Speaker 1: expectation that you pay, like for the lodging and travel
Speaker 1: expenses of the person who donated. Yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: an unwritten rule from what I understand well and have
Speaker 1: to be real, you know, it's kind of against the
Speaker 1: law really well, but it makes sense though, because if
Speaker 1: you're let's say, you want to donate a kidney to
Speaker 1: someone that lives across the country and you're spending money
Speaker 1: off from work and flying out there and putting yourself
Speaker 1: all right, it's gonna cost you some dough and a kidney. Yes,
Speaker 1: you'd have to be a really nice person to be
Speaker 1: an an anonymous Yeah, that'd be cool. All right. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the black market? Yes, the
Speaker 1: black market does exist. Isn't that crazy? Um? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: not surprising. No, but it's pretty interesting. Um. It obviously exists, Um,
Speaker 1: typically outside of the United States, although there have been
Speaker 1: some cases inside the United States. Usually it's like, and
Speaker 1: this is what's so said. Usually it's impoverished nations, And
Speaker 1: what happened is that will be a couple of countries involved.
Speaker 1: You'll take someone out of a really poor country offered
Speaker 1: them like five thousand dollars for their kidney, and then
Speaker 1: the middleman will get, you know, a hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for that kidney. And you know, it's not like these
Speaker 1: are done in professional surgical rooms. It's a lot of time.
Speaker 1: It's it's the back room, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's actually exactly what happened in two thousand three
Speaker 1: in South Africa. Yeah, they were importing people from uh I,
Speaker 1: guess the City of God in Brazil. Yeah, slums of Brazil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um giving them five grand for their kidney and
Speaker 1: then turn around selling it for a hundred k yep.
Speaker 1: That's nuts, yep. And uh where else did it happen?
Speaker 1: Villagers in India so that they were getting they weren't
Speaker 1: getting nearly. They were getting about eight hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: their organs, which is just unbelievable. And at one time
Speaker 1: the Israeli organ brokers were obtaining these from Soviet Bloc
Speaker 1: nations and doing the operations in Turkey. And this one
Speaker 1: guy made a middleman, made about four million dollars before
Speaker 1: he was caught, which is not bad harvesting organs, although
Speaker 1: I imagine being an illegal organ broker is a fairly
Speaker 1: stressful job. Yeah, and it happens in the US too,
Speaker 1: although customarily it's um an organ broker and a nefarious
Speaker 1: funeral director who harvest organs before cremation. Did you know
Speaker 1: this happened? No? I didn't either, and I saw all
Speaker 1: the six ft under of course you did. Uh. Did
Speaker 1: you see the movie Thererista's No, that wasn't very good.
Speaker 1: That was the the deal there though kids are like
Speaker 1: captured in the jungle. No, but it was like an
Speaker 1: Eli Roth movie. It was like hostile, except they were
Speaker 1: harvesting organs basically instead of just blind torture. Uh. And
Speaker 1: speaking of that Thereristas. That actually does happen in the world.
Speaker 1: It's not just old wives tales. Poor Mohammed legend kidney
Speaker 1: theft does happened. It really does, Mohammed. What do you say?
Speaker 1: His name was Selim Khan. Yes, he lived in Delhi, India,
Speaker 1: and he was looking for a day's work and agreed
Speaker 1: to go to a house under the premise that he
Speaker 1: would get about four dollars a day for performing uh work.
Speaker 1: Their construction work. All is on the up and up
Speaker 1: so far then, he has held at gunpoint for several
Speaker 1: days along with two other day labors. They were taken
Speaker 1: to an operating room drugged and they awoke with a
Speaker 1: horrific pain in their side and minus one kidney. And
Speaker 1: when they took him to the hospital. When he went
Speaker 1: to the hospital, he checked him out and he had
Speaker 1: indeed been down one kidney. Not an urban legend. That
Speaker 1: really happens, although it makes me wonder if the urban
Speaker 1: legend gave rise to the actual practice. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe so. And Josh, the one US case that was
Speaker 1: in here was really interesting too. Yes, Michael Master Master Marino.
Speaker 1: There's an oral surgeon in New York and he opened
Speaker 1: a company called Biomedical Tissue Services with an embalmer, which
Speaker 1: should have been a real red flag that he partners
Speaker 1: up with an embalmer. And this is in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand, not even that long ago. Actually it was
Speaker 1: ten years ago. I'm old. Uh. For many years though,
Speaker 1: they harvested human tissue provided by funeral homes and sold
Speaker 1: it to research facilities. And one of those bodies belonged
Speaker 1: to who Alistair Cook Alistair Cook, famous host of Masterpiece Theater.
Speaker 1: So he was chopped up and given to unwitting well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about recipients. They did harvest some of
Speaker 1: his tissue. Yeah, yeah, how about that? It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: So where are we now? We are I think we're
Speaker 1: at the point where we check those stats. I have
Speaker 1: them written down here as of two oh three pm.
Speaker 1: What time is it now? Chuck's got to get out
Speaker 1: of his h Okay to thirty one. I gotta telling
Speaker 1: any disappointed if this number hasn't gone down, I think
Speaker 1: all of our listeners will be too. So we started
Speaker 1: out Chuck with a total of one five thousand two
Speaker 1: on the waiting list. What are we at one oh five? Okay,
Speaker 1: nothing has changed in twenty minutes with the kidney. We
Speaker 1: are at three thousand twelve. Well, it would be the
Speaker 1: same because that was the master stat. So the kidney
Speaker 1: didn't change either. Let's just hope Jerry didn't put a
Speaker 1: drum roll in anywhere, right. But I will say, though,
Speaker 1: don't be disappointed, because, like I said earlier this morning,
Speaker 1: um three people received kidneys that were in searches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's like to think the other scenario hand out.
Speaker 1: Are you a donor? I don't remember I was. At
Speaker 1: one point in time I was seven bucks off, But um,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to go ahead and do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this article inspired me because I'm of the belief that
Speaker 1: the human body after you die is like worm dirt,
Speaker 1: So I have no problem with donating my entire body
Speaker 1: or all my organs, none of that. Yeah. Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about oregan donation, you can
Speaker 1: read Tom Sheeve's article on how stuff Works dot com. UH.
Speaker 1: You can also check out the UM what is It
Speaker 1: Chuck the Organ Procurement Network UM for their side of
Speaker 1: the story. But I think you should also check out
Speaker 1: the Life Guardian Foundation. They have a very much opposing
Speaker 1: view of organ donation. So such a controversial topic should
Speaker 1: probably um get all of the facts before you make
Speaker 1: the very um important decision of whether or not you're
Speaker 1: going to be a dead donor. And if you decide
Speaker 1: that you want to be, like Chuck said, let everybody know,
Speaker 1: tell everybody, tell strangers on the streets. Just anytime you
Speaker 1: meet a doctor, go I'm going to be an organ door.
Speaker 1: And you may want to make the decision with your
Speaker 1: loved ones as well, sure, even though ultimately it is
Speaker 1: it is your call. So good luck with being a
Speaker 1: rag doll in the afterlife, which leads us, of course
Speaker 1: to listener mill. Yes, Josh, I am going to call
Speaker 1: this U interesting cleptomania story from Sarah Okay um Hi, Josh,
Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry. And she even spelled it correctly. Wow.
Speaker 1: I think that deserves a T shirt, don't you. Oh?
Speaker 1: Actually she didn't. Sorry to ours Okay close though. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here's a story that I always think of when you
Speaker 1: hear anything about kleptomania. A while ago, I was working
Speaker 1: in a large independent bookstore that had been a city
Speaker 1: institution for years. Like any retail establishment, they had experience
Speaker 1: about ten theft loss a year, nothing too unusual. However,
Speaker 1: one day in the late eighties, they received a thick,
Speaker 1: densely written journal which detailed to the day, our moment,
Speaker 1: weather condition, et cetera, every single book this person ever
Speaker 1: stole from the bookstory but this guy turned it in. Uh.
Speaker 1: They showed it to us in sales training. It was
Speaker 1: written in a cramped hand, all pages front and back,
Speaker 1: which is really creepy. When you're writing on the front
Speaker 1: and back, you're either really green or you're like a
Speaker 1: serial killer. That's what I think. Uh. Sometimes a clipping
Speaker 1: or a picture from one of the stolen books is
Speaker 1: taped to it. So of course the bookstore said, huh,
Speaker 1: maybe we should prosecute since they confessed basically to stealing
Speaker 1: over a period of twenty years, adding up to thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars. Whose recognis They contacted the people that returned address,
Speaker 1: and it turned out the person who wrote in was
Speaker 1: a son or daughter the very prominent local family, active
Speaker 1: in politics and big charities and the like, the kind
Speaker 1: of family they named Wings of Hospitals after hot sarahs
Speaker 1: So of course they didn't want their good name drafted
Speaker 1: the mud and apparently settled out of court for an
Speaker 1: undisclosed Some money can do that. I guess that journal
Speaker 1: was something to behold though, So um, that's what Sarah says.
Speaker 1: That is definitely a c. That's awesome. Yeah. Cool. Well,
Speaker 1: if anybody's ever sent you a cryptic or disturbing journal
Speaker 1: and you want to tell us about it, or if
Speaker 1: you just want to say hi, you can send us
Speaker 1: an email at stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com home page. H