Latest / Stuff You Should Know / SYSK Selects: How Organ Donation Works
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's
- 0:03Speaker 1: s Y s K Selects, I've chosen January two thousand
- 0:07Speaker 1: ten episode called How Organ Donation Works. We get into
- 0:11Speaker 1: the ins and outs of organ donation, that what you
- 0:15Speaker 1: can do and what you can't, and we also talk
- 0:17Speaker 1: about the black market for organs um, which is something
- 0:22Speaker 1: that's been in the news recently. There has been a
- 0:24Speaker 1: huge Reuters expose on the secondary organ donation market for
- 0:30Speaker 1: profit market, which is worth reading too, especially if this
- 0:34Speaker 1: episode floats your boat. So I hope you enjoy How
- 0:38Speaker 1: Organ Donation Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from
- 0:50Speaker 1: House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
- 0:59Speaker 1: I'm Josh Lark with me as always as Charles W.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, who I assume has two functional kidneys. I do,
- 1:08Speaker 1: but I would give one up for you, brother. Wow,
- 1:12Speaker 1: would you really? Maybe? I think I think that three
- 1:15Speaker 1: Chuck as a living donor maybe not? But if I died,
- 1:18Speaker 1: then sure you get thanks. Man. What about your liver,
- 1:20Speaker 1: because I'm pretty certain I'm gonna need somebody's livers. I
- 1:24Speaker 1: don't know that you would want mine either, to be honest.
- 1:26Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'd be like getting Mickey Mantle's liver. I
- 1:28Speaker 1: need like a we need a virginal liver, don't. Yeah,
- 1:31Speaker 1: so I can just start over again, wash it in vodka.
- 1:35Speaker 1: So what are we talking about, Josh? We're talking about
- 1:37Speaker 1: organ donation, Chuck perfect, which I find absolutely fascinating. UM.
- 1:44Speaker 1: Back in nineteen fifty four, let me take you back
- 1:47Speaker 1: a little bit here, the first successful living human to
- 1:52Speaker 1: human organ donation took place. It was a kidney. Yeah,
- 1:56Speaker 1: it was a great story. Kidneys actually remained the most
- 1:59Speaker 1: commonly donated and UM received organs. But this was actually
- 2:09Speaker 1: a couple of twin brothers, one of whom was dying
- 2:12Speaker 1: of chronic nephritis. Yeah, Richard and Ronald Herrick. And Richard
- 2:17Speaker 1: was the one dying, and Ronald was in good shape, right,
- 2:20Speaker 1: and Ronald said, well, you know what, you're my twin brother,
- 2:22Speaker 1: and I don't really want you to die young, so
- 2:24Speaker 1: I'm going to give you one of my kidneys. And UM.
- 2:27Speaker 1: There have been uh some other transplants before that. They
- 2:31Speaker 1: didn't work out though, well some of them did, but
- 2:33Speaker 1: it wasn't live human to human UM like for example,
- 2:37Speaker 1: the first I think the first organ, the first donation
- 2:41Speaker 1: or transplant that ever took place was way back in
- 2:44Speaker 1: sixteen sixty where they fused part of a dog's skull
- 2:48Speaker 1: under human's head and that graft worked. H We have
- 2:53Speaker 1: taken testicles from monkeys and successfully in playing them into humans.
- 2:57Speaker 1: A pig kidney was successfully transplanted into a human vein transplants, uh,
- 3:03Speaker 1: And a lamb kidney was put into a recipient in
- 3:06Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three and that person lived for nine days.
- 3:09Speaker 1: But nineteen fifty four finds the first time a living
- 3:13Speaker 1: person donated an oregan to another living person, and it
- 3:17Speaker 1: was successful. And the reason why, they think was because
- 3:21Speaker 1: they're twins, there was a very low chance of rejection, right. Yeah.
- 3:25Speaker 1: And the story is great because Richard, you know that
- 3:27Speaker 1: the dying brother had a moment, a clear moment where
- 3:30Speaker 1: he literally, like the day before, said don't do this. Man,
- 3:33Speaker 1: get out of here right now. And the brother said, no,
- 3:36Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you my kidney like it or not, chump,
- 3:39Speaker 1: and he did. And it was a great story. Yeah,
- 3:41Speaker 1: And they actually both lived to ripe old ages reproduced,
- 3:44Speaker 1: so they fulfilled their destinies humans. And since then, Josh,
- 3:48Speaker 1: there have been more than a half a million of
- 3:49Speaker 1: these organ transplants performed. Right, We've gotten a lot better
- 3:53Speaker 1: at it. Um. As I was rambling off that list
- 3:57Speaker 1: of stuff that took place before nineteen fifty four, we
- 3:59Speaker 1: have and exponentially better. Uh. In two thousand three, we
- 4:03Speaker 1: successfully transplanted a tongue. Yeah, I saw that, which I
- 4:06Speaker 1: could use a tongue transplant. A slightly thinner tongue would
- 4:09Speaker 1: would do me a lot better. I think you had
- 4:10Speaker 1: a fat tongue. Yeah. And do you remember the um,
- 4:16Speaker 1: what do we do the face transplant? Huh um. That
- 4:19Speaker 1: woman actually remember she got her face from a suicide victim.
- 4:24Speaker 1: That was in two thousand five and in two thousand six,
- 4:27Speaker 1: so I know it's coming. A cadaver's penis was transplanted
- 4:30Speaker 1: onto a living humane and that man gave it back. Yes,
- 4:35Speaker 1: and I love The reason they gave was because of uh.
- 4:38Speaker 1: It caused psychological problems between the man and his wife,
- 4:41Speaker 1: which I can imagine. Let your imagination running with that one. Yeah, yeah,
- 4:45Speaker 1: that's just uh. I would say the same thing would
- 4:47Speaker 1: happen to my household. So thanks to m A better
- 4:50Speaker 1: understanding of how the human body works of blood type,
- 4:54Speaker 1: of the development of anti rejection drugs like Chuck said,
- 4:58Speaker 1: we've hit about half a million transplant surgery so far. Right,
- 5:03Speaker 1: So Chuck actually is hot and heavy, uh to to
- 5:06Speaker 1: give out a stat and this is a very special
- 5:09Speaker 1: stat because it's actually most likely going to change by
- 5:12Speaker 1: the end of the podcast. Yes, these are taking away.
- 5:15Speaker 1: These are current stats. If you go to the website
- 5:18Speaker 1: u n O s dot org, the United Network for
- 5:22Speaker 1: organ Sharing, they actually have up to the minute statistics
- 5:25Speaker 1: on who needs what and who's giving what and what
- 5:28Speaker 1: operations are being performed. And I didn't realize this, but
- 5:31Speaker 1: it's up to the minute because earlier in the day
- 5:33Speaker 1: I checked on kidneys and the number actually dropped by
- 5:36Speaker 1: three about an hour later on the waiting list, So
- 5:39Speaker 1: three people got kidneys in that like half hour span.
- 5:42Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna read a couple now and then
- 5:44Speaker 1: we'll check back in for fun in twenty minutes and
- 5:47Speaker 1: see if that's changed at all. Okay, I'm gonna write
- 5:49Speaker 1: this down to Chuck because we'll never remember it. This
- 5:51Speaker 1: is the first time we've ever used a laptop in
- 5:53Speaker 1: the studio and a pen usually just us in our mouths. Uh. Total, Josh,
- 5:59Speaker 1: we got one five hundred and five thousand, two people
- 6:03Speaker 1: are waiting for organs, and we'll do kidney because that's
- 6:07Speaker 1: the most popular. Eight three thousand and twelve people are
- 6:10Speaker 1: waiting for a kidney as of two oh three pm.
- 6:14Speaker 1: All right, and we'll check that in twenty minutes and
- 6:17Speaker 1: hopefully those numbers have gone down. Yeah, because that will
- 6:20Speaker 1: mean that either the people on the waiting list have
- 6:23Speaker 1: died or they received a transplant. I guess we could
- 6:26Speaker 1: put those two, we could compare against one another, and
- 6:29Speaker 1: maker we could surmise for So, Chuck, what are organs? Yeah?
- 6:35Speaker 1: I had a feeling you're going to ask me that, Josh,
- 6:38Speaker 1: go ahead, No, okay. Organs are systems of cells, Josh
- 6:42Speaker 1: and tissues, and they all are in our body for
- 6:45Speaker 1: a very specific reason, each one. And what I like
- 6:48Speaker 1: about the organs is that they are all over equipped,
- 6:51Speaker 1: which is what you're looking for in an organ. You
- 6:54Speaker 1: don't want like the heart to be like boy, if
- 6:56Speaker 1: it beats one beat less, you're really screwed. So um
- 6:59Speaker 1: our art. Actually, a twenty year old's heart beats pumps
- 7:03Speaker 1: about ten times more than the amount of blood we need.
- 7:06Speaker 1: And uh, we we have this reserve capacity in all
- 7:08Speaker 1: of our organs. As young lads and lasses. Right. But
- 7:12Speaker 1: as Tom Chief, who you know as my bff who
- 7:17Speaker 1: wrote this article, he points out that the corneas, when
- 7:20Speaker 1: you talk about eye transplants, they're talking about corneal transplants. Um,
- 7:25Speaker 1: they actually don't necessarily deteriorate like all the other organs. Yeah,
- 7:29Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Um, So the corneas of seventy five
- 7:32Speaker 1: year old donor are just as good, considering you know,
- 7:36Speaker 1: there's not more wear and tear than say a twenty
- 7:40Speaker 1: year old. Yeah, you could put a seventy year old
- 7:42Speaker 1: person's cornea inside of a young person and there would
- 7:45Speaker 1: be no difference. Right. But for organs, they deteriorate with age.
- 7:48Speaker 1: Well that's the bad news, right, Um, so eventually you
- 7:52Speaker 1: may need one, right, Well, yeah, because what happens is,
- 7:54Speaker 1: let's say one organ can deteriorate while the rest of
- 7:57Speaker 1: your body remains pretty healthy. That's actually best case scenario,
- 8:01Speaker 1: as weird as that sounds, because that means you can
- 8:03Speaker 1: just swap that sucker out and you'll be fine again. Right. Well,
- 8:07Speaker 1: that that's in a very ideal utopian world. That's exactly
- 8:11Speaker 1: what happens. The problem is, there is a lot more
- 8:13Speaker 1: people in need of organs than there are organs available
- 8:16Speaker 1: right right, there's um a waiting list. Some aren't so bad.
- 8:19Speaker 1: I think kidneys go pretty quick, as you're you're talking
- 8:22Speaker 1: about earlier. The longest wait I found, um was the
- 8:25Speaker 1: old heart lung combo. That median wait time was six
- 8:30Speaker 1: point seven years. It's a long time to wait for
- 8:32Speaker 1: a heart and a long if you need it. Yeah,
- 8:34Speaker 1: a long time because nobody goes I'm probably gonna need
- 8:36Speaker 1: a heart and a long combo. Eventually, I'll just put
- 8:38Speaker 1: myself on the waiting list. Now you need it, like
- 8:41Speaker 1: the moment you go onto that waiting list and you
- 8:44Speaker 1: have to wait six point seven years until you get it, right, Yeah,
- 8:47Speaker 1: and that's why. Um, the mortality rate while waiting for
- 8:50Speaker 1: a heart, which is that's not as bad as I
- 8:54Speaker 1: would I would be, like the lungs are, and um,
- 8:59Speaker 1: the ever actually is the worst good Yeah, sorry, um.
- 9:05Speaker 1: There's two ways you can get organs from a live
- 9:08Speaker 1: person or a dead person. Yes, Traditionally we don't take
- 9:12Speaker 1: organs like the heart from a live donor because they
- 9:15Speaker 1: would be a dead donor. After that, you can take
- 9:18Speaker 1: things like uh, the liver pancreas uncommonly, but it can
- 9:23Speaker 1: be done a portion of the intestine, um, blood, blood,
- 9:29Speaker 1: stem cells, bone, marrow, bones, all and bones. Yeah, which
- 9:34Speaker 1: giving up a bone that's really something like, I mean
- 9:37Speaker 1: after that, you just kind of have this floppy arm,
- 9:40Speaker 1: but somebody else has a bone, you know, I mean,
- 9:42Speaker 1: that's pretty nice. You Know. What I thought was interesting
- 9:44Speaker 1: about the kidney deal, like why you can give up
- 9:46Speaker 1: one kidney and still be okay, is that most of
- 9:49Speaker 1: the times when your kidneys are affected, they are both
- 9:53Speaker 1: affected at the same time, so it's one's never gonna
- 9:56Speaker 1: go down and you'd be like, oh, I wish I
- 9:58Speaker 1: still have my healthy kidney because they both would have
- 10:01Speaker 1: been unhealthy. And uh, all right, I think we've arrived
- 10:04Speaker 1: at the liver Chuck. This is fascinating to me. It
- 10:08Speaker 1: is where where should we start? Well, let's just start
- 10:10Speaker 1: by saying that the liver can grow. It's like the
- 10:15Speaker 1: starfish of oregans. Yeah, it can regenerate itself, which is
- 10:17Speaker 1: just freaking amazing. Sure. Um, So, for instance, let's say
- 10:23Speaker 1: you wanted to split your liver in half and transplant
- 10:26Speaker 1: that into two different people. You could do that. You
- 10:29Speaker 1: could and actually, if you're an adult donor, they can
- 10:32Speaker 1: cut off a portion, a child sized portion, UH, which
- 10:37Speaker 1: is I think the same as like a child sized
- 10:40Speaker 1: meal where you get like three chicken nuggets from UH
- 10:43Speaker 1: and give it to a kid and chuck, this is
- 10:46Speaker 1: so great. It grows along with the kid right to
- 10:50Speaker 1: a full size liver once again, but in step with
- 10:53Speaker 1: the kid's maturation. Right, that's just mind boggling. Let's say
- 10:57Speaker 1: you needed a piece of your liver. Let's say you
- 10:59Speaker 1: needed liver replace and I cut half of my liver
- 11:02Speaker 1: off and gave it to you. My liver would eventually
- 11:04Speaker 1: grow to full size once again. Yeah, if I live
- 11:07Speaker 1: that long, so mine would grow and yours would grow.
- 11:09Speaker 1: And the cool thing is with the liver, you don't
- 11:12Speaker 1: even have to take out the old liver. You can
- 11:13Speaker 1: just put in the new one. It's like the best
- 11:16Speaker 1: organ on the planet. It really is, and our favorite
- 11:19Speaker 1: organ because of the function that it serves. So Chuck,
- 11:22Speaker 1: Like I said, you can neither be a dead donor
- 11:24Speaker 1: or a living donor. A dead donor can donate anything, right,
- 11:27Speaker 1: including your yeah, and your eyes, um, heart, lung, all
- 11:33Speaker 1: that stuff that you can't really take from a living donor. Um.
- 11:38Speaker 1: But there are some exceptions. If you have HIV or
- 11:42Speaker 1: disease causing bacteria in your blood stream or tissue. They're
- 11:46Speaker 1: not going to be taking your organs. Um, And if
- 11:49Speaker 1: you are a practitioner of the Shinto religion, there's not
- 11:53Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of organ donation going on there either, right. Yeah,
- 11:55Speaker 1: not only that, but if you are Amish, they might
- 11:59Speaker 1: support your donation if there is a certainty relative certainty
- 12:02Speaker 1: of success, but they're more reluctant if it's uh less
- 12:07Speaker 1: probable of success. Right. And Tom actually mentioned why the
- 12:10Speaker 1: Gypsies don't agree with the organ donation. They believe that, um,
- 12:14Speaker 1: you need your body for the first year to get
- 12:16Speaker 1: around the afterlife. Apparently after that you got it down
- 12:19Speaker 1: pat and you don't really need it any longer. Um.
- 12:21Speaker 1: But he didn't mention Shinto, but I looked it up. Uh.
- 12:25Speaker 1: They believe that the corps is impure. The body becomes
- 12:28Speaker 1: impure after death. So would be like, here, take this
- 12:31Speaker 1: rotting piece of flesh that will save your life, but
- 12:33Speaker 1: you're going to be impure while you live. Interesting, So,
- 12:36Speaker 1: as a result in Japan, uh doing donation rates are
- 12:41Speaker 1: like really really low like the USA. Yeah, and Jehovah's
- 12:45Speaker 1: witnessed we should cover them because we're we always like
- 12:47Speaker 1: to talk about them. Uh, they're not opposed to it,
- 12:50Speaker 1: but they have one rule which I thought was interesting.
- 12:52Speaker 1: You can donate your organ as long as they drain
- 12:54Speaker 1: all of the blood out of the organ first before
- 12:56Speaker 1: giving to someone else. So I guess we're not big
- 12:59Speaker 1: on translusions. I don't think so, that'd be my guess. Yeah, okay, Um,
- 13:24Speaker 1: how do you register Chuck? Well, it's pretty easy. Actually
- 13:27Speaker 1: in most states, you can do it at the d
- 13:29Speaker 1: m V, which I always found interesting. Yeah, you can
- 13:32Speaker 1: do it right with there when you're getting your new
- 13:33Speaker 1: driver's license. And uh here in Georgia, actually we used
- 13:37Speaker 1: to have the one of the highest donor rates, or
- 13:40Speaker 1: I should say one of the most expansive donor registries
- 13:44Speaker 1: in the country. And the reason was when you went
- 13:46Speaker 1: to go get your driver's licenses. I'm sure you remember, Um,
- 13:49Speaker 1: they'd knock seven bucks off of your driver's license. I
- 13:53Speaker 1: love that. So you were an idiot if you didn't
- 13:54Speaker 1: sign up. The problem is that there's not supposed to
- 13:59Speaker 1: be any kind of compensation whatsoever for being even though
- 14:04Speaker 1: this was legal under state law. Um. The Georgia Organ
- 14:08Speaker 1: Procurement organization, which we'll talk about a minute. Um, they
- 14:12Speaker 1: were very hesitant to draw from the Georgia donor list
- 14:16Speaker 1: because they weren't sure if the person was just looking
- 14:18Speaker 1: for the seven bucks off or else if they really
- 14:20Speaker 1: wanted to be an organ donor. So actually, the contribution
- 14:25Speaker 1: rates were very low in comparison of the size of
- 14:29Speaker 1: the registry in Georgia until two thousand five when they stopped.
- 14:32Speaker 1: They stopped it, I think to actually give you a
- 14:34Speaker 1: T shirt too that says I sold my lungs for
- 14:36Speaker 1: seven dollars. That's illegal, and all I got was this
- 14:38Speaker 1: lousy T shirt. Yeah. No, under UM law, you can't
- 14:42Speaker 1: have any valuable compensation for organ procurement, right what we'll
- 14:46Speaker 1: get to that too, the whole black market deal. Okay,
- 14:50Speaker 1: So Chuck, if you're a dead donor, how do you donate?
- 14:52Speaker 1: There's two ways, right? Uh? Two ways, sure, two ways
- 14:57Speaker 1: of death. Brain death and cardiac death. Is that what
- 15:00Speaker 1: you mean? Obviously? Cardiac death is um a little trickier
- 15:06Speaker 1: because you only have a certain amount of time to
- 15:08Speaker 1: get the organs from the body. Brain deaths a lot
- 15:11Speaker 1: easier in one sense, because um, there could be is
- 15:15Speaker 1: you know, weeks to find a match and to prepare
- 15:17Speaker 1: the organ for donation and get it carried out. But
- 15:20Speaker 1: there's a wrinkle there. So there's a lot of wrinkles there.
- 15:24Speaker 1: Let me let me say something about cardiac death first, right,
- 15:27Speaker 1: Um this there are there are no laws really governing
- 15:33Speaker 1: organ procurement. It's not a case by case basis, And
- 15:36Speaker 1: basically everybody involved in the organ procurement process does their
- 15:41Speaker 1: best to walk a very cautious line while harvesting organs
- 15:46Speaker 1: to try to save other lives, right, yeah, because there's
- 15:48Speaker 1: families involved grieving obviously. Um. With cardiac death, there was
- 15:54Speaker 1: a board I think out of Harvard in the late
- 15:56Speaker 1: nineties that established a five minute wait time from the
- 16:00Speaker 1: cessation of a heartbeat. Right, so, you you take somebody
- 16:04Speaker 1: off a life support, wait for the heart to stop beating.
- 16:07Speaker 1: Five minutes after and while this this the heart's winding down,
- 16:10Speaker 1: you're prepping the patient for surgery. Five minutes after, Uh,
- 16:14Speaker 1: somebody pronounces the person dead and they cut them open
- 16:17Speaker 1: and take the organs. But in five minutes the heart
- 16:20Speaker 1: is useless pretty much at that point. Some of the
- 16:23Speaker 1: other organs, like the liver, the kidneys, maybe the lungs
- 16:27Speaker 1: can survive that five minutes, but the heart's gone. So
- 16:29Speaker 1: if you have a cardiac death, you have a useless heart,
- 16:32Speaker 1: even though the heart might have been perfectly healthy. Five
- 16:34Speaker 1: minutes again right, So there was this doctor in Colorado
- 16:37Speaker 1: that said, you know what, there's no law whatsoever that
- 16:41Speaker 1: says I have to wait five minutes. This guy did
- 16:44Speaker 1: a lot of research and found in the medical literature
- 16:47Speaker 1: the longest duration between the cessation of a heartbeat and
- 16:51Speaker 1: the spontaneous regeneration of a heartbeat ever recorded was sixty
- 16:54Speaker 1: five seconds. So he started a sixty five second rule,
- 16:58Speaker 1: got the pants suit off of them. It was an
- 17:01Speaker 1: unsuccessful lawsuit, and now all of a sudden, the president
- 17:05Speaker 1: has been set and now there's a sixty second rule
- 17:07Speaker 1: out there that some people adhere to. That is how
- 17:10Speaker 1: organ procurement has been established in the US. Somebody pushes
- 17:14Speaker 1: the envelope, they get sued. They if the cases uh
- 17:17Speaker 1: isn't one by the by the plaintiff, then you have
- 17:21Speaker 1: a new rule. Isn't that weird? There's like zero guidance
- 17:24Speaker 1: for organ procurement except that the person has to be dead.
- 17:27Speaker 1: We don't have any real definition for death. Well, that's
- 17:32Speaker 1: where brain death gets really really true. Exactly. Take it, Chuck, Well,
- 17:36Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, you're the you're the expert here.
- 17:38Speaker 1: I don't. I can't weigh in morally because I don't
- 17:41Speaker 1: know what I think. Really Nah. I mean, I know
- 17:44Speaker 1: what I might believe for myself, but I don't know
- 17:46Speaker 1: about establishing guidelines for others. But we need them, though,
- 17:49Speaker 1: don't we? Yeah? But I don't want to make up
- 17:52Speaker 1: those rules, do you know? And apparently the federal government
- 17:55Speaker 1: doesn't either. Um. Every once in a while, I think
- 17:58Speaker 1: Carter assigned a panel to create a white paper on this,
- 18:01Speaker 1: and I guess George Bush did right before he left office,
- 18:04Speaker 1: because there was one that came out in two thousand
- 18:06Speaker 1: and eight. Either Bush did right before he left office
- 18:09Speaker 1: or it was like the first thing Obama did when
- 18:10Speaker 1: he came into office. But there was a very recent
- 18:14Speaker 1: white paper that came out that said, Okay, here's how
- 18:17Speaker 1: we feel about brain death. Right, here's the problem. Back
- 18:21Speaker 1: in the fifties, I think we came up with this
- 18:23Speaker 1: thing called the ventilator. And with the ventilator, you can
- 18:26Speaker 1: keep somebody who for all intents and purposes dead, you
- 18:29Speaker 1: can keep their organs functioning. So you're masking death. We
- 18:34Speaker 1: have no idea what would happen if that ventilator wasn't there,
- 18:37Speaker 1: would the person die? And if the person does die,
- 18:39Speaker 1: how long do we have to wait until we say
- 18:41Speaker 1: that that person is dead? Right? So the the ventilator
- 18:46Speaker 1: made it so we could procure organs more easily in
- 18:48Speaker 1: brain death because we can keep them alive. At the
- 18:51Speaker 1: same time, it blurred the line between life and death. Well,
- 18:54Speaker 1: now they came out with this recommendation that said brain
- 18:57Speaker 1: death is disengagement of no the um end of meaningful
- 19:02Speaker 1: engagement with the rest of the world, which really widened
- 19:06Speaker 1: the scope of who exactly is dead. And so when
- 19:10Speaker 1: you have a brain dead patient and you procure their organs,
- 19:14Speaker 1: what what you actually do is you have to run
- 19:15Speaker 1: them through this battery of tests where you are um
- 19:18Speaker 1: shining lights in their pupils. Uh, there's an ice water
- 19:22Speaker 1: injection into the ear canal to see if you move
- 19:25Speaker 1: toward or away from the stimulus um And there's this
- 19:28Speaker 1: battery of tests to establish brain death. And then here's
- 19:32Speaker 1: the clincher. They do an apneus test where they take
- 19:36Speaker 1: you off the ventilator for two minutes and see what happens,
- 19:39Speaker 1: and see what happens. Inevitably, the um, the heartbeat is
- 19:44Speaker 1: going to slow down. And then after two minutes they
- 19:47Speaker 1: put the ventilator back on. But that two minutes where
- 19:49Speaker 1: your brain was starved of oxygen was enough to to
- 19:53Speaker 1: create real brain death if you weren't before. Wow, think
- 19:58Speaker 1: about that. This is why they call you supplementary research man. Right,
- 20:02Speaker 1: that's why that's your superhero. Can you hear like people
- 20:05Speaker 1: fast forwarding through to get through this, partners, It's like Josh, Josh, Josh, Josh. Okay,
- 20:09Speaker 1: So we have this, we have this new definition of
- 20:12Speaker 1: brain death. And when the second apnea test happens and
- 20:17Speaker 1: you're declared brain dead, what they anesthetize you, they inject
- 20:23Speaker 1: you with anti paralytics. Will you into that hospital room
- 20:27Speaker 1: and they harvest your organs, so you actually die from
- 20:29Speaker 1: a lack of organs present in your body. So that's
- 20:34Speaker 1: that it's a ghoulish matter. And this these people who
- 20:37Speaker 1: are in charge of making sure that people donate and
- 20:41Speaker 1: keeping the image of organ donation is a gift of
- 20:44Speaker 1: life alive, have to battle with this, the fact that
- 20:48Speaker 1: it's a very ghoulish process. So who's who's in charge
- 20:52Speaker 1: of this stuff, by the way, for what for that
- 20:56Speaker 1: whole soap op spiel anytime, buddy, Yes, Josh. That would
- 21:01Speaker 1: be called an O p O, which is an organ
- 21:04Speaker 1: procurement organization and they are federally designated nonprofits and they
- 21:08Speaker 1: are local all over the country. There's usually UM one
- 21:13Speaker 1: in the central location of a state and then different
- 21:15Speaker 1: satellite office is obviously because you need to be close by.
- 21:19Speaker 1: You know, you can't be hopping all over the country
- 21:21Speaker 1: to get these organs, although that happens as well. And
- 21:23Speaker 1: they basically responsible for awareness, recruitment, evaluation, UM organ removal,
- 21:29Speaker 1: and transportation. So they're the people that's standing there with
- 21:32Speaker 1: a cooler waiting to drop your organ in there and
- 21:36Speaker 1: rush it to the recipient. They're also the people that
- 21:38Speaker 1: talk to the family generally. Well. Sure, so anytime somebody dies,
- 21:42Speaker 1: you the hospital is legally obligated to notify the organ
- 21:47Speaker 1: procurement organization, right and you know this this is a
- 21:49Speaker 1: good point to bring this up. If you want to
- 21:51Speaker 1: be an organ downer or if you are, you really
- 21:53Speaker 1: need to tell your family the stuff, and you should
- 21:56Speaker 1: have it all in your living will because things can
- 21:58Speaker 1: get a little ugly. UM for instance, let's say you
- 22:02Speaker 1: are from a very strict religious background. Maybe your family
- 22:07Speaker 1: doesn't want you cut up. They think that would be
- 22:08Speaker 1: a bad thing, but you want it. You gotta have that,
- 22:12Speaker 1: you know, in paper on paper, in writing, right, you
- 22:14Speaker 1: need and if you have a documented um in a
- 22:17Speaker 1: lot of cases, even if you if your family is like, no,
- 22:20Speaker 1: we don't want to donate the organs, the organ per
- 22:22Speaker 1: human organization will say, you know what, ts sorry, he
- 22:26Speaker 1: want he or she wanted to be an organ owner.
- 22:28Speaker 1: And the last thing you want after you die is
- 22:30Speaker 1: for your spouse, let's say, to have to mountain this
- 22:32Speaker 1: campaign against your family like a tug of war like that.
- 22:35Speaker 1: You gotta have it all spelled out nice. Um. So
- 22:39Speaker 1: where are we? The United Network of organ Sharing that's
- 22:42Speaker 1: another group. This is where that's where you got the
- 22:44Speaker 1: kidney statistics. We're gonna go back on and look at right. Yeah,
- 22:47Speaker 1: they're in Richmond, Virginia, and they are responsible for placing
- 22:50Speaker 1: donated organs um and maintaining the waiting list like you
- 22:54Speaker 1: just said. And they never close No. Seven three sixty five,
- 22:58Speaker 1: which is how it should be. Obviously, we should calling
- 23:00Speaker 1: them right now to see if they're open now. Let's
- 23:02Speaker 1: not do that. I'm sure they're open. And then Chuck,
- 23:05Speaker 1: there's the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, right, Yes, the
- 23:09Speaker 1: s R t R. And they basically maintain like every
- 23:12Speaker 1: amount of data you could possibly want on transplants, right
- 23:16Speaker 1: for like policy makers and doctors and drug makers and
- 23:19Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Yes, And there was one more
- 23:23Speaker 1: called the ORGANS sorry, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network,
- 23:27Speaker 1: and they're they're just another network that matches people with
- 23:30Speaker 1: recipients and has waiting list that kind of thing, right,
- 23:33Speaker 1: So this is actually a pretty um lean, mean streamlined machine. Yeah,
- 23:39Speaker 1: the Procurement and Donation Network. It has to be right, So, Chuck,
- 23:42Speaker 1: you were saying like they can't be hopping all over
- 23:44Speaker 1: the country, but they have to sometimes. So what happens
- 23:47Speaker 1: with like, let's say somebody dies in Sacramento and they
- 23:52Speaker 1: have the perfect heart that somebody in Tampa needs. What
- 23:56Speaker 1: happens while they will put it into a cooler and
- 23:59Speaker 1: fly to uh what was the destination? Tampa? Tampa? They
- 24:03Speaker 1: fly to Tampa. Apparently like the hospital in Tampa. Those
- 24:07Speaker 1: people will go fly to Sacramento, take possession of it,
- 24:10Speaker 1: and then fly it back unless there's somebody in the like, like,
- 24:13Speaker 1: let's say somebody in Sacramento needed it and somebody at
- 24:17Speaker 1: the Sacramento General Hospital died. That's when that cooler comes in.
- 24:21Speaker 1: Which have you seen the one that's at the office.
- 24:23Speaker 1: We have an organ transplant cooler. Yeah, it's pretty cool,
- 24:27Speaker 1: roxane keeper tab in its. Uh. You know what I
- 24:32Speaker 1: thought was really cool is if you were on the
- 24:34Speaker 1: organ donation list as a living donor, you are actually
- 24:39Speaker 1: given consideration if you need an organ transplant yourself. And
- 24:43Speaker 1: they said that they won't like bump you to the
- 24:45Speaker 1: top of the list, but they will give that a
- 24:47Speaker 1: little bit of extra weight, which I think is that's
- 24:49Speaker 1: only right. Did you also see that? Um, if you
- 24:53Speaker 1: are a living donor and you usually your insurance company
- 24:58Speaker 1: won't raise your rates after that, but move to another
- 25:01Speaker 1: insurer change like plans, they'll hit you with a pre
- 25:04Speaker 1: existing condition. That's how evil. Seriously you sign up for listening,
- 25:09Speaker 1: I will give someone my kidney as a living human
- 25:12Speaker 1: and the insurance companies are like, oh, well, you might
- 25:14Speaker 1: have to charge a little extra for that. Don't you
- 25:16Speaker 1: think we should start publicly executing CEOs of insurance companies?
- 25:20Speaker 1: It should be part of the healthcare reform package. Right,
- 25:23Speaker 1: of course we don't mean that, right, Thanks for the
- 25:25Speaker 1: Ceoh so chuck. When when you're talking about people running
- 25:29Speaker 1: around with coolers and all that, it kind of creates
- 25:31Speaker 1: this harried pace right in your mind. Um, and that's
- 25:35Speaker 1: very much true. You have a very short amount of
- 25:38Speaker 1: time for an organ to survive. Remember I said, like
- 25:40Speaker 1: even five minutes can kill a heart once it's deprived
- 25:44Speaker 1: of oxygen, which it stops beating, right. Um. What happens
- 25:49Speaker 1: when you die too, The body undergoes all these huge changes. Um.
- 25:54Speaker 1: That happened almost immediately, Like, um, there's this uh, parasympathetic
- 25:59Speaker 1: flow of chemicals right um, which is like kind of
- 26:03Speaker 1: fight or flight on steroids. So I guess it's a
- 26:07Speaker 1: sympathetic flood. Like dopamine levels increase eight hundred percent, epinephrin
- 26:13Speaker 1: levels increase, nor EEF levels increase. So all these chemicals
- 26:18Speaker 1: that are meant to like either speed you up or
- 26:21Speaker 1: slow you down or just flooding fro the body. That's
- 26:24Speaker 1: why you have to take the drugs right most times, Well, no,
- 26:27Speaker 1: this is when you die. So when they're trying to
- 26:29Speaker 1: harvest these organs, they're like trying to get them out
- 26:32Speaker 1: of the body before this flood just damages these things
- 26:36Speaker 1: I thought you meant as a recipient that would happen. No,
- 26:39Speaker 1: that'd be pretty awesome though, to have your dopamine levels
- 26:41Speaker 1: raised eight percent, right, But it's not as easy as
- 26:44Speaker 1: just throwing the new heart in there either and sewing
- 26:46Speaker 1: you up and say good luck with your life. No, no,
- 26:48Speaker 1: it's not you. And uh, there's also some expectation that
- 26:52Speaker 1: you lead a very healthy life after that. You're not
- 26:56Speaker 1: supposed to be drinking or smoking or swearing, and um,
- 27:00Speaker 1: you have to stay away from call girls and things
- 27:02Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, you shouldn't get a new liver and
- 27:04Speaker 1: then like dive into the vodka bottle. You're you're pretty
- 27:07Speaker 1: much signing a contract to become ned Flanders after you
- 27:10Speaker 1: get your organ donation. Yeah. Actually, just over Christmas heard
- 27:13Speaker 1: of a friend of a friend of a family member
- 27:17Speaker 1: that was a candidate for I think a liver transplant
- 27:21Speaker 1: and they would not do it because he wouldn't enter
- 27:24Speaker 1: um rehab. Really yeah, wow, so that's hardcore. Yeah, that
- 27:31Speaker 1: guy's dedicated to the booze, isn't it. Yeah, pretty much. Um,
- 27:35Speaker 1: And also you're if you are a recipient, there's some
- 27:39Speaker 1: expectation that you pay, like for the lodging and travel
- 27:44Speaker 1: expenses of the person who donated. Yeah, it's kind of
- 27:46Speaker 1: an unwritten rule from what I understand well and have
- 27:48Speaker 1: to be real, you know, it's kind of against the
- 27:50Speaker 1: law really well, but it makes sense though, because if
- 27:52Speaker 1: you're let's say, you want to donate a kidney to
- 27:54Speaker 1: someone that lives across the country and you're spending money
- 27:57Speaker 1: off from work and flying out there and putting yourself
- 28:00Speaker 1: all right, it's gonna cost you some dough and a kidney. Yes,
- 28:03Speaker 1: you'd have to be a really nice person to be
- 28:06Speaker 1: an an anonymous Yeah, that'd be cool. All right. So, Chuck,
- 28:35Speaker 1: you want to talk about the black market? Yes, the
- 28:38Speaker 1: black market does exist. Isn't that crazy? Um? Yeah, but
- 28:43Speaker 1: not surprising. No, but it's pretty interesting. Um. It obviously exists, Um,
- 28:49Speaker 1: typically outside of the United States, although there have been
- 28:52Speaker 1: some cases inside the United States. Usually it's like, and
- 28:56Speaker 1: this is what's so said. Usually it's impoverished nations, And
- 28:59Speaker 1: what happened is that will be a couple of countries involved.
- 29:02Speaker 1: You'll take someone out of a really poor country offered
- 29:05Speaker 1: them like five thousand dollars for their kidney, and then
- 29:07Speaker 1: the middleman will get, you know, a hundred thousand dollars
- 29:10Speaker 1: for that kidney. And you know, it's not like these
- 29:13Speaker 1: are done in professional surgical rooms. It's a lot of time.
- 29:16Speaker 1: It's it's the back room, if you know what I mean.
- 29:20Speaker 1: And that's actually exactly what happened in two thousand three
- 29:23Speaker 1: in South Africa. Yeah, they were importing people from uh I,
- 29:27Speaker 1: guess the City of God in Brazil. Yeah, slums of Brazil. Yeah,
- 29:31Speaker 1: and um giving them five grand for their kidney and
- 29:35Speaker 1: then turn around selling it for a hundred k yep.
- 29:37Speaker 1: That's nuts, yep. And uh where else did it happen?
- 29:40Speaker 1: Villagers in India so that they were getting they weren't
- 29:43Speaker 1: getting nearly. They were getting about eight hundred dollars for
- 29:46Speaker 1: their organs, which is just unbelievable. And at one time
- 29:51Speaker 1: the Israeli organ brokers were obtaining these from Soviet Bloc
- 29:56Speaker 1: nations and doing the operations in Turkey. And this one
- 30:00Speaker 1: guy made a middleman, made about four million dollars before
- 30:03Speaker 1: he was caught, which is not bad harvesting organs, although
- 30:06Speaker 1: I imagine being an illegal organ broker is a fairly
- 30:09Speaker 1: stressful job. Yeah, and it happens in the US too,
- 30:13Speaker 1: although customarily it's um an organ broker and a nefarious
- 30:18Speaker 1: funeral director who harvest organs before cremation. Did you know
- 30:22Speaker 1: this happened? No? I didn't either, and I saw all
- 30:25Speaker 1: the six ft under of course you did. Uh. Did
- 30:29Speaker 1: you see the movie Thererista's No, that wasn't very good.
- 30:32Speaker 1: That was the the deal there though kids are like
- 30:36Speaker 1: captured in the jungle. No, but it was like an
- 30:41Speaker 1: Eli Roth movie. It was like hostile, except they were
- 30:43Speaker 1: harvesting organs basically instead of just blind torture. Uh. And
- 30:49Speaker 1: speaking of that Thereristas. That actually does happen in the world.
- 30:53Speaker 1: It's not just old wives tales. Poor Mohammed legend kidney
- 30:59Speaker 1: theft does happened. It really does, Mohammed. What do you say?
- 31:04Speaker 1: His name was Selim Khan. Yes, he lived in Delhi, India,
- 31:08Speaker 1: and he was looking for a day's work and agreed
- 31:10Speaker 1: to go to a house under the premise that he
- 31:12Speaker 1: would get about four dollars a day for performing uh work.
- 31:15Speaker 1: Their construction work. All is on the up and up
- 31:18Speaker 1: so far then, he has held at gunpoint for several
- 31:20Speaker 1: days along with two other day labors. They were taken
- 31:23Speaker 1: to an operating room drugged and they awoke with a
- 31:28Speaker 1: horrific pain in their side and minus one kidney. And
- 31:32Speaker 1: when they took him to the hospital. When he went
- 31:34Speaker 1: to the hospital, he checked him out and he had
- 31:36Speaker 1: indeed been down one kidney. Not an urban legend. That
- 31:40Speaker 1: really happens, although it makes me wonder if the urban
- 31:42Speaker 1: legend gave rise to the actual practice. Oh yeah, you know,
- 31:46Speaker 1: maybe so. And Josh, the one US case that was
- 31:49Speaker 1: in here was really interesting too. Yes, Michael Master Master Marino.
- 31:54Speaker 1: There's an oral surgeon in New York and he opened
- 31:57Speaker 1: a company called Biomedical Tissue Services with an embalmer, which
- 32:02Speaker 1: should have been a real red flag that he partners
- 32:04Speaker 1: up with an embalmer. And this is in the year
- 32:06Speaker 1: two thousand, not even that long ago. Actually it was
- 32:08Speaker 1: ten years ago. I'm old. Uh. For many years though,
- 32:11Speaker 1: they harvested human tissue provided by funeral homes and sold
- 32:15Speaker 1: it to research facilities. And one of those bodies belonged
- 32:18Speaker 1: to who Alistair Cook Alistair Cook, famous host of Masterpiece Theater.
- 32:23Speaker 1: So he was chopped up and given to unwitting well,
- 32:27Speaker 1: I don't know about recipients. They did harvest some of
- 32:29Speaker 1: his tissue. Yeah, yeah, how about that? It's pretty awesome.
- 32:34Speaker 1: So where are we now? We are I think we're
- 32:36Speaker 1: at the point where we check those stats. I have
- 32:39Speaker 1: them written down here as of two oh three pm.
- 32:42Speaker 1: What time is it now? Chuck's got to get out
- 32:45Speaker 1: of his h Okay to thirty one. I gotta telling
- 32:50Speaker 1: any disappointed if this number hasn't gone down, I think
- 32:53Speaker 1: all of our listeners will be too. So we started
- 32:57Speaker 1: out Chuck with a total of one five thousand two
- 33:02Speaker 1: on the waiting list. What are we at one oh five? Okay,
- 33:07Speaker 1: nothing has changed in twenty minutes with the kidney. We
- 33:09Speaker 1: are at three thousand twelve. Well, it would be the
- 33:13Speaker 1: same because that was the master stat. So the kidney
- 33:16Speaker 1: didn't change either. Let's just hope Jerry didn't put a
- 33:18Speaker 1: drum roll in anywhere, right. But I will say, though,
- 33:20Speaker 1: don't be disappointed, because, like I said earlier this morning,
- 33:23Speaker 1: um three people received kidneys that were in searches. Yeah,
- 33:30Speaker 1: let's let's like to think the other scenario hand out.
- 33:33Speaker 1: Are you a donor? I don't remember I was. At
- 33:37Speaker 1: one point in time I was seven bucks off, But um,
- 33:41Speaker 1: I think I'm going to go ahead and do it. Yeah,
- 33:44Speaker 1: this article inspired me because I'm of the belief that
- 33:47Speaker 1: the human body after you die is like worm dirt,
- 33:51Speaker 1: So I have no problem with donating my entire body
- 33:55Speaker 1: or all my organs, none of that. Yeah. Well, if
- 33:58Speaker 1: you want to learn more about oregan donation, you can
- 34:02Speaker 1: read Tom Sheeve's article on how stuff Works dot com. UH.
- 34:05Speaker 1: You can also check out the UM what is It
- 34:09Speaker 1: Chuck the Organ Procurement Network UM for their side of
- 34:13Speaker 1: the story. But I think you should also check out
- 34:16Speaker 1: the Life Guardian Foundation. They have a very much opposing
- 34:19Speaker 1: view of organ donation. So such a controversial topic should
- 34:23Speaker 1: probably um get all of the facts before you make
- 34:27Speaker 1: the very um important decision of whether or not you're
- 34:30Speaker 1: going to be a dead donor. And if you decide
- 34:32Speaker 1: that you want to be, like Chuck said, let everybody know,
- 34:36Speaker 1: tell everybody, tell strangers on the streets. Just anytime you
- 34:39Speaker 1: meet a doctor, go I'm going to be an organ door.
- 34:41Speaker 1: And you may want to make the decision with your
- 34:43Speaker 1: loved ones as well, sure, even though ultimately it is
- 34:46Speaker 1: it is your call. So good luck with being a
- 34:49Speaker 1: rag doll in the afterlife, which leads us, of course
- 34:53Speaker 1: to listener mill. Yes, Josh, I am going to call
- 34:59Speaker 1: this U interesting cleptomania story from Sarah Okay um Hi, Josh,
- 35:04Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry. And she even spelled it correctly. Wow.
- 35:08Speaker 1: I think that deserves a T shirt, don't you. Oh?
- 35:10Speaker 1: Actually she didn't. Sorry to ours Okay close though. Uh.
- 35:15Speaker 1: Here's a story that I always think of when you
- 35:17Speaker 1: hear anything about kleptomania. A while ago, I was working
- 35:20Speaker 1: in a large independent bookstore that had been a city
- 35:22Speaker 1: institution for years. Like any retail establishment, they had experience
- 35:26Speaker 1: about ten theft loss a year, nothing too unusual. However,
- 35:30Speaker 1: one day in the late eighties, they received a thick,
- 35:33Speaker 1: densely written journal which detailed to the day, our moment,
- 35:36Speaker 1: weather condition, et cetera, every single book this person ever
- 35:40Speaker 1: stole from the bookstory but this guy turned it in. Uh.
- 35:43Speaker 1: They showed it to us in sales training. It was
- 35:45Speaker 1: written in a cramped hand, all pages front and back,
- 35:48Speaker 1: which is really creepy. When you're writing on the front
- 35:50Speaker 1: and back, you're either really green or you're like a
- 35:53Speaker 1: serial killer. That's what I think. Uh. Sometimes a clipping
- 35:57Speaker 1: or a picture from one of the stolen books is
- 35:58Speaker 1: taped to it. So of course the bookstore said, huh,
- 36:01Speaker 1: maybe we should prosecute since they confessed basically to stealing
- 36:05Speaker 1: over a period of twenty years, adding up to thousands
- 36:07Speaker 1: of dollars. Whose recognis They contacted the people that returned address,
- 36:11Speaker 1: and it turned out the person who wrote in was
- 36:13Speaker 1: a son or daughter the very prominent local family, active
- 36:17Speaker 1: in politics and big charities and the like, the kind
- 36:20Speaker 1: of family they named Wings of Hospitals after hot sarahs
- 36:24Speaker 1: So of course they didn't want their good name drafted
- 36:25Speaker 1: the mud and apparently settled out of court for an
- 36:28Speaker 1: undisclosed Some money can do that. I guess that journal
- 36:32Speaker 1: was something to behold though, So um, that's what Sarah says.
- 36:35Speaker 1: That is definitely a c. That's awesome. Yeah. Cool. Well,
- 36:41Speaker 1: if anybody's ever sent you a cryptic or disturbing journal
- 36:44Speaker 1: and you want to tell us about it, or if
- 36:46Speaker 1: you just want to say hi, you can send us
- 36:48Speaker 1: an email at stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
- 36:57Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics at
- 37:00Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
- 37:03Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
- 37:06Speaker 1: com home page. H