

With functioning kidneys for all - grosales
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907u/kidney-donation

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biohacker42
Tissue engineering, tissue engineering, tissue engineering.

Use stem cells, cancer cells use anything, stick it in a box, put in a filter,
keep it external to the body, like one of those new insulin pumps.

Or shrink the dialysis machine down the size of one of those new insulin
pumps, and have it on the person 25/7.

Right now I think there's 50/50 chance advancements like that will NOT happen
in the US, but in less regulated places like China.

~~~
ckinnan
Sorry, the U.S. government is way too busy spending trillions on banker
bailouts and restarting the market for granite countertops and subprime auto
loans. Medical research is simply not a priority in the United States.
Congress spent nearly 30 times more on AIG than the entire federal cancer
research budget.

~~~
philwelch
One of these things is not like the other.

The AIG bailout was emergency spending to prevent economic collapse. It wasn't
an ongoing policy initiative. You can argue over whether it's effective or
efficient but it's not anything like the cancer budget. That's like saying
that, because of the aid after Katrina, building housing and infrastructure on
the Gulf Coast is a _policy_ priority.

Yes, there are ways the government could have mitigated or prevented both of
these disasters (funding upgrades to the New Orleans levee system, doing a
better job at regulating the finance industry, not encouraging homeownership),
but you can't compare priorities by comparing emergency spending to ordinary
spending. Remember, Congress is _incompetent_ , not evil. They probably didn't
anticipate that trillion dollar bailouts would be part of the cost of their
policies.

~~~
tokenadult
The neglect of what AIG was doing before the crash was an intentional policy
priority. The recent bail-out cost was just the deferred cost of that policy.

~~~
tc
AIG bet against a complete bust of the system. They were otherwise reasonably
hedged. Governments have placed _much_ larger and more harmful bets on
continued economic growth in the form of spending commitments that outpace
even rosy growth estimates, but I don't hear the populists crying over that.

Bailing out AIG (and their contract partners) was the problem. Creating an
environment where bailout was even perceived as possible was the problem.
Turning the US into a debtor nation via enormous government spending was the
problem (in that it kicked off a number of other distortions).

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gregwebs
I have a solution that costs no money that makes the organ shortage situation
much better. It involves enacting one rule:

    
    
      A person may only receive an organ if that person is a registered organ donor.

~~~
akeefer
And how exactly would that help? As the article points out, even if everyone
were an organ donor that wouldn't significantly impact the massive waiting
list. It's also the case that people who are receiving the organs probably
aren't the best candidates for organ donation anyway.

~~~
gregwebs
Yes, it would significantly impact the waiting list, as the article points
out! Making everyone a donor would mean the waiting list would start
decreasing instead of increasing. To get the list down to zero within a decade
(without monetary compensation) you would need that plus other techniques
mentioned in the article.

This is a general idea for all organs- most other organs cannot be taken from
living people and thus cannot use techniques mentioned in the article.

~~~
anamax
> without monetary compensation

Remind me - why is monetary compensation bad?

Everyone in the transplant system is paid except the person who makes it
possible....

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dmm
Will donating a kidney significantly shorten my lifespan?

