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The human kidney is the body’s filter. It cleans 180 liters of liquid per day, retaining the good stuff and expelling the bad. Most fortuitously, humans are born with two kidneys. If one of them becomes damaged, the other one can pick up the slack. If both your kidneys fail, however, your body will fill with harmful toxins. Without medical intervention, you’ll die within weeks.
Almost nine hundred thousand Americans suffer from End State Renal Disease (ESRD), meaning that both their kidneys have failed. Thankfully, over the last half century, science has technically triumphed over kidney failure. If both your kidneys fail, you can receive a transplant from a donor and live a fairly normal, healthy life. The technology for kidney transplants has gotten so good that the donor and recipient just need to share the same blood type. Surgeons and anti-rejection drugs can handle the rest. Since almost everyone has a spare kidney, the supply of potential donors is plentiful.
And yet, over 5,000 people die in the US every year while waiting for a kidney transplant. This is puzzling because only 83 thousand people in the United States need a new kidney, compared to hundreds of millions of potential donors. And yet, the average person with failed kidneys remains on the transplant waitlist for 3-5 years. In the meantime, they’re hooked up to dialysis machines several times a week at an annual cost of approximately $75,000 per year. Kidney transplant surgeries typically pay for themselves within one to three years because the need for dialysis is eliminated by the new kidney.
So why do people die from ESRD while waiting for a kidney transplant? The answer is well known - not enough people volunteer to donate a kidney. This is true in the United States and every other country in the world (with the possible exception of Iran). People simply don’t volunteer to go into surgery and give up their organs. Even when they’re dead, most people (or their families) hold onto their kidneys instead of donating them.
Read more of this interesting article here: http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50996688256/the-price-of-a-human-kidney
Almost nine hundred thousand Americans suffer from End State Renal Disease (ESRD), meaning that both their kidneys have failed. Thankfully, over the last half century, science has technically triumphed over kidney failure. If both your kidneys fail, you can receive a transplant from a donor and live a fairly normal, healthy life. The technology for kidney transplants has gotten so good that the donor and recipient just need to share the same blood type. Surgeons and anti-rejection drugs can handle the rest. Since almost everyone has a spare kidney, the supply of potential donors is plentiful.
And yet, over 5,000 people die in the US every year while waiting for a kidney transplant. This is puzzling because only 83 thousand people in the United States need a new kidney, compared to hundreds of millions of potential donors. And yet, the average person with failed kidneys remains on the transplant waitlist for 3-5 years. In the meantime, they’re hooked up to dialysis machines several times a week at an annual cost of approximately $75,000 per year. Kidney transplant surgeries typically pay for themselves within one to three years because the need for dialysis is eliminated by the new kidney.
So why do people die from ESRD while waiting for a kidney transplant? The answer is well known - not enough people volunteer to donate a kidney. This is true in the United States and every other country in the world (with the possible exception of Iran). People simply don’t volunteer to go into surgery and give up their organs. Even when they’re dead, most people (or their families) hold onto their kidneys instead of donating them.
Read more of this interesting article here: http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50996688256/the-price-of-a-human-kidney
