Saturday
14Jul2007
Can the NKF Give Us a Break?
Saturday, July 14, 2007 at 2:09PM John Stossel is one of the few broadcast journalists who examines healthcare and science issues with a critical eye, refusing to blindly accept institutionally promoted, conventional wisdom that is so frequently misrepresented, misinterpreted or just plain wrong.
In his online column this week, Stossel examines the plight of those waiting on the kidney transplant list, focusing on several individuals who are languishing on dialysis because they are forbidden from soliciting and compensating a living donor.
Highlighting the insensate response of the typical NKF bureaucrat,
Taking issue with those anointed experts who believe it is their responsibility to protect those vulnerable to "exploitation" Stossel continues:
In his online column this week, Stossel examines the plight of those waiting on the kidney transplant list, focusing on several individuals who are languishing on dialysis because they are forbidden from soliciting and compensating a living donor.
Highlighting the insensate response of the typical NKF bureaucrat,
Dr. Brian Pereira, former president of the National Kidney Foundation, told me he empathized with (the patient's) need. "The good news," he said, "is that this person can continue on dialysis under the current system, which functions extremely well."I'll bet there are about 67,000 kidney patients who would take exception with Pereira's claim that the current system "functions extremely well." Will he express some increased concern and urgency when we see 30, 40 or 50 people dying each day from the lack of available kidneys?
Taking issue with those anointed experts who believe it is their responsibility to protect those vulnerable to "exploitation" Stossel continues:
But what gives us the right to decide for them? No one forced them. They wanted the $1,000 more than they wanted two kidneys. To say the poor are too desperate to resist a dangerous temptation is patronizing. Poor people are entitled to run their own lives, too.Steve posted an ad online, and soon people from all over the world were calling to sell him a kidney. Pereira says sternly, "That's where we have to step in." >
No, doctor, that's where you have to step aside. Like many anointed experts, Dr. Pereira thinks he and others like him -- "the government, the professional societies who help the government make the right policies" -- have to make our decisions for us. But that conceit condemns people to suffer and die -- as Steve Rivkin did.
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