Organ transplants and cloned organs

Finance: The Cost of Inaction and the Urgent Need to Reform the U.S. Transplant System, July 20, 2023

Finance: A System in Need of Repair: Addressing Organizational Failures of the U.S.’s Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, August 3, 2022

2024: I made comments on A System in Need of Repair: Addressing Organizational Failures of the U.S.’s Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network in August of 2022, which I am resubmitting to keep on the record. While the need is urgent, the solution will take time. As we used to say on the Air Staff, if you want it bad, you get it bad.

2022: At first blush, the consideration of this issue by the Committee is puzzling until one draws the connection between Medicare and organ transplants, including establishing universal healthcare and funding it. Please see the following attachments, as well as the second part of this submission, for discussion of these topics.

Other than its impact on Medicare and affordable care, we are leery of any congressional involvement in this issue. Ideally, it is based on science and best regulated by medical professionals. Even without intervention, putting pressure on the system is ill-advised. With political pressure often comes pressure from donors. The beauty of the current process is that the ability to pay is not part of it. Of course, if there are abuses on this front in the current system, they should be looked into and dealt with by the Congress and this Committee.

Even with the best of motives, adjusting the process (even if flawed) does not resolve the issues facing organ transplantation. There are simply not enough organ donors and the system, which relies on voluntary donation for its legitimacy, would not be helped with economic incentives - especially as these would be more attractive to the poor. This borders on abuse. Not only do we exploit them in life, incentives would continue this exploitation in death. 

Ultimately, the solution is better science. This is where government involvement can help and where issues of fiscal equity come in. Any treatment must be provided to all, regardless of the ability to pay. While the private sector may be helpful in developing treatments, government funded research would help the process and assure equity.  

A promising solution is the use of  retargeted stem cells, either grown on cartilage or injected into the sick organ. Both would render donation and its possibility of rejection to the realm of temporary solutions, as would artificial organs.

Research in this process can always be sped up with more government money for NIH. To make sure everyone can benefit from advancements, such as using 3D printing to create cartilage on which to grow stem cells both outside and inside the body, research and actual organ generation can be publicly funded. Public organ manufacture, because of its expense in every case, is likely better than relying on for profit medicine.

As we have stated before, most recently in March of this year, but also in 2019 and 2020, orphan drug research and manufacture should be owned and managed by the federal government. The same path can be taken for the development of cloned organs. If the government owned the process, profiteering would be minimized. To facilitate cooperation and speed the process, creation of a quasi-governmental enterprise would be useful. It would combine NIH, NSF, FDA. To repeat our previous comments on drug pricing:

Prescription Drug Price Inflation Video

A main problem with high cost drugs, especially orphan drugs, is the high development costs and the cost of small batch manufacturing... as well as regulatory cost.

Another way to assure equity in the growth and distribution of cloned organs, health care reform is essential. Again, to repeat our comments from March:

Universal coverage... THE ISSUE IS PRICE, NOT COST!

Attachment: Single Payer Video 

Attachment: Tax Reform Subtraction VAT Video

VIDEO of these comments