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|  Segment# |

| 11 |

| Location |

|  |

|  Date |

| 3/31/2007 |

| |

|  Story Name |

| A CLOSER LOOK ORGANS FOR SALE |

| |

|  Notes |

|  |

| |

|FRANK DELMONICO, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF TRANSPLANT SURGEONS |

|18:48:43 |

|Prepared by The Transcription Company, , (818) 848-6500 |

|Which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription |

|18:48:43 DAVID KERLEY |

|(OC) Tonight, we take 'a closer look" at a radical solution to a medical |

|crisis, the shortage of donor organs. By far, the greatest demand is for |

|kidneys. More than 70,000 people need one, but only 17,000 received a |

|donor kidney last year and more than 6,000 people died waiting for one. |

|One prominent surgeon is proposing a controversial remedy, allow |

|volunteers to sell one of their kidneys. Here's ABC's John McKenzie. |

|18:49:09 JOHN MCKENZIE, ABC NEWS |

|(VO) Since diabetes damaged his kidneys, Michael Kelly has had to rely |

|on this machine to filter his blood. Three days every week, for hours at |

|a time, it's been that way for more than a year. |

|18:49:22 MICHAEL KELLY, PATIENT |

|The whole process of it, it really wipes you out. |

|18:49:25 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(VO) Dialysis can keep Kelly alive, but not for as long as a real |

|kidney. |

|18:49:30 MICHAEL KELLY |

|It's kind of out of my hands. And all I can do is sort of wait until, |

|you know, somebody wants to donate a kidney. I only need one. But |

|there's, how do you get that one? |

|18:49:42 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(VO) Getting a kidney is now so difficult, the demand so great. The |

|current president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons says it's |

|time to start paying people for one of their kidneys. |

|18:49:53 DOCTOR ARTHUR MATAS, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA |

|It sounds like the wrong thing to do, to be buying kidneys, until you |

|start realizing that unless we do something dramatic, we're going to have |

|a continuation of this situation where patients are dying on dialysis and |

|their quality of life is worse. |

|18:50:09 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(VO) Dr. Matas argues you can already buy and sell human sperm, eggs and |

|blood, why draw the line at kidneys and other organs? And because a |

|transplant saves so much money in long-term medical costs, Matas says the |

|government and insurance companies could afford to pay each donor one |

|fixed price. |

|18:50:27 DOCTOR ARTHUR MATAS |

|When all is said and done, the package could be worth maybe up to about |

|$60,000 or $70,000 and, again, still be cost neutral to the healthcare |

|system. |

|18:50:37 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(OC) The obstacles to such a plan are huge. Organ sales are currently |

|against the law, and virtually, every major medical association is against |

|the idea, including Dr. Matas' own transplant society. |

|18:50:49 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(VO) They argue the plan is unmanageable and would exploit the poor. |

|They point to Iran and Pakistan and the Philippines, where kidneys are |

|sold on the BLACK MARKET. |

|18:50:59 DOCTOR FRANK DELMONICO, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL |

|There are plenty of data about the poor of the world who have sold their |

|kidney. And I can assure you what has happened is that they remain |

|destitute, they remain poor and they remain then with one less kidney. |

|18:51:14 DOCTOR ARTHUR MATAS |

|I think it's critical to differentiate unregulated systems, which have |

|failed in other countries, from the regulated system, which I'm |

|advocating. |

|18:51:23 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(VO) Matas' proposal, published in several medical journals, emphasizes |

|kidney sales that are controlled by the government and insurance |

|companies, no middlemen or brokers. Sellers would get a full physical and |

|psychological evaluation and long-term follow-up and medical care. |

|18:51:39 DOCTOR ARTHUR MATAS |

|The only way that we will know whether or not such a system will work is |

|to try a pilot project. |

|18:51:45 JOHN MCKENZIE |

|(VO) To see whether kidney sales can be a fair and effective solution to |

|an increasingly desperate medical crisis. John McKenzie, ABC News, New |

|York. |

|18:51:55 DAVID KERLEY |

|(OC) And the debate over the subject continues online. You can see what |

|both sides are saying and weigh in with your own thoughts at our website |

|at . |

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