(NaturalNews) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced his support for the harvesting of organs from dead patients without prior consent, and said that he hopes for such a policy change to take place within the year.
"A system of this kind seems to have the potential to close the aching gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery in the United Kingdom and the limits imposed by our current system of consent," Brown wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
With a waiting list for organs 8,000 patients long, and 1,000 people dying each year due to organ unavailability, the U.K. has announced plans to overhaul its organ donation system. As part of this new effort, doctors and nurses will be pressured to identify more organ donors ahead of time and to alert organ donation coordinators as patients approach death. The government seeks to appoint a doctor in each hospital as a donation "champion," to be paired with a lay person who can do outreach on the topic.
The government admits that a conflict of interest might occur when doctors are encouraged to view still-living patients as potential organ sources.
Even with these planned measures, the government says that donations might still be insufficient. For this reason, Brown and others are calling for the presumption of consent unless patients have formerly opted out or their family members explicitly deny permission.
Advocates point to the discrepancy between the rate at which people in Britain endorse organ donation - 90 percent - and the 60 percent of families that give permission upon a relative's death. Among many ethnic minorities, the donation figure is as low as 25 percent.
Patients groups blasted the proposal, saying it infringes on patients' rights over their own bodies.
"They call it presumed consent, but it is no consent at all," said Joyce Robin of Patient Concern. "They are relying on inertia and ignorance to get the results that they want."
Robin said the government has not made enough efforts to increase voluntary donation to justify to such extreme measures.
 |
Related Articles:
|
Take Action: Support NaturalNews.com
 Email this article to a friend
 Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us
Permalink to this article: http://www.NaturalNews.com/023460.html
Reprinting this article: Non-commercial OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link.
Embed article link: (copy HTML code below):
|
 |
 |
Receive our Natural Health Newsletter for FREE
 Subscribe now to receive a summary of each day's most important natural health stories, plus get full, free access to the entire archives of books on HealthBookSummaries.
You'll also get access to 20+ free downloadable reports and exclusive interviews here on NaturalNews.com. Join over 1.2 million monthly readers. Unsubscribe anytime. Your email privacy is protected. We absolutely do not sell or share email addresses with anyone!
- Receive breaking news alerts on natural health solutions, renewable energy, the environment, global warming and more.
- Get instant access to over 20 downloadable health reports and exclusive interviews.
- Get full access to the entire archives of downloadable book summaries from HealthBookSummaries.com.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
Meet the Hospital Staph
Pharmaceutical Vending Machines
Negotiating with Big Pharma
|
Featured Videos
Short clip on Aspartame
A short clip on aspartame from the documentary All Jacked Up.
Click here to view now...
Exclusive video on Aspartame
The dangers of aspartame! Exclusive interview footage from Cori Brackett of Sweet Remedy.
Click here to view now...
Exclusive Footage from All Jacked Up!
See interview footage featuring the Health Ranger in the upcoming junk food film, All Jacked Up.
Click here to view now...
Drug Ad Parody
See the Health Ranger's satire parody of Merck's cholesterol drug ad.
Click here to view now... |
|
Printable Version
