Kevorkian Advocates Online Organ Auction

April 13 -- Assisted-suicide pioneer Jack Kevorkian recommends ending the shortage of transplantable human organs by, at least temporarily, commercializing organ harvesting and auctioning off body partsonline to pay donors and provide an expense fund for poor recipients.

Kevorkian explains his idea in an article titled "Solve the Organ Shortage: Let the Bidding Begin!" that appears in the latest issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry. The entire 80-page issue is devoted to the article and to reactions from a dozen transplant surgeons and psychiatrists.

The journal is published quarterly by the American College of Forensic Psychiatry, an association for psychiatrists who testify in legal cases.

"Commercialization of transplantable human organs is the only sure way to end the crisis of their supply," Kevorkian writes in the article. "This is best accomplished by implementing a free, nonprofit, nationwide, ultimately global on-line auction market."

Organ harvesting should be done independently of the United Network of Organ Sharing's altruistic donation system and of "governmental, sectarian, academic, and other bureaucratic control." UNOS manages the U.S. transplant waiting list and matches donors to recipients.

76,000 Wait for Organs

There were 75,863 patients on the list as of April 7. Kidneys and livers are the replacement organs most in demand.

Kevorkian's plan would use a formula to disburse money raised via organ auctioning, with proceeds going to compensate sellers or their survivors and to special funds being established to guarantee "equity for poor, uninsured, and indigent recipients."

Organ sellers should receive more money than transplant surgeons because organs are in shorter supply than surgical skill, Kevorkian says.

"Therefore, in any commercial arrangement the price of a vital organ should be higher — much higher — than the surgeon's fee," he writes.

Kevorkian says as the organ shortage eases, bid prices should drop, perhaps ultimately resulting in a return to altruistic donation.