Marla's adventure from Aplastic Anemia and beyond
Happy Halloween! I know I’m too old for this holiday, but the little kid in me always wants to see what everybody is dressing up to be, heheheh. I’ll try to remember to keep my camera at the ready. . . I shouldn’t spend too much time on the computer today, but thought just for fun, here’s a little Halloween game to play that a friend of mine sent to me.
I’m just about finished reading Black Markets, The Supply and Demand of Body Parts by Michele Goodwin. I wanted to keep the book a tad longer to go back and review a few things, but alas, it is due today, and not renewable because someone’s waiting on this book, erp! So really quickly, I’m making a few comments while I still have this book on my lap.
While Goodwin does bring up many good points, what appears clear to me is that she is coming from the presumed standpoint that transplants are good. And from there, she discusses the various ways of organ procurement. My personal opinion is that in order to make a good decision of whether we even should be procuring organs for transplant, we need to look more closely at the “process” of procuring organs in addition to the actual transplants themselves. I believe there is more to consider than just that some people sell their organs or that some organs come from cadavers (I realize there are many other aspects of organ procurement discussed by Goodwin, but the bottom line is organs either come from live donors or cadavers).
From a little further reading on the net, it appears that calling some organ donors “cadavers,” is misleading. A so-called “brain-dead” person is technically “not” a cadaver. This person is still alive with a beating heart. I think this is a very import concept to understand because “vital” organs such a the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, etc. appears to only be transplantable if it is removed “fresh” from a still warm body, not from a cadaver. So technically, there are only live donors. The difference is whether the donor “continues” to live after donation or not. I think this is a very big missing part in Goodwin’s book.
Okay, so words are easy to manipulate. Am I just making a big deal of a technicality of whether a comatose patient is alive or not and can feel pain or not or ever has the possibility of regaining consciousness? Consider the below excerpt from a person who supposedly has been personally involved with harvesting organs for transplantation:
The late Dr Phillip Keep, former consultant anaesthetist at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in the United Kingdom, risked his career by publicly saying what the anaesthetist profession had been debating privately for decades,
“Almost everyone will say they have felt uneasy about it. Nurses get really, really upset. You stick the knife in and the pulse and blood pressure shoot up. If you don’t give anything at all, the patient will start moving and wriggling around and it’s impossible to do the operation. The surgeon always asked us to paralyse the patient.”
The full article can be read here
This link gives more details about harvesting organs such as how long organs are viable after harvest and other information such as what is done to the patient to keep his/her organs viable. Organs can actually be no longer viable for transplantations if they are taken from the body only as short as 15 minutes after the heart stops beating.
There is so much more to know regarding what is truly involved with transplants. It’s easy to accept transplants when the details are so watered down to terms such as “donations,” “cadavers,” “gift of life,” “life-saving transplants,” “brain-dead.” etc. What we don’t hear about is all the compromise, pain and suffering, and experimentations on people and animals. Do we ever stop to consider how this “technology” came about? What sacrifices were made? Who were sacrificed? How about the paradox of hoping that another person would die, so that another person could live? Such is the case while “waiting” for an organ to become available from a so-called cadaver. And what of the poor who sell their organs for incredibly small amounts of money? One such example can be read in this article of a Filipino who sold one of his kidneys for $1,750. Apparently, many others have sold their body parts as well because of sheer desperation of their living conditions. Goodwin wrote that in Iraq, some have sold their organs for as little as $750. What kind of world do we live in where we are willing to take someones organs and think it is okay because they were paid for it? Keep in mind that often times more care is given to the organ recipients than to the organ donors. Many of those poor organ donors don’t get follow-up care to make sure their surgeries don’t end with complications. Why not spend more effort into finding out why the need for organ transplants are increasing? Why not find ways to heal our organs, rather than taking organs from others. Instead, we keep pumping ourselves full of drugs and toxins which damage our kidneys and livers, and other organs.
While I do think Goodwin missed a big aspect of transplantation in her book, I do appreciate her insight into the inequality of blacks and whites throughout our history. I had not realized the extent of sacrifice made at the expense of blacks toward the advancement in our western medical knowledge. The grave robbing aspects were also of interest to me as well as medical experiments done on black people that I had never known about, and likely a great majority of people still don’t know about. And while I currently am not in favor of transplants, I did come across a book review of a book called, “Kidney for Sale By Owner, Human Organs, Transplantation, and the Market” by Mark J. Cherry. The book reviewer stated that he used to be against organ transplantation until he read this book. Soooo, I reserved a copy of it at my library, and just last night I picked it up. I want to see what Mr. Cherry has to say and if he can persuade me too that organ transplantation is okay. We’ll see. . . And also Goodwin brings up other very controversial aspects of body parts such as cloning, designer babies, etc. I was a tad disappointed that she didn’t go into more details regarding some of the pictures she included in her book. There were short captions below each picture, but no further details. For instance, she had pictures of facilities where organ parts are harvested, testimony of a witness of organs harvested from Chinese prisoners, etc. What a teaser. . . Okay, off to return Goodwin’s book for the person who is waiting for it.
Toodles for now,
Marla
We’re all familiar with cow’s milk. Other more daring people even part take of goat’s milk. I’ve read about other cultures who use yak, horse, and camel milk. There are even sheep cheeses available to us here in the U.S., but how about “moose milk?” Well, check it out. . .
There are more pictures and links here.
Apparently, the Russians have tapped into some very amazing things about the moose. It turns out that moose are not herd animals and don’t do well confined in small places. However, if treated well and the moose gains your trust, it can be very friendly and affectionate. They are actually the more easily domesticated forms of deer. The Kostroma Moose Farm explains how they let the moose roam free and they come back twice a day on their own volition to get milked. It seems that this moose milk is also sought after for healing purposes in some sanitariums in Russia.
One of the reasons moose do not do well in confined spaces is because they need a lot of forage space. Part of their diet includes “twigs” from trees and thus part of their “farm feed” includes “sawdust!” Nature never ceases to amaze me. As a city girl, I knew next to nothing regarding animals and crops. Since developing AA, and searching for ways to improve my health, I have found that there is so much about life that I never knew! In the city so much is packaged and processed before we get it that I had no idea about so much of our foods for most of my life. Although I have to admit as an Asian, I was pretty up on seafoods. . . However, I think the aspect that so much of our foods come pre-packaged in the city is also a reason why so many people are so accepting regarding taking pills and drugs, and bottled supplements because we’re so used to ingesting things we don’t even know where they come from. Sodas are so commonplace that many people don’t even flinch at the ingredients in there. People willing pay for and eat Velvetta cheese, ha. For instance, before AA, I never knew what a soy bean plant looked like. But I have had lots of soy! Once a friend of mine screamed when she saw some shrimp at my house with their heads still on, ha ha! She had never seen that before. (That one did amaze me since I’ve seen lots of “whole” sea foods from childhood). But, how is cheese made? I had an “idea,” but didn’t learn the full process until after AA. What is whey, and how do you get it? How is kraut made? Pastrami? How is ham made? How old is the flours we buy from the store? How long do they store it before they sell it? All those commonly known things for farmers, I was clueless as a city girl. So much in the city comes already pre-made and pre-packaged.
Anyway, looks like my computer time is up for the day, sigh. Will try to get back later and see if I can find out what health issues “moose milk” is used for.
Marlakins
Today I was going through some old stuff trying to make room for new stuff, heheh, when I came across a box with some of my old AA stuff. From time to time I have been asked about the Chinese herbs I tried in the beginning of my AA diagnosis. It’s been so long ago now, that I don’t even remember what was in them. Not to mention that they were all written in Chinese anyway, including the “brewing instructions.” But I found some old notes, including some of my Chinese herb instructions, I think I’m going to put in a photo album just because in my old age I appear to be becoming sentimental. And who knows what this says, anyway? I’m pretty sure I got another note that had the list of herbs, so this one may not be the “list” of herbs, but just some instructions. Maybe some fluent Chinese speaker will see this and tell me what this says:
Funny to think it’s been sitting in this box since around 1999. Here’s another note that was in there:
And below are the notes that Brian scribbled down while we were in the hospital regarding how the brewing instructions for the Chinese herbs were to go. We found someone in the hospital who spoke Chinese who explained the instructions to us. I still wonder to this day if we did it right, ha ha! Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem to work? Ack. . .
I should have taken a picture of the “regeneration capsules” that came with them, too, but alas I didn’t. Hmmm. Maybe I’ve still got a bottle around here somewhere since after all I still had those notes from 8 years ago? Ha!
Okay, better continue sorting through my stuff. I actually found some old knitting books, so I’m actually having fun going through this.
Marlakins
From reading Black Markets, the Supply and Demand of Body Parts, by Michele Goodwin, the topic of corneal transplants came up. Apparently, there was a scandal regarding inappropriate harvesting of corneas from homicide victims. What I was not aware of, and evidently many other people are not aware of, is “presumed consent.” Presumed consent involves those persons who have *not* specified whether they want to donate organs or not. So once a person dies, and for whatever reason his organs (particularly corneas in Goodwin’s chapter, which discusses presumed consent) have not be specifically barred from donation, then it is taken for granted that his organs can be used for donation. The idea being that, “If he were alive, then he would agree to donate because he didn’t specifically say that he didn’t want to donate.” Ack! I had never heard of that, and apparently, many others including many politicians were not aware of presumed consent in regards to organ harvesting when asked about it.
The particular scandal regarding presumed consent and organ harvesting occurred when it was found that the corneas of many homicide victims were harvested without consent of the donor, or the families and without the families knowing that it was done. Evidently, corneas are easy to take without it being obvious, especially since the deceased eyes are usually closed during viewings. These corneas were later sold and resold for profit. Apparently, cornea transplants are a common thing. I didn’t know that. So I looked up cornea transplants and found that it is estimated that in the U.S. (depending upon which source one reads), there are around 20,000 to 40,000 corneal transplants done a year. Wow, where do all those corneas come from? Well, apparently, lots of them came from homicide victims under the presumed consent reasoning. While not all deaths end in autopsy, all homicide victims routinely are sent for autopsy. And it is during that autopsy where these homicide victims end up “donating” their corneas or anything else deemed harvestable.
Goodwin discusses the arguments for and against presumed consent, which does appear to be a bit controversial.
Another thing that came to my attention was “do corneal transplant recipients need to take any immuosuppressant?” It seems not, and reminds me of other “implants” wherein foreign material is placed inside the body seemingly without the body rejecting them–i.e. metal screws, various plastics, etc. Hmmm. While it is obvious that those items are not naturally supposed to be in the body, it does seem that the body will accept some foreign materials to a certain point. BUT, I do know that places like the Gerson Institute does not accept people with any types of implants because the idea is that once the immune system is fully functioning and in pristine condition, then it will recognize foreign materials and cause the body to reject those foreign items–including metal hip screws, pacemakers, breast implants, etc. I have heard from a man who had corneal implants who claimed that he was not feeling well, so he went on a more healthful diet, which did improve his overall feelings, BUT he also started to reject his corneal implants. The idea is that once on a better diet and his immune system was improving, it also started to recognize that his corneas were foreign and proceeded to attack them. And then again, some of those foreign materials are considered in themselves immunosuppressants, like various plastics are believed to cause cancers and other health problems. Consider the debates on silicone breast implants and pthalates that can leech into foods from various food containers and wraps. But the bottom line is if corneal implants don’t require immunosuppressants, it seems to me that they are not in the same league as full organ transplants. Therefore they don’t seem as “wrong” to me. Although some of the “harvesting” practices do seem questionable because it not only involves “non-consent” issues, but also involves lack of screening of the tissue–i.e. it is common to “not” obtain medical history of homicide victim, so the quality of his organs, or in this case, corneas, can be of questionable quality since transmissible diseases can be passed on through contaminated corneas.
Okay, I’m out of time again. Must dash, but hope to get back with a little more on transplants, particularly since this topic brought back my old interest on the history of transplants. I blew off the dust on my old notes and thought it would be interesting to share some transplant history.
But for now, toodles!
Marlakins
I know it’s getting bad when I’m starting to knit while I’m driving. The fact that I drive a stick-shift doesn’t help matters, either. . . I know Brian has noticed my obsession when this morning I found an email from him with a link to a picture. This is what popped up when I clicked onto the link:
Uh, is that a hint? I’m still trying to make out what message he was trying to convey to me–”If you must knit, take the bus?” or “If you keep going at your pace, this is what you’ll be wearing soon?” or “This is the type of person you are?” Ha ha! I’ll have to ask him. . . However, I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one with the fiber and stick obsession.
So while I’m on the subject, I might as well throw in a few more pictures of what I’ve been working on. I finished Andrew’s second pair of socks and am now working on my first pair for Aaron. 
Here’s a pic of it when it was in the making. Luckily the boys found colors in my stash which were agreeable to them this time. None of that fruit-loopy tiger striping. 
Aaron is modeling Andrew’s socks here. He’s got less hairy legs, and much thinner than mine for a 13-year-old boy, ha ha! As you can see, he was game to model. Unfortunately, I seem to be unable to capture the stitch-work on these with my very limited photography skills. In actuality, there are little zigzags within the ribbing that is hidden in all that striping. The same problem seems to be happening with the next pair of socks I’m working with. Brian says I probably need another lighting source to capture the stitching, but I also think the stitching would show up better in a plain/single colored yarn. With all the striping, I still have to turn my head to one side and squint to see the pattern work, ha! But I can’t help it, I want to try patterns, not just stockinette stitch everything. It’s bad enough that the weather here in L.A. is too warm to wear some of the oh-so-many lovely sweater patterns that I would love to knit up. Now I remember why I put the needles down years ago–too many wooly items that hardly got any wear because the weather just wouldn’t allow it! However, my fingers need to move, but So Cal weather is not in need of wool. But socks, purses, and other accessories are fun, too.
Anyway, here’s a picture of the yarn that Aaron picked from my stash. It does look more like boy’s colors. Good choice, Aaron! Now hope they fit when I’m done!
So far this is how much foot it covers. I really should have used some lotion before taking this shot. Amazing what happens when the weather starts to cool down, but oh, well. . . still not cold enough for lovely thick knit sweaters. . . And darn, the stitch pattern still doesn’t show up this close. Hopefully it’ll shine through once the sock is completed. Basically it’s a zig-zag knit and purl variation. Both these socks were knit using Trekking yarn on size 2 US needles, toe-up on 2 circulars. I really need to get some solid colored yarns now since it’s pretty clear that lots of stitching work gets camouflaged with all the multiple colors. Ah, live and learn.
Okay, better get lunch on!
Marlakins 
The one odd thing I find living in such a large city is the fact that lots of “strange” things go on right under our noses that we don’t even know are happening. And with all the crazy stuff that happens, I’m glad I don’t know half of what’s going on, yikes! One example of what I mean is that for years I have driven past St. Vincents Medical Center. I’ve never been inside. Nor have I heard much about that place. Just today while reading a book called, Black Markets, the Supply and Demand of Body Parts by Michele Goodwin, there was a reference to St. Vincents Medical Center. It is apparently one of the largest organ transplant centers in California. I never knew. In turns out that St. Vincents transplant program ran into problems, and it appears that they have closed their heart transplant department in 2006, and it seems there was scandal involving their kidney and liver transplant departments as well prior to that. I tried to do a little google search, and found this article, dated Jan 27, 2006. There are quite a few eye-opening things I’m reading in Black Markets regarding organ procurement, which includes bone marrow harvesting. I have tried to stay neutral on this issue because I try to respect each person’s choices, but I didn’t realize how much organ transplantation has effected society, not just the recipients. Sure I have been aware of the ethical implications, but the problems extend out further than I had even conceived. The book title “Black Markets” may give a small hint as to what other areas have gotten involved. The above article link also had some interesting statements as well aside from the problems with organ procurement. Particularly regarding the “bone marrow transplant department.” The article stated that,
“The program withdrew from the California State Department of Health bone marrow program in 2002 after the state rebuffed its plans to correct the deficiencies it had found. The program had only met state requirements to perform at least 10 autologous and 10 allogeneic bone marrow transplants annually once. It is important to note that UCI lost its bone marrow transplant director in 2002.”
While I realize that it is important for patients to seek out institutions which have lots of experience in transplants, I didn’t even think that those institutions had “quota” requirements to stay in the program. I think that is good to know when speaking to BMT teams. Apparently, having enough BMT recipients is a concern for them and may influence their “advice” to patients as to how important a transplant is. Other facilities perform many more transplants, and have no concerns with meeting quota requirements.
Another place that I’ve been to many times is UCLA. My little cousin had her heart transplants there. Yes, transplants, plural. . . She has had 3, and is about 16 years old. Her case, as far as I know has all been legit, unlike some of the stories I’m reading about. But what the book Black Markets reveals is that UCLA’s Willed Body Program (I have never heard of such a program) had been involved with dissecting body parts from cadavers and selling them to corporate sources, ack! Among the clients was Johnson & Johnson. But UCLA is not the only one to do this. Apparently, they just got caught or “publicized.” Other medical schools, university hospitals, and organ procurement organizations are known to engage in such clandestine transactions.
It’s such a strange thought to know what goes on inside some of these buildings. I have known that lots of them contain countless pencil pushers, heheh. But obviously there is much more. I drive around and see buildings that I had never stopped to think about what goes on inside. Ever since my health crisis in 1999 with AA, I seem to notice more. I see more dialysis centers that I never paid attention to. I see Planned Parenthood Centers, which are likely performing abortions as I drive or walk by. All the various hospitals and doctors’ offices where patients are receiving chemos and other infusions are also so close, but behind closed doors. These are all things that didn’t exist 100 years ago. It’s a strange world that we now live in where all these things are acceptable and considered normal. But definitely out of sight, out of mind.
According to Goodwin, the organ transplant list increases each day. For instance, each day 18 persons on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) waitlist dies before ever receiving the anticipated organ, and are replaced by 110 persons by the end of the day. One person becomes a waitlist candidate every 13 minutes. Why is our need for organ transplantation increasing? I’m sure there are many angles to look at, but one angle that always seems to figure in is money. Goodwin writes that, “federal law prohibits the sale of human body parts, yet, from California to Maine human donations enter altruistically and exit commercially. Altruistic human donations are part of a nearly billion dollar per year industry whose rapid expansion can be traced on the New York Stock Exchange” Many organs are “donated,” but the patient ends up paying for them. I know that my blood donors all gave for free, while my insurance was billed at least $300.00 per unit of blood. Many other organs follow a similar pattern of being donated (given for free), then “paid” for by the organ recipients. Goodwin gives another example of a set of corneas which were acquired by various tissue banks for approximately $250.00, then sold to transplant institutions for a “processing fee” of $3,400. I wonder how much a pair of kidneys cost. . .
Anyway, there are other more grisly stories in Black Markets. I’m not finished with the book, yet, but it has already given me more thoughts that solidify my personal convictions regarding transplants. For so long I had only looked at the “recipients’” side and how viable transplants were or were not. Apparently there is a whole other side to transplants–i.e. the donors, the organ “harvesters,” the organ “brokers,” and the organ institutions which use these organs. I don’t know if I’ll ever look at these buildings the same anymore. Such pretty buildings on the outside may not be so pretty inside.
Marlakins
