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J Kevorkian

Publications and source records attributed to J Kevorkian.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Solve the organ shortage: let the bidding begin!

Commercialization of transplantable human organs is the only sure way to end the crisis of their supply. This is best accomplished by implementing a free, non-profit, nationwide, ultimately global online auction market. It should be independent of the current United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) system dealing solely with altruistic donation, and of governmental, sectarian, academic, and other bureaucratic control. The operation of such an auction is described with a hypothetical example. An included provision guarantees equity for poor, uninsured, and indigent recipients. Money accrued can be substantial, and would be disbursed by established formula, with major portions going to donors' families and to special funds to be used to bid for the poor and to defray costs incurred by them. As the organ shortage eases, bid prices should drop, resulting perhaps in eventual altruistic donation. Objections to commericalization based on ethics, bodily sanctity, inequity, pecuniary greed, and the slippery slope tocsin are nullified by cogent arguments and examples. The current situation has worsened despite so-called required request laws, proposed token payments to cover funeral expenses for donor families, and extensive media advertising to spur altruistic donation. Prohibitive national and state laws must be rescinded for the sake of more than 60,000 patients now on lengthening waiting lists. A profession committed to saving lives is duty-bound to endorse, help implement, and participate in an auction system dedicated to that end.

Altruism↗
PubMed1992

A controlled auction market is a practical solution to the shortage of transplantable organs.

All attempts relying on pure altruism to meet the demand for transplantable donor organs have failed and continue to fail. The incentive of commercialization of an organ market would seem to be the only practical solution at this time. It is almost impossible to set fixed prices for such priceless items as human organs. The only fair, honest, and feasible approach is the establishment of a free and voluntary national or international auction system under the strict supervision and control of an exclusive, specially created administrative entity free of governmental or other partisan interference. The resultant flow of funds could be enormous and would enhance the welfare of all strata of society. Wealthy buyers would be removed from current waiting lists; the donor pool greatly expanded to perhaps surplus; the resultant money used to relieve the financial burdens on families involved, hospitals, insurance companies--and also used to buy organs for the indigent on waiting lists, pay for surgeries and hospitalization, and thereby increase the income and surgical experience of more surgeons. This proposed new system should include all live as well as brain-dead donors, cadavers and consenting individuals facing purposeful and pointless destruction by judicial execution.

Altruism↗
PubMed1989

Marketing of human organs and tissues is justified and necessary.

The bioethical guidelines now banning commerce in human body parts to be used for transplantation manifest unrealistic and arbitrary inflexibility which perpetuates and worsens the deficit in organ supply. Instead of relying on traditionally revered but now outmoded and even irrelevant bioethical maxims, formulators of the guidelines should have concentrated on a more meaningful situational adaptation to contemporary real-life circumstances. Many unexpectedly relevant and important nuances of concepts such as property, ownership, and altruism must now be taken into account. Hypothetical examples explore the morality of a universal ban by fiat and the associated problems of organ supply and demand, of cost and affordability, and of fair equity. It is difficult to justify purely altruistic organ donation today, when the health care professions and industries are frantically pursuing commercial profits. It is concluded that the ban should be scrapped in favor of a well-organized, open, and legally regulated commercial market for human organs and tissues.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1986

The long overdue medical specialty: bioethiatrics.

Traditional bioethical codes have been unable to cope with the results of modern technology and the drastic changes in life patterns. The medical profession can reestablish bioethical order and reassert leadership through a new and urgently needed medical specialty, which the author tentatively calls bioethiatrics or bioethiatry. Bioethiatrics embodies a unique combination of ethical action and moral judgment.Training for the specialty would start with a residency program, consisting of thorough training in philosophy and religion coupled with continued experience in clinical medicine and indoctrination in contemporary research. Requirements would include the practice of general medicine for at least two years after internship, the passing of oral and written examinations after four years of residency, board certification, and subsequent periodic evaluations.Bioethiatricians would assume all the usual privileges, obligations, and risks associated with the practice of any medical specialty, thereby averting unnecessary ethical crises and ensuring a more rational response to present and future moral challenges.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1985

A brief history of experimentation on condemned and executed humans.

Experimentation on condemned men is assumed to have been a common practice in ancient Alexandria, but disappeared in Rome and during the Middle Ages. Sporadic cases were documented in the Renaissance and afterward, involving experiments both before and immediately after execution. The advent of the guillotine raised the question of possible persistence of consciousness after execution and that spurred much electrophysiological study of freshly decapitated heads and bodies. In 19th-century Europe, interest focused on cardiac function immediately after beheading. In the early 20th century, many condemned men in the Philippines were used by American physicians for their research on plague and beriberi.Briefly discussed is the relevance of the practice of human sacrifice in Homeric Greece and Mayan Yucatan, as well as experiments on black slaves in America. The Nazi medical crimes of World War II encompass a totally different morality, and are not really comparable to the matter at hand. They have, however, so stirred emotions as to discredit the general concept of experimentation associated with capital punishment. Even within the framework of our system of jurisprudence, the altruistic desires of many now languishing on death row are being ignored.

Capital Punishment↗
PubMed1984

A coherent grid system of coordinates for precise anatomical localization.

Specific localization in surface and topographical anatomy has always been on the basis of random, arbitrarily selected and unsystematized criteria. A coherent scheme is proposed as a prototype of a truly scientific approach. Using the earth's geographic coordinate system as a model, a similar lattice pattern of numbered transverse "lines of latitude" and lettered vertical "lines of longitude" was devised for the human body. To preserve metric consonance the grid was decimalized with 100 parallel transverse lines on the entire body and 10 essentially parallel vertical lines on any half of the body or on any limb. A body surface point can be symbolized by a very concise coordinate consisting of a combination of one or two numbers with one or two alphabetic letters. A few other very common everyday symbols used in conjunction with coordinates can vastly extend utility of the grid system to the precise determination of body surface lines, penetrating vectors, every kind of conceivable plane, and every spatial volume in and outside the body in any aspect desired. The grid is ideal for computerization. With a thoroughly coordinated ideal "body" thus committed to computer memory banks for random access at will, the stage will have been set for the advent of total automation of many medical and surgical procedures. Some kind of universal system as proposed is urgently needed if in the future medicine is to successfully meet the awesome challenge thrust upon it by the spectacular achievements of high technology.

Anthropometry↗