<p>But Pea…think about the young people who await transplant who have a better chance at survival, unlike someone who has such a poor prognosis. Shouldn’t they with the highest likelihood of long term survival be given priority? Otherwise the healthy new liver just dies with the patient.</p>
<p>Most–probably not–but plenty did–1,000,000s most likely. Or they did other drugs as LSD was pretty 60’s anyway. Pot, coke, mushrooms, speed were all popular in the 70’s as well as prescription pills.
I don’t think anyone needing a new liver has a great life outlook.</p>
<p>@shellz – I hear you, it’s a judgment call. I don’t think he should have gotten a liver ahead of someone who was young. Obviously, I can’t speak to the condition of the other candidates awaiting a transplant.</p>
<p>Let’s say that your young husband or wife was in a car accident and died at the hospital where the liver could be harvested and you are there and a lawyer offers you, the spouse, $5 million for the organ. Do you, the spouse, get to say what happens to it?</p>
<p>I don’t get at all where you are coming from. Are you saying Jobs paid for his liver? That is illegal in the US. No transplant team would be involved with that.</p>
<p>Re: the person who did not get a liver because Jobs did. Livers can be divided. One persons liver can sometimes offer two patients a second chance. And a living donor can sometimes donate one lobe of their liver and keep the rest. We have two kidneys, and can donate one. We only have one liver, but under certain circumstances it can be divided.</p>
<p>[Apple</a> CEO Steve Jobs’ Liver Transplant Stirs Health Care Debate - ABC News](<a href=“Steve Jobs' Reported Liver Transplant Stirs Debate - ABC News”>Steve Jobs' Reported Liver Transplant Stirs Debate - ABC News)</p>
<p>[Jobs</a>’ liver transplant shows money can make a difference](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-25-jobs-transplant_N.htm]Jobs”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-25-jobs-transplant_N.htm)</p>
<p>Well, not to turn this all political, but most of the US healthcare system is not exactly ‘fair’, given the distribution of resources is related to income. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t hold it against someone for exploiting such a loophole if they could (if the issue is their own or loved one’s life).</p>
<p>I have a friend who was waiting for a liver on a transplant list for several years, during which time Jobs waltzed in and got a liver. Luckily my friend’s health improved and he was taken off the list eventually. </p>
<p>But for a time there it was touch and go. To have actually gotten one (other than waiting on an obliging donor) he would have had to be critically ill but be able to plausibly to survive the procedure. He was justifiably very cynical about the preferential treatment given to Jobs.</p>
<p>I was asking a hypothetical question.</p>
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<p>The second article linked by sunnyflorida provides a very interesting account of the preferential treatment that Jobs was given. My reading of the article is that Jobs’s money allowed him to explore options that people with more limited means don’t have (traveling from CA to TN for treatment) but his money did not cause anyone to bend the rules for him. It is also sad, now that Jobs seems to have taken a turn for the worse, to read some of the article’s optimistic statements, such as that a liver transplant might cure the kind of illness that Jobs has.</p>
<p>Well if 50-50 is right might is correct. Few complex medical treatments are a 100% anyway.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that a typical person with Jobs’ prognosis would nor have gotten a liver. Drunks don’t get them. Very sick people usually die waiting for one. </p>
<p>Jobs would have gotten a liver regardless with his money. In Thailand and other countries you can buy any organ you want if you have the money. It’s just surprising to me he got one in the US, and clearly there’s a reason he did it quietly.</p>
<p>I love my iPhone, my iPad, my Macbook Air and my Apple stock (at least until today on that last one). But that doesn’t mean I think Jobs or anyone deserves more consideration to heroically keep him alive than the average human does.</p>
<p>I don’t know a lot about organ transplants but I have a very close family member on a list. I do not know if money had anything to do with Steve Jobs getting a liver so soon because I thought that going onto a list was set by criteria not by money other than the fact that your insurance will pay for your transplant but again I really don’t know.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that there are some (many) people on organ transplant lists who have had substance abuse problems. They just have to be sober when the transplant occurs and the hope being that they will remain sober. I think that there is a period of time that a person needing a liver stay sober. Remember Mickey Mantle had a liver transplant.</p>
<p>Speaking of organ transplants I am surprised that Dick Cheney is thinking about a heart transplant. He is on an external device so he would be a high priority but I thought he was too old.</p>
<p>I would question that drunks don’t get new livers. </p>
<p>[David</a> Crosby had a liver transplant - Celebrities - Celebrities with diseases](<a href=“http://www.celebrities-with-diseases.com/celebrities/david-crosby-had-a-liver-transplant-4818.html]David”>celebrities-with-diseases.com - This; website is for sale! - Resources and Information.)</p>
<p>Can’t family members of patients in some cases direct where the organ goes (ie make a specific selection of the recipient)?</p>
<p>Gregg Allman had a liver transplant, too.</p>
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<p>I can see why it would be easy to think this, but really, do you have any authority for this statement? Just how do you think Jobs got this exceptional treatment–bribed the doctors?</p>
<p>To get on an organ transplant list, you must pass the wallet test. You either have insurance that will cover the transplant or you have the money to do the transplant. So Job’s receiving a liver is not inconsistent with that policy. What’s unfair is that uninsured folk who are not extremely wealthy have no chance at a transplant even though they medically may be good candidates for these procedures.</p>
<p>Thread title should be “Jobs takes leave, Apple makes record profit anyway.”</p>
<p>See how Apple did when Jobs was gone. He was recently named the top CEO in the WORLD. He is one of the few real groundbreaking execs anywhere. And he keeps doing it. Many folks have one great idea and get rich off that. Few have one every year.</p>
<p>The time will come when we do have to make even more value judgments about who lives and dies. Jobs issues are just an inkling of what is to come.</p>