Organ Advertising: Desperate Patients Solicit Volunteers

Patients waiting on long lists for organ transplants have recently begun to take matters into their own hands, launching advertising campaigns to solicit organ donations. In one case, Todd Krampitz, a thirty-two-year-old liver-cancer patient, bought newspaper ads, leased billboards, and set up a tollfree

In another case, Bob Hickey needed a kidney transplant and paid $295 monthly to Matching Donors.com, a website that advertised for donors.2 Hickey received over five hundred offers, and he chose a thirty-two-year-old Tennessee man, Rob Smitty, as his donor.3 Hickey paid for Smitty's and his family's expenses to fly to Colorado, and planning for the surgery began. Given Smitty's history of drug abuse and his arrest record, the transplant surgeon, Dr. Igal Kam, became concerned that Smitty might have been motivated by an under-the-table payment, which is illegal under federal law.4 Kam postponed the operation to allow the hospital ethics committee to make a determination. The committee approved the transplantation two days later, and both men survived the procedure. Days later, Smitty was arrested for failure to pay $8,100 in child support, but anonymous benefactors posted the necessary funds for his release.5