Anthony Stokes, a fifteen year old kid from Decatur County, Georgia, is expected to die in a matter of months, according to his doctors at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Maybe, they say, he will live for six months. Who knows? Anthony suffers from an enlarged, increasingly less functional heart. His condition is not unusual, and a reasonably effective cure is at hand: a heart transplant. (Learn more about Anthony’s story here.)
However, Anthony has become the latest victim of a dysfunctional U.S. transplantation system, which tempts Americans with a transplant waiting list, but kicks them off if they become too sick or too old. The problem is that there are too few organs to meet demand, and this perennial problem receives far too little attention from Congress. Indeed, the U.S. transplantation list, coordinated by the United Network for Organ Sharing, UNOS, (a private organization that coordinates significant aspects of the U.S. transplant system) is so overcrowded that patients increasingly turn to black markets in India, China, Pakistan, South Africa, and other countries if they hope to survive. (Learn more about that here.) Congressional hearings document Chinese prisoners dying and shortly thereafter Americans receiving organs.
Anthony’s family and some local organizations claim that racism is behind doctors refusing to place the boy on the transplant list. Anthony is African American. They ask, what is the harm in letting him on the list?