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KERA's Think

How people get skipped for organ transplant

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8861 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Close to 100,000 people will wait for a donated kidney this year – and 1 in 5 perfectly healthy candidates will be passed over. Brian M. Rosenthal is an investigative reporter at The New York Times. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the problems with the system of organ donation, why healthy matches are routinely skipped and what can be done to fix a broken process. His article is “Organ Transplant System ‘In Chaos’ as Waiting Lists Are Ignored.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0

In 2020, a group of young woman found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare.

0:06.9

Someone was posting photos.

0:09.2

It was just me naked.

0:10.6

Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts.

0:14.3

This is Levitown, a new podcast from IHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Collidercope,

0:19.3

about the rise of deep fate pornography and the battle to stop it.

0:23.2

Listen to Levitown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:30.9

There are about 90,000 Americans who need a kidney transplant right now, but there won't be anywhere near 90,000 kidneys donated this year.

0:48.3

Some patients die waiting for a matching organ. Others survive for years on dialysis as they wait to move up the

0:55.6

list. Still others who find themselves at the very top of that list of organ recipients when a

1:01.2

biologically suitable organ finally becomes available, some people get skipped right over. From KERA

1:08.1

in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

1:19.2

As many as one in five organs from deceased donors went to people who were further down the wait list than another matching recipient last year.

1:27.6

And while occasionally this happens to prevent a kidney or heart or lung from going to waste, it is more often about how those lists are managed.

1:32.8

My guest looked into how the process of distributing donor organs works and found surprising evidence that a system set up to benefit sick individuals sometimes prioritizes the needs

1:38.3

of procurement organizations and hospitals. Brian M. Rosenthal is an investigative reporter

1:44.0

at the New York Times and co-author

1:45.8

of the article, Organ Transplant System in Chaos, as Waiting Lists Are Ignored. Brian, welcome to think.

1:53.4

Thanks for having me. You share the story of a 15-year-old here, a guy named Marcus, who had spent

1:59.3

most of his young life on the kidney transplant list.

2:02.7

Finally, he was at the top of the list when a perfectly matching organ became available.

2:07.7

What happened?

...

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