lpara
02-21-2003, 05:30 PM
<span style='font-family:comic sans ms'>Tough questions about Jessica's transplants
No one can deny that the plight of Jesica Santillan, the sick teenager who mistakenly received organs at Duke University from a donor with a different blood type, is a sad one.
But we cannot ignore the tough public policy questions in Jesica's case that the sob-story writers at The New York Times prefer to paper over:
-- When resources are scarce, as the supply of voluntarily donated organs notoriously are, why shouldn't U.S. citizens get top priority?
-- According to national figures, 16 patients die in the U.S. each day while waiting for a potentially life-saving transplant operation. How many American patients currently on the national organ waiting list were denied access to healthy hearts and lungs as a result of Santillan's two transplant surgeries? Who will tell their stories?
-- Finally, if Jesica recovers from the second heart-lung transplant, will any federal immigration authority have the guts to enforce the law and send her and her family back home to Mexico?
According to Times reporter Denise Grady, "Ms. Santillan's family moved from Mexico to North Carolina three years ago in hopes that she could be treated at Duke for restrictive cardiomyopathy, which caused an enlarged, weakened heart and damaged lungs."
Controversial (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030221.shtml)</span>
No one can deny that the plight of Jesica Santillan, the sick teenager who mistakenly received organs at Duke University from a donor with a different blood type, is a sad one.
But we cannot ignore the tough public policy questions in Jesica's case that the sob-story writers at The New York Times prefer to paper over:
-- When resources are scarce, as the supply of voluntarily donated organs notoriously are, why shouldn't U.S. citizens get top priority?
-- According to national figures, 16 patients die in the U.S. each day while waiting for a potentially life-saving transplant operation. How many American patients currently on the national organ waiting list were denied access to healthy hearts and lungs as a result of Santillan's two transplant surgeries? Who will tell their stories?
-- Finally, if Jesica recovers from the second heart-lung transplant, will any federal immigration authority have the guts to enforce the law and send her and her family back home to Mexico?
According to Times reporter Denise Grady, "Ms. Santillan's family moved from Mexico to North Carolina three years ago in hopes that she could be treated at Duke for restrictive cardiomyopathy, which caused an enlarged, weakened heart and damaged lungs."
Controversial (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030221.shtml)</span>