Should you know your donor's history?
| 19:45 UK time, Thursday, 17 June 2010
A 28 year old months after receiving a lung transplant from someone who had smoked for 30 years. Lynsey Scott's family say they were never told about the donor's lifestyle and if they had known, she would have rejected the transplant offer.
a transplant professional, believes that smokers' lungs are better than no lungs at all;
'It is impossible to know if declining the lungs and waiting for non-smoker's lungs would have saved this patient. It is quite possible that even pristine lungs from a non-smoker would have ended in the same result. It is also possible that she could have died waiting for non-smoker's lungs that never became available.Smoker's lungs are not the devil...Many tests are done to evaluate the viability of every organ that is transplanted.'
The British Government's Chris Rudge, insists that smoking was not the issue in the case of Lynsey Scott but .
questions where we draw the line if we are allowed to pick and choose organs.Â
'Do we let people say no to an organ because the donor did something during their life that we didn't like? Should we be able to say no because the donor suffered from depression?....In my opinion, we should trust the doctors.'
How much information should you have about your donor?
