The waitlist is a death sentence. 🏥📉 We investigate the organ shortage crisis, where 90,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney and 4,000 die every year. We break down the $50,000 proposal—a government-funded "reward" for living donors that could eliminate the shortage overnight, but faces fierce ethical opposition.
1. The "Four Kidney" Man: We analyze the miracle. The author's brother has four kidneys inside him—two failed originals, one failed transplant, and a final success. We explain why surgeons often leave the old organs in, creating a living timeline of medical history inside the patient's body.
2. The Black Market Trap: If you don't sell it legally, criminals will. We expose the "Red Market." In countries like Iran (where selling kidneys is legal), the waitlist is almost non-existent. We discuss how the U.S. ban on compensation drives desperate patients to the "Transplant Tourism" underground, where donors are exploited and safety is zero.
3. The Dialysis Industrial Complex: Who profits from the shortage? We explore the perverse incentives. Dialysis is a $100 billion industry. We discuss how companies like DaVita and Fresenius make massive profits from keeping patients on machines for years, creating a financial lobby that benefits from the scarcity of transplants.
The full list of sources used to create this episode can be found on our Patreon under https://www.patreon.com/c/Morgrain