Skip to main content
Biomedicine in museums

"There's no substitute for an organic, family-grown heart"

The current issue of leading U.S. weekly newspaper The Onion carries a groundbreaking feature article on the upcoming season for transplant organ harvest

With spring in full swing and millions of potential organ donors entering the peak season for boating, hiking, and drowning accidents, the nation’s transplanters are predicting a bumper crop in the upcoming harvest, which is welcome news to ailing patients in dire need of organs across America’s liver-, lung-, and heartlands.
[…] “All signs seem to indicate this will be a truly bountiful year for hearts and small intestines,” said third-generation heart surgeon Dr. Thomas Menard, who presides over a five-acre hospital outside Lawrence, KS. “If these intermittent rain showers are sustained through the high-school prom and graduation months, we’re likely to see a windfall of perennial car crashes.”
[…] Besides drought, many previous organ-harvests were also affected by disease and chemical contamination. Imported foreign organs are often found tainted with pesticides, particularly livers from Mexico and Central America.
[…] “These days, you never can tell where you’re getting your organs from,” said Cleveland resident Howard Sullivan, whose body has rejected two transplanted hearts. […] “Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but for me, there’s no substitute for an organic, family-grown heart.”

Read the whole article here

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

More posts by Thomas Söderqvist