The practice of offering one's kidney to a friend, or even a stranger, solely for altruistic purposes is gaining attention. At least three such reports were publicized early this month, ironically at the same time that other potential donors were offering their kidneys to the highest bidders on an online auction service (see "eBay Yanks Kidney Auction").
Among the recent donations:
The Associated Press reported that a 40-year-old woman who lives on $340 a month gave a kidney to a seven-year-old neighbor in December. The woman befriended the boy while she was living with a friend in a public housing unit in Alexandria, Virginia, but she was forced out of the unit in August because the living arrangement was against the rules. The woman moved to a homeless shelter and, after her story was publicized, the office of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo found the woman a townhouse in Washington, D.C., early this month. (See http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9908/31/homeless.samaritan.ap/ and http://cnn.com/US/9909/03/homeless.samaritan.ap/.)
On September 4, the Associated Press also reported that a 50-year-old woman's offer to donate a kidney to a stranger was rejected by a number of transplant centers before the University of Minnesota's hospital accepted the offer. After the woman underwent physical and psychological tests, the hospital decided that the woman was solely motivated by altruism. The transplant took place in August. The donor and recipient were not identified — reportedly, not even to each other.
In early September, a woman from Fort Wayne, Indiana, gave a kidney to a 13-year-old Maryland boy she had met only two weeks before the operation. Surgery took place at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The woman "hopes her story will encourage more people to donate organs," said ABC NewsWire.
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