Organ shortage is an ongoing problem in many countries. The needless death and suffering which have resulted necessitate an investigation into potential solutions. This examination of contemporary ethical means, both practical and policy-oriented, of reducing the shortfall in organs draws on the experiences of a range of countries. The authors focus on the resolution and negotiation of ethical conflict, examine systems approaches such as the 'Spanish model' and the US Breakthrough Collaboratives, evaluate policy proposals relating to incentives, presumed consent, and modifications regarding end-of-life care, and evaluate the greatly increased use of (non-heart-beating) donors suffering circulatory death, as well as living donors. The proposed strategies and solutions are not only capable of resolving the UK's own organ-shortage crisis, but also of being implemented in other countries grappling with how to address the growing gap between supply and demand for organs.

Nearly 120,000 people are in need of healthy organs in the United States.. Every ten minutes a new name is added to this list, while each day eight people die waiting for an organ to become available. Worse, the gap between those in need of an organ and the number of available donors is growing: our traditional reliance on cadaveric organ donation is insufficient, and in recent years there has been a decline in the number of living donors as well as in the percentage of living donors relative to overall kidney donors. Some transplant surgeons and policy advocates suggest a market solution and legalizing the sale of organs, Andrew Michael Flescher objects to this approach, citing concerns about social justice, commodification, and patient safety. Given that, what is the most efficacious means of attracting prospective living kidney donors? Flescher, drawing on scores of interviews with donors and patients, suggests that inculcating a sense of altruism and civic duty is a more effective means of increasing donor participation than purely financial incentives. He encourages individuals to spend time with patients on dialysis, advocating donor "chains" in order to facilitate relationships between donors and recipients, and creating sacred spaces in hospitals such as a "wall of heroes" to recognize those who sacrifice their body parts for others.

Nearly 120,000 people are in need of healthy organs in the United States. Every ten minutes a new name is added to the list, while on average twenty people die each day waiting for an organ to become available. Worse, our traditional reliance on cadaveric organ donation is becoming increasingly insufficient, and in recent years there has been a decline in the number of living donors as well as in the percentage of living donors relative to overall kidney donors. Some transplant surgeons and policy advocates have responded to this shortage by arguing for the legalization of the sale of organs among living donors. Andrew Flescher objects to this approach by going beyond concerns traditionally cited about social justice, commodification, and patient safety, and moving squarely onto the terrain of discussing what motivates major and costly acts of human selflessness. What is the most efficacious means of attracting prospective living kidney donors? Flescher, drawing on literature in the fields of moral psychology and economics, as well as on scores of interviews with living donors, suggests that inculcating a sense of altruism and civic duty is a more effective means of increasing donor participation than the resort to financial incentives. He encourages individuals to spend time with patients on dialysis in order to become acquainted with their plight and, as an alternative to lump-sum payments, consider innovative solutions that positively impact living donor participation that do not undermine the spirit of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. This book not only re-examines the important debate over whether to allow the sale of organs; it is also the first volume in the field to take a close look at alternative solutions to the organ shortage crisis.

Rates of organ donation lag far behind the increasing need. At the start of 2006, more than 90,000 people were waiting to receive a solid organ (kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, heart, or intestine). Organ Donation examines a wide range of proposals to increase organ donation, including policies that presume consent for donation as well as the use of financial incentives such as direct payments, coverage of funeral expenses, and charitable contributions. This book urges federal agencies, nonprofit groups, and others to boost opportunities for people to record their decisions to donate, strengthen efforts to educate the public about the benefits of organ donation, and continue to improve donation systems. Organ Donation also supports initiatives to increase donations from people whose deaths are the result of irreversible cardiac failure. This book emphasizes that all members of society have a stake in an adequate supply of organs for patients in need, because each individual is a potential recipient as well as a potential donor.

The Organ Broker, named one of five finalists for the 2015 Hammett Prize for literary excellence in the field of crime writing (winner TBA in October of 2016), is the thrilling story of an underground black market organ dealer known as “New York Jack.” For eighteen years Jack has been a “transplant tourism director,” sending wealthy Americans and Europeans in need of kidneys and other organs to third world countries where they would buy them from transplant centers on the take. The death of a client and a newfound relationship lead to a crisis of conscience as he is forced to choose between a two million dollar commission—and participating in a murder. Jack races to South Africa, Brazil, and beyond, just one step ahead of his adversary and the FBI, in search of one small act of redemption. As a disaffected youth in the late eighties, Jack Trayner entered the criminal world, selling coke when he needed money to pay his way through college. Although he later graduated from law school, an opportunity to earn easy money eventually seduced him into the bizarre and illegal black market for organs—a business that some consider horrendous and a small number of others deem to be heroic. The dual nature of this business assuaged Jack’s guilt and allowed him to flourish, yet the death of a client makes what he is doing all too real. The Organ Broker represents Jack’s confession. The international black market sale of organs is very real and operates at this very moment behind closed hospital doors in many cities all around the world. It is a world that most people are only vaguely aware exists, and few of us know much, if anything, about, until now—in the pages of the confession of New York Jack. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

If most Americans accept the notion that the market is the most efficient means to distribute resources, why should body parts be excluded? Each year thousands of people die waiting for organ transplants. Many of these deaths could have been prevented were it not for the almost universal moral hand-wringing over the concept of selling human organs. Kidney for Sale by Owner, now with a new preface, boldly deconstructs the roadblocks that are standing in the way of restoring health to thousands of people. Author and bioethicist Mark Cherry reasserts the case that health care could be improved and lives saved by introducing a regulated transplant organs market rather than by well-meant, but misguided, prohibitions.