Young Man Denied Heart Transplant Because He's Autistic

Post Reply New Topic

Paul Corby has now made it into the lead stories on cbsnews.com as of today here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-574 ... adult-son/

But that's not valid reasoning because autistic people are not "defective". All of us here know about the many great autistics who have given amazing things to society; Einstein, Thomas Edison, etc. besides, even if autistics were somehow defective, how is eliminating them to make room for "normal" people any different than Hitler's extermination of disabled people in WW2? I think we can all agree that that was a terrible, horrible, godawful thing to do, but how is it any different than letting a disabled person die in order to give a normal person a heart transplant? It's not fair, and it's discrimination any way you look at it.

I believe this is more about a person on Medicare and Medicaid than anything else. If this man was Spielberg's son, all this would probably be a non issue. There would be money for private RNs to watch Paul while he was in ICU, there would be no issue in placing him in a rehabilitation situation. No issues on what medications could be giving, because that runs about $2K-$4K per month. Whoever does transplant Paul, will be eating a big chunk of his treatment costs. Health care isn't a right. It's a business.

People get denied for transplants all the time. If your insurance doesn't want to pay for that bone marrow transplant, guess what, you better start fund raising. You are homeless because of lack of income; you aren't getting transplanted either.

I'm also guessing because Paul is not a rag a muffin, 9 year old, no one gives a sh*t. There's no cute pictures on mom's lap. No heart tug stories. Just a man with Autism/Mental health issues, who isn't married (no tearful spouse), no kids (crying kids make great copy), so how can you spin his story into PR fuzzies?

Almost all the Autism support/advocacy groups BARELY acknowledge that there are adults with Autism. If they don't, why should anyone else think Autistic Adults' lives are equally valuable and deserve treatment consideration?

Some hospital will probably put him on the list, but that is no guarantee for transplantation. If the surgeon thinks the heart would be better suited for another patient, due to size (whatever), when he actually gets a visual on the heart, Paul is SOL.

I doubt it will be Mayo. It is ultra fussy with their oncology patients, on who they will treat. I can't picture them being any different with transplant candidates.

This case really bothered me, I'm glad it seems like he will hopefully end up getting a transplant. This sort of blatant discrimination should not be legal.

I did not know this about the Mayo Clinic and this is disappointing. If it's because another facility is better in a particular area, that's one thing. But because Mayo is really good, my guess is that they're engaging in cherrypicking.

Now, I want to be clear. I am optimistic that Paul will eventually get on a transplant list at another facility. But that's different than actually getting a new heart. There are more people on the transplant list than there are hearts available.

Autism Transplant Denial Sparks Debate
Page 2 of 2, Aug. 15, 2012
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/autistic-m ... 152&page=2
“ . . . As of 7:54 a.m. this morning, there were 114,852 people on the national list, according to the UNOS website. From January to May of this year, 11,468 transplants were performed, it said. . . ”

Technically this is a double post because I posted a message in the general discussion section asking people to sign this petition.

http://www.change.org/petitions/help-my ... TUPCvDxgMw

Thanks people.

Yet another step back when it comes to treating autistics fairly. F**k that doctor. It's like she's decided that having autism equals not worth living. Pisses me off (telling by my language, you could probably already tell).