Lower house OKs bill to scrap age limit for organ transplants

Thursday 18th June, 11:00 AM JST

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12 Comments

irishosaru at 07:45 AM JST - 18th June

Plan A proposes that brain death be recognized as legal death with no exception

Anybody want Kunio Hatoyama's heart?
cow76 at 10:10 AM JST - 18th June

Why would you have an age limit at all? Don't babies with collapsed lungs deserve organs as much as middle-aged alcoholics who have worn out their livers?
wibble at 10:43 AM JST - 18th June

Should be the business only of the deceased, unless they have not specified an intent then legal family should decide. Death is brain death.

If I want to be an organ donor, no-one should be able to refuse that request.

There should be no age limit.
gogogo at 01:06 PM JST - 18th June

Why is there an age limit in the first place? Its so stupid
Informed at 03:25 PM JST - 18th June

Be prepared to see news stories about kidnapped and butchered kids. It is now legal to traffic the body parts of children. People short on cash will start seeing kids in the playground as walking bags of money. Brilliant.
womanforwomen at 03:36 PM JST - 18th June

You are so right Informed. Hope they will have some sort of measure to protect the innocent children from potentila criminals. But some good news, people short on cash are now thinking that they should keep their pride aside and do some part-time job which they think were demeaning.
kirakira25 at 05:07 PM JST - 18th June

resulting in a trend in which patients travel abroad for transplants.

If they can afford it - the rest die.

About bloody time too - Japan has to be the only "developed" country in the world where it's residents have no choice but to travel abroad for transplants. My friends little nephew is sitting in hospital right now aged only 7 months waiting for a kidney that may never come. 81 transplants in 12 years is a shocking statistic.
Fadamor at 10:00 PM JST - 18th June

Informed and womanforwomen,

How, exactly, would those illegally obtained organs be used in hospitals? Do you think hospitals get their organs from EBay? There is a distinct paper-trail tied to each organ used so they can notify the organ recipient if a problem is discovered with the donor after the transplant is complete. Any legitimate doctor is not going to use an organ whose source is, "Ummm, I don't know! I came into work this morning and there it was!" The only doctors that would use "sold" organs are ALREADY doing so - this law wouldn't change that.
Starviking at 10:38 PM JST - 18th June

And now they have to train a whole generation of transplant surgeons and their teams - shouldn't take more than 5 or 10 years!
usaexpat at 12:01 AM JST - 19th June

Good move except it's pretty hard to find donor organs. Why in the world would there have been an age limit in first place? If you're at the point of needing a transplant it's pretty much that or death so the risk is meaningless.
Icewind007 at 03:03 AM JST - 19th June

Be prepared to see news stories about kidnapped and butchered kids. It is now legal to traffic the body parts of children. People short on cash will start seeing kids in the playground as walking bags of money. Brilliant.

Was that a joke or do you really think someone can really waltz into a hospital with a dead kid in hand and not be a little suspicious. Also, there isn't any news I've heard of someone taking out anyone OLDER than 15 and trying to sell off their parts...

Having an age limit is pretty ridiculous. In our modern times, it's practically a death sentence for anyone not able to accept an adult organ.
zaichik at 07:52 AM JST - 19th June

No age limit on transplants in e.g. the UK, and there certainly hasn't been a rash of people snatching kids to steal their organs.