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Sat 3 May, 2008 09:02 am
Medical marijuana user, denied liver transplant, dies
Hepatitis patient was turned down over his medical use of the drug
SEATTLE ?- A man who was denied a liver transplant because he used marijuana with medical approval to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C has died.
Timothy Garon, 56, died Thursday at Bailey-Boushay House, an intensive care nursing center, said his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, and Alisha Mark, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center, which operates Bailey-Boushay.
His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list.
The case highlights an ethical consideration for those allocating organs for transplant: whether using cannabis with a doctor's blessing should be held against a dying patient.
The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation's transplant system, leaves it to hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.
At some, people who use "illicit substances" ?- including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it ?- are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.
Dr. Brad Roter, who authorized Garon to smoke cannabis to alleviate nausea and abdominal pain and to stimulate his appetite, said he did not know it would be such a hurdle if Garon were to need a transplant.
Garon said he believed he contracted hepatitis C by sharing needles with "speed freaks" as a teenager. In recent years, he said cannabis has been the only drug he used.
I'm gonna have to come down on the side on the transplant committee.
While it's not the man's fault that his doctor was unaware of the rule, the transplant committee presumably knows far more about the likely outcome of the surgery than we do.
It is the doctor's responsibility to know. Ignorance is no excuse.
All I know is that is fuked.
The fact that the doc can prescribe it, yet it is illegal. Ok, that makes sense how?
The fact that the doc didn't take into account his wanting to be on a waiting list, and took so little responsibility. That's fuked.
The fact that this man, people in general, die waiting to get on a list..are denied...or die waiting on the list.
Most fuked is that this all probably a way of twisting the fact that he was 'de-prioritized' because he was once a drug user.
There might very well be a good sound medical reason why the man was "high risk" as a transplant recipient. Probably, ...I want to hope that.
Still, it is brutal the way it works for some people. Costing them their life.
AT LEAST HE FOUND A WAY to enjoy his weed and get some food down, and hopefully have a better quality of life while he could.
Weed can be quite useful when not abused .
The background of this patient is scant (at least in this article). While I feel physical pain for the patient and his family, I also know that livers for transplant are scarce. Doctors sort of triage the requests for transplants and the candidates who will survive most successfully will get the livers.
Would the liver have cleared his hepatitis? Would a new liver have cured him?
From
Quote:The UW Medical Center declined to talk about Garon's case specifically, but released a statement saying: "Although medical marijuana may be an issue in rare cases, it is never the sole determinant in arriving at medical decisions about candidates for organ transplants, and whether a patient is listed. Patients with a reasonable chance of survival and a good outcome, given a variety of factors, are listed."
The statement also noted that there are about 98,000 patients waiting for organs in the United States and only 6,000 donors available.
.......
Many doctors agree that using marijuana ?- smoking it, especially ?- is out of the question post-transplant. The drugs patients take to help their bodies accept a new organ increase the risk of aspergillosis, a frequently fatal infection caused by a common mold found in marijuana and tobacco.
this article
Exactly, littlek.
It's not like there are enough livers to go around and he was denied.
They are forced to make tough choices. It's sad.
Sometimes the littlest thing can make or break it.
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