African Americans get the short end of the stick with organ donations, if they get any at all

Today I saw an article on CNN Health that spoke about the likeliness of African Americans to receive kidney donations. According to a study published by the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, African American patients that are waiting for a new organ are less likely to get an organ than non-blacks are (Bardis, 2012). Turns out the likeliness is 35% lower on average, but is known to be 76% lower in some cases (Bardis, 2012). This was not a study conducted overnight; the study surveyed 247,707 adults registered for first-time kidney transplants from 1995 to 2007. Despite the fact that African Americans have a higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes and make up more than one third of those waiting on living donor transplants, they are at lower odds of obtaining an organ transplant" (Bardis, 2012).

Taken from http://www.bevsmithtalks.com/clientfiles/image/100%20black%20men.jpg

It is obvious to me that the problem lies within racial disparities, and what helps constitute these racial disparities could not at all be addressed in this blog. That's a topic to have a whole other blog dedicated to it. But I will say that it is morally and ethically wrong for those in charge to discriminate against African Americans who are waiting for live donors. One thing I would like to ask is if this evidence is all circumstantial--maybe the organs are given on a first-come-first-serve basis. But I find it hard to believe that the first-come-first-serve basis was fairly applied to 813 African Americans out of the 5,771 living donor transplants performed in 2011 (Bardis, 2012). It is too coincidental to me, as is the inexplicable reason for why African Americans only make up 13 or 14% (maybe even 15% now) of the total U.S. population while they make up over 50% of the prison population. But that's a blog entry for another day...on a blog dedicated to race, perhaps, and not bio-ethics.

Reference:

Bardis, O. (2012, June 25). African-americans less likely to receive kidney donation, study shows. Retrieved June 25, 2012, from http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/25/health/african-american-kidney-donation/index.html