BBE/IE: Ian Adams and Anne Hobson (Slate)

[BlameThe1st]

Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse

That's a real headline, folks! The actual article isn't better:

[Self-driving cars] will also change the way we die. As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It's a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences in an unexpected place: organ donation.

Yes, those new-fangled self-driving cars will be a menace to society because less people will be dying in car accidents, and therefore, we'll end up with less organs for transplants!

Seriously, how twisted can you be when you try to spin a potential decline in traffic accidents as a bad thing?

And are we really at risk of losing potential organ donors due to self-driving cars? Even the article itself states that only 1 out of 5 organ donations come from the victim of a car crash. That means the other four do not.

But of course, what can we do if we no longer harvest organs from car crash victims? It's not like we have the technology print organs out of thin air.

Oh wait!

[evensgrey]

I expect that printing organs with the recipients own cells will end up being the norm for most organ replacement, once we finish working out the details.  And we ARE working out the details.  A big one is actually getting the printed cells to finish differentiating and integrating into a functioning organ.  All the indications are it should be fairly straightforward, once we nail down all the chemical gradient signals, which stem cell research is getting to grips with.

[MrBogosity]

I think all the ones they've actually done to date, though, begin with donor organs. They strip off the donor's cells and put the recipient's stem cells on the collagen structure that remains. And they still can't do more complex organs like lungs.

[Travis Retriever]

...And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don't take Slate seriously.  "Oh people won't be dying as much in car accidents?  Think of how many people they have saved by dying and giving people their organs!"

Folks, if you're really that concerned about organ shortages, why not just remove the ban on selling them?  As Shane explained in great detail here:  http://shanedk.deviantart.com/journal/How-to-Argue-for-Universal-Health-Care-474635164