Japanese news

I've sort of made it a policy on my blog to write about things I do and see and what I come into contact with daily. But there is news in Japan that actually doesn't touch my life very much but that I find odd or sometimes incredible. Recently in the Japanese newspapers, in the very back pages of the newspaper, there has been news that Japan is thinking about revising their Organ Transplant Law.

Japan is a very modern country. The technological advances are astronomical and I often think that technology in Japan is farther ahead than in America. BUT... So many things get weighed down in caution, in the reluctance to change, in the "what will people think" lifestyle, in the community thinking.

Did you know that that major organ transplant wasn't legalized in Japan until 1997? Isn't that amazing? I mean, Japanese doctors have studied the procedures and performed outstandingly in medical centers around the world and yet they weren't able to perform major organ transplants in their own country because no criteria had been set for what is brain death. It took 20 years before Japanese laws were revised to establish what is and is not brain death.

From 1997 there have been numerous heart transplants. BUT... The original law stipulated that organs could be donated only if the donor's family gave permission AND the donor's documented will showing intent of donation at the time of brain death was submitted. If either of these criteria were missing then organ donation could not proceed.

The problem is that this means that no children's organs may be donated and no children may receive major organ transplants in Japan. (Babies and children can't comprehend nor sign the documented will, right?) And so every couple of months the Japanese news carries another story about a family who is trying to raise donations so that their child may receive an organ transplant and get medical care in the States or in Europe. Sadly most of these situations rarely have a happy ending. There is too much risk taking a weakened child half way around the world, there are too many people on the waiting lists, the medical costs without insurance are too high.

The law says that no one under age 15 may donate organs which means young children diagnosed with heart disease or major organ abnormalities are condemned to wait. Wait until they are old enough. Wait until they die. Wait until Japanese lawmakers revise their transplant laws.

Research, technology, action. We need a little action around here.