Stardate 20010802.1447 (On Screen): Given the perennial shortage of organs suitable for transplantation, it makes sense that such organs as do become available should be used in the people who will get the greatest benefit out of them. Given a choice between an 85 year old man and a 25 year old man, all other things being equal one would choose the younger patient simply because it's likely that even with the transplant the old person will die soon anyway, whereas a successful transplant in the younger person could extend life fifty years.
By the same token, I would object to a transplantation to any person with incurable cancer. My father died of cancer and among other things it consumed his liver. At that time transplants weren't possible, but even if they had been, a transplant for him would have been useless because his pancreas was also gone and he had cancer elsewhere in his body. He ultimately died because of liver failure, but if it hadn't been that it would have been something else.
So though I have a great deal of sympathy for people who are HIV positive, I also don't think that they are suitable candidates for transplantation surgery. It is true that modern drug treatment can extend life for such people, but even with that they're still going to die sooner (and become disabled sooner) than would someone who doesn't have the disease. It's not that I think that a transplant can't help someone with HIV; it's that I think that same organ would help someone else even more, and there aren't enough to go around. (discuss)
