Nathan Exposed » Getting HIV from an Organ Transplant

Here’s a touchy topic.

Four patients in Chicago were infected with HIV after receiving organ transplants from a donor that was positive. This is the first time someone in the U.S. has been infected from an organ transplant since 1994.

It turns out the person who was infected contracted the virus 3 weeks before dying. So at the time of death, the virus did not show up on tests. As a result, the organs were then given to the four people who needed them.

The article was published on Gay.com and has received some pretty heated comments. There are multiple ways to look at this.

Optimists say that the four people should just be grateful to be alive. People die everyday while waiting for an organ donor, so they should just consider themselves to be survivors, even though they now have HIV. I guess that’s a very nice way to look at life, considering how precious it is. And it is true, most people would rather be alive with HIV than to have died waiting for an organ.

However, other people (I won’t call them pessimists because it sounds too harsh) think it’s very upsetting. These four people thought they were going to get a new chance at healthiness, only to discover that now they will need to keep track of the virus. They can still be “healthy”, but let’s face it… nobody wants news like this.

It’s a difficult thing and I guess the four people might fall into either category above. Whatever the case, it’s happened and it can’t be taken back.

The best we can do is continuously try to find a cure, and also improve our testing so that we can detect it sooner.

Wed, Nov 14, 2007 @ 6:49 pm | Filed in Life | Permalink

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