Chapter 8 Trapped in the trap of organ recruitment

Look, Kate, look over the boardwalk.There are two imposing elders walking side by side by the water.They exude power, majesty, wealth and a sense of self-confidence. He is a judge, a senator or a company manager, it goes without saying.And she—what does she do? —Let’s say an emeritus professor of international law. They walked peacefully towards the square, nodding to passers-by with smiles and gentle manners. How dazzling the sun shines on their silver hair!I could hardly stand the brilliant reflections of color, the brilliance blinding me and stinging my eyes. How old are they, 80, 90 or 100?From such a distance, they looked very young - tall and straight, with a straight waist, and people would believe that they were only fifty or sixty years old.But I can tell their ages.Their self-confidence and demeanor mark their current identities.If they came closer, I could see their shrunken cheeks and sunken eyes.That's something that makeup and plastic surgery can't cover up.These two are old enough to be our old grandpas and grandmas.

Kate, they were over 60 years old even before we were born.Their bodies function perfectly.But why not?We can guess their health care history.She had at least three hearts and he was using a fourth lung.Every five years they reapply their kidneys, their skeletons are strengthened with hundreds of bones taken from the arms and thighs of unfortunate young men, and their blunted sense organs are given nerve grafts obtained in the same way With help, their aging arteries were newly covered with smooth Teflon.They are nothing more than movable transferable human organs assembled together, and synthetic or mechanical substitute organs are dotted here and there.

So what about me or you?At 19, I'm vulnerable.In their eyes, I'm just a bunch of healthy organs for their needs.Come here, boy.What a handsome, tall young man you are!can you give me a kidneyOne lung?A good piece of intestine? 10 cm long nerve?I need pieces of your body, lad.You will not say no.something a noble leader like me would ask for, right?right? Today, as I hit buttons for my morning mail as usual, my recruiting letter—a rattling, dainty-looking badge—jumped out of the data slot. I've been looking forward to it all spring, and now it's here.I didn't feel surprised or surprised, but felt that things suddenly became ordinary.I had to report to the transplant office in six weeks for a final physical—and that was just a routine.

They wouldn't have recruited me if I hadn't already been high-ranked as a potential organ banker—so I prepared to be called. The typical call time is about two months.By the fall they'll cut me open. Eat, drink, be merry, the surgeon will be at your door soon. A group of idle high-ranking citizens is on alert to surround the central headquarters of the Body Holy League.It was a counter-demonstration, an anti-transplant protest, and the worst kind of political manifesto fed by the nastiest negativity. The demonstrators held up flaming placards that read: The body is sacred— Or physical selfishness?

and: you owe your leaders a liver as well as: Hear the voice of experience The vigilant people are low-level high-level personnel who have just reached the qualification line, and some people who are not really sure about enjoying organ transplants.No wonder they're furious at the league.Some of them were in wheelchairs, others were in boxes on active life support up to their eyebrows.They shouted foul language at the top of their lungs and shook their fists.I watched the show from a window above the Union Building, shuddering with fear and disappointment.These people don't just want my kidneys or my lungs, they want my eyes, my liver, my pancreas, my heart, everything they need.

I discussed this with my father.He is 45 years old, he is too old, and he will not be harmed by the organ recruitment, but he is not old enough to need an organ transplant.This, so to speak, puts him in a position of indifference.There was only one exception: his organ transplant rating was 5-G.On the list of organs suitable for transplantation, the qualifications are quite high.While not top priority, it's pretty close.If he fell ill tomorrow and the transplant board ruled that his life would be threatened if he didn't get a new heart, a new lung or a new kidney, he would immediately get it.Being in such a position would simply affect his objective attitude towards the entire organ transplant issue.

Anyway, I told him I was going to appeal or boycott. "Be sensible," he said, "act in moderation and don't let your emotions get to your head. Is it worth it to let one thing ruin your entire career? Not all are recruited for their organs, after all." All vital organs will be lost." "Then show me the statistics," I said, "show me." He doesn't know the statistics.His impression was that only 114 or 115 conscripts were actually called to donate organs.This shows that the older generation is closely connected with reality—and my father is an educated man, good at expressing his thoughts, and has a wide range of knowledge and knowledge.None of the thirty-five-year-old peepers I've talked to can come up with statistics.So, I showed them the statistics.It is true that the statistics are in the Bodily Sacred Coalition pamphlet, but they are based on written reports from the National Institutes of Health.No one is exempt from enlistment.As long as you meet the standard, they will always kill you.The demand for young organs is growing relentlessly to match the available organ power pools.In the end, they don't leave anyone alone, they chop us up to pieces.This is probably what they envisioned: eating us distressingly piece by piece through their own decaying bodies, slaughtering us over and over again, lung by lung, pancreas by pancreas. Young members of the species are wiped out.

On March 23, 1963, a dog's liver was removed and replaced with a liver provided by an unrelated mongrel dog.He was treated with azathioprine for 4 months and then stopped all treatment.After the organ transplant, the dog lived healthy for 6 years and 9 months. The war is still going on.I remember it was the 14th year.Now, of course, they are no longer killing.They haven't faced each other on the ground since about 1993.Certainly not even once since the organ recruitment law went into effect.No longer can the old lose the bodies of the young in battle.So robots fight in our stead, banging their heads here and there with a loud metallic clang; they lay mines, pull sensors toward the enemy, dig tunnels under enemy barriers, and so on and on.Plus, of course, paramilitary actions—economic sanctions, 3rd-kinetic blockades, overwhelming televised broadcasts from ruthless orbiting satellites, and the like.It was a more elusive war than any they had waged before: there were no deaths.But it still consumes national resources.This year the tax has been raised again, and it has been five or six years in a row, and because of the copper shortage, they have just imposed a peacetime surcharge on metal-containing goods.We once hoped that the lunatic leader might die, or at least retire for health reasons, hobbled off to the country house with ulcers, shingles, mange, or hesitation, leaving the new conciliatory spirit person to take over.Yet now, they -- our senators, our cabinet members, our generals, and our policymakers -- live on, never die, never wake up.Their war—the absurd, incomprehensible, brutal, self-satisfying war—went on, too.

I know people who have fled for political asylum to Belgium, Sweden or Paraguay and countries that have passed bodily sanctification laws.They were my age, or slightly older.There are about twenty such countries, half of which are the most progressive and half of which are the most reactionary.But what's the point of running away?I don't want to live in exile.I'm going to stay here and fight. Naturally, they did not require conscripts to donate hearts, livers, or other vital organs, such as the medulla oblongata.It has not yet reached the stage where the Government thinks it can enact lethal recruitment laws.Twin, non-indivisible organs such as the kidneys and lungs have so far remained the main targets of enlistment.However, if you study the history of enlistment over the generations, you can see that enlistment has always arced from the legitimate need to the downright insane.They always go from fingers to arms, from inches to whole intestines.Take my word for it, in 50 years they'll be recruiting your heart, stomach, and brain; if they master brain transplants, no one's head will be spared.That would be another human sacrifice.The only difference between us and the Aztecs is that we have anesthesia, antiseptics, and aseptic techniques, and we dig out the hearts of our victims not with obsidian knives, but with scalpels.

[①Mexican Indians. 】 overcoming allogeneic rejection Immune allogeneic rejection is common.From discovering this reaction to eliminating it is a difficult journey.This therapeutically aimed means of eliminating this response, although effective, is by no means satisfactory.This is an interesting question.We can only describe briefly. Immunobiology appeared in 1950. It discovered various means of attenuating and eliminating the recipient's response to allografts—such as: nonlethal doses of whole body X-ray irradiation, certain adrenocorticoids, especially adrenocorticoid therapy.This discovery started to have an impact on the main direction of research and led to the belief that a clinically viable solution is not far away. In the late 1950s, powerful immunosuppressive drugs such as 6-thiopurine were shown to halt the dog's response to allogeneic implants.It was not long before this principle was successfully applied to humans.

Is my resistance to organ recruitment based on a vague, deep-seated distaste for tyranny of all kinds, or is it simply a desire to keep individual bodies intact?The reason may be both.Do I need to ideally justify it?Don't we have the inalienable right to keep the kidneys we were born with throughout life? Recruitment laws are passed by the government of the elderly.It is certain that all laws prejudicial to the welfare of the young are made by old, sickly old men.They suffered from angina, atherosclerosis, funnel prolapse, fulminant ventriculitis, and vasodilation.The problem is that not enough young people are dying in traffic accidents, successful suicides, diving mistakes, electrocution, and soccer injuries; hence the shortage of organs available for transplant.Efforts to reinstate the death penalty for an ongoing supply of dead bodies under state control have failed in court.The implementation of the voluntary organ donation program is also unsatisfactory, since most organ donors are executed criminals.They signed to donate their organs in order to obtain early release from prison: 5 years for a lung, 3 years for a kidney, and so on.Under this provision, released prisoners were not popular with suburban residents.Meanwhile, the need for organs is dire and growing; indeed, many elderly people will die if something is not done quickly.So a coalition of 4-party senators forced the House of Lords to adopt organ recruitment laws under the threat of obstruction by a handful of youth-friendly senators.This legislation passed easily in the House of Representatives, because no one in the House paid any attention to the provisions of the bill requiring a vote, and about this bill, it was rumored that if passed, any politically attractive People at the age of 65 can expect to live another 20 or 30 years.For a representative, this means being able to serve 10 to 15 consecutive terms in the blink of an eye.Of course, the court objected, but what good was that?The average age of the Supreme Court's 11 justices is 78.They are mortals, and they are bound to die.They need our flesh and blood.If they ditch the organ harvesting law now, they are signing their own doom. I was president of the anti-organ recruitment movement for a year in college.We are the 6th or 7th local chapter organized in the country by the Body Sacred Coalition, and we are veritable activists.The main event was a parade back and forth in front of the offices of the Organ Recruitment Commission, holding placards that read: Protect the function of the kidney and: The body is the fortress of man and: power to recruit organs the power to destroy life However, I have never taken violent actions like bombing an organ transplant center or hijacking a refrigerated truck.Peaceful agitation, this is our motto.Once, two members wanted us to move to a more drastic approach, and I made a two-hour extemporaneous statement arguing for the case for moderate action.Needless to say, as soon as I met the conditions, I was recruited. "I understand your hostility to enlistment," said my college advisor. "It is of course normal to feel uneasy about surrendering a vital organ. However, you should consider the compensation it entails." Once you donate an organ, you will be included in the 6-A level, become the priority recipient, and will always be included in the 6.A roster. Of course you understand, this means that even if you personally and Other occupational qualifications do not meet the standards (for example, your future cannot meet the predetermined goals and you become a manual laborer). Once you need an organ transplant yourself, you will automatically have the right to enjoy an organ transplant. Generally speaking , if you have a heart attack. You will not be the first to receive patronage, but your priority recipient status will save you. You will be regenerated, my child." I pointed out the fallacy inherent in the matter.As the number of applicants grows—which will include most or even the entire population—eventually, everyone achieves 6-A priority recipient status as a result of organ donation. What's the use of losing any meaning?As the health of donors deteriorates, everyone is betting on organ transplant rights, which will eventually lead to a shortage of organs available for transplant.At that point, they will have to rank according to personal and professional accomplishments in order to decide who comes first in the 6-A class.We will be back where we are now. Disease course in patients receiving antilymphocyte globulin (ALG) therapy before and during the first 4 months after renal allograft transplantation.The organ donor is the elder brother of the patient.No early rejection occurred.Prednisone therapy was started 40 days after surgery.After the globulin therapy was stopped, the late rejection suddenly appeared without knowing it.This response was treated with steroids, with the dose slowly escalated within the maintenance dose.This treatment delayed the onset of complications in only 2 of 20 family implants treated with ALG.In subsequent case observations, the ratio was roughly the same. (Originally published in "Obstetrics and Gynecology" No. 126, 1968, p. 1023, quoted above with permission.) So, today I arrived at the organ transplant department on time for a physical examination.Several of my friends thought it was a mistake for me to report for duty.If you want to resist, they say, you should resist at every point of the process.In purely ideal (and ideological) terms, I think they are right.Waiting for them to say, "We need your kidneys, young man." At that point, if I finally choose to boycott that route, I can boycott it. (Why am I vacillating? Am I not completely convinced that the whole organ recruitment system is unfair? I don’t know if it’s fair. I’m not even sure if I’m vacillating. Going to check in for a physical doesn’t really mean betraying this system.) I finally went.They knock here with their hands.Take an X-ray there, and look elsewhere.Please open your mouth.Please bend over.Please cough.Please extend your left arm.They told me to walk in front of a set of diagnostic machines, and I stood there waiting for the red light to flash - crooked, let's go! —However, as expected, I am in good health and eligible for enlistment.Then I met Kate, and we walked hand in hand in the park, watching the sunset, and discussing what I would do if the order was given, and when it did.real?That's wishful thinking, boy! If your number is called, then you're exempt from military service, and they'll give you a special bonus of $750 a year in tax savings.Wonderful!Go to the previous page of the catalog of this book and the next page to bookmark this book Another thing they are proud of is the voluntary donation program of duplicate organs.This has nothing to do with enlistment.Recruitment—at least so far—has only been done in pairs, that is, organs that would not be life-threatening if donated.In the past 20 years, you can walk into any hospital in the United States, sign a simple transfer form, and let the surgeon operate on you.Eyes, lungs, heart, intestines, pancreas, liver -- any organ, you can give them all.This approach is often called the suicide of simpler times.Especially in the era of labor shortage, it was opposed by society.Now we have a surplus of labor, and although our population has grown very slowly since the middle of this century, the development of mechanized devices and processes to replace labor has been rather rapid, even exponentially.Such a voluntary total contribution is therefore considered the most effective meritorious service to society.It removes young healthy bodies from the workforce while ensuring that the supply of vital organs for older politicians is not relatively diminished.Of course, if you want to donate voluntarily, you must be crazy, but in our society, there is never a shortage of crazy people. If by some fluke you're not drafted at 21, you're safe.People tell me that some people have been in and out of the snare.We now have more patients in need of transplant in the full enlisted pool.But the ratio is changing rapidly.Recruitment legislation is relatively new legislation, relatively speaking.Before long, they'll be drying up the pool of qualified conscripts, so what then?Birth rates are now low; the number of potential conscripts is limited.The death rate is still lower; and the demand for organs is insatiable.If I were to live, I could only give you one kidney; however, since you keep on living, you may need more than one kidney transplant.Some recipients may need five or six sets of kidneys and lungs until they end up living to around the age of 170 with no hope of repairing them.And because organ donors also start to requisition organs later in life, the pressure on those under 21 will be even greater.The number of people in need of transplants will exceed the number of people able to donate organs, and everyone in the pool of candidates will be slaughtered.and then?Well, they lowered the enlistment age to 17, or 16, or even 14.Even so, that's only a short-term fix.Sooner or later there will not be enough donated organs to be allocated. Should I stay, run away, or go to court?Time is running out.In a few weeks, the order will surely come.I couldn't help but feel an unbearable feeling on my spine, as if someone was sawing my kidneys silently. Cannibalism.At the beginning of this century, paleoanthropologists excavated a cave in Zhoukoudian, Longgu Mountain, 25 miles southeast of Beijing, and discovered skull fossils of Peking Man (Pithacanthro-pus Pekinensis).The skull was fractured from the bottom.This led Franz Weidenrich, the director of the Longgushan excavation, to speculate that the Pekingese were cannibals.The Pekingese killed their own kind, sucked the brains of their victims out through openings at the base of the skull, cooked them to a feast—there was a stove and charcoal on site—and placed the skulls as trophies in caves.Eat the flesh of your enemy to absorb his skills, powers, knowledge, achievements and virtues. It took humans 500,000 years to escape our cannibalism.But we haven't lost our old cravings, have we?It is still safe to gobble up those who are younger, stronger, and quicker than you, in order to gain a profit.We just improved the technology.So now they eat us raw, the old ones, they swallow us, organ after organ throbbing.Is this an improvement? At least, Beijingers still eat their meat cooked. In our wonderful new society, we all share in the fruits of medicine equally.Those elder citizens who have done a great job need not consider that their virtue and reputation will be rewarded only with cold graves--we have always praised graves.Everyone is very happy about the organ recruitment—with the exception of a few disappointing recruits, of course. The tricky part is the issue of priority.Who gets the stored organs?They have an elaborate system for specifying grades.If a large computer is used to draw lots, absolute and magical justice can be guaranteed.You get rescued with good grades at work, professional grades or daily good deeds that get you up the ladder to get you up the ladder, all the way to the highest priority level, to a 4-G or higher.Needless to say, the grading system is unbiased and fairly graded.But is this grading justified?Why does it serve the needs of people?In 1943, during World War II, American military personnel in North Africa were short of the newly invented drug penicillin.There are two groups of soldiers that need to be treated with it: those who are wounded in battle and become infected, and those with venereal diseases.A lowly medical officer decides, on obvious moral principles, that the wounded hero is more in need of treatment than the indulgent syphilitic.However, the responsible medical officer overruled his decision.He said that if people with STDs were treated, they would recover faster to fight.Moreover, if they do not receive treatment, they can become vectors for further infection.So, he gave penicillin to venereal patients, and let the wounded soldiers lie on the bed and groan in pain.The logic on the battlefield is immutable and unquestionable. The great chain of life.Small plankton are eaten by large plankton, which are prey to small fish, which are prey to large fish, and so on down to tuna, dolphins and sharks.I eat dolphin flesh, and thereby grow strong and vigorous, fatten myself, and store up my energies in vital organs.But I was eaten again by the withered elders.All life is connected.I saw where I belonged. Early on, rejection of the implanted organs was a major problem.What a waste!The body cannot distinguish between an alien but beneficial organ and an invading, hostile microbe.A mechanism called the immune response is mobilized to drive out the invader.At the moment of invasion, enzymes are at work, waging a local war aimed at shredding and melting foreign matter.White blood cells flood into the fray through the circulatory system, and alert phagocytes march forward.From the lymphatic network came antibodies, high-energy protein missiles. Measures to counteract the immune response must be found before organ transplant technology can develop.Drugs, radiation therapy, and metabolic shock—it's either one or the other. Organ rejection has long been overcome.However, I couldn't get over my enlistment rejection.Aged, greedy legislators, I reject you and your legislation. My summons has come.Just today.They need one of my kidneys.This is a commonplace requirement. "You're lucky," someone said at lunch, "they could have had a lung." Kate and I went for walks in the lush green hills, standing among blooming oleanders, wilts and plumerias.How good it is to live, to breathe this fragrance, to expose the body to the bright sunshine!Her skin glowed a tawny.Her beauty makes me weep.She was not spared, and none of us were spared.First it's me, then it's her turn?Maybe she's ahead of me?Where did they get their knives from?On her smooth, rounded back?Or on her flat, firm belly? I could glimpse the noble priest standing on the altar.The first rays of dawn cast his shadow upon her.An obsidian knife was held in the raised hand, which flickered terribly like fire.The choir sang incongruous hymns to the blood god.The knife is falling. This is my last chance to escape the border.I stayed up all night, weighing the pros and cons.I have no hope of appealing.Running away made my mouth feel bad.Fathers, friends, even Kate said stay, stay, stay, be brave.This is the moment of choice. Do I really have a choice?There is no choice left.When the time comes, I will obediently surrender. I reported to the Department of Organ Transplantation, and three hours later the recruitment and donation operation took place. "In the end," he said calmly, "what's so great about a kidney." You know, I have another one.If that one fails, I can replace it in any case.I will receive 6-A priority recipient status.I understand what's going on with the priority system, and I'd better protect myself. I want to be politically active.I want to climb up.For enlightened self-interest, I want to acquire the ability to move up the ladder. right? correct.I'm going to be so important that society owes me 1000 transplants.Someday, I will get that kidney back, 3, 4 or 50 kidneys, as many as I need.Ask for a heart or two, lungs, a pancreas, a spleen and a liver.It is impossible for them to refuse any request from me.I'm going to give them some color.I want to give them some color!I will defeat the elders. But what about you activist of the Body-Holy League, huh?I think that would have to be out of the league. Goodbye, idealism! Farewell, moral supremacy! Goodbye, kidneys! Bye, bye, bye! The surgery is done.I paid my debt to society.I surrender my humble pound of flesh to the mighty. When I leave the hospital in a few days, I will be carrying a card certifying my new 6,A grades. The rest of my life is the highest priority. Oh, I might live 1000 years. Translated by Li Zixiu