1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910824845703321

Autore

Healy Kieran Joseph <1973->

Titolo

Last best gifts [[electronic resource] ] : altruism and the market for human blood and organs / / Kieran Healy

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2006

ISBN

1-282-73843-7

9786612738432

0-226-32238-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (208 p.)

Disciplina

362.17/84

Soggetti

Procurement of organs, tissues, etc

Procurement of organs, tissues, etc - Economic aspects - United States

Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc - Economic aspects - United States

Tissue banks - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-183) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Exchange in Human Goods -- 2. Making a Gift -- 3. The Logistics of Altruism -- 4. Collection Regimes and Donor Populations -- 5. Organizations and Obligations -- 6. Managing Gifts, Making Markets -- Appendix: Data Sources and Methods -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

More than any other altruistic gesture, blood and organ donation exemplifies the true spirit of self-sacrifice. Donors literally give of themselves for no reward so that the life of an individual-often anonymous-may be spared. But as the demand for blood and organs has grown, the value of a system that depends solely on gifts has been called into question, and the possibility has surfaced that donors might be supplemented or replaced by paid suppliers. Last Best Gifts offers a fresh perspective on this ethical dilemma by examining the social organization of blood and organ donation in Europe and the United States. Gifts of blood and organs are not given everywhere in the same way or to the same extent-contrasts that allow Kieran Healy to uncover



the pivotal role that institutions play in fashioning the contexts for donations. Procurement organizations, he shows, sustain altruism by providing opportunities to give and by producing public accounts of what giving means. In the end, Healy suggests, successful systems rest on the fairness of the exchange, rather than the purity of a donor's altruism or the size of a financial incentive.