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Kaitlin Nastro April 9, 2008
Mr. Gorman 3 + 4
Lawsuit: Man Gets Cancerous Lungs, Dies
(www.abcnews.com)
Who: Tony Grier, Tony Grier’s mother, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
When: April 8, 2008
Where: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
What: January 7, 2005 is when Tony Grier was given a transplanted set of lungs. He had been suffering from a rare lung disease called pulmonary sarcoidosis. Pulmonary sarcoidosis causes lung tissue to harden. On May 2005 Tony was diagnosed with lung cancer. Grier died in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on July 16 at the age of forty-three. The lawsuit is being filed by Grier’s mother claiming that the hospital gave them false information. The law suit states that Tony was told that he would receive an eighteen-year-olds healthy lung. It turned out that the lungs were donated by a 31-year-old woman, who was a constant smoker. Due to the smoker’s lungs Grier became infected with lung cancer. The hospital is regarding the death as an accident.
How: I think that it is really sad that they would let an unhealthy organ be donated. When you are donating an organ you are saving someone’s life. Why would you want to give them a defected organ? I think that the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania should check each organ is healthy before transplanting it. It is both unfair to the donor and insulting to a family to receive a defected organ. Overall every hospital should check that an organ to be donated is healthy, before actually transplanting it.