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"Are you SURE you're using that kidney?"

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a disturbing article about organ donating. Turns out that there are essentially no regulations protecting donors -- no followup, no nothing. So if you donate a chunk of your lung and run into respiratory problems six months later, you're pretty much out of luck. In fact, a substantial number of kidney donors end up having to get kidney transplants themselves. (We don't know how substantial because these things aren't tracked.)

The federal government has hired a private corporation to oversee organ donations, United Network for Organ Sharing, but that group has no regulatory power. So when hospitals prompt family members to donate by referring to "unused" kidneys, or use other manipulative measures, the injured parties have little recourse.

Anyway, it's a great piece.