Did Steve Jobs’s Money Buy Him A Faster Liver Transplant?

TUESDAY, June 23, 2009 (Health.com) — This week it was reported that Steven Jobs, the CEO and cofounder of Apple, underwent a liver transplant two months ago. One detail concerning Jobs’s transplant seemed odd: The surgery took place at a hospital in Tennessee, some 2,000 miles from Jobs’s home in northern California. Why Tennessee?


The answer sheds light on the intricacies of the organ transplant system, as well as why it’s sometimes easier for people with significant financial resources to get an organ transplant. (Jobs’s estimated net worth: $5.7 billion.)

Livers are a scarce resource. In any given year, only about one-third of the people on the national transplant waiting list receive one, and as of late June, more than 16,000 people were on the list.

Yet it sometimes seems that celebrities in need end up at the front of the line when they need a transplants, and people often assume they get preferential treatment. (Rumors about special treatment circulated after baseball player Mickey Mantle’s liver transplant in 1995, for example.)

The truth is more complicated. No one can actually buy an organ in the United States (legally, that is). But getting a liver transplant, it turns out, is a lot like getting into college. Once you’re on the waiting list, your chances of getting off it depend largely on your personal circumstances—how sick you are and whether you are a good donor match. But getting on the list in the first place—or more than one list, as the case may be—requires resources and know-how that most people don’t have.

George Lopez’s Kidney Transplant: a Life-Saving Gift From His Wife

THURSDAY, March 12, 2009 (Health.com) — It’s barely past 8 a.m. on World Kidney Day, but funnyman and actor George Lopez is in overdrive, bouncing back and forth from television interviewers to radio remotes to Internet and print reporters, trying to spread the word about the importance of screening for kidney disease.


Nearby, his wife Ann, who donated her kidney when Lopez needed a transplant in 2005, is keeping pace with her own interviews, often stopping to hug a friend or wave hello across the room in between sound bites.

Both are quick with the quip, blending humor with education about the importance of kidney health and screening for kidney disease. Says Ann: “Be nice to your spouse. You never know when you’ll need spare parts.”
On an early-morning radio interview a few moments earlier, George had urged listeners to come down, get screened, and, he added, have a drink, too.

World Kidney Day took place all around the world today, but this Hollywood version sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California had its own unique twist. It was actually held at a bar—Guy’s North, a trendy watering hole in Studio City just upstairs from a bowling alley called Pinz, where the din of bowling pins can be heard over the clinking of glasses.

Ann and George Lopez are national spokespeople for the National Kidney Foundation. And dozens of celebrities attended the day’s event—called KEEP (Kidney Early Evaluation Program) it Hollywood—which included free mini-screenings for kidney disease.