SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Is it insensitive to question who should get organ transplants?
Oct 21, 2015, 3:59 PM | Updated: Oct 22, 2015, 8:24 am
Former NBA player and reality TV star Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a brothel after overdosing on drugs. Reports are that he might need a kidney transplant. (AP)
(AP)
When Mickey Mantle needed a liver transplant, Dori Monson was not shy about his stance that the Hall of Fame slugger, and infamous alcoholic, should not be given a liver transplant unless he stopped drinking. A Tacoma man named Stan Naccarato, who was friends with Mantle, came on the show and argued the point.
So, when former NBA player and reality TV star Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a brothel after overdosing on drugs, Monson stuck to his narrative.
Turns out some people still aren’t jumping on the Dori bandwagon, though the conversation style has changed slightly.
Monson said that former University of Washington point guard and NBA player Eldridge Recasner tweeted Monson, saying, among other things, that Monson made “the most idiotic statement” he’s “heard in a long time.” And “Who in the hell are you to say who deserves a transplant?”
Monson said he didn’t specifically know what Recasner comment was referring to and that he “politely declined” to speak on the show. Still, Monson stuck to his beliefs that Odom should not be moved up the transplant list.
“Organs are a finite resource,” Monson said. “There are not enough organs for everybody who needs them and I do not believe that addicts who have not gone through treatment and have not proven that they are clean, I don’t think they should get organ transplants.”
Later in the show, it became apparent that Racasner had mis-attributed the “idiotic statement,” which actually belonged to host KIRO Radio Don O’Neill, who held a similar perspective as Dori.
“This whole story should be about me,” Don said about the article about former NBA player and reality TV star Lamar Odom.