Thursday, May 31, 2007

Der Spiegel: "Contestants to Compete for Donated Kidney in Dutch TV Show"

How would you blog about this story? Would you merely express shock and outrage? Make up other possible game shows? Write an eight-pargraph essay explaining why this is not perhaps such a good idea? Embed a link in the word "yuck"?
A Dutch television company is to broadcast a unique game show where three chronically ill contestants will compete for a kidney donation. German commentators agree that the show is scandalous -- but argue that the real organ donation situation in the Netherlands is even more shocking.

From the people who brought you "Big Brother" -- the show where you can win a kidney.

In "The Big Donor Show," which is to be aired Friday in the Netherlands on the private television station BNN, three seriously ill patients who are waiting for kidney transplants will compete for a donated organ from a terminally ill 37-year-old woman identified only as "Lisa."

The show, of course, has the interactive elements common to reality TV shows. Lisa will interview the three contestants, and viewers will then be able to vote by mobile phone text message for the person who they feel best deserves the life-saving transplant.

Lisa herself will make the final decision about who will get one of her kidneys -- which will be transplanted while she is still alive -- based on the contestants' history, profile and conversations with their families and friends. However some observers have raised the question of whether the kidney will even be suitable for transplantation, seeing as Lisa is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. Normally donated organs come from healthy individuals.

Unsurprisingly, the show has sparked controversy in the Netherlands and beyond.[...]
Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Update: It's a hoax.

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