Topic: Losers die.

[Pugnate]

WTF?

Reality show prize: a kidney

By Fiona Hudson in London

May 30, 2007 01:00am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

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STEP aside Big Brother housemates - three dying contestants competing for a donated kidney will plunge reality television to fresh lows this week.

A terminally ill cancer patient will gift one of her kidneys to one of three recipients chosen by a television audience, in a bizarre Dutch program.

Viewers will watch video clips depicting the three "contestants" chatting about their lives - and then will vote via text message to literally save one.

The identities of the would-be recipients will be kept secret until the program airs, but it is known all are Dutch, and aged between 18 and 40.

Donor Lisa, 37, is believed to have wanted to establish a connection with the recipient of her organ rather than donating anonymously.

She reportedly agreed to participate in the reality program after failing to decide on a suitable recipient herself.

Broadcaster BNN maintains the program is not a desperate ratings grab, but an attempt to highlight the problem of long waiting lists for donor organs.

Network chairman Laurens Drillich said: "The contestants in the show have a 33 per cent chance. That's a much larger chance than if they were on the organ waiting list."

Politicians are threatening to force the network to drop the show before its scheduled broadcast on Friday.

The director of the Dutch Organ Donor Association said he was glad the issue of donor shortages was making news, but he would prefer it was in a less sensational manner.

The program is produced by Endemol, the maker of Big Brother.

A spokeswoman for BNN said that there could be no guarantees the donation would actually be made, “but the intention is” Lisa's donation would be carried out before she died.

That is because her wish to donate to a particular candidate “wouldn't be valid anymore after her death” under Dutch donation rules, Marieke Saly said. If Lisa does donate one kidney while living, the other kidney may still be awarded to someone else on a national donation waiting list according under the country's organ allotment system.

Viewers will be able to vote for the candidate they feel is most deserving via SMS text message, but “Lisa will determine who the happy one is,” BNN said.

Ms Saly could not say how much it will cost to send an SMS, but most TV programs charge around €1 (US$1.35).

Parliamentarian Joop Atsma of the ruling Christian Democrats said he would try to persuade the health and communications ministers to halt the program. “I want to block this. This is truly not permissible,” he told NOS radio.

“How are the two rejected candidates supposed to feel after the broadcast?”

In Brussels, the European Union Commission, which is due to announce an organ donor policy tomorrow, criticised the program.

“It seems in rather bad taste to do a real TV show on something like this, which is after all a very serious issue,” said EU spokesman Philip Tod.

Paul Beerkens, director of the country's Kidney Institute, said he thought it was “fantastic” that BNN was drawing attention to the problem of donor shortages.

“But the way in which they're doing this is definitely not our choice,” he was quoted saying by Dutch news agency ANP. “This is not a structural solution.”
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On step closer to UNREAL TOURNAMENT.

[WindAndConfusion]

Que, anyone else, please don't confuse this with blasphemy or religious intolerance. What you are about to read is entirely a product of my upbringing in a majority-Christian country.

JESUS FUCK?!?!?!

[WindAndConfusion]

It's a hoax.

[Cools]

[Quemaqua]

Wind, we're really not that uptight.  You may swear blasphemously to your heart's content and I would be very surprised if anyone cared.

And it's weird to read these things, get the buds of outrage going, and then find out its a hoax about twenty seconds later.  I'm conflicted now.

[Pugnate]

Yea it was a hoax. Here is the CNN article:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/01/kidney.show.reut/index.html

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) -- A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.

The show, which the broadcaster had said aimed to focus attention on a shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands, was condemned by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende before broadcast Friday night and sparked controversy worldwide.

Identified only as "Lisa," the 37-year-old woman who had been said to be suffering from a brain tumor was to base her selection on the person's history and conversations with the candidates' families and friends.

In the last minutes of the program, she was revealed as a healthy actress and producers stunned viewers by saying "The Big Donorshow" was a hoax.

The contestants were also part of the deception, although all three are genuine kidney patients.

"Their life is bitter reality," the host said after revealing the deception, just at the moment at which Lisa was to have stated her choice.

Dutch Education Minister Ronald Plasterk hailed the show as a "fantastic stunt" and an intelligent way to draw attention to the shortage of donor organs.
Heated debate expected

The show is expected to set off heated debate between those who believe reality television has gone too far and others who believe the publicity was generated for a good cause.

Producers apologized to viewers and said they hoped "outrage" over the show would turn into anger over the lack of organs for transplant.

Viewers in the Netherlands were asked to give advice via text messages in the 80-minute show, and appeals ran throughout for people to donate their organs.

Early in the show Lisa was shown selecting three people from 25 candidate profiles who matched her blood group.

"It feels like playing God," said a fraught-looking Lisa. "Think of it as playing Santa Claus," replied the show's host.

The show had set off a storm of criticism, both at home and abroad, though some kidney patients said ahead of the show that they approved of it because it drew attention to their plight.

Balkenende had said the show was detrimental to the whole business of organ donation and it would do the reputation of the Netherlands no good abroad, Dutch news agency ANP said.

Dutch embassies received complaints from people expressing their shock over the show.

Public broadcaster BNN, which came up with the idea, said it wanted to draw attention to the growing shortage of organ donors in the Netherlands.

"Money has never been part of this thing, and no money will be made from this," said BNN Chairman Laurans Drillich.

Callers to a local radio station had suggested the whole thing could be a hoax by BNN to build up its ratings.

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights

Yea I have to admit, that's pretty awesome.

[idolminds]

Organ donation should be opt-out instead of opt-in.

Or the unpopular view, there is no opt-out. If you die and someone can benefit by using one of your organs, then that organ will be taken and used. You're dead, you don't need it, and you're a selfish prick if you'd rather let it rot in the ground than to save someones life.

You know, just saying.

[Ghandi]

It is a good way to garner publicity, I agree. Perhaps a little crude, but still.

And Idol, you would be surprised at some of the reasons that people don't donate their organs. My mom works at an ICU in a large hospital, so she has to go through the process often. Especially when a younger person dies, who have healthy organs, the family will choose not to donate because they "been through enough already." It happens all the time, and it makes no sense. Hell, it doesn't even effect how your corpse looks. Everyone healthy enough should be a donor.

[Quemaqua]

I agree.  My dad was a heart transplant patient and I got to spend another 13 years with him because of it.  Had he not gotten that heart, I would never have known my father in any kind of adult capacity.  I owe everything to that.

[WindAndConfusion]

Wind, we're really not that uptight.  You may swear blasphemously to your heart's content and I would be very surprised if anyone cared.

So I figure. The thing I ought to apologize for is that I am unable to resist any opportunity to tease you.

[Pugnate]

I know why you like to tease him.