Denver - Former medical executive Bob Hickey, 58, was recovering in a hospital on Friday after a kidney transplant that probably saved his life, but sparked the controversy of a lifetime.
Hickey received his kidney from a former convicted felon whom he located over the Internet - raising doubts among medical ethicists and fuelling speculation that he had paid for the organ in violation of laws that ban payment for organ donations..
The controversy almost caused the cancellation of the operation after the surgeon, Dr Igal Kam, balked at transplanting an organ found via the Internet.
Only a last minute compromise granted Hickey a "compassionate exemption", but Kam insists he will never use any more donors from the Internet.
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"It's a questionable way to recruit donors, a very dangerous way," Kam said Thursday. "When you're buying something on eBay, you never know exactly what you are getting."
Both Hickey and the donor, 32-year-old Samuel Robert Smitty, insisted that no payment had been made for the kidney except for $4 800 for Smitty's medical expenses, hotel accommodations and reimbursement for lost wages.
"I've always wanted to do something to make a difference," Smitty told reporters earlier this week. "To do something big. This seems pretty big to me."
Jeremiah Lowney, the medical director for the website that connected donor and recipient, said that Smitty's past as a drug offender is irrelevant.
"He is just an amazing, really nice man who seemed very sincere in what he was doing," Lowney said after visiting with Smitty at the hospital.
"In talking to him, you just really got the feeling he was doing this for all the right reasons." - Sapa-dpa
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