Buddy, can you spare a kidney?

伙计，能分我一块肾吗？

But many people, understandably, cannot bring themselves to ask others for a kidney. The task is not just embarrassing, says Price Johnson, who speaks from experience; the aim is to find several volunteers in the hope that at least one would stick to it through the many tests and get medical clearance for the operation.

但实际上，很多人不愿意向别人要肾，这也可以理解。普莱斯•约翰逊(Price Johnson)从他的一次实验结果来说，向别人要肾不仅仅是令人尴尬。他的实验目标是找到几名志愿者，希望至少有一名志愿者能坚持通过多次体检测试，并获得符合手术条件的体检合格证。

单词

medical clearance/体检合格证

To help with all that, patient groups have developed a train-a-friend model, finding people willing to search on the patient’s behalf and teaching them what to do. A dedicated Facebook app helps to create a social-media appeal with links to vetted information about kidney donation. A small trial in America found that after ten months users of the app were six times more likely than non-users to find a donor. But this “lost-dog” approach to finding donors means losing privacy, says Mr Johnson. He wishes that donors could be paid.

为了帮助解决这些问题，患者群体开发了一个“训练-交友”(train-a-friend)模型，寻找愿意为患者提供帮助而进行搜索的人，并教他们该做什么。一个致力于此的Facebook应用程序帮助创建了一个社交媒介旨在*********脏捐赠的的信息的链接。美国的一项小规模试验发现，10个月后，使用该应用程序的用户找到捐赠者的可能性是没有使用该程序用户的6倍。但约翰逊表示，这种寻找捐赠者的“小狗追踪”方式意味着失去隐私。他希望捐助者能够得到应得的报酬。

词汇

Vetted/诊疗；审查

The only country where that is legal is Iran. Buyers and sellers are mediated by patient foundations. The price of a kidney is set at roughly the average annual income of a family on the poverty line. The vast majority of sellers are poor; some sell a kidney to repay debts in order to avoid prison. Poor buyers rely on help from charities.

唯一合法的国家是伊朗。买家和卖家是由耐心的基础来协调的。肾脏的价格大约是贫困线家庭的平均年收入。绝大多数***********还债以逃避牢狱之灾。贫穷的买家依赖慈善机构的帮助。

Academics in America have proposed versions of this system as a solution to the country’s shortage of kidneys. Patient groups have not thrown their weight behind the idea. They are lobbying for European-style benefits for living donors.

美国学者已经提出了该系统体制的不同策略，以解决美国肾脏短缺的问题。患者群体并没有支持这个想法。他们正在为活体捐赠者争取欧洲式的福利而游说。

词汇

Lobbying/进行游说

In five to ten years advances in medical technology could make this debate irrelevant. Both xenotransplants (pig kidneys adapted for humans) and bio-engineered artificial kidneys might become viable options within a decade. But for thousands of people whose kidneys have already stopped working, these medical miracles will come too late. They need a better system for organising the proven wonder of human-to-human transplants

五到十年后，医疗技术的进步将使这场争论变得无关紧要。异种移植(适合人类的猪肾)和生物工程人造肾可能在十年内成为可行的选择。但是对于成千上万的肾脏已经停止工作的人来说，这些医学奇迹来得太晚了。他们需要一个更好的体制来组织这项奇迹般的人与人之间的器官移植手术。

Xenotransplants/异种器官移植；异种移植