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Mark Selkirk was by many accounts a prince of a man — generous, a doting grandfather and ready to deliver after Toronto’s mayor asked his fibreglass company to make hundreds of moose sculptures for a major street-art project.

But he was also an alcoholic, and when Mr. Selkirk was diagnosed with severe liver disease, doctors said he would have to be sober for six months before being eligible for a life-saving transplant — even if his wife donated part of her organ.

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Two weeks later, the 53-year-old businessman was dead.

Now his widow is on a mission to have the widely used six-month abstinence rule overturned, calling it discrimination against people with a disability, and not justified by the science. Debra Selkirk believes the rule is at least partly influenced by the stigma around alcoholism.

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By comparison, many patients whose poor diet and lifestyle lead to the need for liver and kidney transplants are typically not subject to similar abstinence requirements. And until recently, at least, hepatitis C patients have had worse outcomes than drinkers, the virus always infecting the replacement organ, sometimes causing it to fail.