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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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What does 'graft' mean? This is twice this week I've seen it in a medical context like this.
Just coincidence that it came up around medicine. It's an old word, not used a whole lot anymore, but if you watch movies from back in the day it was a lot more popular.
It's basically the same as the word "grift" (when used correctly. A lot of people just use that constantly now days for "person doing a thing I personally don't like"). But it deals specifically with government officials who have power and abuse it to get personal gain...usually money in the form of kickbacks or whatever.
Kickbacks is another old word but people still understand that one, I think? Basically money or favors received as a result of doing something favorable for someone or a corporation or whatever. Basically more indirect bribery, but it can range depending on usage (like grift!) from like "you vote for this and we'll dedicate the building to you" (pretty benign) to like "you vote for this and once my company's stock goes up 500% I'll make sure your kids get nice homes." Something like that.
This is the Wikipedia definition of graft btw. No, I didn't look this up beforehand. I learned it from The Simpsons (and some history books, but mostly the Simpsons like 30 years ago)
"Graft, as understood in American English, is a form of political corruption defined as the unscrupulous use of a politician's authority for personal gain. Political graft occurs when funds intended for public projects are intentionally misdirected in order to maximize the benefits to private interests."
Graft can also, of course, refer to a medical procedure such a skin graft. Moving skin from one part of the body to another to recover from something like burns. You can also use it for non-medical, non-body related stuff and it's used the same way basically. Probably mostly used now days in a medical sense though.
I feel like graft might just be an autocorrect gaff of grift, though.
Other way around. Graft has been used (the political way) since mid 1800s. Grift didn't show up until early 1900s.
According to our good dictionary friends anyway. Etymology nerds.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grift
"Grift may have come from graft, a slightly older word meaning "to acquire dishonestly.""
There's a bunch of other sources saying something generally the same if you care enough to go down rabbit holes.
I think in this case it means bribery.
That makes sense. The other story was about corruption in the medical field in China.
It probably means using your position and authority as a medical professional to over prescribe for the sake your bottom line.
That makes sense. So it's a particular type of medical scam.