Activists defend private deals to match organ donor, recipient

By Marsha Austin

Denver Post Staff Writer

October 26, 2004

Human-transplant advocates defended the practice of some privately arranged procedures in the wake of the nation's first Internet-brokered organ transplant.

Any sweeping prohibition on private arrangements between potential organ donors and their recipients would cost lives because the national waiting list has ballooned beyond the pool of identified donors, several organ recipients and advocates said Monday.

With such a mounting human need, those requiring kidneys, lungs, livers and other organs said they support any mechanism - aside from the buying and selling of organs - that would save lives.

"The more lives that can be saved by transplantation, the better," said John Newmann, an advocate for reforming organ donations rules.

After reviewing the growing trend of needy patients openly advertising for organs, the federal agency that maintains the waiting list could recommend corrective action as soon as November, an official said Monday. That United Network for Organ Sharing panel was established in June, spokeswoman Annie Moore said.

The agency has not detailed its plans or its timeframe.

Last week's transplant of a kidney from a 32-year-old Tennessee truck driver to a retired Colorado health care executive he met on a website has given urgency to the panel's work, she said.

The case was the latest in a string of recent attempts by patients to solicit donors using paid advertising.

In August, a Texas man received a liver transplant after publicizing his plight through billboards, e-mails, a website and an extensive media campaign.

Earlier this year, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center patient awaiting a lung transplant launched a media campaign in her home state, New York, as well as in Pittsburgh.

While opposed to the direct sale of human organs, some organ recipients said they favor financial incentives to attract more donors.

"We've got to find alternative ways to address this," said Lori Hartwell, a California woman who received a kidney 14 years ago from a Colorado man who died in an auto accident.

For example, Pennsylvania is piloting a $300 payment to families of deceased organ donors to help cover burial expenses, she said.

Congress considered legislation this year that would have expanded such pilot programs, said Newmann, who is also a Virginia-based health policy analyst and organ recipient.

Possible test projects include allowing a recipient to donate money to charity in a donor's name - and even awarding "medals of honor" to donors and their families.

Lawmakers, however, did not pass the measure because of concern that such a system would unfairly entice low-income organ donors, said Newmann, who received a kidney from his daughter 10 years ago.

"It's unconscionable that in this country we are not even testing this," he said.

An average 17 Americans die daily while waiting for organs, said Irwin Kornfeld, 67, former board chairman of the Donor Alliance, the organ and tissue procurement agency for Colorado and Wyoming.

Twelve years ago and while on the national list, Kornfeld received two lungs from a deceased donor. Last year, when his kidneys began to fail from years of exposure to toxic anti- organ rejection medication, his son donated one.

Kornfeld said he empathizes with Bob Hickey, the 58-year-old Edwards man who found a kidney donor through a private website and underwent transplant surgery at a Denver hospital last week. The donor, Robert Smitty, said he gave his kidney for altruistic reasons and that no money was involved.

That surgery has sparked a firestorm of ethical objections from top transplant surgeons who said it undermines a time- tested system of organ allocation and opens the door for abuse. Allowing any kind of financial incentives would erase today's system, which guarantees pure altruism, they contended.

"That argument is a bunch of hogwash," said Kornfeld. "There are always people out there who are willing to sacrifice and do it with an open heart."

Until cures are found for the diseases that cause organ failure, the medical community must explore other ways of getting donors to come forward, he added.

Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at 303-820-1242 or maustin@denverpost.com.

Copyright © 2004 The Denver Post.

This article posted November 30, 2004.