Advocates Urge Transplant Network To Comply With Rule

U.S. Newswire

Contact: Craig Irwin, 503-701-8261 or Nat Semple, 202-342-8282

both of the National Transplant Action Committee

The following was released today by the National Transplant Action Committee (NTAC):

National Transplant Action Committee (NTAC) has called upon the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to take immediate steps to comply with federal regulations governing the nation's organ transplant system. The regulations, which went into effect in March, require UNOS to reform the process by which organs are distributed to patients needing liver transplants.

In a letter addressed to the UNOS board of directors, which meets tomorrow and Friday at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., NTAC president Craig Irwin called on the organization to reform its liver allocation system and "comply with the mandates of the Department of Health and Human Services Final Rule." Irwin added, "Failure to do so could put the organization's future at risk as well as the future of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. We do not believe that this would be in the best interest of the more than 70,000 individuals currently waiting for organ transplants in the United States."

In addition to its actions with the UNOS Board, NTAC also submitted a letter to the office of the Inspector General requesting that the office investigate UNOS's noncompliance with the federal rule.

In March, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized regulations creating new standards for the allocation of donated livers. The final rule requires UNOS to implement changes to its liver allocation policies that would expand the distribution of livers beyond the current boundaries in addition to establishing better medical criteria to assure that livers go to those patients with the greatest medical need.

According to the HHS regulation, UNOS was supposed to submit its new liver allocation proposal to the federal government on March 16, 2000, the day that the regulation went into effect. Instead, UNOS submitted a plan that promised a new liver allocation proposal by the end of this year.

But UNOS has only managed to develop a new scoring system for prioritizing patients on the waiting list. Called the Mayo End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) Model, it uses objective medical criteria to determine the severity of a patients liver disease. The UNOS board will vote Thursday whether to adopt the new scoring system. But it will not vote on an alternative allocation. Because a separate UNOS committee assigned to review various models for expanding the distribution of livers over wider geographic areas failed to agree on a new distribution system, the UNOS board is expected to ask the 11 UNOS regions to implement voluntary sharing arrangements until the MELD system is fully implemented.

"Once again we are going through the typical UNOS tactic of stalling," stated Irwin. "They are reviewing the same data that was studied and debated three and four years ago. The earliest a new distribution plan could be approved would be a year from now. I don't think that they ever intend to fully comply with the rule."

In addition to the federal regulations, UNOS just entered into a new contract to operate the nation's Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network for an additional three years. The new contract requires UNOS to comply with the regulation.

Currently, there are approximately 70,000 patients waiting for transplants in the United States. About 12 people die each day because a donated organ is not found in time.

NTAC is a patient advocacy organization with about 1500 members across the United States. In addition, other patient groups continue to support the HHS regulations and changes to the nation's organ transplant system. NTAC is a member of the Campaign for Transplant Patient Fairness.

This article posted November 23, 2000.

Copyright © 2000 U.S. Newswire.