Doctors, organ recipients to urge black churchgoers to become donors

By Linda A. Johnson

Associated Press Writer

November 9, 2005

Trenton NJ -- Worshippers at black churches across 20 states this weekend will hear a special message from the pulpit: Clergy, physicians, organ recipients and donors' families will urge congregants to talk up organ donation with their loved ones.

The national education project, called Linkages to Life, is the fourth annual campaign to raise awareness about the greater need for organ donation by blacks. The problem stems from higher rates of diseases that damage the liver and kidneys, and lower organ donation rates among blacks compared to whites.

This year's effort includes nearly 60 churches, from Anchorage, Alaska to Williamsburg, Virginia, which is nearly 50 percent more than all the churches participating over the project's first three years combined. Instead of just asking churchgoers to sign organ donor cards, as in the past, speakers will urge audience members to go home and talk about the issue in detail with family, said Victoria Dent, national chairwoman for Linkages.

"It's unbelievably hard to make a decision for a loved one when you don't know what they want" and death is imminent, said Dent, who decided to donate her father's cornea after he died last summer. Dent works for a Buffalo, N.Y., organ procurement group and is to speak at a church service in Washington, D.C., this weekend.

Blacks comprise 18 percent of organ recipients, while whites comprise 63 percent, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Only 12 percent of organ donors are black, according to Linkages.

Dr. Devon John, director of pancreas transplantation at New York University Medical Center, said 27 percent of Americans on organ donor waiting lists are black _ more than double their percentage of the population _ and 35 percent of those waiting for a kidney are black.

In addition, nearly 25 percent of those who died waiting for an organ transplant last year were black.

"African-Americans are four times more likely to have kidney failure than whites," said John, because of their higher prevalence of diabetes and uncontrolled high blood pressure.

Patient Richard Adams, 66, of Willingboro is to speak Saturday morning at the Bethlehem AME Church in Burlington. In July 2004, he received a kidney transplant after his kidney failed due to damage from high blood pressure and diabetes.

Adams, a longtime deacon at Delaware Valley Baptist Church in Willingboro, plans to describe his health problems, his monthslong wait near the top of the local transplant list, and how he now has enough energy to do anything he wants.

"I just want to encourage them," Adams said Wednesday. "Coming from a black environment, we don't like to give up our organs."

Adams said some blacks wrongly believe that medical personnel don't aggressively treat organ donors in a medical emergency.

The Linkages project is sponsored by a black women's volunteer service group, The Links Inc., and drugmaker Hoffmann-La Roche of Nutley, a major maker of immune-suppressing drugs for transplant patients, which is underwriting informational brochures to be distributed at churches.

Dr. Dorian Wilson, a liver transplant specialist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, said reasons some blacks avoid organ donation include limited knowledge of the issue and the false belief that Bible passages discourage organ donation.

But most major religions endorse organ donation, said Wilson, who plans to discuss ways to promote health and prevent organ failure, along with organ donation, at a service at Riverside Church of New York in Manhattan.

John, who spoke last year at a Harlem church, is speaking this weekend at a Manhattan church.

"Most people are approached about donating organs when a loved one has died," a time when family may see the request as insensitive, John said. "You have to sow a seed, to get people to think about it" before then.

Dent said this project targets churches because they are considered "a cornerstone of trust" in the black community, although other outreach projects are planned. This weekend's events coincide with the National Donor Sabbath, a three-day awareness event targeting all racial and religious groups and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The federal project also encourages donation of blood, bone marrow and tissue.

On the Net: http://www.linksinc.org

Copyright © 2005 Newsday, Inc.

This article posted December 3, 2005.