Closing the gap on supply and demand for organ donation

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson vows to increase organ donations but avoids stirring up a long-running controversy over regional vs. national allocation of organs.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. March 12, 2001.

Washington -- Just days into his tenure as Health and Human Services secretary, Tommy Thompson announced the launch of a campaign to raise awareness of the need for more organ donations.

The former Wisconsin governor intends to duplicate at the national level his enviable record of increasing his state's donation rates. An initiative included in the secretary's action agenda for his first 100 days, it is also Thompson's first national attempt to build commonality on a subject -- organ procurement and distribution -- that has long been a source of discord.

The national waiting list for organs now holds 74,570 names, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Those waiting for kidneys number 47,902 and for livers, 17,295. Another 4,184 patients are awaiting new hearts. And, although the number of donations increased by 59% between 1990 and 1999, the number of patients awaiting organ transplants skyrocketed more than five-fold, according to UNOS' Year 2000 annual report.

And it is clear that Thompson's high-profile effort to close the supply-and-demand gap and dramatically increase the number of available organs could help keep at bay a controversy that has raged in the transplant community since efforts to revamp the system for allocating lifesaving organs began.

This controversy, dormant for the time being, was touched off by a 1998 federal proposal -- designed to equalize waiting times patients face across the country -- that abolished geographic restrictions for distributing organs. Critics said the rule would create a national waiting list and result in lost lives and wasted transplant opportunities. They also maintained that such policies should be guided by transplant experts rather than government regulation. Meanwhile proponents saw the rule as a way to encourage broader sharing. [...]