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Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on March 04, 2007, 04:20:49 PM
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Organ donation gets easier
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press Writer
Mar. 4, 2007
BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho is the first state to pass a law aimed at making it easier for people to donate their organs and could be joined in coming weeks by about 20 other states considering similar legislation.
The Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act is being pushed by groups such as the American Medical Association and the National Kidney Foundation, to clarify inconsistencies between state and federal law that can complicate efforts to recover life-saving organs and tissues -- and speed them to people whose lives depend on them.
Idaho's new law prevents family members from overriding a deceased person's wish to have organs removed for transplantation, therapy, research or education. It also spells out who is entitled to make decisions for those who die without making wishes for their organs known.
Legislation elsewhere is similar, following a plan developed starting in 2005 by the Chicago-based National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, a group that attempts to harmonize laws from state to state.
"You're talking about hours and minutes to determine whether or not a donation can be made, and who the recipient can be," Carlyle Ring Jr., who helped the group draft the measure, told The Associated Press. "If the laws of the various states are different, it becomes an impediment."
About 95,000 people in the United States await organ donations, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the non-profit outfit that coordinates transplant activities in the U.S. through 58 "procurement centers."
Every hour, a patient awaiting an organ dies, according to the group.
America's first uniform organ donor laws were adopted by all 50 states in 1968, but in 1987 revisions won approval in just 26 states. Since then, state-to-state differences have been further exacerbated as donation practices and federal regulation evolved, said Christina Strong, with the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations in New Jersey.
For instance, some states in the past had attempted to keep organs from donors within their borders for in-state recipients; meanwhile, the national system was set up to meet a greater need that supersedes any state border.
"Many state laws are actually in conflict with federal law, and it causes a lot of confusion," Strong said. "Somehow, it seems these decisions often need to be made in the middle of the night and involve lawyers making complicated legal interpretations. It adds to the time. And it adds to the uncertainty."
The new legislation creates a hierarchy of those who can sign off on organ recoveries for loved ones who die before making their wishes known. Decision-makers range in descending order from designated medical guardians, spouses, adult children, parents, siblings, grandchildren and grandparents -- or even people who have showed concern for the deceased.
And it prevents relatives who oppose organ donations from stopping them, once members of their kin have expressed the wish to do so.
In the past, organ-donor advocates say confusion arising from family conflicts has prevented donations.
"The opportunity to be a donor is galvanized in some very clear language," said Mike Seely, director of the Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank in Portland, Ore., which helps coordinate transplants in Oregon, southern Washington and southwestern Idaho. "We honor the donors' wishes, and work closely with their families so they understand that decision."
Measures in Virginia and Utah legislatures are now awaiting their governors' signatures.
In Idaho, where Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed the first new law last week, the push was led by a state legislator with a personal passion for the issue.
Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, has two adult children who developed juvenile diabetes, a disease that can require a kidney transplant. And Davis's 23-year-old son Cameron Wade Davis was shot and killed in Boise in 2003 during a scuffle.
Even though Cameron specified on his driver's license he wanted his body used to help save others, a criminal probe into the case prevented doctors from using his organs, Davis said.
Idaho's new law could speed recovery of organs even from victims of crimes, by requiring coroners to "maximize the opportunity to recover anatomical gifts" that don't impede their investigations.
"It would make it more likely that those opportunities would be there," Davis told the AP. "As a father and a designated organ donor myself, if we can promote state policies that more readily make available those organs, then that's something we can and should be doing."
URL: http://casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/03/04/news/regional/accdb747f4a4eccb872572910069be1a.txt