Local kidney recipient wants incentives for organ donations

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Local kidney recipient wants incentives for organ donations

By Sara Michael
Examiner Staff Writer 1/22/09

Baltimore Lab School science teacher Lea Jones, 54, found a kidney donor after e-mailing members of his faith community. He is an advocate for offering educational incentives for organ donors and has asked Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., to co-sponsor an organ donor bill.

Lea Jones didn't want to wait years on a list to receive a kidney while enduring painful dialysis.

Instead, he sent out an e-mail to his faith community in Owings Mills last spring, explaining his plight of advanced kidney failure and asking anyone with type O blood to consider being a donor.

An acquaintance, Kappy Laning, answered the call and donated a kidney.

"People will do it if they are related, and then beyond that, it takes a heap of altruism," said Jones, of Sparks, who has adult polycystic kidney disease.

There has to be a better way to encourage organ donation, Jones said, and that may come in the form of a federal measure that would clear the way for organ donation incentives.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., drafted a bill last session called the Organ Donor Clarification Act of 2008 that would allow for certain incentives for live donations, paving the way for pilot studies, according to the American Association of Kidney Patients, which supports the measure.

The bill wasn't introduced last year, but Specter is expected to introduce it in the 111th Congress, according to a Specter spokesman.

Now Jones wants to call attention to the measure and his own Kidneys for College campaign, where donors would receive education credits.

"I can't really say that there is something wrong with that," Jones said of financial incentives.

The incentives would not include cash, Jones said, because that could motivate people in dire straights to "sell body parts out of sheer desperation."

Jones has asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin to consider co-sponsoring an organ donor bill. Cardin co-sponsored a measure in 2007 that allowed for paired kidney donations, which helped incompatible donors and their recipients find matches.

"Senator Cardin is definitely looking forward to reviewing the bill and taking a look at the specifics," said spokeswoman Sue Walitsky.

"He wants to look at ways for education to help people understand what benefits there are to organ donations."

About 100,000 people are awaiting a new kidney, liver, heart or lungs, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

But the idea of incentivizing donations makes many people nervous, fearing a slippery slope of exchanging cash for organs. Despite a ban on trading organs in India, several cities there are hubs for a black market in which poor people sell kidneys for cash.

The National Kidney Foundation has been opposed to any form of financial incentives for organs, saying it goes against societal values.

"Any attempt to assign a monetary value to the human body, or body parts, either arbitrarily, or through market forces, diminishes human dignity," according to the foundation's position paper.

The foundation is reviewing the position, as it does every five years, and expects to have an updated position later this month, said spokeswoman Ellie Schlam.

Laning said she's still mulling over the concept, but she agrees there should be more education about the need for donors.

"I want to support something making it more accessible," Laning said, of Upper Marlboro, who as a pediatric nurse practitioner was motivated to donate by her experiences with patients. "The laws really need to be looked at."

smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com

http://www.baltimoreexaminer.com/local/people/012209kidneys.html